Karen Chisholm
From the weekend's reading selections.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
From the weekend's reading.
From the Blurb:
London in the 1770s is bursting with opportunity. It's a city fuelled by new ideas and new money, where everything is for sale - including entree into the ruling class.
Karen Chisholm
Second from the weekend's reading.
From the Blurb:
Solikha Duong lives the carefree life of a village girl in northern Cambodia until her world is torn apart by ‘truck men’ from the south. But Solikha is tough, resourceful, and won’t give up without a fight ...
Alice Kwann is on vacation when she’s set upon by thugs at a stopover in northern Nevada. But Alice too is tough, resourceful, and won’t give up without a fight ...
Karen Chisholm
Final from the weekend's pile.
From the Blurb:
Grammy night, 2021. Ruby wins 'Best Song' and makes an impulsive acceptance speech that excites nature lovers across the world. While Ruby and her band celebrate, an extreme evangelical sect, funded by covert paymasters, dispatches a disciple on a ruthless mission to England.
As the band plays its sold-out tour, Ruby is pursued by eco-groupies insisting she use her new fame to fight climate change.
Karen Chisholm
One from the Easter break where not enough reading was done.
From the Blurb:
When a woman's body is discovered frozen in the ice of a river near the alpine resort of Queenstown, Detective Sergeant Malcolm Buchan faces both a mystery and a moral dilemma. The identity of the nude woman is critical to the motives and manner of her murder, and Buchan is personally involved. So are a number of locals, from ski bums to multi-millionaire businessman.
Karen Chisholm
Another from the over Easter pile.
From the Blurb:
A beautiful New Zealand summer. An ugly past that won’t stay buried.
Paediatric surgeon Claire Bowerman has reluctantly returned to Auckland from London. Calm, rational and in control, she loves delicately repairing her small patients’ wounds. Tragically, wounds sometimes made by the children’s own families.
Karen Chisholm
A bit of a chilly, sometimes showery weekend meant any excuse for some reading - and this was the standout of the entire bunch.
From the Blurb:
Bobby Ress is a cop.
He believes in God and making a difference.
He loves his wife and he loves his daughter.
He has a place in the world.
Karen Chisholm
Second from the NZ list over the weekend - this is another in what's an increasing number of books from that part of the world exploring consequences.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Final dip into the #yeahnoir pile for the weekend.
From the Blurb:
Rachel McManus has just started at the New Zealand Alarm and Response Ministry. One of the few females working there, she is forced to traverse the peculiarities of Wellington bureaucracy, lascivious colleagues, and decades of sedimented hierarchy. She has the chance to prove herself by investigating a suspected terrorist, who they fear is radicalising impressionable youth and may carry out an attack himself on the nation's capital.
Karen Chisholm
A change of format / style from all the crime fiction I've been reading lately - and a local true crime book about the goings on in the Health Services Union.
From the Blurb:
Kathy Jackson was hailed as a heroine for blowing the whistle on the million-dollar fraud of Michael Williamson, the corrupt boss of the Health Services Union. While remaining steadfast in this very public ordeal, she endured bitter personal attacks from enemies in the Labor Party and the union movement.
But what if Jackson was just as corrupt as Williamson? Or worse?
Karen Chisholm
Picked this one up on the weekend - so far rather engaging read.
From the Blurb:
A small community, broken families, a bloody murder, and an ending you won’t see coming
When Frida Delaney returns home to New Zealand after a self-imposed exile the last thing she expects to find is her neighbour’s bloody body and to be caught up in a murder inquiry. An inquiry that reaches into the darkest side of politics, financial conspiracy and families.
Karen Chisholm
All the submissions to the 2017 Ned Kelly Awards have just been announced and as usual, every year as the entries start to roll in, I start to fret about the ones I haven't had a chance to read yet - this year, needless to say is no different :) Check out the full list at: http://www.austcrimewriters.com/2017-submissions(link is external) or follow the links below to those that somebody here have been lucky enough to review.
Karen Chisholm
Started this one on Sunday night - first in the Ngaire Blakes series.
