All the Reviews

The first book, THE HOLIDAY MURDERS marked a change in series, but not style, for author Robert Gott. Much of this author's crime fiction writing has concentrated on historical time periods, in particular around the second world war.

This reader was very impressed with the first book. It introduced a range of new characters in the newly formed Homicide department of Victoria Police, from Inspector Titus Lambert (and his wife), Detective Joe Sable and Constable Helen Lord. Events from that book physically and mentally scar Joe Sable, scars that he carries forward, along ... Read review

Originally published in Norway in 1995, Gunnar Staalesen's The Writing on The Wall is set in Bergen Norway in the early '90s. Private Eye Varg Veum returns from the funeral of his ex-wife's most recent husband to find the distressed mother of missing 16 year old girl Torild waiting to see him. Around the same time Bergen is buzzing with rumours about the death of Judge Brandt after he is found dead in a hotel room wearing flimsy female underwear.

Veum starts digging into the last known sightings and movements of Torild and her few friends - all of which seem to centre ... Read review

For reasons that escape me, Paul Cleave doesn't seem to have the profile, or the world-wide awareness that he absolutely and utterly deserves. He's one of those authors that consistently turns out something different, something that is designed to challenge the reader, and always something that's absolutely impossible to put down.

With TRUST NO ONE he's come up with an absolutely stunning plot: an author of crime fiction, with early onset Alzheimer's who has now been moved to a nursing home, somehow connected to an ongoing series of murders. As the blurb puts it: ... Read review

“…last night’s dreams had slipped into waking hours again, plucking at his thoughts with their blood-stained fingers.”

With her first novel, Resurrection Bay, Emma Viskic not only announced herself as a novelist to watch she also created a lead character in Caleb Zelic who you hoped could be sustained through a series of novels. That hope does however place a weight of expectation on subsequent novels and when I sat down to read And Fire Came Down, the second Caleb Zelic novel, I wondered if it would carry that expectation? I certainly think it does, and ... Read review

The structure of trilogies must have some appeal for McKinty, not just because he has previous form. From the outside you can see that it could be quite a challenge to build a character's life and explore events in a proscribed number of books. And then it's over. For this reader it's a very bitter sweet experience. Especially when, from book number one, this series cemented itself as a big part of January's expectations.

Part of the appeal is obviously the central character Sean Duffy. An outsider in his own country and his own community, it's that viewpoint that makes ... Read review

In 2006 THE CLEANER was released and the opportunity to review it provided this reader with a life-long obsession with Paul Cleave's books (and a sneaking suspicion he was trying to scare me half to death!)

In my review at that time I said:

"Early on in this book, I'll be perfectly honest, I was thinking that the world could really do without another self-impressed, self-involved, self-narrating serial killer and about the time I was ready to throw this out the nearest window, bang, Cleave

... Read review

A debut novel set in a small Australian town, The Dark Lake is a police procedural with a hefty dose of romantic tension. Reviewed at Newtown Review of BooksRead review

Part history lesson, part social exploration, the Sean Duffy series from Irish-Australian writer Adrian McKinty is required crime fiction reading. Reviewed at: Newtown Review of BooksRead review

This has been a book that's been in the back of my mind as a "must read" for a long time.  It combines that most fascinating (to me) of components of crime fiction - a mystery and an insight into life and the thinking of another culture - one that's totally different to my own.  Whilst a lot of "authority" want the death of the young couple to just be written down to "Love suicide", Detective Torigai is not so sure.  Kenichi Sayama has that dining car receipt in his wallet, it's from the last train journey witnesses say he boarded with Otoki.  Yet the receipt only mentions a meal for ... Read review