Karen Chisholm
So far, I'm really liking this one...
From the Blurb:
Bashir “Bish” Ortley is a London desk cop. Almost over it. Still not dealing with the death of his son years ago, as well as the break-up of his marriage.
Across the channel, a summer bus tour, carrying a group of English teenagers is subject to a deadly bomb attack, killing four of the passengers and injuring a handful of others. Bish’s daughter is one of those on board.
Karen Chisholm
August and September combined because - yep I forgot.
Read / To be Reviewed:
Karen Chisholm
Profoundly personal retelling of a family torn apart by a suicide and then a triple murder.
From the Blurb:
This powerful, unforgettable and uplifting story is one part wrenching family memoir, and one part inspirational journey towards healing and forgiveness – but most of all, it’s an unputdownable journey through one family’s tragedy and how they refused to let it define them.
Karen Chisholm
If there's two things this last bout of extreme weather has taught me - don't try to use the much vaunted SkyMuster for anything and don't think you'll get much reading done when you're running around digging trenches for water to run off.
From the Blurb:
Peter Tanner left the flashy world of commercial law following the tragic death of his wife. Now, as a criminal defence barrister, he crosses paths with some of the less desirable but wealthy members of the nation’s underbelly.
Karen Chisholm
Another from the been waiting far too long pile.
From the Blurb:
A week of despair... a century of evil
Damaged but not yet broken, park ranger Taylor Bridges believes his ghosts are in the past - until a raging forest fire in an isolated canyon of The Falls lays bare the remains of a young woman… and a decade-old killing ground.
After the police enlist Taylor in their investigation, the evidence bizarrely points to a deranged preacher who reigned over The Falls a century ago.
Karen Chisholm
There should be no doubt whatsoever that the reason for reading this is that I'm a big fan of Candice Fox's work.
From the Blurb:
When Sydney police department sex crimes detective Harriet Blue is called into her boss’s office, she never imagined it would be to tell her that her brother is the prime suspect in the brutal murders of three women.
Karen Chisholm
Another from last week's reading - opening salvo in the Holger Munch & Mia Kruger series.
From the Blurb:
A six year old girl is found hanging from a tree. Around her neck is an airline tag which says 'I'm travelling alone'.
A special homicide unit in Oslo is re-opened with veteran police investigator Holger Munch at the helm. He must convince his erstwhile partner, Mia Kruger, an extremely talented but eccentric investigator, to leave the solitary island to which she has retreated in order to take her own life.
Karen Chisholm
Having just had a week off to work on the property, didn't quite achieve the numbers of books to be read that I'd hoped.
From the Blurb:
Carly Townsend is starting over after a decade of tragedy and pain. In a new town and a new apartment she's determined to leave the memories and failures of her past behind.
However that dream is shattered in the dead of night when she is woken by the shadow of a man next to her bed, silently watching her. And it happens week after week.
Karen Chisholm
On Thursday 6th October, there are some events being organised around the University of Melbourne and a research project: "Genre Worlds: Australian Popular Fiction in the Twenty-First Century", with some great crime, romance and fantasy writers speaking!
Karen Chisholm
From the increasing true crime stacks.
From the Blurb:
When Don Osborne went to Pentridge in 1970, he found a nineteenth-century penal establishment in full working order. It held about 1200 inmates, most of them cooped up in tiny stone cells that sweltered in summer and froze in winter. Some had no sewerage or electric light.
Karen Chisholm
Catching up on the backlist as much as I can - this has been in the queue for a while now.
From the Blurb:
A suicide.
A secret.
To the grave.
That was the promise that ten girls made many years ago, and now the time has come when they will be forced to make a choice. Keep the secret and lose their lives, or reveal it and risk the lives of others.
Karen Chisholm
I've been wanting to see what the buzz was about - particularly as it's a debut and there have been some stonkingly good debuts around recently.
From the Blurb:
Sixteen years. That’s how long Clyde Barr has been away from Colorado’s thick forests, alpine deserts, and craggy peaks, running from a past filled with haunting memories. But now he’s back, having roamed across three continents as a hunter, adventurer, soldier of fortune, and most recently, unjustly imprisoned convict. And once again, his past is reaching out to claim him.
