All the Reviews

Andrew Wilson is the author of a highly renowned biography of Patricia Highsmith and THE LYING TONGUE is his début novel. In an interesting move the author starts his first novel with the comment "This is not the book I wanted to write. This is not how it was supposed to be at all." All I can say is if he writes what he wants to write and it turns out as good as this one, then bring on the next novel.

Adam Woods is a young man with a degree in Art History and a vague desire to write a novel. With a decidedly dodgy romantic history, Woods heads off to Venice to take up a ... Read review

Friedrich Glauser was born in Vienna in 1896, dying at aged forty-two after a tumultuous and way too short life. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, addicted to morphine and opium, he spent much of his life in psychiatric wards, insane asylums and, when he was arrested for forging prescriptions, in prison. He also spent two years with the Foreign Legion in North Africa, after which he worked as a coal miner and a hospital orderly. His Sergeant Studer crime novels have cult status in Europe, Germany's most prestigious crime fiction award is named after the author, and Thumbprint has now been ... Read review

Is it really only a month or so since IN THE WOODS was released in paperback? There's a lot of talk about this debut book, and you should be listening, the positive talk is highly deserved.

In 1984, in Knocknaree, County Dublin, Ireland, three 12 year old children - Adam, Peter and Jamie (Germaine) are playing. They've been life long friends and they go everywhere together. They are seemingly leading an idyllic childhood, with the housing estate they live in filled with young families and other children, backing onto the wood in which they regularly explore, run and play ... Read review

THIRTY-THREE TEETH is the follow up to THE CORONER'S LUNCH featuring the elderly, reluctant Laotian National Coroner Dr Siri Paiboun.

In THIRTY-THREE TEETH it is summer in Vientiane and it is hot, bloody hot. Laotians greet each other with that phrase as they steam away in the unrelenting heat. In Vientiane, a much tormented Asian Bear escapes from cruel confines in a local hotel garden just before there is a slow build-up of viciously savaged corpses in Dr Siri's morgue. The injuries that these victims have endured appear to indicate that they have been mauled by a very ... Read review

In the summer of 1973, 11 year old Miller McAllister is very happy. His family own a house overlooking the sea on the East Coast of Scotland and the small island, Fidra, that's visible from the mainland house. The youngest of three children, Miller and his father Douglas love the island, with its birds, wildlife, old ruins and the simple cottage residence.

When Douglas is arrested, tried and found guilty of the rape and murder of three young girls, Miller is profoundly affected. To start with he believes in his father's innocence, but when the girl bodies are found on ... Read review

THE COLOUR OF BLOOD is the second Ed Loy novel by Declan Hughes, the first being The Wrong Kind of Blood, published in 2006.

Ed Loy is a Private Investigator in current day Dublin, Ireland - a place that's part gritty, poor, desperate and part rich, privileged, twisted. Shane Howard is a Dublin dentist, and the son of Dr John Howard, a pillar of Dublin Irish Society, famous in the local area, with a legacy that is maintained by his family. Shane's 19 year old daughter Emily has gone missing and now he is getting blackmail threats and sexually explicit photographs of her ... Read review

THE MURDER BIRD is the story of a young woman who refuses to believe that her mother's death was a suicide. Sam is the young girl, her mother, Kirsten Waller is a famous poet who was working on a major new poem when she is found electrocuted in her bath in a remote Cornish cottage. Sam refusal is strengthened by Kirsten's estranged third husband, Raph Howes, being one of the first on the scene at the cottage and Kirsten's current poem "The Murder Bird" and her journal are missing.

Sam is stranded somewhere between two families - her own father Davy Boswin and his new wife ... Read review

Latter day Australian Pulp Fiction at it's best, Murder is Never Pretty... is, well hilarious.

Part of the attraction is that it's 100% true to the style and phrasing of the pulp writers of bygone times - but it's all set in current day Perth - dare one say the mean and dirty streets of Perth?

When a beautiful (are there other kinds in pulp?) blonde is murdered (shot / naked of course) in her suburban unit the local police put a call through to Joe Blake (who fortunately is chatting up another girl in his hot police car which he uses to hoon away to the call ... Read review

During the German occupation of Italy in the Second World War, the Villa Docci was taken over by them as a command post. The German Officer in charge of the contingent was a lover of art and culture and he, and the Docci family were able to come to an arrangement that meant that the beautiful fresco's, artworks and antiques in the house were respected and the gardens were allowed to be maintained. As the Germans withdrew and the Allies moved forward, a couple of German soldiers left behind to destroy the unit's records unfortunately didn't honour the gentleman's agreement and in a ... Read review