All the Reviews

The Dead of Winter, Rennie Airth (review by sunniefromoz)

It‘s not often that I don’t finish a review book. I feel obligated to read the entire book in order to do justice to the review.

Sadly, I had to give up on THE DEAD OF WINTER. Not because it was a necessarily a poorly written book. I don’t think it is. I have read worse and finished them. So why did I give up at page 197 of a 408 page book? I ran headlong into one of my pet peeves. This particular peeve is when the author pauses the plot to give the back story of a character. It’s all very fine and dandy for a couple of major characters but when the reader is being ... Read review

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Shallow Water, Stuart Black

Stuart Black, ad exec turned author has his first book out - SHALLOW WATER - in September 2009, published by Sid Harta Publishers.

It is the story of a down to earth Australian builder and would be musician Brad West, who, by marrying the beautiful Jemma Beckford, gets a wife and her very wealthy and dysfunctional family. The tension between Jemma and her sister Rose is exacerbated when Jemma, who considered herself heir apparent to her father's wealth and companies, sees control of the company and therefore the family fortune, willed to her older, more stable sister. ... Read review

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Fifty Grand, Adrian McKinty

Adrian McKinty has an awful lot to answer for. Sitting down to read FIFTY GRAND, I thought this would be another good book from an author whose books I've increasing come to like. What I didn't expect was a nearly straight reading sitting, leaving the entire household making do with scratch meals, and the dogs threatening to pack their bags and leave home if meals and playtime didn't get back to normal pretty darn quick.

FIFTY GRAND features a new character from McKinty, Cuban cop Mercado. There are some vague similarities to earlier books in plot location though - set ... Read review

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Death and the Running Patterer, Robin Adair

DEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER is the book that won Penguin's last Most Wanted Crime Writing competition, and there's a comment in the acknowledgements that explain a little about the development of the book:

"I owe a debt to Robert Sessions, Penguin Australia's Publishing Director, who overcame his initial shock at being confronted with a manuscript knocked out on an old manual typewriter...."

The reason for highlighting this is that whilst reading DEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER was a very enjoyable overall experience, the book is made up of a series of ... Read review

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Outside The Law 3, Lindy Cameron (editor)

Every year in Australia, there are a lot of true crime books released. The OUTSIDE THE LAW series from Five Mile Press is now up to number 3, edited by Lindy Cameron, released in August 2009. It includes an interesting forward from the editor where she says (amongst other things):

"What is it about ordinary law-abiding Australians and our bizarre fascination with robbers, murderers and low-life crooks? Why do those of us not personally affected by the violence or incomprehensible loss visited on too many in our society want to know the details of what happened - of ... Read review

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Vikki Petraitis

Rochelle Jackson

Narelle M Harris

Shelley Robertson

Truth, Peter Temple

TRUTH by Peter Temple is probably the most keenly anticipated novel in this house for many years. Let's get the verdict out of the way right up front so there's absolutely no doubt - it did not disappoint. Not in any way.

TRUTH has been "billed" as the follow up to the acclaimed THE BROKEN SHORE, but really that's not setting expectations for the book well - sure Joe Cashin makes a number of cameo appearances (by reference) as, for that matter, does Jack Irish, but TRUTH isn't a sequel in the strictest sense of the word. Perhaps it would be fairer to call it a ... Read review

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Murder on a Midsummer Night, Kerry Greenwood

It's been a long time since I caught up with Phryne and her household of adopted daughters, faithful retainer, dedicated companion, cook and exotic lover. Part of the reason for that was the feeling that it was all a little same old same old. What I did find with MURDER ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT is that sometimes a short visit with old friends is just plain good fun.

If you're going to live in the 1920's in Melbourne, in the middle of a heatwave you'd be quite comfortable if you had Phryne's life. You'd be less happy if you were an aspiring antique dealer and purveyor of ... Read review

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Kerry Greenwood

Bruno Chief of Police, Martin Walker

If you're not a fan of cosy style mysteries, you could be forgiven for missing BRUNO CHIEF OF POLICE. Don't be fooled by the cover photos, or the blurb which uses a comparison with a rather well known cosy writer though. BRUNO CHIEF OF POLICE is much more of a police procedural. Well it's a rural French procedural, so whilst there's a violent murder to be solved, there's also a very engaging central police character, a great sense of place, and meals to die for. Perhaps a comparison with Montalbano might have been more successful? Although it's still not quite accurate as Bruno ... Read review

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Burial, Neil Cross

Neil Cross really knows how to put together a story. More importantly, in BURIAL, his second crime fiction novel, he's absolutely not afraid to write a very morally ambiguous central character.

When Nathan meets up with journalist Bob again at a drug fuelled party at his bosses house, he did something incredibly stupid. He was young and restless but just maybe he wasn't the one that killed a young girl that night. Maybe she wasn't actually killed but just died in very wrong circumstances. He certainly had a part in covering up her death. Somehow that isn't the ... Read review

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Infiltration, Colin McLaren

INFILTRATION doesn't seem to be served particularly well by the blurb on the book. It's considerably more than just the story of an undercover sting against the Mafia, in fact it's part personal memoir, part story of the Mafia operation, but sprinkled throughout with snippets of other parts of Colin McLaren's astounding police career.

