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Sisters in Yellow, Mieko Kawakami01/07/2026 - 3:09pmMieko Kawakami's earlier novel, HEAVEN, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and she is renowned for her portrayal of characters on the margins of society. Outsiders, as this reader often happily feels like, when indulging in something this steeped in Japanese society, conventions and rules.
In SISTERS IN YELLOW it's not just that her female characters are living on the margins, it's also the way that they are all fleeing something. Centred around the story of Hana though, ... Read Review |
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Hooked Up, Fiona Sussman01/07/2026 - 1:20pmGiven the blurb starts out with the line:
It's worth starting this review out mentioning that you don't need to have read THE DOCTOR'S WIFE (but you really should...) as whilst the characters are in the earlier novel, it's not really centred around them. HOOKED UP, however, is most definitely all about them and styled very ... Read Review |
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What Rhymes With Murder?, Penny Tangey01/07/2026 - 1:04pmFeaturing new mother Frida, WHAT RHYMES WITH MURDER? is a cosy, baby focused story about a body in a library, with a bit of social commentary along the way. The basic premise is that Frida attends her first ever session of Baby Rhyme Time at the library in her inner Melbourne suburb - a trendy place with cafe's / come local stores and a hefty quota of women pushing those huge prams that seem to be all the go nowadays. As the session with a group of new parents, including Frida and new friend / parent Josh, there's a loud thump and a woman has died falling over a barrier ... Read Review |
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High Rise, Gabriel Bergmoser30/06/2026 - 2:24pmI tend not to read blurbs on books before I dive in, particularly if the book is by a favourite author who does dark, dirty and high adrenaline as well as Bergmoser does. So I was somewhat pleased to see these lines in the blurb when I went to write this review:
And a bit tempted to just put that as the review and mark it done and dusted ... Read Review |
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God's Away on Business, Adrian McKinty26/06/2026 - 3:19pmAn audio short story (1 hour and 39 minutes in length), this is tagged as "Sean Duffy Year 1", taking the reader back to the time when newly promoted DS Sean Duffy is given his first command at Carrickfergus CID. For followers of the entire series this short, sharp belt to the head of a story will give you plenty of background to the ongoing battleground - how he ended up at Carrickfergus, a Catholic cop living in a mostly Protestant housing estate, spending his days chasing criminals and his morning's checking under his car for bomb switches. The entire story is ... Read Review |
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Like, Follow, Die by Ashley Kalagian Blunt24/06/2026 - 1:59pmAshley Kalagian Blunt continues her exploration of the perils of malicious online communities in Like, Follow, Die. Readers of Blunt’s debut crime fiction Dark Mode will remember how that novel addressed the obsession of stalkers in a pre- and post-internet world. The manipulation of that main character, Reagan Carsen, was visceral, despite her ... Read Review Newtown Review of Books |
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Three Dogs, Two Murders and A Cat, Rodney Strong23/06/2026 - 1:59pmFollowers of NZ Crime fiction from the cosy end of the spectrum may have come across a couple of this author's previous series - The Silvermoon Retirement Village and The Hitchhiker novels. Both cosy, the former featuring a 90 something year old sleuth with a very "unexpected" background, the former being more on the paranormal side of things. Having been following the Silvermoon series, in particular, since its inception, it's been a pleasure to see Strong develop his story telling style ... Read Review |
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The Nowhere Boy, Anne Cleary22/06/2026 - 12:18pm
Three-year-old Oliver, whose nickname is Apple Man (explained as the story progresses), was sleeping in the car in a remote carpark, whilst his father Scott, was supposedly only away for a few minutes, carrying fishing gear down to the beach. On Scott's return, the boy had disappeared, vanished without a trace. Only the reader knows what's happened, meanwhile Scott and his mate frantically search for the boy, then have to report the disappearance first to the police and then, ... Read Review |
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The Bunny Club, Blanche D'Alpuget20/06/2026 - 4:37pmSo I've had two separate attempts now at reading THE BUNNY CLUB and neither of them have been even slightly successful. The whole thing was just a bit too disjointed and weird for my liking. Read Review |
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Hero, Patricia Wolf10/06/2026 - 1:04pmHERO is the 5th book in the DS Lucas Walker series that has taken him from outback Queensland to Germany and back, and from the Australian Federal Police to the Queensland Police Force. One thing that stays the same though is the outreach of organised crime, which is surprisingly prevalent in these small Queensland towns. Walker is stationed in the small outback town of Katima, driving distance from his home in Caloodie, working as a DS with a local cop who rapidly proves himself to be an able partner. For readers new to this series, there's been quite a bit happen in ... Read Review |
