Winner of the 2018 Ned Kelly Award.

Lots and lots of noise about this one.

The strength of RIVER OF SALT is definitely in the idea of a stranger in a strange land, back in the days when communications weren't instant, and people could reinvent themselves to some extent. It's exploring just how far you can go with that idea, and how much of the old you will never go away.

When you are next thinking of accessing a portal to another dimension, perhaps you should consider the shower block?

David Whish-Wilson is best known for his historical crime fiction set in Perth and surrounds, but The Coves takes us to 1849 San Francisco, gold fever and the Australian gangs who controlled the part of it known as Sydney-town. Newtown Review of Books

The Rowland Sinclair series is an interesting one. It's gentle and funny in places. It's characters are vivid, it's sense of place and time light and breezy, yet peppered with reminders of where the world was heading.

Peter Temple's 2nd novel and my latest summer favourite.

Australian independent booksellers, members of Leading Edge Books, are thrilled to announce their Shortlist for the Indie Book Awards 2019, for the best Australian books published in 2018!

Sunday 20 January 2019, 3.00 p.m., Australian Youth Hotel (Nude Bar upstairs), 63 Bay Street, Glebe, NSW

Holly Throsby's excellent 2nd novel.

I've been trying to think of somebody else that could write books about abalone fishing quotas, cricket, asylum seekers and now early white Australian settlement, convicts, rum runners and shipwrecks and make them all equally compelling, memorable, and ... crime fiction.

Absolutely no doubt about it - Pankhurst and what she does for a living are fascinating stories.

The second in the Cass Diamond series MISSING PIECES is set in far North Queensland, with Cass Diamond investigating connected cold case disappearances.

It's been a while since the last Brock & Kolla outing (THE RAVEN'S EYE in 2013 to be precise) and this reader has missed them. They are one of the great, solid, reliable, enduring duo's of crime fiction and it's good to see THE PROMISED LAND indicating there is some fuel left in their combined tanks.

Crime Scene Asia is an accounting of a series of cases within various locations in Asia, where forensic evidence was a large part of the court proceedings in particular.

The sub-heading says it all "Powerful and Disturbing Stories of Murdered Sex Workers".

Post 9-11 it's hard to think that there hasn't been speculation about the next shock and awe campaign. I bet nobody thought there'd be an Australian, rough and tumble ex-commercial pilot come spy at the centre of it all.

Given how long it took me to get the spelling of reminiscences right, I think I'm still in holiday mode. Or a lousy speller. Let's go with holiday mode.

WAITING FOR ELIJAH is a respectful and meticulously put together account of the enormity of a single loss.

The murderous adventures of Maud, an 88 year lady living in Gothenburg, Sweden

The winner of the 2018 McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish crime book.

The second Jack Parlabane novel.

5th in the Discworld series - listened to during the year.

4th in the Discworld series - listened to during the year.

Opening with a breathtaking first-person account of the car accident that killed Matthew Cave's wife and unborn daughter, THE GIRL WITHOUT SKIN isn't as straight-forward an undertaking for fans of Nordic Noir as it might seem.

Based around an event that followers of the Underbelly wars in Melbourne will likely recognise, this tale is the second outing for Detective Sergeant Rory James, based in part around the Bendigo region.

A nice comic styled novella just because.

It is thirty years from now and we have colonised the moon.

Third in the Dan Forrester series, we're into classic thriller mode now with this series.

...populated by more than enough sub-plots and intrigue to keep a reader on their toes.

Australian readers will probably remember C.J. Carver as Caroline Carver - writer of a series of Australian set books years ago.

This was without a doubt, one of the most intriguing books I've encountered this year and it reminded me, yet again, that Antti Tuomainen is a writer who deserves (and now has) a much higher position on the must read list.

Another one of those quintessentially Scottish sounding audible books - perfect for listening to over an extended period of time.

It's a mark of Robotham's skill that he's inserted THE SECRET SHE KEEPS into a crowded domestic noir scene, littered with unreliable narrators, dysfunctional families and tension because of poor judgements, and created an extremely readable, quite chilling, page turning entrant.

3rd in the Discworld series - listened to during the year.

2nd in the Discworld series - listened to during the year.