All the Reviews

The first in a series flagged as the Kat Munroe thrillers, DEATH COUNT introduces Forensic Accountant Kat. She's renowned in that role, one of the best at chasing down fraud, identity theft, scams, money laundering and illegal money making schemes. She also lives with the shock and life changing consequences of serious injury, after losing a hand in a car accident, her boyfriend at the time drunk, driving the car which injured Kat so badly, and killed her friend. There are aspects of that crash and this case which intertwine unexpectedly for Kat and for DS Adam Jackson - a man with ... Read review

Des Hunt was a science and technology teacher for many years, interspersed with periods of curriculum development both in New Zealand and overseas, and he's an author that seems need little or no introduction to readers in his native land. RED EDGE is, however, the first of his books I've been fortunate enough to read, pitched at a young audience, his aims of fostering interest in the natural world and children's surrounding obvious.

Obvious without being preachy or overblown I'd hasten to add, RED EDGE introduces many of it's themes and concepts through the eyes of the ... Read review

This year I promised myself a read through of the entire Pushkin Vertigo series, starting out with SHE WHO WAS NO MORE by Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud (aka Thomas Narcejac), originally published in 1952. Collaborating as they did on mainly police stories I found the idea that Boilea was responsible for the plot and Narcejac the atmosphere and characters particularly intriguing. Both of which aspects really delivered in this novel - the story of an unfaithful husband, his ambitious doctor lover Lucienne, and his passive, stay at home wife Mireille. Lucience and Fernard Ravinel ... Read review

Set in a fictitious location in Melbourne, timed to coincide with one of those blazing hot, drought and bushfire plagued summers, FOR REASONS OF THEIR OWN is a debut novel introducing DI Robbie Gray and her new to town offsider Mac, a young Aboriginal policeman who has been moved out of the NT after turning whistleblower about the treatment of young detainees in a notorious prison. (That aspect of this book is definitely going to ring some very unpleasant bells for Australian readers).

The discovery of a dead body in a swamp on the edge of Melbourne sets off a chain of ... Read review

The opening novel in The Matakana Series, New Zealand based, Swedish born author Madeleine Eskedahl has set this story in one of the true gems of NZ locations, one that obviously means a lot to her. Matakana is a picturesque small town, increasingly devoted to wine growing, farmers markets, roadside stalls, close enough to Auckland to be a tourist destination, but with more than enough people turning it into a lifestyle home location as well.

Making the action in BLOOD ON VINES even more of a contrast between the idyllic location, and a series of violent murders, starting ... Read review

CAVE DIVER is an action-packed, seat of the pants styled thriller, with huge villains, big threats and a single flawed protagonist trying to save the day. It recently won a Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, along with an Adventure Writers Competition Clive Cussler Grandmaster Award and is one of those books that readers of thrillers are going to love, or hate, depending mostly on whether the high-octane pace, and action packed pages do enough to distract you from some things that kind of feel a bit flat for this reader - a fan of big, wild ride thrillers normally.

The ... Read review

The first in a projected series named for crime reporter Reggie da Costa, THE DEATH MASK MURDERS is set in 1918 in Melbourne, where a wild storm comes out of nowhere, battering Brighton, forcing two strangers - would be artist, country girl, and companion Emma Hart (who was mildly injured by a falling tree in the storm) and shell-shocked returned serviceman Max Rushforth (who rescues her) to take shelter in the cellar of a derelict mansion, where they discover three death masks, and the lair of a previously unidentified serial killer.

Stepping back a bit from the summary ... Read review

The start of what one selfishly hopes is a long series, THE LONG GAME, introduces readers to Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer. She's back at work after a traumatic incident, working with her old homicide partner Charlie, accompanied by her service dog, the gorgeous Harry, who helps her handle the flashbacks from her past, to say nothing of providing more than a few intuitive emotional clues in her current investigation.

With barely a chance to dust off the desk, Zoe and Charlie are assigned to an odd death - a local surfer, good sort of a bloke - estranged from his wife, ... Read review

If you're going to be a business lawyer dragged into criminal matters by an old school friend who gets himself into a heap of trouble, then the mean streets you walk somehow seem considerably more exotic when they are the laneways, byways and desert tracks of Gibraltar and Tangiers.

SHADOW OF THE ROCK is the first Spike Sanguinetti novel from UK author Thomas Mogford. An old-fashioned hard-boiled style thriller, this book is not short of a lot of running around, some lurking, a lot of our hero lost in a strange new world, a love interest, some unexpected threats, a big ... Read review