All the Reviews

The Skeleton Man, Jim Kelly

THE SKELETON MAN is the fifth novel in this series - "starring" Philip Dryden, journalist - once Fleet Street luminary, now small-town newspaper man, and I have to confess this is a favourite series of mine.  Not because the books are edgy, or dark or particularly enlightening of the human condition, but because everybody in them is relatively normal; the situations that Dryden ends up investigating are not that outlandish and because there is a real human touch in the way this author builds his characters.

THE SKELETON MAN is set in and around a little village that has ... Read Review

Sensitive New Age Spy, Geoff McGeachin

SENSITIVE NEW AGE SPY continues the Alby Murdoch story where D-E-D Dead! left off.  Post the hilariously over the top events at the end of the first book, Alby finds himself thrust into leadership of D-E-D, not that it's all bad.  He manages to not get too involved in the day to day, and there's always Julie.  Julie helping out on operations is one thing, Julie asleep, in not a lot, on your couch is another altogether.  Mind you Alby's pretty well convinced he'll never get to have his way with Julie, it's a pity that for an intelligence agent, he can be as thick as the walls of an 80, ... Read Review

Core of Evil (aka Still Waters), Nigel McCrery

McCrery is the writer of Silent Witness and New Tricks - TV series that are undoubtedly instantly recognisable to a number of readers of this review, and there's something about the characterisations from those shows that rings bells of recognition in STILL WATERS.  DCI Mark Lapslie is called back from "gardening leave" - extended sick leave - because his name has been flagged as somebody who could understand a particular mutilation of the body that was found at the scene of a fatal traffic accident.  The investigation into this body proceeds slowly as, whilst the identification of ... Read Review

The Wrong Kind of Blood, Declan Hughes

Okay, so Ed Loy is a bit of a lone wolf character.  He's also obviously been endowed with some sort of minor super-powers.  You know the sort.  No matter how much of a kicking he takes, no matter how much battering, beating, brawling and bashing goes on, Ed keeps on keeping on.  He might limp a bit occasionally.  He might grimace when a recent scar stings, but there's a job to be done and Ed's going to do that job.  Of course this sort of character can get right up the reader's nose unless they have something else - that personality or style - that means you can forgive the minor ... Read Review

Appeal Denied, Peter Corris

When Hardy got himself into hot water in THE UNDERTOW, you just had to wonder if this was the end of Sydney's most famous hard-boiled detective.  In APPEAL DENIED he doesn't get his licence to be a private investigator back; he's got no money; his house and car are falling apart and his love life takes a disastrous turn.  But it takes more than murder, bureaucracy and falling down houses to keep Cliff down.  Sort of.

In typical Cliff Hardy style APPEAL DENIED has events that really should see a hard man give up slightly, but when murder gets very very close to home, Cliff ... Read Review

The Shadow in the River, Frode Grytten

I've had this tradition for the last few years that my first favourite book of the year pops up in January.  Well that's for the last two years anyway - The Broken Shore by Peter Temple and then Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland.  Breaking the tradition slightly, as Frode Grytten is Norwegian not Australian, but it's January and THE SHADOW IN THE RIVER's officially my first entry in my favourite books of 2008.

This has the sort of style that particularly appeals to me.  Dry, sardonic wit, pointed and quite discomforting social commentary, this book reveals what the ... Read Review

The Darkness Inside, John Rickards

True confession time.  I really didn't expect to like THE DARKNESS INSIDE.  Oh dear, I thought to myself - appalling child mistreatment again.  Oh bother, I muttered - another bitter and twisted ex-FBI agent / lone wolf PI / life sucks / let's just get this case over / I can take all the hammering you can throw at me....   Luckily I very rarely listen to anybody, and I include myself in that rule.  

Now you can't for a moment pretend that there are not some very unpleasant aspects to THE DARKNESS INSIDE.  The main case in this book is the unsolved abduction and ... Read Review

Killer in the Family, Lindy Cameron & Fin. J. Ross

KILLER IN THE FAMILY is the sort of true crime book that goes back and looks at a range of different cases - many of which were extremely notorious - but in this book, the viewpoint is, as the title suggests, where the killer has been part of the victim's own family.

The introduction to the book starts out with some startling statistics - analysing the total number of homicide incidents in Australia (5226 in the seventeen years to 2006) - 5617 victims and 5743 offenders.  From there the breakdown of the number of "stranger murders" versus "murder by a friend or ... Read Review

Blood of Dreams, Susan Parisi

Starting off with the elaborate building of Laudomia's life as the youngest sister of two very self-important merchants in 1700's Venice - BLOOD OF DREAMS is part historical novel, part passionate romance, part Gothic tale of death and the occult and part mystery.  Laudomia is destined to be married off, she lives her life seemingly tightly controlled by her brothers and their mindless and rather shallow wives.  But she also has a more secret existence.  Starting off with roaming of the streets of Venice with only an old servant for company, at a party held by her own family, Laudomia ... Read Review