All the Reviews

I do like a bit of a romp novel, and LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is nothing if not a bit of a romp.  Which surprised me a bit - because the blurb sounded just a little dauntingly like it might be too chick-lit for me.  But Jennifer Rowe's return to mystery writing has hugely exciting, so exciting I picked up this book as soon as it arrived.

Set in the Blue Mountains (Rowe's home territory it seems), LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is, you'd have to hope, the first outing of accidental Private Detective Holly Love.  I say accidental as she starts out as an office worker who chucked ... Read review

It's odd the things that come to mind when you're reading a book. THE SIMPLE DEATH had me very worried for central character Nicholas Troy's female colleagues. Given that he seems to spend a lot of his time jumping into bed with other women as soon as something goes wrong with his own life (not just including his wife's Post Natal Depression / leaving him etc from the first book), that I'm really worried what's going to happen if he ever gets knocked back on a promotion.

It's a pity that the personal behaviour of Nicholas follows a rather predictable, well worn track now ... Read review

A combination of past and present storylines, throw in some some ancient religious elements, and publishers can't seem to stop themselves from doing the "If you like Dan Brown... line".  Whilst fans of Dan Brown could very well find this book appealing, non-fans shouldn't necessarily regard the attribution as a warning flag.

DCI Jack Pendragon arrives at Brick Lane police station, and is immediately thrown into the search for a killer who seems to have a touch of madness about him.  Unknown to Pendragon there's a history to the ancient skeleton that was found on a ... Read review

There are some books that it is just flat out a relief to finish.  Too much sleep deprivation and the dust bunnies can start to look like they are moving into formations for the final onslaught.  FALLING GLASS really cheats a lot.  Having become a somewhat besotted Michael Forsythe fan, I did think I could approach FALLING GLASS with the vague hope of keeping reasonable hours.  He plays a bit part only in this book after all, with the action centred around enforcer Killian.  Should have known better.  McKinty writes that brand of dark, violent, no holds barred, tempered with touches ... Read review

To my mind, the very best crime fiction in the world provides a window into the world in which it is set.  Be that the psyche of the people, the machinations of the society, how a community is structured and operates, the laws and mores, even the way in which authorities deal with the disorder, how they implement authority.  DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is set in Shanghai in 1990, a year after Tiananmen Square, an ancient city with a population tightly controlled by the Communist Party.  Poet Chen Cao is an unlikely policeman, forced into the job by the party system, he's caught between a ... Read review

The strange thing about starting out reading a book like LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER was a vague feeling of uncertainty.  Mostly because the man at the centre of this book - Derek Ernest Percy - has one of those names that instantly rings very loud bells.  Uncertainty because despite knowing that he's the man that so many law-enforcement agencies in Australia are convinced is a multiple child-killer, I found I didn't really know much about him at all.  At the end of LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER, the disturbing thing is that you still aren't going to know a lot about what makes the man tick.  No ... Read review

I'm more than a bit of a fan of books by Paul Thomas.  I'm more than a bit of a fan of his short stories now as well.  SEX CRIMES is a series of fantastic short stories themed around sex.  As the blurb puts it "exploring the unpredictable and sometimes fatal consequences that can occur when sex rears its not-so-uly head."  (To say nothing of the odd looks you get when you're sat in public places, with a book which declares it's title obviously on the cover, and you, the reader, are snickering and outright laughing at points).  Needless to say - this book quickly became a home based ... Read review

A f2f bookclub read, I started this book with high hopes, having just finished another with what seemed like a similar concept. A scenario that had some serious potential, this book started off okay but quickly just seemed to degenerate into a mish-mash of making the reader feel sorry (attracted to / interested in) a central character that was just... well boring. Unfortunately this feeling of being bored was compounded by some extremely predictable events, actions and outcomes. Perhaps the idea was to show how somebody unwittingly gets involved with things that they shouldn't. ... Read review

I doubt it's much of a coincidence being a big fan of the scripts and the acting in the TV Series NEW TRICKS, that I'm also a fan of the DCI Mark Lapslie series.  After all, Nigel McCrery is a writer and creator of both.  (Along with many other excellent TV series including Silent Witness and All the King's Men.)

SCREAM is the third in the DCI Mark Lapslie series, Lapslie being an unusual central protagonist who suffers from a particularly acute form of synaesthesia.  In other words he experiences sounds as a variety of different flavours.  Which makes receiving a very ... Read review