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Thud!, Terry Pratchett01/10/2007 - 2:28pmThe origins of the Battle of Koom Valley between the Trolls and the Dwarves is obscure and the subject of much debate, but every year, the anniversary celebrations of the battle spark off tensions between the two communities. This year, this celebration, tensions are rising in Ank-Morpork. Dwarf extremists are undermining (literally) the city and the Watch is starting to fall apart. When extremist leader Hamcrusher is murdered deep underground in the mines, seemingly by a Troll, Vimes must hold together the Watch; investigate the murder; prevent an outbreak of war between ... Read Review |
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Jar City (aka Tainted Blood), Arnaldur Indridason01/10/2007 - 2:18pmRecently awarded a Golden Dagger for his second book in the series, Silence of the Grave, Arnaldur Indriadason's first book Tainted Blood, or Jar City as it was originally titled in English, is a taut, sparsely written police procedural set in a grey, cold and wet Reykjavik, Iceland. An elderly man is murdered in his flat and initially it seems he has been the victim of a robbery gone wrong. Detective Erlendur is not so sure, based on a rather cryptic and inexplicable note found on the body and despite his colleagues amusement and scepticism, he continues to reject the ... Read Review |
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Bravo Two Zero, Andy McNab01/10/2007 - 2:15pmBRAVO TWO ZERO is the identifying sign given to an eight-man British Special Air Service patrol that was sent into Iraq to find and destroy a major land-line telecommunications link and Iraqi Scud missile launchers during the Gulf War. Andy McNab is the leader of the ill-fated, and some would say doomed from the start patrol, which is landed right into the middle of a major Iraqi troop staging area, on foot, backed up with radio frequencies that wouldn't work and up against it from the start. When they are seen by a local child who reports them to the Iraqi army then ... Read Review |
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Capable of Murder, Brian Kavanagh01/10/2007 - 2:11pmMy Rating: Choccies, coffee, sparkling shiraz, book in hand, comfy chair late on a Sunday afternoon in the fading sun read. -- A young Australian girl's elderly english great-aunt leaves everything to her after she dies in her home, seemingly from an accidental fall down the stairs. After Belinda moves into her great-aunt's house it seems that everyone is very interested in her and the house and in particular the garden. Brian is a recent member of one of my favourite online reading groups, has been very circumspect and is, I hasten to add not ... Read Review |
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The Devil's Star, Jo Nesbo01/10/2007 - 1:55pmIn the middle of a long hot summer in Oslo, a young woman's body is found murdered in her flat, with one finger cut off and a tiny five pointed star diamond beneath her eyelid. Detective Harry Hole is a chronic alcoholic, on the verge of being sacked from the police force; but it's summer, everyone's on holidays and his boss has no choice but to assign the case to Harry and his colleague Tom Waaler. Harry doesn't trust Tom and suspects him of, amongst other things, arms smuggling. Harry's drinking problem is greatly exacerbated by his guilt and distress over the death of ... Read Review |
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Packing Death, Lachlan McCulloch01/10/2007 - 1:49pmThis is the true crime story of (then) Detective Senior Constable Lachlan McCulloch and the undercover operation he ran to crack the notorious Pettingill family drug trafficking network in the immediate aftermath of the not-guilty verdicts handed down to members of that family for the execution style murder of two young police constables. McCulloch worked with two female informers over a long period of time, generating a lot of taped surveillance and drug deals to build up a case which resulted in over 15 major convictions. Underneath the flippant and light style of the writing is the ... Read Review |
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Death Adder Dreaming, Ian Moffitt01/10/2007 - 1:35pmTony Grant, part-Aboriginal Lawyer, is murdered on an outback station and his body moved to a meat locker beside the main station house. Where and why he was murdered seems to be something that the local police just can't work out. Ex-policeman and adoptive brother of Tony, Rod comes back to Alice Springs when their father asks for his help. There is nothing much keeping Rod away any more with his own life rapidly going nowhere. Alongside the murder, Aboriginal and White relationships in the "frontier town" of Alice Springs, land rights and the ongoing battles between ... Read Review |
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The Fallout, Garry Disher01/10/2007 - 1:26pmThe Fallout is one of the Wyatt Series of Disher's novels. Wyatt is a career criminal involved in everything from art theft, bank robberies, fraud and whatever is going really. The Fallout is Wyatt's sixth job, taking off where Port Vila Blues finished. On a boat with policewoman Liz Redding, and a fortune in stolen gems, Wyatt finds himself joining forces with his nephew to pull off an art heist in Melbourne, not really aware of exactly what his nephew has been up to. Another shoot 'em up, charge around thriller which can be read without the preceding books ... Read Review |