Karen Chisholm
This is more of a have read, than an am reading, as I tore through this very rapidly.
From the Blurb:
Sophie is haunted by the things she can't remember - and visions from the past she will never forget. One morning, she wakes to find that the little boy in her care is dead. She has no memory of what happened. And whatever the truth, her side of the story is no match for the evidence piled against her. Her only hiding place is in a new identity. A new life, with a man she has met online. But Sophie is not the only one keeping secrets ...
Karen Chisholm
Having had a stellar run of reading recently I've been doing a fair amount of starting, and then not being able to go on with books this week. Nothing to do with the books.
From the Blurb:
These are the true and uncensored accounts of Australia’s hardest inmates, from Australia’s hardest inmates.
Karen Chisholm
By now everyone knows that the winners of the 2016 Ned Kelly Awards were Best: Dave Warner for Before it Breaks, Best First: Emma Viskic for Resurrection Bay, Best True: Gideon Haigh for Certain Admissions and SD Harvey Short Story: Roni O'Brien for Flesh
Karen Chisholm
It was a hometown quinella on Saturday night as Paul Cleave and Ray Berard were announced as the winners of the 2016 Ngaio Marsh Awards at the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival.
Karen Chisholm
Started reading this a few nights ago and as much as I say I'm not really one for paranormal, this is a great, Australian "blokey" paranormal series.
From the Blurb:
Freelance journalist Harry Hendrick is beginning to realise that you’re only as good as your last exclusive, and buzz doesn’t pay the bills, when he’s blackmailed by the police into investigating a series of bizarre suicides.
Karen Chisholm
It rained over the weekend so I gave myself a treat to celebrate.
From the Blurb:
Rebecca Thorne is a successful television journalist, but her world is thrown into turmoil when her Saturday night programme is axed because of falling ratings. Not only will she lose her job but her big story on the convicted triple murderer Connor Bligh, whom Rebecca believes is innocent, has to be abandoned.
Karen Chisholm
It was still rainy on Sunday so I continued the celebration.
From the Blurb:
Giverny. During the day, tourists flock to the former home of the famous artist Claude Monet and the gardens where he painted his Water Lilies. But when silence returns, there is a darker side to the peaceful French village.
Karen Chisholm
If somebody could explain to me why the hell I waited so long to read this book then I'd be eternally grateful.
From the Blurb:
It starts in a suburban backyard with Darren Keefe and his older brother, sons of a fierce and gutsy single mother. The endless glow of summer, the bottomless fury of contest. All the love and hatred in two small bodies poured into the rules of a made-up game.
Karen Chisholm
July on AustCrime, and another busy month of reading and reviewing. It could very well be that I'm out of sync with these postings again. Who knows.
Read / To be Reviewed:
Karen Chisholm
A personal story, written by victim's friend, 40 years after the killing of a young woman in Rockhampton, Queensland.
From the Blurb:
Author Shirley Eldridge and Mima Joan McKim-Hill were friends and colleagues working for the Capricornia Regional Electricity Board in Rockhampton in 1967 when Mima
disappeared while on the job. She had been abducted, raped and murdered and her body abandoned.
Karen Chisholm
Second book read in the latter part of our week off.
From the Blurb:
A tiny tropical paradise off the coast of Australia, Norfolk Island is notoriously laid-back, its inhabitants friendly and independent-minded. They have to be—with no defences and no way to get immediate assistance from the mainland, Norfolk’s population learned to be self-reliant.
Karen Chisholm
This was from last week's holiday reading - probably should mention that it went particularly well with a very good Pyrenees Cab Sav.
From the Blurb:
Can you become someone else without the world noticing?
When David's wife confesses that she was once a prostitute, the revelation doesn't disturb him - he considers it simply an error of youth. But the following night David collapses from a rare brain disease and within a few months his world is turned upside down.
Karen Chisholm
I will not for a moment pretend that this isn't a treat read, a reward for getting to the end of the holiday and pretty much avoiding everything that we were supposed to do.