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Later, Only Love Remains, Leah Swann09/06/2026 - 2:28pmA follow-on from SHEERWATER, LATER, ONLY LOVE REMAINS is a tense, spiralling, dark story built around three main characters, and the life changing events that are happening to them, some a result of their own actions. The story starts out introducing the reader to the main three characters as much as is possible, although reading the earlier novel would definitely help in creating an instant connection, particularly as there are some elements to the men in this story that are very confronting. Jack Wolfe, survived ... Read Review |
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The Memory Bookshop, Song Yu-jeong09/06/2026 - 1:50pmRecently our senior cat died. Not completely unexpectedly, she'd had a bad heart murmur for a number of years, but still it was pretty quick - she was fine, albeit a bit wobbly for a day and dead the next morning. Which put a spanner in the works of crime fiction reading for a few days while I adjusted. For some reason I went looking at the library's ebook catalogue and there was THE MEMORY BOOKSHOP. No idea why I selected it, but I glad I did. The story, it seems, has been a Korean sensation. I have to confess I'd never heard of it at all, but then it's magical realism, ... Read Review |
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Bella Donna, Jill Johnson04/06/2026 - 2:02pmIn Jill Johnson’s new novel, Professor Eustacia Rose is done with murder – it’s time to settle down with the love of her life, Matilde. For anybody new to this series, which began with Devil’s Breath, Professor Eustacia Rose is the Head of Botanical Toxicology at University College. An expert in rare and highly poisonous plants, she’s brilliant, neurodivergent, gay, and a ... Read Review Newtown Review of Books |
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Lucky Thing, Tom Baragwanath26/05/2026 - 12:06pmIn Tom Baragwanath’s latest crime novel, Lorraine Henry knows only too well how small towns and close communities are a blessing and a curse. Tom Baragwanath first introduced ‘Lo’ Henry in Paper Cage, a novel about a small but divided community and a string of missing children. In his latest release, Lucky Thing, Lo is back in a story again concentrating on the ... Read Review Newtown Review of Books |
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The Quiet Man, Caimh McDonnell18/05/2026 - 3:40pmThere's a school of thought that says that Bunny McGarry's done well to avoid jail up until now, although that school is a bit unreasonable, especially if you ignore the small matter of the death of his long term police partner, and the whole faked death thing, but ending up in jail under a fake identity, with the intention of breaking somebody else out of jail, at the request of a dodgy criminal gang who are holding the only nun that knows the whereabouts of his beloved Simone? Sure. Why not. That the jail is supposedly unbreachable, the person he's supposed to take out ... Read Review |
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Honey, Imani Thompson14/05/2026 - 1:15pmThe blurb for HONEY starts out with a no punches pulled approach.
Which is going to mean that the style of this novel might come as a bit of a surprise to some readers. If you're one of those, like me, that was more than mildly put off by the chick lit tone of the opening sections, and felt just a little bit like something needs to happen soon... then hang in there. This goes from feeling all a bit silly to deadly (and I mean deadly) serious in the blink of an eye. A blink that ... Read Review |
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Fortunate Son, Caimh McDonnell23/04/2026 - 4:26pmI've been hoovering these books up as soon as they are released in audio format because I do love the narrator Morgan C Jones (I've mentioned that before...) but the problem that created was I got behind with reviews and then couldn't work out whether I should do that in publication order or chronological order, and then caught up and then let things lag again, and anyway, FORTUNATE SON, aka book 8 in publication order, chronological order 5 of the misnamed (we've been down this path already) Dublin (not a) ... Read Review |
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The Night Belongs to Her, Justin Warren23/04/2026 - 3:10pmFollowers of this series have probably read the second book THE LEWIS PASS, which when I reviewed it way back, I did mention:
THE NIGHT BELONGS TO HER is that next book, and a lot of stuff is finally resolved, ... Read Review |
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Lie Down with Dogs, Syd Knight20/04/2026 - 4:01pmA debut novel with a very evocative title, LIE DOWN WITH DOGS, is centred around a burnt out, damaged Detective, Kyle Williams. After being shot and losing the love of his life in a disastrous undercover investigation, he's strangely best placed to take on the cold-case murder of two young lovers. There's something a bit personal about his determination to solve this, although the link he discovers between the undercover operation that went badly wrong, and this murder is almost enough to derail him completely. But as you'd expect, when it comes to corrupt cops, wealthy drug dealers, ... Read Review |
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What You Don't Know, Sandi Wallace16/04/2026 - 1:37pmA stand-alone novel from Australian author, Sandi Wallace, WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW is set on a secluded island where Tess works at home, writing children's mystery books, and her travelling husband returns to on weekends from the job he loves, to a wife that he adores. It seems, to all the world, like the perfect life, enough neighbours to create a sense of community, enough distance to create a buffer, a sense of sanctuary, even a goofy chocolate labrador dog. A feeling shattered by sightings of a prowler, triggering unresolved trauma for Tess - her best friend's death was never ... Read Review |