All the Reviews

Book 4 in the Maigret series, which I'm wandering back through via the medium of audio books. Which as we all know is successful based hugely on the narrator. In this case Gareth Armstrong does a great job, with a voice that's laid back enough to make it pleasant listening, but not so much as to become soporific. 

At this point in the series most of the fundamentals of Maigret are in place - tenacity, attention to detail, observational and keenly aware of his surroundings and the people around him. This novel however introduces the concept of guilt - and how Maigret deals ... Read review

Having been a fan of the Halifax TV Series, starring Rebecca Gibney as Dr Jane Halifax, this book was greeted with considerable excitement. The author, Roger Simpson, is an award-winning screen writer, creating both the telemovie series of Halifax f.p. (which ran from 1994 to 2001) and its sequel, Halifax: Retribution in 2020. For those Australians watching, they might also have heard of some of his other TV work - Stingers, Something in the Air, Silver Sun and Satisfaction.

Needless to say, if anybody knows Dr Jane Halifax it's author Roger Simpson. The question that ... Read review

I'm not good with the end of things that I've really loved but when it came to the Caleb Zelic series by Emma Viskic, it turns out there was only so long I could hold out.

The earlier books in the series, RESURRECTION BAY, AND FIRE CAME DOWN, and DARKNESS FOR LIGHT, introduced readers to the messy world that Caleb Zelic inhabits, although there are glimpses in THOSE WHO PERISH of a man determined, and very nearly managing, to get his act together. 

For readers new to this series, (where have you been!) Zelic has a complicated backstory, growing up in a small ... Read review

Not so long ago, you couldn't move for serial killer novels, and a lot of readers (including this one) were over them. Since then the "popularity" does seem to have waned, and there's a marked tendency to make that those that do show up - very good indeed. As it was with BLACK RIVER which turned out to be an absolute page-turner.

Based in Sydney, in geographic locations, and a central character's backstory that seems to have more than a few echoes with the author's, this is the story of the mysterious deaths of a number of young women, their bodies having been discovered ... Read review

Up front, it was utterly impossible to avoid comparisons with McCarthy's THE ROAD right from the start of this novel, so I gave up trying not to. Dystopian in nature, thriller in intent, UNSHELTERED is yet another one of those novels that I suspect will spark widely different reactions, and opinions.

A bold noir undertaking, this is the story of a woman's search for her missing daughter. A daughter Li never really wanted in the first place, although now eight-year-old Matti is missing, all she wants is to get her back.

Set within the dual conflicts of climate ... Read review

The second fiction book from New Zealand writer, Gigi Fenster, A GOOD WINTER is a story of a group of women, after Lara moves to the city to be near her widowed, pregnant daughter. Sophie really starts to struggle after Michael is born, her grief compounded by post-natal depression. The city apartment block Lara has moved to was already home to Olga, and their friendship commences with the simplest of things - Olga's green fingers and Lara's uncanny ability to kill all sorts of pot plants, moving quickly to something closer when Sophie's crisis draws them together, as Olga steps in to ... Read review

Grazier Mathew Dunbar led a quiet life, working on his farm, helping out with the local poultry club, meeting up with the few very close friends he had. An adopted child, he'd had a tricky relationship with his parents, his father dying not improving things between Dunbar and his mother, despite her desperate wish to reconnect. All Dunbar seemed to really want was to find love and have a family of his own, which made him a prime target for the deeply flawed, dangerous and vicious Natasha Darcy. A woman with a litany of manipulative and cruel behaviour behind her, Mathew stuck with her ... Read review

The debut novel in a series featuring Cesare Aldo, former soldier, now an officer in the city's most feared criminal court, CITY OF VENGEANCE is set during the winter of 1536 in Florence, Italy. At that time Florence was a wealthy and influential city, ruled over by the Duke Alessandro de Medici - volatile and dangerous in his own right. When a prominent Jewish moneylender is murdered in his home Aldo is directed to solve the murder before the feast of Epiphany, in four days time. What the edict doesn't take into account is the plot that Aldo uncovers to overthrow de Medici. ... Read review

WAKING THE TIGER is set in 1939 Singapore. Dripping with sense of place and time, there's something vaguely reminiscent of Chandler's styling, and the excellent Inspector Le Fanu series by Brian Stoddart in the characterisation and plot.

Inspector Maximo Betancourt is working a new beat, that he never wanted. Following the disappearance of his own wife, everything has collapsed around him, including his career. Once a rising star of the Singapore CID, he's been relegated to the Marine Division, adjudicating dockyard disputes and conducting goods inspections.

... Read review