All the Reviews

I've been wracking my brains trying to come up with a concise, reasoned analysis of this book but I can't.

I even thought I'd wait until after yesterday's f2f bookclub to see if anybody was able to come up with anything that would give me an insight into how the book may have worked for somebody, but I still can't.

Perhaps it's a short story that got carried away, perhaps it is, as one person theorised, research for a degree that somehow got a publishing contract.

The voice of the main character may have been aiming for twit, but ended up coming across ... Read review

What pulls the reader in hook, line and sinker into this “domestic noir” is that all the fraught scenarios we read of in THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR are only a couple of shaky steps off the normal path of married domesticity, walked by most of us every day.   This makes the events in this fast moving book even more frightening to consider; it is only one mother’s group discussion away from our own possible realities. 

The book does stumble occasionally with poor construction, notably in the scenes between married couple Anne and Marco.  Lots of meaningful looks here with little ... Read review

Two recent Australian crime novels – a PI mystery set in Thailand and a police procedural in Canberra – give a strong sense of place. 

The Dying Beach is the third Jayne Keeney book from Angela Savage, following on closely from Behind the Night Bazaar and The Half-Child. The series is set in various parts of Thailand, a country Private Investigator Keeney, originally from Melbourne, loves and feels a strong affinity for. She speaks the language, mostly understands the sensitivities of the local people, and lives and works ... Read review

Leah Giarratano, forensic psychologist, crime fiction writer and consummate storyteller has just released her third novel - BLACK ICE. As with both of the earlier books, Giarratano takes the reader deep into a specific world of crime and criminal behaviour, the theme in BLACK ICE is illegal drugs.

Readers of the two earlier books will know about DS Jill Jackson, a survivor of child sexual abuse, she has fought her way back from despair and continues, ever so gradually, to get control of her life and to deal with the memories of what happened to her. BLACK ICE adds another ... Read review

BELLA'S RUN is definitely not the sort of thing that I would normally read, but working with Margareta Osborn on her website made it nearly impossible not to notice a certain buzz around this book, which frankly, intrigued me. And every now and then, a little step away from the well worn path isn't going to kill me. Is it?

Starting BELLA'S RUN, I had no idea what to expect, and a combination of my personal disinterest in romance themes, and the amount of acclaim for the book did have me a little worried, as I am a bit of a curmudgeon who suffers from hype-hypersensitivity ... Read review

The 4th book in the Max Cámara series, which means if, like this reader, you've missed the first three, there's something to look forward to.

Set in post financial meltdown Spain, BLOOD MED is part crime fiction, part police procedural, part analysis of a society that's bottomed out. The King's illness seems to have provided yet more impetus for riots and thugs roaming the streets. Against this backdrop the brutal murder of a young American woman, and the suspect suicide of an ex-bank clerk seem oddly dwarfed. Not helped by the Machiavellian games being played by Cámara's ... Read review

When THE MIDNIGHT PROMISE won the Ned Kelly Award in 2013 it was impossible not to agree wholeheartedly with the judges' decision. That book telegraphed clearly here was an author to be followed closely. Three years on, BLACK TEETH is worth the wait. Unusual, dark, often funny, always disquieting, this is an intriguing novel.

In it, the lives of two loners, slightly lost men, collide as they search for the same man. One, Jason Ginaff is a technical wiz. He earns his living researching job candidates, finding out the things that people don't want discovered. Raised by a ... Read review

Barry Weston's debut novel THE LONG CON, brings Queenslander and ex-cop, now PI, Frank Cousins to the mean streets of Hobart in search of a client, good pizza, a lot of booze and coffee, and with a bit of luck, Detective Sharon Becker. In the aftermath of The Fitzgerald Inquiry into Police Corruption in Queensland, Cousins was not best pleased to discover the funds he'd salted away from the backhanders known as 'The Joke', have relocated along with his wife. An unfortunate encounter with her and her new live-in lover means that Cousins has to make himself scarce in a big hurry. ... Read review

A debut crime novel from Australia, THE FINGERPRINT THIEF is written with the focus on the forensic technician. Not that surprising given the "CSI Effect" that so many people talk about these days. Set in Melbourne, the novel uses Melbourne's Williamstown Beach as the location of the body, with the action set within that inner-city environment, on the fringes of Melbourne's CBD, developing a somewhat dark and sombre atmosphere, quite fitting for the action and location.

Reading is such a personal experience that often it's possible to find that, despite a personal dislike ... Read review