This Thursday temptations post is upcoming releases, or books that are out now.
Shot
A murder is witnessed by thousands, but who pulled the trigger?
Dahlia and Duncan Crews are rich, famous, glamorous - they share their lifestyle and picture-perfect family with hundreds of thousands of online subscribers. The Crews have it all - until they don't. Shot dead in the middle of a livestream, the couple's teenage daughter, Karma, is the sole survivor. And the prime suspect.
Years later, disgraced true-crime vlogger Jennifer Benedetta is hired to film a cold-case documentary on the unsolved Crews family murders. It's the chance she needs to salvage her reputation, but there's a catch: prove Karma Crews innocent. But something - or someone - is lurking just off camera, and the closer Jennifer gets to the truth, the further she is from safety. Who is watching? And how far will they go to remain unseen?
Something He Did
In the gridlocked heart of Melbourne, a split-second of road rage changes everything. For one driver, the crash is a bizarre stroke of luck that sets their life on an upward trajectory they never thought possible. For the other, it is the first domino to fall in a terrifying downward spiral.
Detective Sergeant Claudia Russo doesn't care about the insurance claims—she’s focussed on the search for a missing eighteen-year-old girl. But the girl’s father, a man defined by entitlement and influence, is playing a dangerous game. He’s more afraid of his own double life being exposed than he is of his daughter never coming home. Claudia has secrets too: she’s grieving a tragic loss of her own and losing control of an on-the-job romance that threatens to unravel everything she has worked so hard for.
As all their fates become more entwined, the lesson must be learned: Be kind. Or suffer the consequences.
Something He Did, SK Lynch
Readers of SK Lynch's first novel, SOMETHING HE DID, might like to know a couple of things first up. She is working on a sequel, important as you're going to have questions, so many questions, at the end of this, and despite the reference to the wonderful BROKENWOOD MYSTERIES TV series in her bio, there are no old Holden cars, country music, and quirky characters here. Far from it to be honest. And for those worried - this is not an ending that comes with one of those cliffhanger, "and in the next book endings"... sort of.
Billed as "The novel with the best twist you'll read this year", there is so much more to SOMETHING HE DID than just a twist - a doozy which hindsight might make you feel you could have seen coming, but hindsight has been known to lie through it's teeth. It's absolutely a thriller with an opening half that seems a bit, well floaty, for want of a better description. That section shares the story between Amber - a young mother with a drug problem - fighting for access to her daughter, and struggling with constant setbacks - some of which are her own fault, a major one, a split-second of road rage, is anything but. That moment though, a car crash in the early morning traffic of Melbourne, sets Amber's life on a path that has a horrible sense of inevitability about it. What happens to the other party in the crash is less clear. Jake is an ex-rugby player, famous and lauded in his native New Zealand, a bit player in Australia, he travels backwards and forwards from his wife and two daughters at home in Queenstown; to his job, and his girlfriend and young son in Melbourne. The girlfriend knows all about his family at home. His wife and daughters nothing about his other life in Melbourne.
The novel constantly plays with the reader's expectations whilst tearing through the main two characters lives like a wrecking ball. Mistakes come back to haunt, constantly dragging both Amber and Jake through the mire, escalating through both their lives until a couple of major incidents. It's when Jake's elder daughter, a girl already leading a hidden life, disappears in Melbourne that DS Claudia Russo's Missing Person's unit comes into the picture, tasked with looking for a rebellious teenager, pressured from above because Jake has a few contacts in high places and has been throwing his weight around.
What seems like it might be a straight forward thriller styled novel, with readers waiting for that final twist, has a lot more than that going on. From the car crash moment there's something not quite right about that description from the blurb "For one driver, the crash is a bizarre stroke of luck that sets their life on an upward trajectory they never thought possible. For the other, it is the first domino to fall in a terrifying downward spiral." Sure, initially, things might seem to be heading upward and onward for one of the driver's whilst the downward spiral for the other is marked and incredibly confronting to read. Until a daughter disappears, and a father's true nature is revealed, and it turns out the higher you climb, especially if you're using other people as the rungs on your ladder, the further and harder you fall.
Without spoilers though, that twist is really something. As is the aftermath, the conclusion that wraps up this story, and asks a hell of a lot of questions about right, wrong and complicity that will stay with readers until, one supposes, the next book is released. Which I'll certainly be queuing for now.
Penitent
A holy confession. A string of ritual killings. An impossible choice.
When Father Tom Morgan hears the confession of a murderer, he is faced with an impossible dilemma: whether to violate the sacred seal of confession and betray his vows, remain silent while the killing continues and risk innocent lives ... or take justice into his own hands at the cost of his faith and conscience.
