All the Reviews

Book 22 in the Discworld series, this is book 6 in the Rincewind subseries, Rincewind being a wizard, if you believe his hat, and an adventurer by accident, definitely not choice.

In THE LAST CONTINENT Pratchett is taking a good hard look at evolution and I just absolutely love the blurb on this book, and the whole darn book made me laugh, a lot. Which is high praise as obviously The Last Continent is a reference to Australia, and god knows so many satirists get everything and everybody in this place wrong so often, you can't help but marvel.

Pie floaters get ... Read review

In very fortunate timing just before I started listening to this, we'd finished watching the television movie made of the book staring Ian Richardson as the voice of Death (and narrator), David Jason as Albert, Marc Warren as Teatime, and Michelle Dockery as Susan. Really enjoyed this adaptation, not least because the cast really worked. And, it turned out, that the plot although obviously condensed considerably from the book wasn't bad either.

I do love the books featuring Susan. The ultimate governess type with the slightly disapproving manner and the deadly attitude when ... Read review

Christchurch based author Paul Cleave has had a way of creating scenarios, and settings for his novels that have kept this reader awake and mildly anxious for a long time now. WHATEVER IT TAKES is a bit of a departure from his previous style, set in the USA, eschewing a lot of the slight paranormal elements that have been part of his previous books - making this particularly intriguing reading.

Cleave is, as fans of his are acutely aware, one of the great storytellers. His characters inhabit the places they move through, and the plots they encounter with considerable ... Read review

New Years Eve often involves some reflection, some celebration, and some odd goings on. For Aimee, Melinda and Lou, starting out their celebration with an illegal Chinese lantern ceremony. Filling each lantern with their own resolution, the women light them and they lift off, after which they soon notice a flare of fire in the distance. Was it lucky, or something very bad (and for this reader why the hell didn't they ring the fire brigade, or the police or do SOMETHING it's JANUARY IN AUSTRALIA for god's sake!)

The next day, and the discovery that the flare was a small ... Read review

This review comes with what is now the standard warning, this really is a series that needs to be read in order. There's a lot going on with Special Agent Ellie Iverson and it always feels like the backstory helps enormously when keeping everything that is happening sorted out.

In short, SAC Iverson works for a special unit within the FBI - known as Delta teams. There are multiple Delta teams out there, and Iverson is now in charge of three of them, but still working in the field with Delta A - a group of officers that she knows and has cared about for a long time now. ... Read review

Mirror twins are identical twins, with some opposing physical features, so when they are facing each other they can appear as mirrored reflections. Birthmarks can be on opposite sides, cowlicks may run clockwise on one twin and counterclockwise on the other, and so on. In some extreme cases the internal organs of one twin can be on the other side from normal presentation.

Rose Carlyle's debut novel THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR has, as its main characters, Iris and Summer - mirror twins, startlingly alike, with that rare presentation of internal organs. They also have very ... Read review

Journalist Katherine Firkin has written her debut crime novel, inspired, according to the blurb, by the many criminal trials she has covered. You can't help but spare a thought for the sorts of things trial attendees have to sit through when finishing STICKS AND STONES.

It's difficult not to assume that this is intended as the beginning of a series, particularly as there's quite a hefty dose of personal and back story here, and for quite a while, readers might be a bit confused about who the central character is intended to be: recently promoted Head of the Missing ... Read review

A MURDER AT MALABAR HILL introduces Miss Perveen Mistry, a young lawyer-turned-sleuth in 1920's Bombay. This novel is the winner of (amongst other awards), the 2019 Mary Higgins Clark Award, the 2019 Lefty Award for Best Historical novel and the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel. It is, needless to say, from the cosier side of the genre equation.

The debut novel in a series, a lot of focus in this outing is on setting up the character and experience of Perveen Mistry. She's India's first female solicitor, a young woman in her mid twenties, working alongside her ... Read review

An understated set of short stories, reading this collection reminded me that the range of difficulties encountered when settling in a foreign country, one that you don't speak the dominant language of, and in which the culture, food, and acceptable behaviours differ so much from your native land, are about as wide ranging and complex as they possibly can be.

The title story makes a light-hearted, but pointed, exploration of learning to pronounce the simplest of things in English. Many native English speakers will have tales to tell of spectacular mispronunciations (I've ... Read review