All the Reviews

The Curse of the Golden Yo-Yo, Robin Bowles

Well you just knew it had to happen - an Australian crime fiction book complete with recipes.  And a VW named Henry, a Rottweiler named Kissiface, a cop named Riley, a purveyor of fine foods named Romeo, a canary named Groucho and a PI named Cornelia.  Cornelia starts off life as chief cook and unpaid scivy for her ex-Military father.  Good education aside, Cornelia longs for a more exciting life, so working as a PI Operative in the firm started by the son of the Italian family next door sounds much more interesting than teaching.  Unfortunately the job seems to revolve around simple ... Read Review

A Greater Evil, Natasha Cooper

A GREATER EVIL is the eight book in the series feature Trish Maguire - barrister and a bit of a champion of the underdog.   In this book she takes on the challenge of proving one-time client (as a badly abused child) Sam Foundling didn't kill his pregnant wife Cecilia.  Co-incidentally, Sam is one of Trish's favourite sculptors, long before she connected him with the child she had defended many years before (surname change on his part).  Cecilia, co-incidentally has been working with Trish on an insurance case involving the iconic, but structurally faulty Arrow Building.  Cecilia is, ... Read Review

Murder on the Dance Floor, Susan Kelly (review by sunniefromoz)

The opening chapters in the night club gradually build the tension. It is going to end very badly for someone, but who?  This makes compulsive, page-turning reading. Once the victim is revealed, the book shifts to a slightly slower pace as the detectives go about unravelling the case.  This doesn’t make the book any less absorbing.  MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR is a first-rate example of contemporary crime-writing. It has all the right elements: tension, a twisting plot, strong and distinctive characters and a good blend of the working and private lives of the police involved in the ... Read Review

The Adversary, Michael Walters

THE ADVERSARY is the second book in the Nergui / Doripalam police procedural series set in Ulan Baatar, Mongolia.  The first was THE SHADOW WALKER.

Fans of police procedurals who haven't caught up with this series should give it a go.  Whilst it is set in Mongolia, and there are unusual names and unusual settings which give it a slightly exotic feel, the basis of the book is a sound procedural with the same sorts of issues that plague police departments the world over.  The connection between the Underworld of Gangsters, Drugs and influence and police department ... Read Review

Shatter, Michael Robotham

SHATTER is the much anticipated 4th book in an ongoing series by this author.  All of these books are strong psychological thrillers, with good plots peopled with some believable characters.  Each book switches the central protagonist around an expanding character group - sometimes with the others playing bit parts.  In SHATTER Clinical Psychologist and Parkinson's sufferer Joe O'Loughlin returns to take the focus, with DI Ruiz taking a supporting (and supportive) role.

As the book gets started Joe is working part-time as a lecturer - the Parkinson's is starting to affect ... Read Review

Still Waters, Camilla Noli

Normally I'd try to avoid doing this but I feel that I have to declare up front - I did not like this book.  Didn't enjoy it for one second - nothing in it was interesting, appealing or even remotely engaging.  So having said that, why?

One of the things that appeals to me least of anything in any books I read is blatant manipulation of a reader's emotional reactions - fortunately for me there's nothing in STILL WATERS that engendered any emotional reaction (other than boredom), so the manipulation could be seen for what it was.  We start with a mother, lovingly engaging ... Read Review

The Reunion, Simone van der Vlugt

Written in the first person, THE REUNION is Sabine's story.  Suffering from depression she has been away from full-time work for quite a while, returning slowly to an office environment where the power base has shifted considerably since she's been gone.  Sabine is a very fragile girl, with a difficult past.  

As a very young schoolgirl Sabine and Isabel had been very best friends.  Isabel is an epileptic and Sabine is one of the few people that aren't scared by these fits - who knows what to do when a fit starts.  When the girls move into high school and boys, and ... Read Review

Still Waters, Camilla Noli

STILL WATERS is one of those books that will stir endless debate on a number of topics ranging from the oppression of women to the motherhood "myth", sexual inequality to co-parenting and the list goes on.  Most of what is depicted within the book will strike a chord with mothers, and what may be most shocking of all is that we more than likely WON'T be shocked.  The reactions of the unnamed mother of the book to her situation ARE extreme and executed with that blankness of survival instinct and sheer exhaustion that is present to some extent in all new mothers, or at the very least ... Read Review

The Passenger, Chris Petit

THE PASSENGER starts out pretty dramatically with a frantic father who thinks his son might have been on the plane - blown up over a small town, all passengers on board dead.  When Collard learns that his son Nick may not have been on board after all, confusion gives way to confrontation as Collard starts to learn what Nick has gotten himself involved in.  That soon moves to suspicion that there's more to the story of Nick, the blown up plane, the drug dealers, the spies, the security services and all.

Right from the start THE PASSENGER throws the reader into a slight ... Read Review