Meanwhile, Detective Atalia Reid is hunting a killer who ritually stages the bodies of his victims. As she finds more clues that seem to implicate Tom's parish, her suspicion of the troubled priest intensifies, leading her to believe he is concealing a dangerous secret.
Driven by mistrust and a mounting sense of dread, Tom and Atalia are drawn into a deadly contest between faith and justice. With each new murder, Tom's silence becomes harder to justify.
Penitent is a morally charged thriller about guilt, conscience and the impossible choice between a sacred duty and saving a life.
The Lineup
A killer on the loose. A surfer out of his depth ...
Bo Curren was once a champion surfer. Now, at twenty-eight, he’s all washed up – unable even to set foot near the ocean.
Instead, he spends his days alone in his apartment, drowning his sorrows in whiskey and watching surfers on his laptop via the 24-hour surf webcam.
Then one day he sees something he shouldn’t. A camera trained on a deserted Byron Bay beach picks up a murder right there on the sand.
The police dismiss his report, and no bodies are found. Yet Bo knows what he saw.
And he has a clue: the murderer’s distinctive surfboard. If he can track that down, he’ll catch the killer.
But is he ready to dive back into a world where the rules are unspoken, outsiders aren’t welcome, and where secrets can be as dangerous as the waves?
The Bathing Box Murders
Melbourne 1928. A raging storm sweeps the beach at Brighton, toppling one of the bathing boxes and revealing the graves of J. Arnold Witherspoon, a successful businessman, and his wife, Hope. Crime reporter Reggie da Costa, devotee of fashionable suits and stylish automobiles, uncovers an intriguing mystery: How can the Witherspoons be controlling their financial affairs and property holdings from abroad if they are lying dead under the sand? Complicating matters, a respected shipping company owner, while attempting to rob a bank, turns the gun on himself. Is there a connection between these bizarre deaths? Can Reggie uncover the truth?
The Bathing Box Murders is the sixth in the Reggie da Costa Mysteries.
The Bathing Box Murders, Laraine Stephens
Fans of historical crime fiction have hopefully caught onto the Reggie Da Costa series by Melbourne based author Laraine Stephens by now. Particularly readers who like a bit of dash, humour, romance and intrigue, served up with a great sense of time and place, and impeccable male fashion. Reggie Da Costa, crime reporter, happily recently married, faithful son, fast car lover and intrepid investigator is the sort of person that's easy to spend time with, as is his brother-in-law and colleague Dusty, and his beloved wife, and helpmate in many things investigative Ruby.
In this outing, it's Melbourne in 1928, and a raging storm has toppled a bathing box on Brighton beach, revealing the graves of two people - eventually identified as successful businessman, the reclusive J. Arnold Witherspoon and his wife Hope. The bodies had been there for quite a while before the storm, which begs the question that Reggie would really like to answer - how was Witherspoon controlling his extensive financial and property affairs, supposedly from overseas, whilst he had been lying dead under a bathing box the whole time. Which puts Reggie directly into contact with an ethically questionable solicitor, and another very odd death - the suicide whilst robbing a bank, of a respected shipping company owner.
Reggie, with Dusty's assistance at work, and Ruby's at home and in social circles, has to unpick a very messy web of intrigue that goes from big business to organised crime, and deep into the world of Melbourne's darkest secrets.
These stories do include quite a bit of the personal interactions between Reggie and his extended family, their new house, with his mother now living in the granny flat there, and the little things that come from starting out married life. All that balances well against a plot that gallops along at a good pace, with a central cast of characters and sense of place that are confidently executed. This is one of those series that can be stepped into at just about any point, but starting at the beginning will give the reader a much stronger idea of the backstory to Reggie, Ruby and Dusty, and, in particular how a young man, the son of a ne'er-do-well father, and a devoted, but very much inclined to pick the wrong man every single time mother, became a dashing investigative reporter, and loving husband. Along the way, there have been investigations that have woven their way through all echelons of Melbourne society from the time, and into some difficult spots for Reggie and his brother and sister companions.
An excellent entry in the Reggie Da Costa series, The Bathing Box Murders has an intriguing plot, delivered with a great sense of historical place, time, and men's fashion. Beware though, you may find yourself looking more closely at the beautiful bathing boxes that still line many of Port Phillip Bay's beaches.
In Plain Sight
Identical twin sisters with a secret they’re working hard to protect.
A sex-crimes detective returning to her home town and a past she’d hoped would remain buried.
And a case that doesn’t want to be solved.
The photos found on a USB are clear proof of a crime, and Detective Lara Wilton hopes she can wrap it up and get back to her life in the city. But the girls in the photos, now on the cusp of eighteen, are spinning an elaborate web of secrets, lies and manipulation. And the case will go nowhere without their cooperation.
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