From the Blurb:
Sergeant Logan McRae is in trouble…
Karen Chisholm
To be reviewed at http://www.newtownreviewofbooks.com.au
From the Blurb:
WHO REALLY KILLED THE HADLER FAMILY?
Luke Hadler turns a gun on his wife and child, then himself. The farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily. If one of their own broke under the strain, well ...
Karen Chisholm
Perfect little filler and lead in to Drainland
From the Blurb:
A political operative in search of a Senator’s wayward son. A vice-ridden tropical island. This case is way, way too much…
John Dannen is a mysterious and violent man, employed by a powerful Senator. The Senator’s son is causing trouble and even worse, he’s doing it on Tunnel Island, a neon hell-hole run by gambling conglomerates, organized crime and a corrupt police force. But the case is simple enough: hand-deliver a message, get out alive..
Karen Chisholm
Another from this week's reading pile, which is, to be honest, from the very overdue section.
From the Blurb:
The Alo Release is a thriller exposing the potential for public opinion to be manipulated during an international crisis.
Nine days before the global release of a genetically modified seed coating set to make starvation history, the IT advisor for an environmental group receives a cryptic email from an old friend working for the seed corporation.
Karen Chisholm
Attempting a bit of a week off work - which should mean a bit of catching up on reading. She says hoping.
From the Blurb:
On the night Leo Stone returns—notionally from the dead, in reality from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—Cass Tuplin gets a call from Gary Kellett. A call about an actual dead person: Gary’s daughter, killed in a car crash. Gary’s adamant it wasn’t an accident.
Karen Chisholm
For the last couple of years I've had the enormous privilege of being one of the judges on the New Zealand Crime Fiction Ngaio Marsh Awards, and I'm not joking when I call it a privilege. I've always been a fan of the work of New Zealand's fine band of Crime Fiction writers, but in the last couple of years, there's something going on over there that demands close attention. There's a sense of risk taking, of boundary pushing that's now palpable, along with an increasing pride in place and culture that's just wonderful.
Karen Chisholm
The Australian Crime Writers Association today announced the shortlists for the 2016 Ned Kelly Awards for the best in Australian crime writing.
Karen Chisholm
Another from the go away I'm busy pile...
From the Blurb:
'It was suffocatingly hot, and the audience of howling children was viciously indifferent to the violence being done to my integrity as an artist by every ghastly syllable I was obliged to utter and by every mincing step I was obliged to take. As the foul smell of the ancient wig I was wearing wafted into my nostrils, I began to view the bombing of Darwin with something like nostalgia.'
Karen Chisholm
Due out in September, but there's only so much alluring sitting around a book like this can do before a reader just has to sit down and read the thing.
From the Blurb:
A heist thriller set in Queensland, Melbourne and Thailand. Think Richard Stark's Parker, Garry Disher's Wyatt, and Wallace Stroby's Crissa Stone. Add a touch of Surfers Paradise sleaze and a very dangerous stopover in Asia.
Karen Chisholm
From now until the final page is turned on this one be warned. I really don't care what anybody else wants, unless it's a life-threatening emergency, I'm busy.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
After managing to keep this up for quite a few months - I forgot to do May and now I'm late with June....
Read / To be Reviewed:
The Long Con, Barry Weston (Aust)
Karen Chisholm
I was "patiently" waiting for my partner to finish this one after we were lucky enough to see the author talk about the book at an event in Dunnolly. And then a heap of other books snuck in front. I've still got some that should be being read right now, but I really wanted to read this so it's my "treat of the month".
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Last night I was all set for a watch of Le Tour de France. Love the stages in the mountains, for the scenery as much as the tactical team riding. But then I picked up DEVOUR, devoured the first 50 pages and lost track of the tour shenanigans completely. Fell asleep with the book on my nose.
From the Blurb:
Their greatest fear was contaminating an ancient Antarctic lake, buried beneath the ice for millions of years. They little knew about the catastrophe they were about to unleash.
Welcome to the high octane world of Olivia Wolfe.
Karen Chisholm
I started reading this before this current cold snap - but now it's feeling oddly apocalyptic.
From the Blurb:
When environmental scientist Laura Alvarado is sent to a remote Antarctic island to report on an abandoned whaling station, she begins to uncover more than she could ever imagine.