From the Blurb:
Forty years ago Magdalene Lynton drowned in a slurry. She choked to death as her hands scrabbled for purchase on the smooth concrete walls. A farmhand discovered her bloated body three days later.
Or she didn't.
Paul Worthington just confessed to her murder.
Forty years ago Magdalene Lynton died in a dirty shed. He smothered her life along with her cries for help and tossed her defiled corpse into a river when he was done.
Or he didn't.
Karen Chisholm
From the weekend's reading list.
From the Blurb:
On 2 December 2010, the body of a 24-year-old woman was found at the bottom of the rubbish chute in the luxury Balencea tower apartments in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, twelve floors below the apartment she had shared with her boyfriend, Antony Hampel.
Karen Chisholm
Slipping this one in as a bit of a change of pace from fiction.
From the Blurb:
In this tell-all book, discover how the justice system works and why, at times, the innocent are convicted and the guilty set free.
Bill Hosking looks back at his career as a criminal barrister in a candid account of his time at the bar. He tells the true story behind some of his most famous cases, including the Hilton bombings, ‘Toecutter’ Jimmy Driscoll’s attempt to avoid prison time, and the Anita Cobby trial.
Karen Chisholm
Long weekend reading part 1
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Long weekend reading part 3.
From the Blurb:
Set against a backdrop of actual events in 1995, Martyn Percival, a middle-aged New Zealander, seeks adventure on his first OE to the United Kingdom. A chance sighting, providing a possible link between an explosion that has rocked the nation and the whereabouts of a renegade IRA operative, has Martyn reporting his suspicions to an attractive police sergeant in the Cotswolds.
Karen Chisholm
Part 2 of the long weekend's reading.
From the Blurb:
From 1977 to the end of 1986, Duncan McNab was a member of the NSW Police Force. Most of his service was in criminal investigation. The many unsolved deaths and disappearances of young gay men are the crimes that continue to haunt him.
Karen Chisholm
This is more of a novella - entered in the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Another from the Ngaio Marsh piles - this time a police procedural styled book set in Auckland.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Fun read for next month's f2f bookclub
From the Blurb:
From the author of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared comes a picaresque tale of how one person's actions can have far-reaching-even global-consequences On June 14, 2007, the king and the prime minister of Sweden went missing from a gala banquet at the royal castle. Later it was said that both had fallen ill, but the truth is different.
Karen Chisholm
Started this NZ based story on the weekend.
From the Blurb:
The New Zealand government – led by autocratic Prime Minister Wynyard Nairn – approves the establishment of a USA naval facility, and in the middle of Wellington’s pristine harbour.
Given the anti-nuclear stance in the country, all hell breaks out!
Karen Chisholm
This comes with a lot of very positive press and comments. It certainly starts off in the unusual manner that I've come to expect from really good Scandinavian crime fiction.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Sometimes life is very unreasonable. I've been reading Ragdoll now for a few days and having to put it down to ... work, eat, sleep, do stuff is really start to become very bloody annoying.
From the Blurb:
A body is discovered with the dismembered parts of six victims stitched together like a puppet, nicknamed by the press as the 'ragdoll'.
Assigned to the shocking case are Detective William 'Wolf' Fawkes, recently reinstated to the London Met, and his former partner Detective Emily Baxter.
Karen Chisholm
What's this doing on a crime fiction site? Well everyone's entitled a holiday and for me, a summer spent with Jim Maxwell and the rest of the ABC cricket commentary team is one of my favourites. I was very relieved to hear Jim's wonderful voice back on the radio this year, albeit somewhat limited due to his ongoing health problems, but there was this book to fill in some of the gaps as well. And you can read this with Jim's intonation in your head if you're of a mind, and probably some think, mildly batty enough.
Karen Chisholm
f2f Bookclub Read
From the Blurb:
Set in Singapore between the 1970’s and 1990’s, Inheritance follows the familial fissures that develop after teenaged Amrit disappears in the middle of the night. Although her absence is brief, she returns as a different person.
