All the Reviews

When Pamela, Lady Scawton discovers a stranger dead in the woods near the family home, Ashly House, it triggers a multi-generational, multi-timeline search for the truth. The stranger was carrying an odd stone in his pocket, along with a letter addressed to Pamela's dead husband. Pamela is a good person, generous and very down to earth, unaffected by the title although greatly attached to the estate she has called home for many years. She has, however, endured many years of abuse from her overbearing husband and a selfish, over-entitled brat of a son.

The stone turns out ... Read review

Michael Robotham’s crime novels have always had an easy grace about them, somehow managing to be dense works without appearing to be so.  As with all second novels, the second novel of a new series has much on the line in proving to fickle readers that their leap of faith into new territory was warranted.  We visit again with criminal psychologist Cyrus Haven in When She Was Good.

Evie Cormac, the infamous ‘Angel Face’, is now approaching legal age in which she will soon be processed out of the failing model that is the British foster home system.  Evie is still keeping ... Read review

The third book in the Alex Clayton Art Mystery series sees a shift of setting to the Western District of Victoria and one of those big pastoral leases that were such a part of the landscape down there. The title of the novel "The Shifting Landscape" is quite cleverly pitched referring as it does to the way that farming has changed in recent years, the way that succession creates issues for so many of those generational farming families, and the way that changing perceptions of the landscape are finally starting to come about.

Along with the main thread, that of the ... Read review

An assassin thriller with a twist CUTTING THE CORD features Amira Knox, a member of a secret terrorist group - the Authenticity Movement. Raised in the group, after being adopted by the leader as an infant, Amira and her siblings have been trained as an elite group of assassins, tasked with the elimination of affluent Europeans, identified as enemies of the movement's purpose by her father.

What you end up with in CUTTING THE CORD is a classic thriller styled novel, with an unusual premise in that this assassin is searching for meaning in her own life, increasingly aware ... Read review

Every now and then a book sneaks into my reading pile that absolutely and utterly defies this reader's ability to describe it, the affect it had, and the experience of reading it. A NEW NAME FOR THE COLOUR BLUE was simply amazing. Beautiful, moving, haunting, fragile and deceptive: actually deceptive doesn't cut it, sneaky is better, in a good, clever and enlightening way. Incredibly sneaky in the way it weaves a tale of domestic violence, of control and expectation, grief, abandonment, and the pain of growing up and away from family; into the slide into acceptance of the past and how ... Read review

DEATH OF AN AGENT is the fourth "kiwi spy story" featuring ex-detective / spycatcher Dan Delaney. Historical crime fiction, based on real-life events this is a series that's been getting better and better, with this outing pleasingly comical in some places, as well as a rip-roaring yarn into the bargain.

Set in 1965, Ru Patterson, NZ's leading broadcaster is organising a protest against US President Johnson's envoy - Henry Cabot Lodge - to pressure New Zealand to send troops, whilst around him, the anti-Vietnam war protests are expanding. When Patterson is found ... Read review

Wanting what others have fast becomes a fatal obsession in The Other Passenger.  Whether that be your job, your house, your bank balance or your relationships, perhaps there is always someone in your circle of friends and acquaintances who feels that for you in particular, it all came a bit too easy.

Unable to cope with the suffocating commute that is the London underground, Jamie has been instead working nine hours a day at a café not far from the Thames.  For a man in his late forties, it’s a bit of a step down from his previous corporate position, but as time goes on, ... Read review

I've said before how much I particularly love The Witches subset of the Discworld novels, and I think this is possibly my favourite of them all. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are particularly resourceful, difficult, funny, enterprising and very determined in their desire to sort out the mess at a big city opera house, when a shadowy Phantom figure is killing people and frightening the living daylights out of many others. They are aided in their quest by a famous opera singer who is well sick of foreign food for reasons that aren't known to many - except the enquiring mind of Nanny ... Read review

It is more than fitting that the final word from Peter Corris would be curated by his wife, and long-time editor, Jean Bedford. The chosen short stories are perfect examples of his work, and the 'ABC Of Crime Writing' is every bit as insightful, acerbic, funny and thought-provoking as you'd want it to be. The columns from Newtown Review of Books are the icing on the very satisfying cake that is SEE YOU AT THE TOXTETH.

Those of us who were lucky enough to be around when Corris first started writing the Cliff Hardy novels will remember many of the original collections from ... Read review