All the Reviews

Cop-turned novelist, Nathan Blackwell (true identity hidden due to covert police operations) has written a debut novel, THE SOUND OF HER VOICE, which is intense, unsparing, realistic, brutal and will stay with the reader for a long time.

Every year the Ngaio Marsh awards for New Zealand crime fiction throw up an unexpected perspective, something brave and unusual that will set you back on your heels and make you think. For this reviewer, this year, that book was THE SOUND OF HER VOICE. In what's a combination of police procedural, and tragic police perspective, Detective ... Read review

What is evident early on to Martin is that the events as reported by a colleague at the time of the shootings are not marrying up with the recollections being related to him now in the present day. For such a remote community, the loss of five of its men was a huge blow and has wrought huge changes in the lives of people used to the world largely only passing through their tiny home town.  When two bodies are found in the local dam, the outside world again turns its attention to Riversend.

What might strike the reader first is that SCRUBLANDS reeks of authenticity. ... Read review

Kiwi-Irish author Julie Parsons book THE THERAPY HOUSE is an intricate pscyhological observation, interweaving current day crime with Irish history to great effect.

Exploring history and crime in terms of it's impact on survivors and/or families and on society in general, THE THERAPY HOUSE is absorbing, chilling, intricate and beautifully written. At the heart of the novel, Garda Inspector Michael McLoughlin is attempting retirement, doing a bit of PI work on the side, but mostly restoring a beautiful old house in the Dublin suburbs - a house that turns out to have as ... Read review

Living in an area that's got more than it's fair share of talented artists, there's something strangely appealing about crime fiction set in the art world. (I'm not implying anything about the people that live here, nor their likelihood of becoming victims and/or perpetrators). But it's a little mined area of interest, and in Katherine Kovacic's novel, THE PORTRAIT OF MOLLY DEAN, it's gold.

Molly (Mollie) Dean was a real person, teacher, writer, poet, artist's model and lover of Meldrumite painter and Melbourne art world identity Colin Colahan. (For more on her see  ... Read review

The world sure as hell needs something to laugh at, and it could use a lot more caper novels. Especially ones where things are manic, odd, downright daft on occasions and a bit of just good old fashioned silly fun. With car chases obviously. PERFECT CRIMINALS fits most of those requirements, with just a few minor quibbles. Danny Clay is ex-military, a scriptwriter now, he's a veteran of special operations with PTSD. His best friend, sort of pining love interest, Zan is the Australian born daughter of Vietnamese refugee parents, the girl next door, with a twist. She's scrupilously tidy ... Read review

Book One in the Claire Hardcastle series DEATH ON D'URVILLE, the second book STRAIGHT AND LEVEL was released in 2017. Operating out of Paraparaumu airport in New Zealand, Hardcastle is a commercial pilot and flying instructor, which gives the author an opportunity to play with a number of recurring themes including women working in what's traditionally been a male dominated industry, people with the sorts of nerves of steel required to fly and stick their nose into tricky investigations and the complications of dealing with (and being) an alpha personality type; as well as the freedom ... Read review

You’ve heard a fair bit of buzz about this novel? There’s an excellent reason for that! THE RUIN is a ripper of a read and remarkably polished for a debut novel.  Additionally, it is impressive as series entries face a much harder task in engaging instantly the fickle minds of crime readers.  The series read is (happily) prolific in the crime fiction sphere. There is a huge demand for police procedurals in particular and this rides largely on the strength of that immediacy of engagement with the cast of characters.  The reader needs to be sold as quickly as possible, and this is ... Read review

LIFTING is one of those books that is charming, slightly eccentric, sad, happy, and wonderfully engaging. Set primarily within the walls of the oldest department store in New Zealand, Wellington's Cutty's is an institution that's been marked for closure. Non-New Zealander / Wellington readers will be forgiven if you can't help but feel this is a real place, renamed for the purposes of fiction, as there is so much about the store and it's history, and the affection that the staff and customers have for it that feels real, and very heart-felt. For those on this side of the ditch there's ... Read review

There is much to like about MY HUSBANDS LIES.  We have an intimate view over the shoulders of four people who thought that they would be together forever, but in reality, time has been gradually easing them apart.   It’s a long time for a group of school friends to stay at this level of closeness, and you do get the feeling that this closeness has caused the differing levels of arrested development in all four.  It’s a little claustrophobic, and no one’s bad behaviour goes unnoticed.

The majority of this book will have you sharply curious as to what will happen to the fab ... Read review