All the Reviews

On the cover of THE SLEEPING DRAGON, Miyuki Miyabe is noted as Japan's Number 1 bestselling Mystery Writer, known for her ability to write strong suspense novels.  Which made this particular book an interesting prospect, even allowing for the inclusion of an ESP sub-thread which isn't often something I'm particularly comfortable with.

But I am very comfortable with something that has a strong sense of place, and a strong sense of the culture that it comes from.  Even allowing for the novel being translated, there remained something quintessentially Japanese about this ... Read review

WINK MURDER is the debut book from ex-journalist and sub-editor Ali Knight.  Given that the book is set within the cut-throat and odd world of tabloid television, perhaps her background has informed the way that the world of the media (albeit she worked in print) works.  

There was so much about the run down and the early part of this book that didn't appeal, I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to get to the end of it.  The high-flying husband returning late at night, drunk, covered in blood, muttering.  The stay at home mother with the part-time, lesser job in her husband's ... Read review

I really shouldn't get all impressed by a new cover, but having no idea whatsoever of who Essie Davis is, I was really pleased to see her popup on the re-release of Kerry Greenwood's first Phryne Fisher book COCAINE BLUES.  I think the casting people for the upcoming ABC TV series may just have done a very good job!

Re-releasing the books is an excellent idea, not just because of the TV tie in, but also because it gives old fans, as well as a new audience a chance to catch up with the opening onslaught of what is now up to 18 or something books, from which 13 episodes are ... Read review

BEYOND FEAR is journalist Jaye Ford's first book, billed as an adrenaline-pumped suspense thriller.  Which, if you're reading it with that aim in mind it absolutely is.  The book starts out with one of those scenes that just make you know something bad's going to happen.  Something very bad.  Four thirty-something women are heading off for a regular girls' weekend away, champagne in hand, towards a remote, recently renovated barn deep in isolated country Australia.  Jodie, the main character of the book, is a woman with a secret from her best friends.  So, when these woman are run off ... Read review

It didn't really come as much of a surprise that somebody has taken up the "girl in the cellar" storyline, although in SHE'S NEVER COMING BACK the victim is an adult woman, kidnapped on her way home from work, held in the cellar of the house opposite her own home.

Talking about this book is going to be a balancing act, as without giving away too much, there was just so much about it that simply did not work, that actually worried me.  Worried me to the point where I got my partner to sit down and read it as well, so that we were then able to discuss the concerns that, in ... Read review

There is life after Rebus, even if it comes in a package of polar opposites.  Rebus was an old school cop - murder squad, Malcolm Fox works for the cops who investigate other cops.  Rebus was more than prepared to ignore rules, stretch boundaries and stomp rather resoundingly all over team work.  Fox looks for just that sort of behaviour. Rebus was an unreformed grumpy drunk, Fox is a more carefully controlled man with a broken marriage, his drinking under control.  They are both solitary men, although with Rebus there was something satisfied about his aloneness, Fox's comes with a ... Read review

Before everything comes across just a bit gushy, there was a point somewhere in the middle of the Cliff Hardy series where I seriously lost interest.  Whilst there are some elements of the books that are always going to be the same, somehow the sameness became very obvious, there was something slightly flat about the storylines and, to this reader at least, nothing much engaged my interest.  I never totally gave up reading the series, but most definitely didn't shove things aside as each new book arrived.

And then, a few years ago, things changed.  Around the time that ... Read review

Rediscovery is exactly the word that needs to be applied to this small, but incredibly packed offering from renowned Senior Research Fellow Lucy Sussex.

Sussex has to be one of the greatest proponents of the discovery and telling of the tales of the earliest female writers - having now bought Mary Fortune to light, she has turned her hand to exploring not just the origins, but much of the history of early Women Writers and Detectives.  Proving once and for all that the crime genre was not just founded by a well-known group of men, many of the women in this book ( ... Read review

If, like me, you grew up on a diet of Len Deighton, Robert Ludlum and John Le Carre novels, there is a chance you're a bit of a fan of fast paced, military, espionage style novels.  DEFENDER OF THE FAITH is a recent entry in the what is rapidly becoming a large pool of choice for Australian readers.  

Set within our geographical and political sphere, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH introduces readers to Alex Morgan, special forces operative, good bloke, and all round bit of a hero.  The action in this book is really very realistic, and it's not difficult to believe highly informed ... Read review