Karen Chisholm
The third Frank Swann book - the setting is wonderfully done - and oddly nostalgic :)
From the Blurb:
It’s the early 1980s: the heady days of excess, dirty secrets and personal favours. Former detective Frank Swann is still in disgrace, working as a low-rent PI. But when he’s offered a security job by the premier’s fixer, it soon becomes clear that someone is bugging the premier’s phone – and it may cost Swann more than his job to find out why.
Karen Chisholm
Have been hiding out from computers, reading a lot and catching up on a lot of nothing in the lead up to returning to work tomorrow. So a catchup on the reading list before then.
From the Blurb:
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who believed in fairytales. Now she is out to get your happy ending.
One day changes Jody's life forever.
She has shut herself down, haunted by her memories and unable to trust anyone. But then she meets Abe, the perfect stranger next door and suddenly life seems full of possibility and hope.
Karen Chisholm
This was a bit of a personal treat read.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
This one came highly recommended so I've been trying to shuffle it up the list for a while now.
From the Blurb:
When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.
Karen Chisholm
Bittersweet experience reading this - the last Cliff Hardy novel.
From the Blurb:
A missing teenager, drugs, yachts, the sex trade and a cold trail that leads from Sydney to Norfolk Island, Byron Bay and Coolangatta. Can Cliff Hardy find out what's really going on?
Will one man's loss be Hardy's gain?
'I'd read about it in the papers, heard the radio reports and seen the TV coverage and then forgotten about it, the way you do with news stories.'
Karen Chisholm
Another that's been lingering on the reading piles way too long.
From the Blurb:
Everyone keeps telling me I have to move on. And so here I am, walking down the road where he died, trying to remember him the right way.
A year after her husband Zach's death, Lizzie goes to lay flowers where his fatal accident took place.
As she makes her way along the motorway, she thinks about their life together. She wonders whether she has changed since Zach died. She wonders if she will ever feel whole again.
Karen Chisholm
This was a brilliant reading experience, and a history lesson into the bargain. Intricate but fascinating.
From the Blurb:
Charles Levin, Detective Leo Junker’s mentor — and the same man who betrayed Leo — is dead.
Now Leo must find out why. He must follow the thread of the dead man’s own tragedies, which will lead inexorably to the betrayal of Charles Levin’s soul — and the soul of his nation.
Karen Chisholm
Another that's been lurking on the piles for way too long. Perhaps that should be the New Year's Resolution - more reading!
From the Blurb:
A gripping suspenseful thriller with journalist Noel Baker who, after reading a particularly disturbing coroner’s report, investigates the deaths of a group of abused children. The killer is still on the loose…
Karen Chisholm
This list is of standout reads from 2016, grouped into categories with no attempt whatsoever at an arbitrary number and in no particular order.
Favourite Australian Books (Crime Fiction)
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Karen Chisholm
This is a series that has been on my radar for a while, and of course, I've been slow in getting to it and I'm starting with Book 2.
From the Blurb:
Sometimes reliving the past revives old demons . . .
In a Stockholm apartment, five-year-old Tilde watches from under the kitchen table as her mother is brutally kicked to death.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, psychotherapist Siri Bergman and her colleague Aina meet their new patients - a group of women, all of whom are victims of domestic violence.
Karen Chisholm
Picked this up over the weekend - lordy it's good. For review at http://www.newtownreviewofbooks.com.au
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Lot of sitting around waiting recently - so an ebook, and something set in Asia for a change.
From the Blurb:
Good and bad. Life and death. Some choices aren't black and white
A grief-stricken young mother switches her dead baby for an abused child, then spends the next decade living a lie. She remarries and starts to feel safe when she gets a note: 'I know what you did'. Can she save her family from her dark secret?
Karen Chisholm
When Marshall Browne sadly died in February 2014 he had finished, and edited his final Inspector Anders novel. "Inspector Anders and the Prague Dossier" has now been released (1st December 2016) by Australian Scholarly Publishing as is available from them directly at: http://www.scholarly.info/book/524/(link is external)
A wonderful opportunity for fans of Marshall's to catch up with Inspector Anders for the final time, and my copy is on its way.