Many of us lead lives pretty sheltered from the advent or consequences of violent crime in particular. "Big" criminal events are still pretty few and far between in Victoria Australia, so it's particularly sobering to realise that those ... Read review

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Deep Night, Caroline Petit

DEEP NIGHT is the second Leah Kolbe book from USA-born, Australian resident author Caroline Petit. Set in 1940's Hong Kong, Leah finally agrees to marry her lover English ex-pat Jonathon. Unfortunately the date of their wedding - Christmas 1941 - finds her exiled to Macau and Jonathon in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The Japanese push from occupied China into Hong Kong is rapid and brutal. Those that can escape to Macau live a hand to mouth existence as refugees. The rest of the story you can get from the synopsis of the book really.

DEEP NIGHT was just one of ... Read review

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Kickback, Garry Disher

There's a new Wyatt on the way, and that means it's as good a time as any to do a little tidying up of the back catalogue.

Wyatt is a very careful man, because he has to be. Wyatt robs banks, lifts payrolls, gets girls, leaves girls, lives the life of a loner, trusts few, works out the details and thinks a job through. He regards his criminal activities as his job, he's very professional. He doesn't like surprises, he doesn't like hot heads and half wits, mind you, he can handle them when he needs to.

Kickback is the first Wyatt novel from renowned ... Read review

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The Semantics of Murder, Aifric Campbell

What makes a good book? It's something I've been contemplating for quite a while since I finished reading Aifric Campbell's first novel THE SEMANTICS OF MURDER. This was a book that came completely out of left field, but I guess that's not surprising with an author who was born in Ireland, as a Convent educated schoolgirl had a greyhound win the Irish Derby, co-wrote a hymn which went on to become a winning entry in a national TV song competition, went to Sweden as an au pair, completed a linguistics degree, lectured in semantics, worked as an investment banker, gave that up and ... Read review

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Aifric Campbell

Hell's Fire, Chris Simms

HELL'S FIRE is the fourth book in this Manchester based series featuring DI Jon Spicer, although this is the first book in the group that I've read. An error of omission on my part that I'm going to have to do something about!

As you'd expect with a story that concentrates on the torching of churches, there are a lot of religious elements to this book. Although organised religion and the satanic ritualism as part of the church destruction is only part of a complex intertwining of religious elements. Satanic ritualism at the scenes connects to a Satanic styled rock ... Read review

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Three Murder Mysteries, Mary Fortune

THREE MURDER MYSTERIES by Mary Fortune is an absolute little treasure of a book and I feel so grateful to Lucy Sussex for her pursuit of Mary's story and her writing, and for getting this wonderful little book published.

Mary Fortune had over five hundred crime stories published, all set in Australia. In 1871 a collection of these were published under the title The Detective's Album - a book which is now very very rare and very very expensive.

The three stories that Lucy has chosen to be incorporated in this little book are wonderful examples of not only ... Read review

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Closer Still, Jo Bannister

Jo Bannister has an impressive back catalogue to her name with over 20 novels now, standalones and in a number of series groupings. CLOSER STILL is the 8th Brodie Farrell book, released in 2008 with LIARS ALL the next in the series, released in 2009.

It's probably worth getting this out in the open up front. I'm not a fan of Brodie Farrell, and that's not just because she's one of those "gifted" amateurs who seem to climb over the backs of the cops. In particular, her "partner" Jack Deacon who seems to do most of the graft and take most of the professional hits, whilst ... Read review

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The Labyrinth of Drowning, Alex Palmer

THE LABYRINTH OF DROWNING is Canberra based author Alex Palmer's third book featuring (now) ex-cop Paul Harrigan and his agent partner Grace Riordan.

The body of a sex-worker in Sydney bushland quickly becomes not just another case for Grace, as the violent injuries trigger flashbacks to her own sex attack many years before. Her investigation is further complicated as tensions with her boss simmer. Paul Harrigan, on the other hand, is working as a security consultant these days, happy to spend time with their very young daughter, he eventually is pulled into the ... Read review

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Dead I Well May Be, Adrian McKinty

Dark and funny, tough and confrontational, lyrical and even poetic in places, quintessentially Irish, DEAD I WELL MAY BE is the first in a series of books featuring Michael Forsythe, a young Irish man with a flair for danger, drinking, and fighting his way out of impossible situations.

McKinty writes in a style that's easy to associate with noir Irish writing, a sort of a stream of consciousness thing, that alternates between incredibly compelling and making the reader want to hide under the bed blankets. Michael is a young Irish man, older and wiser than his age would ... Read review

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Meaner than Fiction, edited by Lindy Cameron

One of the principles of a strong democracy (and hence a strong justice system) has to be the right to scrutinise decisions made in our collective name.

MEANER THAN FICTION is one such book - with a series of individual writers looking at a range of cases over the years that desperately call out for such scrutiny. There are a range of viewpoints and issues discussed in this book - from the victim's point of view in the case of Dr Andrew Taylor, to the perpetrator whose extenuating circumstances are simply not acknowledged (despite later cases that have been treated very ... Read review

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Kerry Greenwood

Fan Mail, PD Martin (review by sunniefromoz)

FAN MAIL is P. D. Martin’s third in the Sophie Anderson series and her strongest to date. Martin follows Sophie and Detective Sorrell as they conduct the investigation. So many detective novels are linear; we start at point A, go to point B and end at point C. Not so FAN MAIL. It twists and turns; sometimes at breakneck speed, other times almost stalls as they hit dead ends. There is backtracking to re-question witnesses and suspects and frequent revisiting of evidence in light of new information.

Martin has also managed to pull off something that I don't think too ... Read review

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