All the Reviews

Unable to put down Catherine Chidgey's PET, I struggled to sleep last night as I thought long and hard about the "conventions" of society. If you're of a similar age to this reviewer, you'll have probably lived through the experience of the manic house clean, the wearing of "the good clothes" and the general heightened buzz that went with contact with social elites - the doctors, banks managers, religious leaders and teachers that we were told to look up to. So many of those supposed "leaders" turning out to have been people that systematically used their power and influence to ... Read review

Recently we lucked upon one of those fabulous episodes of Would I Lie To You? in which David Mitchell has to guess if Bob Mortimer is telling the truth or not. Regular viewers of the show will realise that this is the stuff of minor legend now, with Mitchell doubting his own sanity in these moments, because no matter how outrageous, he simply can't tell whether the yarns that Mortimer is able to spin are the truth or a lie. And to be fair, most viewers would have a similar experience (perhaps without the existential shouty angst that Mitchell now displays). Needless to say, the tales ... Read review

The fourth entry in the Silvermoon Retirement Village series, ANTIQUES AND ASSAULT is part of what's overall a cozy, fun series, with 98 year old Alice Atkinson at the centre of a maelstrom of murder, vice and goings on that would do more than rock a retirement home - but Alice, and the retirement village she secretly owns, are made of much sterner stuff. Just.

As always with this series, it's all about Alice, although this outing is also about her granddaughter Amanda. When Amanda was 12 she was targetted by somebody at school for reasons that she can't work out. Right ... Read review

It's going to come as no surprise to any readers of EVERYTHING TO HIDE, that author K.V. Martins is a fan of historical crime fiction, in particular, the work of Dame Agatha Christie. It should also come as no surprise that she has a background in history and archaeology.

This is a novel set in 1933 Sydney, Australia, with a strong hat tip to some of the well known interests and themes of Christie, set within the world of Egyptology, wealthy families, tyrannical fathers, weekend house parties, and a locked room scenario. In this case Detective Senior Sergeant Harold ... Read review

Okay, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, what DO they put in the water supply in Scotland. Or maybe it's because of the notoriously dire weather - people are indoors and a percentage of them turn to writing. Don't know. But whatever it is, I hope they keep it up as there are some terrific books coming out of there.

BLOOD IN THE WATER is the first Alice Rice mystery - the second WHERE THE SHADOW FALLS is now also available. In this debút, there's an interesting character being formed. She's a little sketchy in some places in this book, but in compensation there is a ... Read review

Jane McDonald has been working as a contract tracer in Sydney's western suburbs, during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Contact tracers get used to working with a huge range of people and they expect to patiently work through all sorts of issues, making sure that everyone keeps themselves, and the community safe during this very unusual time. But it's hard not to get involved, and Jane is really concerned when a close contact of somebody with the virus is hysterical and terrified of what her fiance's reaction will be when it's revealed she's been in contact with her own cousin, who has now ... Read review

If you're new to the Judi Westerholme series, it's one of those featuring a slightly older, marginally wiser, female character who's in too deep and doing the two steps forward, one step dance that quite a few of us might recognise. It's a great series, with a believable, slightly manic central character that's keeping her head above water by sheer willpower and, some would say, the slightly delusional idea that she alone will just have to sort it out.

Which, to be fair, she's good at. In many ways. The series started out with TRUST ME, I'M DEAD, then DEAD AND GONE, and ... Read review

THE WRONG WOMAN is the first foray from J.P. Pomare overtly set in the US, and it was, for this reader, utterly seamless in its evocation of an American feeling small town. Helped a lot by the central character ex-cop, now Private Investigator Reid being from this particular community, and all too aware of the politics therein, the society and personal pressures and how they can lead to all sorts of problems for all sorts of people. 

The novel relies on a lot of complications on a lot of levels. Starting out with Reid himself, an ex-cop, now private investigator, back in ... Read review

The world is a pretty awful place at the moment and there's no way I will stomach listening to a book that casually talks about animal cruelty. So this was a DNF with extreme nope.Read review