Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Sandra Mahoney and her partner Ivan are security consultants, so what she is doing poking around the death by natural causes of a well known politician seems to confuse Sandra as much as everybody else. In EDEN, the third Sandra Mahoney series book by Dorothy Johnston, Sandra is home alone...Read more
Mark Brandi has always been a writer of great male characters, from Ben and Fab in his standout debut WIMMERA, to Jimmy in SOUTHERN AURORA, Anton and Steve in THE RIP and...Read more
Benjamin Stevenson's first book featuring documentary maker Jack Quick was a revelation, particularly when considered again, in hindsight, from the viewpoint of the second novel in the series. Quoting from my own review of GREENLIGHT at the time:
"There's a
...Read more
I'll be perfectly honest - I circled El Dorado in the Readings tent at the Melbourne Writers festival for days. It's a contemporary Australian crime fiction thriller. It was long-listed for the 2007 Ned's and I'd promised myself to read the entire list of nominees this year. So why was I...Read more
THE EMBROIDERED CORPSE is the sequel to CAPABLE OF MURDER. Our Australian heroine, Belinda Lawrence, has put the events surrounding the murder of her aunt behind her and has now moved permanently to England. She is living quietly in the village of Mitford in the house bequeathed to her by...Read more
Described as razor-sharp and mind-bendingly clever, there are bits of that I could probably agree with, but there were too many other "bits" which made this a particularly rare DNF for me. From the blurb to save a bit of time here:
It's 1925 and the Empress
...Read more
It goes without saying that there are some - and they are only some - elements of this story that are "heavily" influenced by the death of a sort of local celebrity; and undoubtedly that's going to get some readers a bit hot under the collar about THE ENDANGERED LIST. That and some really...Read more
I really hope Dave feels better after writing this book. I'm guessing that there's a somewhat autobiographical element to the events that happen in this book - it's too starkly drawn surely for just imagination (mind you, if I'm wrong, well it's some imagination this man has!)...Read more
At the recent Ballarat Writers / Sisters in Crime collaboration, DEATH IN JULY, one of the panels was on YA writing and books. It came as a mild surprise that this is now a special category, but it is particularly pleasing to know there are some YA Crime Fiction books popping up. After all...Read more
The final book in the James Mycroft and Rachel Watts series starts and draws much to a close on the family farm Five Mile. Deep in the Mallee / Wimmera area of Victoria, first up, Rachel uses a short visit back to try to repair the mental damage that events in the middle book (EVERY WORD)...Read more
A young adult crime fiction series, the "EVERY" books from Ellie Marney are a pitch perfect example of YA that works for young and old. Particularly the old that can still remember how complicated first love was, and the young that are experiencing the same.
Following on...Read more
Everyone is going to be talking about EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE, because it's fiendishly clever, dryly funny (well as funny as a crime novel with a very high body count is going to get), complicated without being overly so, different, and well, relatable, in a weird sort of...Read more
Ernest Cunningham is dying, in his own words, on the ice-cold floor of a steel box about the size of a fridge with, he's calculated, around fifteen hours of air left inside it. You'd think, under those circumstances, the dwindling ink in his pen would be put to good purpose, getting to the...Read more
Martine Kropkowski’s debut crime fiction delves into the devastating consequences of the epidemic of violence against women.
Melissa, Bridie and Cassandra are friends, bonded over the sorts of things that connect young mothers – pressure, expectation,...Read more
On the lighter than air side of the cozy spectrum this is a series that will appeal to readers who like a bit of self-aware silly in their crime fiction.
Third book in the Agatha Christie Book Club series, EVIL UNDER THE STARS, continues the adventures of a group of friends,...Read more
It's hard to know if there's a new "thing" in crime fiction, or it's just something that this reader has suddenly noticed - but there seems to have been a number of books recently that have used dementia as a core theme. Which might make for uncomfortable reading for those of us of a "...Read more
THE FALL BETWEEN is the debut novel from Darcy Tindale, set in the Muswellbrook area, located in the NSW Upper Hunter Valley. The story features Detective Rebecca Giles, who, after some time in the police force, has returned to her home town in no small part because her father, an ex-cop...Read more
The Fallout is one of the Wyatt Series of Disher's novels. Wyatt is a career criminal involved in everything from art theft, bank robberies, fraud and whatever is going really.
The Fallout is Wyatt's sixth job, taking off where Port Vila Blues finished. On a boat with...Read more
Emotion, reaction, damage and recovery are at the core of B Michael Radburn’s dark thrillers.
In 2011 The Crossing arrived in the Australian crime fiction landscape, combining aspects of the supernatural with the story of Taylor Bridges as he dealt...Read more
THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR reinforces the notion that despite being constantly surrounded by people, you can often feel alone. Deep suburbia provides such a huge source of material and is finally in drama fiction being recognized for that richness. There is a lot going on in this book, and it’s...Read more
On her last day at FBI headquarters at Quantico before transferring to the Los Angeles field office, Australian FBI profiler Sophie Anderson is given the task of showing crime author Loretta Black around the facilities. She finds Black to be rude and overbearing, and is glad when the tour...Read more
FAN MAIL is P. D. Martin’s third in the Sophie Anderson series and her strongest to date. Martin follows Sophie and Detective Sorrell as they conduct the investigation. So many detective novels are linear; we start at point A, go to point B and end at point C. Not so FAN MAIL. It twists...Read more
Readers were introduced to Joel Fitch and his mentor Richard Mordecai in the first book of this series, CHASING THE ACE. This second book, FAST AND LOOSE, starts up where the first left off, with Fitch and Mordecai parted ways, and Fitch left holding the cash. Rather a lot of cash straight...Read more
Martin's the sort of bloke that persons of a certain age can identify with. It might not make you all that comfortable with yourself, but boy can you identify (I hasten to add I have NEVER worn brown suede shoes and if I ever do .... well feel free to shoot me on sight), but I digress....Read more
There are simply not enough of these short novella books being published these days. Not only do they give you a real taste of (frequently) lesser known writers, they are perfect little handbag books - stocking stuffers if you want. FEDORA WALKS could definitely stuff the stocking of a...Read more
A FEW RIGHT THINKING MEN introduces Rowland Sinclair to fans of Australian historical crime fiction. Set in 1930's Sydney and Yass, A FEW RIGHT THINKING MEN takes a reader into a world where the affects of the Great Depression are being felt, and the tension between the Proto-Fascists and...Read more
Author Natalie Barelli's website has a tagline on it that says 'Psychological Thriller Author' and it lists 10 books written by her (another due out in 2026), although FINDERS KEEPERS is the first I've read.
You can definitely see where the psychology comes into this as she's...Read more
A debut crime novel from Australia, THE FINGERPRINT THIEF is written with the focus on the forensic technician. Not that surprising given the "CSI Effect" that so many people talk about these days. Set in Melbourne, the novel uses Melbourne's Williamstown Beach as the location of the body,...Read more
Emma Viskic explores difference, and its consequences, in this sequel to Resurrection Bay. Reviewed at Newtown Review of BooksRead more
Australian author Emma Viskic depicts a community well used to living with constant tension, disappointment and outright hostility. It’s a unforgiving world for sure, and we are reading of people who are not living their best lives by a long shot. The summer heat and the threat of...Read more