All the Reviews

Melbourne author Fiona Hardy has broken very different ground with her crime fiction debut Unbury the Dead.

Hardy is well-known in crime fiction circles as a Melbourne bookseller, crime fiction reviewer and, more recently, an award-winning author of children’s books. There’s always been talk that she’s been working on a crime novel, and the result is out now in Unbury the Dead, the story of two best mates, Teddy and Alice, and their unusual way of earning a living.

Alice is a young mother ... Read review

This book should have come with a warning - I mean a blurb that simply said 'Lawyers, drugs, deaths, and sneakiness, in New Zealand.' just doesn't cut it. 

It should have mentioned:

• Shouldn't be read in public unless you want people to think you're having a breakdown;
• Definitely shouldn't be read if you're planning a serious and earnest career in the law;
• Might not necessarily reflect the reality of the practice of law in New Zealand (that one's more of fervent hope than a warning);
... Read review

Fans of Jane Austen are going to feel right at home with Miss Caroline Bingley for a lot of reasons - the style of this novel fits right into the period, the central characters are reimagined versions of those straight out of Pride and Prejudice, and the sense of place and time is strong. Granted Miss Bingley and her dear friend Georgiana are considerably more ... what's the word .. active, maybe freer than the original version. Granted also it's been a long time since I read Pride and Prejudice and I'm no Janeite (if that's the right word). 

Set a couple of years after ... Read review

Originally published in 2022, this is a series that slipped past me, but something drew my attention to the setting mostly, and after this last awful summer, reading about Mallee towns in the heat sounded like a fictional pursuit that might distract from the reality outside the door.

In this series, Greg Bowker is a  young senior constable who got himself in a bit of bother in Ballarat, and was transferred to a one-officer station in Manangatang, town that is still going despite all declarations of the imminent death. In an interesting twist the author was raised on a ... Read review

Not for a moment would this reviewer wish to suggest that this is a time in history when the murder of an obnoxious rich person, on a luxury island, busily engaged in being obnoxious and threatening to all and sundry is an enjoyable idea, but it did come across, in this novel, as particularly pleasing. In a not as uncomfortable as as you'd think way.

THE PRIVATE ISLAND by Ali Lowe is a take on a locked room scenario, combined with some filthy rich unpleasant people and some not so filthy rich, but guests as well people, who all come together with a lot of motives to want ... Read review

The opening line of HUMIDITY made me laugh:

Word gets 'round when you're a nude model in a small country town.

That would most definitely get around our nearby small country town, even though it could never be said that we have the rampant violence and hellish humidity referred to in the book's blurb.

An unusual crime novel, HUMIDITY is set in a one of those small towns that has lost most of its economic basis and is slowly dying as a result. The story revolves around Ben, a broke, desperately lonely, lost sort ... Read review

A standalone from the author of the well-known Gemma Woodstock series, THE HOUSEMATE is a story told in two timelines. Back to nine years ago when three housemates were sharing a property, one of them is killed, one goes missing, one is accused of murder. The current timeline sees journalist Oli Groves, who worked on the original murder story as a junior reporter, still a reporter, drawn back to a case she has always been obsessed with, when the missing housemate turns up, possibly as a suicide, at a Dandenong Ranges property.

The basis of this story is an intriguing one ... Read review

Ten years ago six teenagers hiked into the wilderness and five of them came back alive. They were school friends. Ed (whose family farm was their starting off point), Hugh, Charlotte, Laura, Jack and Alex, close, but with the sorts of slightly complicated romantic attachments and fractures that you find in groups of kids of that age. Nobody for a moment thought that this would be a dangerous hike, they were experienced walkers, fit, and Ed knew this area from a childhood growing up here. Only Ed died, and for the ten years since his mother Mary has had plenty of time to think about her beloved only child's death.Read review

There's a few books in this house that sit on the "reread bits" stack permanently, and this is one of them. There are so many coloured tags sticking out of my copy it looks like it's growing something, and in a way it is. 

Very pointed and frequently subversive Yunkaporta's voice in this one is incredibly strong, powerful and just ever so slightly sarcastic at points. It's funny, it's generous, and it's educational. So lives up to the subtitle "How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World". I mean I have no idea why we would for ... Read review