All the Reviews

Serial killer storylines.  We've all said it.  Over it.  One more serial killer storyline and I swear.....   So I'll adjust previous assertions and instead say I'm over SOME serial killer storylines.

THE PRIEST, the first crime novel from Irish author Gerard O'Donovan has a serial killer that actually doesn't kill all of his victims.  Instead they are horribly injured, disfigured, tortured and abused, but they don't all die.  And our serial attacker is one of those mad, bad, weird religious nutter types - the burns that he leaves his victim's with eventually reveal that ... Read review

Margie Orford lists, among many other activities, that she does Advocacy work for a Rape Crisis group in South Africa, so it's not very surprising LIKE CLOCKWORK looks very closely at the horrific consequences of rape and extreme violence against women.  Because of that there's nothing particularly easy about reading this book, but it definitely fulfils one of my major preferences in crime fiction - which is to inform the reader.  No matter how uncomfortable that information can sometimes be.

Dr Clare Hart is a police profiler who lives on Cape Town's Seapoint promenade, ... Read review

Eurocrime is really a tremendous imprint, providing some real little gems of books from a range of different cultural backgrounds. These books provide the crime reader with a glimpse into another culture.  And make you realise that whilst some things are very different, more often it's the similarities that are surprising.

The things that THE PRIEST OF EVIL shows are the same in Finland, as they are where I come from, include the way that people can be invisible.  Sometimes it's because of age, often it's age and gender combined.  The other thing that seems to be ... Read review

BLACK ICE is the first of German author Hans Werner Kettenbach's novels to be translated into English, and it's taken me from it's original publication date of 2005 to read it.  Which is good in one way as there appears to have been more books since then.  Which are now on my immediate buy list and I know that is probably going to sound very strange, as this isn't a particularly straightforward book.

Scholten, the long-time employee of Erica Wallman, isn't a pleasant man.  He's probably one of the most unpleasant characters I've encountered in crime fiction for quite a ... Read review

Hilda is writing her memoir, so it's probably just as well that Rumpole doesn't know what she is doing locked away in the boxroom for hours on end.  But Rumpole is very busy telling his own story of how he nearly lost his livelihood (aka the Timson family clan), and found himself involved in the new world of Terrorism trials.

Despite being extremely concerned about the wherewithal to support both the ongoing requirement for furniture police, Fairy Liquid, scrubbing brushes and Vim alongside his own meagre indulgences in Chateau Thames, Rumpole's sense of justice is ... Read review

Big conspiracies, cyber-threats and nefarious company goings on aren't my favourite thriller material, so I was more than a little worried about my reactions to THE GENESIS FLAW.  This is a first book from Australian author L.A. Larkin (who, from her blurb, works for one of Australia's leading climate change consultancies).  The author's background, and the sorts of research listed that went into the book did make it something I thought might be worth having a look at despite my personal preferences.

There's an interesting combination of settings in THE GENESIS FLAW.  The ... Read review

Dialogue.  It's something I'm increasingly aware of, as it should be part of the way that an author can show (as opposed to tell) the reader what the characters are seeing, thinking, considering, experiencing.  Combine really good dialogue with a feasible plot and an author can transport the reader to the world that they are building within the book.  Poor dialogue on the other hand yanks the reader out of the immersion experience and makes a book a less enjoyable experience.  Obviously the problem with this is defining what is "good dialogue".  For this reader, it's all about ... Read review

You really have to worry about Cliff Hardy.  Every year he seems to dig himself a bigger, deeper more dramatic hole and he's not as young as he thinks he is.  

Or so it seems from these books, but realistically Cliff is timeless.  He has to be - don't try to do the maths of how old he must be - your brain will hurt or you could suddenly wonder why you're not quite such an action hero when you're nowhere near Cliff's age!  Cliff's timelessness is part of his attraction, as is his blatant disregard for the rules, personal safety, and doctors advice.  In recent years he has ... Read review

I originally read and reviewed REDBACK when it was released in 2007 by MIRA Press, so when Clan Destine republished it, I was really really interested to see if it would hold up well, particularly given that it has a number of quite topical references (okay well some digs as well) for the time.

At the time I mentioned that REDBACK is a quite a step away from Cameron's Kit O'Malley series - it's very much a big, pacey thriller, peopled with strong characters (male and female), a complicated yet disconcertingly believable multi-threaded plot and a hefty dose of subtle ... Read review