All the Reviews

After spending a fair amount of time in Tasmania in the 1970's, Canadian Gordon Aalborg did what all red blooded Canadian-Australian men do, he turned to writing romance novels.  20 or more of those novels later, he's now turned to crime fiction as well, and DINING WITH DEVILS is the second of those.

Set in Tasmania, DINING WITH DEVILS combines crime and caving - not a combination that you'd immediately think of (unless you're inclined towards the belief that activities in the dark are best when that dark is rocky, hard, damp, and far underground!)

Sergeant ... Read review

Storytelling or Storyweaving?  BLEEDING HEART SQUARE is a classic example of a carefully woven psychological suspense story written by one of the English masters.  Mind you, this isn't going to be a book for everyone.  It's one of those stories that starts out with central threads that slowly are interwoven towards the conclusion. 

Something has happened in connection to 7 Bleeding Heart Square.  In 1934, Lydia Langstone seeks refuge there from her violent husband.  It's a decaying London cul-de-sac, in a time that is feeling the threat of war.  It's a seedy part of the ... Read review

There's something in the water (or maybe it's in the dust) in Africa at the moment.  Whilst there has been a slowly increasing number of crime or mystery books set in Africa, there's now an increasing number written by African authors appearing for our enjoyment.  Michael Stanley (the South African duo of long-time friends Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip), have now released their second book - A DEADLY TRADE (aka The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu), follow up to the very well received debut book - A CARRION DEATH.

Wrapped up in the well devised plot of a solid police ... Read review

Anybody who hasn't indulged in the Dr Siri series by Colin Cotterill could be forgiven for wondering what on earth is going on with CURSE OF THE POGO STICK.  Booby-trapped corpses and reluctant coroners might be reasonably expected in crime fiction, but Hmong villagers needing exorcism by a thousand-year-old shaman who shares the aforementioned coroner's body?  Understandably a "What the" moment.

Whilst the spiritual (supernatural) component of CURSE OF THE POGO STICK is considerably stronger than the earlier books,  the series has been building the unlikely scenario of ... Read review

There are never enough new crime fiction writers and/or novels in Australia every year (okay so I'm greedy!), but there are certainly never enough quite as good as STORM PEAK which is John A Flanagan's first crime fiction novel, and I'm certainly cheering for more.

STORM PEAK is set in Colorado in the US, and I hope a reader would be hard-pressed to pick that the setting isn't the author's own, except perhaps for the use of the much beloved u (in spelling).  Setting away from the author's home base can sometimes not work - little inaccuracies in dialect and/or terminology ... Read review

A YEAR TO LEARN A WOMAN is the second novel and first crime fiction offering from New Zealand writer Paddy Richardson.  Travis Crill is a serial rapist - convicted and jailed for a series of bizarre attacks.  Claire Wright is a freelance journalist, living alone with her young daughter after the sudden death of her older husband.  When Claire is first contacted to see if she would be interested in writing the story of Crill for a very much needed large sum of money, she finds she can quickly overcome her initial reluctance to look closely at a man like him.  But understanding Crill's ... Read review

A well written police procedural is one of the reasons I'm so addicted to crime fiction. A good police procedural will introduce you to the police,take you by the land and lead you through their investigation as they unearth clues by interviewing people, sifting the evidence and following leads. There will be a careful balance of detecting and learning about the lives of the detectives. If the author has done the job properly s/he doesn't deliberately hold back clues or have the the detectives catch the culprit in the act, just two pages before the end.

In his first novel ... Read review

Now a little housekeeping before we go too far.  Beautiful Death is the second DCI Jack Hawksworth book, published under the author's real name of Fiona McIntosh.  The first, Bye Bye Baby, was published under the pseudonym Lauren Crow.  Fiona is a well known Fantasy writer in Australia, and these two books are her first foray into crime fiction.

DCI Jack Hawksworth has a good working relationship with his team - they are a close group who have worked together on dreadful cases before.  The team, and his superiors are more than used to Jack getting the personal and the ... Read review

The second DCS Fran Harmon book I've read, there is such a lot that that you'd think would make these books unlikeable.  Fran is almost too cheerful and nice, she's the sort of person that it's not hard to fantasise about as a victim of brutal crime.  Mind you, she's also refreshingly not like your stereotypical angst ridden, difficult boss - she actively supports and encourages her subordinates, both in a day to day work sense, and as part of her ongoing police policy work.  She's got her own boss problems though, and she handles them (mostly) with aplomb. There's a big concentration ... Read review