Less of a full review, and more of a note about the first book in this (now) 3 book series set in Mongolia. THE SHADOW WALKER is the first book, which I read recently, having already read the 2nd in the series (the third is here in the queue).
A first book in a series is often slighty problematic and I have to say having read the 2nd book (The Adversary) which I loved, I was willing to cut this first book a lot more slack than perhaps ... Read review
Clare Curzon began writing in the 1960s and has published over forty novels under a variety of pseudonyms, with twenty or so of these in the Superintendent Mike Yeadings series. OFF TRACK is the first time I've come across this series.
It has been a long while since I struggled for months to finish a book, but reading OFF TRACK turned out to be a very disconcerting experience. The basic plot is that Lee Barber, a train driver, leads a perfectly normal life until one night he overshoots a station and a passenger reports him. When a drunk Lee then comes across the man he ... Read review
Sometimes you have to wonder if the blurbs publishers put on the front of the book are more of a hindrance than a help. In the case of Alex Gray's 6th book - they've set an unbelievably high expectation with 'Brings Glasgow to life in the same way Ian Rankin evokes Edinburgh'. Quite a high mark to set, and one I have to say I didn't think was reached with this particular book.
DCI William Lorimer has been called in to investigate the disappearance of a little girl. Snatched by a woman in a car from just outside her home, everyone fears the worst as the days drag on with ... Read review
Berlin in 1939 is not an easy place to be if you're not a supporter of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Being the Chief Auditor in the Reichsbank, right at the centre of the Party's finances would always be a tricky assignment, but if you're only there to try to stop the advance of the Third Reich it's an even more difficult place to be.
Franz Schmidt isn't a typical hero, he's quiet, a small self-contained man, who has drawn on incredible internal resolve in his opposition to the direction that Germany is being driven in. He has divorced his wife (a matter of self- ... Read review
It's interesting that Camilla Nelson's first book (Perverse Acts) is a political satire, because CROOKED, her second book, is a crime novel with a distinctly political background. Set in 1960's Sydney, the book, whilst fictional, involves a number of well-known political identities by name, and one would assume less directly, a number of real-life criminal identities and events.
CROOKED is the story of a series of violent killings, in the underworld of Sydney, culminating in the execution style killing of one particular character, whose little black book listing the ... Read review
The Hal Challis series is really growing into something particularly interesting, as well as entertaining. There's a distinct edge to this story, there are obviously some issues which the author wants to talk about, and he's cleverly worked a number of elements of social observation and commentary into what is, overall, a good solid police procedural.
Hal and Ellen's romantic interest at the end of the last book has developed into a live-in relationship. Which has a number of complications - not just that they work together and that Hal is Ellen's boss. Ellen's divorce ... Read review
This book is just classic Swedish / Scandinavian crime fiction. Slow, involved, intricate, revealing and complex, ECHOES FROM THE DEAD concentrates very much on Julia, and her father, and their slow and careful repairing of a relationship which was torn apart at the time that Julia's son disappeared.
Julia hasn't coped at all since her son's disappearance and she's at a particularly low ebb in life when her father calls her back to the small, closed in island on which the boy disappeared. Julia's father, Gerlof, lives in a home now, but he's still connected with the ... Read review
The last thing THE TALL MAN needs is another review - the book is winning awards left right and centre at the moment. I must confess it wasn't a book I was particularly looking forward to reading, suspecting that the subject matter was going to be very very confronting. After it won the DAVITT AWARD from the Sisters in Crime, the judges comments on the night, were the little extra push required to make me stop dithering (well sooking really) and pick up the book.
Whilst I'm very very glad I finally did, reading THE TALL MAN was not a pleasant, easy or necessarily an ... Read review
THE KILLING HANDS doesn’t quite have the pace and suspense of P.D. Martin’s previous books. Because Sophie is working with a gang task-force, it is necessary for the author to give the reader an overview of the structure and remit of the various agencies that investigate gang-related crime in L.A. This does slow down the plot a little. However, Martin’s usual thorough research and attention to detail do make for informative reading.
In THE KILLING HANDS we meet Sophie’s parents who visit her and there is an interesting development in her private life as well. But we will ... Read review
THE CHALK CIRCLE MAN is the first book in the Adamsberg series by French writer Fred Vargas. As they have been translated out of series order, fans of this fantastic set of books know Adamsberg well by now, without having had the chance to be in at the beginning so to speak. This release gives the reader a unique opportunity. For existing fans a chance to see where Adamsberg came from, and to consider a first book, in light of knowing how good the series has become. For new readers a chance to start at the beginning if that is your preference.