Karen Chisholm
Time to immerse myself again in Scandinavian crime fiction, although this is a re-read of a book that's been recently re-released. The first in the Stubo and Vik series.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
From the embarrassingly overdue pile...
From the Blurb:
When Brigitte and her family moved from the city, they were supposed to be happier. And safer. But soon her crime-writer ex-boyfriend turns up in town to promote his new novel, in which a woman is found dead — murdered — in a country lake. Hours later, Brigitte watches the police pull a body from the water near her Gippsland home.
Karen Chisholm
2nd in the really enjoyable Mason & Dixie series - set in Thailand and the trans-gender community.
From the Blurb:
Bangkok private eye duo Mason & Dixie are hired to provide protection to Australian soap opera star Belle Cooper, who came under vicious attack from the moment she announced her participation in a Bangkok pageant.
Karen Chisholm
Perfect filler read around weekend activities.
From the Blurb:
1928
After eight years abroad, Rowland Sinclair has come home to a house he hates, and a city which seems conservative ... and dull.
He longs to return to the bright lights of Europe. Until an old friend persuades him to join Sydney Art School.
There, under the tutelage of the renowned Julian Ashton, Rowland learns to paint and finds himself drawn into the avant-garde world of Sydney’s artistic set.
Karen Chisholm
This is one I will admit I've been trying to read for a while. Interesting snippets of life at that time, surrounded by enormous amounts of Lady this and Lord whoever type gossipy stuff that was a boring as...
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Really happy to be reading the latest from Rachel Amphlett, and first in a new series based around Detective Kay Hunter. Blog tour details in the graphic below.
From the Blurb:
A serial killer murdering for kicks.
A detective seeking revenge.
Karen Chisholm
October on AustCrime because I'm back getting my act together.
Read / To be Reviewed:
Karen Chisholm
The fifth in the Dody McCleland series - murder, investigation, women's rights and some crossroads for both McCleland and Pike.
From the Blurb:
The fifth in the Dr Dodi McCleland series - Agatha Christie meets Phryne Fisher
Karen Chisholm
Time for a change as I've been reading a lot of local or straight-forward crime fiction recently. This from an author who is known for their blend of psychological horror and realism.
From the Blurb:
For generations, the urban legend of Granny Hatchet has plagued the quiet residential area of Suvikylä in northern Finland. As the story goes, this immortal killer murders her victims with a hatchet, then buries the hearts in a potato field and eats them after they’ve rotted black. But not everyone is convinced it is just a story.
Karen Chisholm
A wonderful collection of writings from a range of inmates in the Junee Correctional Centre. Heart-felt, confrontational, often extremely raw, this is the sort of collection of writings that you need to take your time with, dip in and out of, re-read and think about. More to come on this wonderful volume.
From the Press Release:
Karen Chisholm
Read both of these in preparation for our next f2f bookclub meeting. I predict an excellent discussion.
From the Blurb - To Kill a Mockingbird:
Karen Chisholm
Latest from the review pile - this time for http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com
From the Blurb:
Home can be the most dangerous place of all...
In this chilling psychological thriller, one woman’s dark past becomes another’s deadly future.
In 2003, sixteen-year-old Rebecca Winter disappeared.
Karen Chisholm
I'm an idiot and I'm now two books from different series by author Felicity Young behind. So last night I tossed a coin to decide which one comes first - Flare-Up it is, to be followed closely by A Donation of Murder.
From the Blurb:
Outback murders, dodgy thieves, organised crime and arson - a small outback community is crackling with nerves, as Cam Fraser investigates.
Karen Chisholm
Event Information(link is external)
19th November, St Kilda Town Hall, cnr Brighton Road and Carlisle Street, St Kilda
Fifty leading novelists, true-crime writers, screenwriters, lawyers, producers, publishers, and scholars debate crime in all its infamy.
Simultaneous panels and speed pitching sessions with publishers, agents and producers.