Penguin

ABSOLUTION -Caro Ramsay

sunniefromoz — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:27:12 +1000

An Ordinary Lunacy

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:53 +1000

Blurb from the book

When David Byfield sees Isobel for the first time at a party, he decides that he has fallen in love with her. An attractive and successful lawyer, David is being groomed for a political career; his experience with love and intimacy, however, is limited.

"Months after the party, Isobel's alcoholic husband is found dead in their shabby apartment, an apparent suicide. Then Isobel is accused of his murder and David steps up to defend her as both lawyer and friend. But Isobel's case is more than he bargained for... "

Set in contemporary Sydney, Jessica Anderson's first novel is a perceptive and witty portrait of men and women caught between their desires and their obligations, and the choices we all make for - or in spite of - love.

How Did you Feel about An Ordinary Lunacy

Submitted by Karen on Thu, 19/07/2007 - 4:16pm.

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And Hope to Die

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:53 +1000

ISBN 0670070432

Blurb from the book:

When a fourth child is taken, Solomon Glass knows what to expect: an anonymous letter to the mother, making a promise - kill yourself and your child will be released. He knows because two women are dead already. Glass has just survived his own nightmare - a tragedy, an internal investigation and a spell off the force. In his race to uncover the kidnapper, Glass must enter the darkest side of himself, a place he's barely able to go but where he knows he will find the answers. And the more he learns, the more he suspects that's exactly what the kidnapper wants him to do. So he begins a deadly game of cat and mouse, played for the highest stakes of all.

Reviews / Chat about this book

KarenC's review - http://tinyurl.com/2vzq3o

How did you feel about And Hope to Die?

Submitted by helen on Tue, 21/08/2007 - 8:21pm.

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Baltic Business, The

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:21:13 +1000

ISBN 0140108424

Blurb from the book

How did you feel about The Baltic Business?

Submitted by Karen on Thu, 09/08/2007 - 11:38am.

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Become a Crime Writer - Penguin Australia wants you to give it a go

Karen — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:17:18 +1000

Now this is the sort of news that makes the despairing Australian Crime Fiction fan do happy dances in the kitchen first thing in the morning!

Penguin Australia (bless their little cotton socks) have started a competition to find a new Australian voice in the commercial crime and thriller market.

"I've been a London editor for 13 years now, specialising in the crime-thrillers genre, and it really is saturated with US and UK authors," says Beverley Cousins, editorial director of the Penguin Group (UK), who will judge entries with British crime writer Nicci French (or writers Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write under the French pseudonym), Robert Sessions, Penguin's Australian publishing director and Melbourne bookseller Paul Landymore.

The winner will be published by Penguin Australia and three runners-up will receive a detailed critique of their work.

If you head over to penguinmostwanted.com.au, you will find tips on writing the right sort of book: (plot / pace / well drawn characters); a good ending; tips on content and so on.

Entries are due by the 23rd June.

And if you give it a go - let us know!

Big Shots

Karen — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:20:07 +1000

Blurb from the Book

In 2003 Adam Shand, until then a finance journalist, naively set out to unravel Melbourne's bloody gangland wars. A few months' research, a guaranteed cover story. But his foray into the underworld took him deeper than that. He became embroiled in a complex world where feuds raged between rival families, and where a new generation was clashing with the criminal Establishment. Before long, he found himself counted as a friend by those who sometimes ended friendships with a hail of bullets.

Big Shots takes the reader into the heart of the city's multi-billion dollar 'disorganised crime' scene, as Shand meets the key figures and suspects, including Carl and Roberta Williams, Mick Gatto, and many others. He discovers the human drama behind the brutal slayings that were splashed across the front pages, and in the process comes to question his objectivity. And even whether he is being used to further the players' murderous ends.

How Did you Feel About Big Shots?

Submitted by Karen on Tue, 02/10/2007 - 2:19pm.

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BLOOD DETECTIVE, THE - Dan Waddell

Karen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:59:52 +1000

Blood of Dreams

Karen — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:26:18 +1100

ISBN 978-0-670-07138-8

About the Book

Enter a world of seduction, fantasy and betrayal . . .

Venice, 1762. As Carnevale bursts across the city revellers take to the streets in masks and lavish costumes to lose themselves in pleasure. Yet while Venetians celebrate, a nightmare is about to unfold . . .

Laudomia Codussi, a beautiful young woman tormented by terrifying visions, takes a lover and is drawn into his dangerous obsession with opium. When a series of gruesome murders is revealed, Laudomia embarks on an urgent quest to unmask the killer. Until she can separate reality from fantasy, no one is safe – least of all herself. But in a city transformed by illusion, who can say what is real and what is not?

in the tradition of Anne Rice and Patrick Suskind, Blood of Dreams is a lush and intoxicating odyssey through the grand palaces, decadent salons and sinister alleyways of eighteenth-century Venice – a journey from which no one will emerge unscathed.

How Did you Feel About Blood of Dreams?

Submitted by Karen on Fri, 11/01/2008 - 2:26pm.

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Blue Blood

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:55 +1000

ISBN 0140264841

Blurb from the book

This is a murder story set in Christchurch in the 1920s in which Ngaio Marsh herself is one of the main characters. The mutilated bodies of two young women are discovered on the floor of a flat. Pots of blue paint have been poured over the bodies. The young Ngaio Marsh, crime writer, is a good friend of the two young victims.

How Did you Feel About Blue Blood?

Submitted by Karen on Mon, 10/09/2007 - 6:49pm.

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Burke's Soldier

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:56 +1000

ISBN 01430000829

Blurb from the book

Melbourne, 1871: John King is dying far from the deserts he traversed with the legendary Burke and Wills.

Ten years on from that fateful expedition, King is finally ready to tell his story. The young Irishman had already endured the horrors of the Indian Mutiny when he signed on with the erratic Burke to explore a land he knew little about. As one of the advance group who pushed on to the Gulf of Carpentaria - only to be abandoned later by the rest of their party - King was with Wills as he penned his final letter, and at Burke's side when he died. Then he was alone, the sole survivor, though barely alive when rescued by Alfred Howitt.

But Howitt is a man who cannot let things be, and now he seems more inquisitor than saviour. He wants to know what King knows before it's too late . .

How did you feel about Burke's Soldier?

Submitted by Karen on Mon, 23/07/2007 - 2:13pm.

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