The strange blue circles ... Read review
If you're reading THE INTERROGATOR and you happen to have noticed that the author, JJ Cooper, has a bio that mentions he spent 17 years in the Australian Army, specialising in Human Intelligence including interrogation (as a practitioner and an instructor), you really cannot help but consider the possibilities of truth in fiction. Clinging to the belief that the truth was used when describing the techniques and technicalities, and it didn't quite leak into the actual activities described in the book, kept me sleeping at night.
THE INTERROGATOR builds a frightening ... Read review
The Twelve Detectives are a famous group of crime solving individuals - spread throughout the world. In the 1880's their exploits are well known - the magazine The Key to Crime regularly publishes the story of their investigations. Sigmundo Salvatrio works in his father's shoe repair shop, but he doesn't dream of being a cobbler - his dream is to join the ranks of the acolytes of the world famous investigators. It seems a pipe dream as Renato Craig, the only one of the detectives who lives in Buenos Aires has always opposed recruitment of his own acolyte. Sigmundo is therefore ... Read review
This will be a lukewarm review, although I can't entirely put my finger on why. It wasn't a bad book but I think it has some genre identity issues. It is touted as an action thriller, but there's too much of the "thriller" getting in the way of the action, and there's too much explained or telegraphed too early to build the suspense of a really good thriller.
Premature exposition aside, the characters are mostly one dimensional, bordering on caricature. I'll admit the number of Australian authors I read is small, but sometimes I find the dialogue seems over-laden with ... Read review
I confess to not putting a category or genre on this book because I'm not really sure what it fits into (other than fiction of course).
This is a fabulous little book - the story of Marcus Blainey, a poet who works as a cop. The cop persona is taking over rapidly and he's not coping well.
Marcus tells his own story - and he's very very hard on himself. It might be that he's got a point in some places, but really he's not quite as bad as he seems to think he is. But he doesn't cope well with anything much in his life. When his wife left him I don't think ... Read review
THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD is the third book in the Michael Forsythe "Dead" Trilogy - DEAD I WELL MAY BE and THE DEAD YARD are the earlier books. There's an awful lot to really like in THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD.
Firstly, it is the third book in a trilogy but I've been very remiss and haven't yet read the first two (which failing I vow to rectify). Didn't matter. You can follow the story, you can glean the back story of Michael and how he got himself into the ... Read review
The latest "it" in crime fiction can be pretty common. Sometimes it's a plot elements, sometimes it's locations for books, sometimes it's the home location of the author themselves. The "it" thing I'm coming across a lot at the moment is books set in Africa. Not that you could possibly complain if the books are the standard of BAIT.
BAIT is set in Kenya, and whilst the setting is used to good effect - the scenery, the animals, the weather, what is really used well is the society (emerging / building / dealing with the after-affects of civil unrest) and the people ... Read review
It is probably no coincidence that this book is likely to appeal to fans of TV shows like CSI and Law and Order as the author says she is very fond of those shows and the book has a structure, subject matter and delivery which seems somewhat reminiscent of that style of show (or at least what I glean from others about them) - I don't watch them, probably for the same reasons that MOVE TO STRIKE isn't really my sort of book.
Perfect Home. Perfect Family. Perfect Murder. That's what is printed at the top of the cover of the book and there is a lot of ... Read review
Peter Klein has spent a lifetime in the horse racing industry, working for some of Australia's top trainers such as TJ Smith and Bart Cummings. He was once a strapper of champion galloper Kingston Town. It's therefore not all that surprising that he has set PUNTER'S TURF firmly in the horse racing world, with a good balance between the horse racing and mystery elements. There is enough atmosphere to give the events a real sense of place, there's enough sprinkling of horse racing terminology to provide a sense of reality, but it's not overplayed or impossible for the average reader ... Read review
VANISHING POINT by Pat Flower was originally published in 1975, and re-released by Wakefield Press as part of their Crime Classics series in 1993. It is the first of three important thrillers written by this author before her suicide in 1978.
The Wakefield edition has an afterword written by editors Michael J. Tolley and Peter Moss which is well worth reading for some background to the author herself, as well as their take on the book. It includes this quotation from the author:
"People sometimes ask as they edge away, Why Murder? I'm absorbed in ... Read review
On her last day at FBI headquarters at Quantico before transferring to the Los Angeles field office, Australian FBI profiler Sophie Anderson is given the task of showing crime author Loretta Black around the facilities. She finds Black to be rude and overbearing, and is glad when the tour is over.
Within days of Sophie's arrival in Los Angeles, Black is found murdered in bizarre circumstances. She has been killed in exactly the same way as the victim in her latest book. It doesn't take long for Sophie to link this crime with the murder of another crime author several ... Read review