Reminders of the bloody, violent past are everywhere, and Laura is disturbed by evidence of recent human interference. Rules have been broken, and the protected wildlife is behaving strangely.
Karen Chisholm
Attempting to read this one over the weekend for our next f2f bookclub gathering.
From the Blurb:
As a young woman, Roseanne McNulty was one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland. Now, as her hundredth year draws near, she is a patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, and she decides to record the events of her life.
Karen Chisholm
This book jumped the queue. Pushy.
From the Blurb:
Jason Ginaff doesn’t get out much. Partly because of the anxiety, mainly because he works at home. Researching people on the internet. Job candidates doing bucket bongs on Instagram accounts they thought they’d deleted; the prospective new head of sales stripping for a hens’ night…
He’s been searching for something on his own time, too.
Now he’s found it: the phone number of the man he believes to be his father.
Karen Chisholm
Whilst it's a huge privilege to be able to read a lot of review books, every now and again it's nice to treat yourself to one just because you want to read it. Although this is the first in the series, prompted because of a review opportunity with the second.
From the Blurb:
Jana Matinova entered the Czechoslovak police force as a young woman, married an actor, and became a mother. The regime destroyed her husband, their love for one another, and her daughter’s respect for her. But she has never stopped being a seeker of justice.
Karen Chisholm
Next up from the ridiculously large and embarrassingly behind schedule, review pile.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Lots of things I should have done over the weekend but the first mention of Funky Town and I was gone for all money....
From the Blurb:
An unnamed city, in which crime families flourish and police pinch pennies from those with most power...
Black Sails, Disco Inferno retells the classic medieval romance of Tristan and Iseult by turning things on their head, reversing the sex of our chief protagonists, and then placing them in a '70s pulp/noir world.
Karen Chisholm
Second in the Sammi Willis series, she's back at work after avoiding a serial killer's grasp in the first novel.
From the Blurb:
A marked man. A damaged cop. A town full of secrets.
After her abduction and near death at the hands of a sadistic killer, Constable Samantha Willis is back in the uniform. Despite being on desk duty, rumours reach Sammi that Someone in Angel's Crossing has been hurting little girls, and before long a mob is gathering to make sure justice is served.
Karen Chisholm
2016 is indeed going to be a good year for Pufferfish fans with a new novel - A 13-Point Plan for a Perfect Murder due out in early July (Fullers Publishing) and another in November sometime (title as yet unknown).
Karen Chisholm
I think it's fair to say that we both loved this book, but came away from it with very different view points.
Karen Chisholm
A long weekend treat read that turned out to be a very good treat indeed.
From the Blurb:
"Still, he looked for hoof prints, glad there was nobody to laugh at him for doing so. He shaded his eyes and squinted at a dark object, half covered in sand, then began to walk towards it. He should have been wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes, but he never thought of things like that. It was a woman's coat, black, or at least it had been."
Karen Chisholm
Debut from Tasmanian author Barry Weston, first in the Tasmanian Private Investigation Trilogy.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Second from the long-weekend's read pile - a local debut set in Queensland.
From the Blurb:
Cadet journalist Stacey McCallaghan is struggling to find anything newsworthy to report on in the small country town of Toomey. Front-page stories consist of the price of cattle and lawn bowls results, and Stacey spends more time laying out the crossword than covering actual news.
Until the first dead body turns up.
Karen Chisholm
Started this debut novel from a local author last night.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
A record number of entrants and a kaleidoscopic range of crime tales illustrates the growth of New Zealand crime writing but provided a real challenge for the judges of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, who have revealed the longlist for their 2016 award today.
Karen Chisholm
It was, at best, mildly damp in these parts over the weekend (unlike some parts that got hammered) but the hell with it - got some reading done anyway.
From the Blurb:
USS Ulysses: State-of-the-art nuclear submarine. Deterrent. Target.
Karen Chisholm
The 7th in the "byte" series from NZ author, Cat Connor.
From the Blurb:
Washington D.C. is burning, blowing up before SSA Ellie Conway’s eyes. More than ever she needs her controversial connections to prevent more terror attacks and horrifying deaths.