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Involuntary Witness, Gianrico Carofiglio01/10/2007 - 1:24pmWhen a 9 year old boy is found murdered at the bottom of a well, an immigrant peddlar is accused of the crime. Guido Guerrieri has had problems of his own, with a distingrated marriage, a bad dose of anxiety attacks and a life spiralling downwards, but he finds himself taking on the case of the Senegalese peddlar and withstanding the pressure of the local prosecutors for a quick and decisive "guilty" verdict. This is a differently constructed book from a lot of crime fiction in that there is a real concentration on Guido and his life and problems. This ... Read Review |
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Priest, Ken Bruen01/10/2007 - 1:14pmJack is in all sorts of self-inflicted trouble again. He's in hospital, severely affected by a nervous breakdown, after his negligence caused the death of someone very very important to him and his last close friends, when he's bought back from the brink by the kindness of another patient. On his release Jack returns to his previous life with a new-found determination to avoid drinking and drugs. When his least favourite priest, Father Malachy asks Jack for help in discovering why a local priest was decapitated in his church confessional, Jack falls into that and other ... Read Review |
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Death in Time, Mignon Warner01/10/2007 - 1:03pmMignon Warner was born in Adelaide, South Australia and in 1982 when Death In Time was published, she was living in London. Death in Time is set within the confines of a Welsh resort hotel, during a Magician's Conference. Cynthia Playford dies, falling from a cable car travelling up to the local mountain peak early in the morning. It's not so much who would want to kill Cynthia, but who wouldn't as the sister of one of the magicians is not the most popular person. Nice little book in a cosy / closed hotel style with engaging characters.Read Review |
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Pig's Head, David Owen01/10/2007 - 11:14amAn old release - originally published in 1994, Pig's Head is the first in the 4 Pufferfish novels by David Owen and so far it's been the only one I've never been able to get my hands on. Imagine my sheer delight when Kill City in Swanston Street revealed 2 copies! Detective Inspector Franz Heineken (or Pufferfish as he calls himself) is called into investigate the discovery of a severed head in the rubbish at a crowded Tasmanian caravan park. Initial concerns are that the caravan park, which is fenced and shutdown every night to keep out undesirables, may still contain a ... Read Review |
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Crook as Rookwood, Chris Nyst (review by sunniefromoz)28/09/2007 - 3:30pmWhat do murders, lawyers, politicians and property developers have in common? To find out you'll have to read Christ Nyst's CROOK AS ROOKWOOD. First an explanation of the title. In Australia, when things aren't good they are “crook”. “How are ya, mate?” “Crook, mate.” When things are really, really bad they are “'crook as Rookwood”. Rookwood is located in Sydney. At 700 acres, it is one of the largest burial grounds in the world and one of Australia's oldest cemeteries (courtesy of ... Read Review |
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Cult Killers, Frank Moorhouse (review by sunniefromoz)28/09/2007 - 1:49pm
Beginning with a short history of the characters responsible for the rise of 20th century interest in Satanism and the Occult , Moorhouse then visits the usual suspects: Charles Manson, David (Son of Sam) Berkowitz, The Chicago Rippers, and Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker). These had me rolling my eyes and thinking that there was nothing in the book that couldn’t be found on the internet and that the author was simply rehashing what had gone before and trying to link them, often tenuously, with Satanism. Something the tabloid newspapers already do very well. |
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The Bethlehem Murders, Matt Rees28/09/2007 - 1:25pmAs implausible as it sounds Omar Yussef is a man in the middle of an awful situation that you want to meet. Spend some time with. Drink some sa'ada coffee. Talk to about his Bethlehem. Omar brings a unique perspective to murder, to power games and to fanaticism whilst simultaneously providing a human and humane view of life in his Bethlehem. That Bethlehem is a world of conflict within and from without his own society; and the tension that changed viewpoints between generations brings. Where once he intermixed happily with all people in the town, now there's a very different ... Read Review |
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Urban Legends Uncovered, Mark Barber26/09/2007 - 3:47pmAs they say, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. From the horror of the KENTUCKY FRIED RAT (the urban legend which was Barber's inspiration for the writing of this book) to the more modern fakery of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, UK author Mark Barber presents them all. It is not just all about the kitsch campfire stories or teen-scream "it-happened-to-a-friend-of-mine anecdotes"; Barber has detailed the modern day internet scams and spoofs right alongside the creepy or funny stories we all delight in hearing about (of course, as long as they haven't actually been personal ... Read Review |
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Maigret and the Idle Burglar, Georges Simenon24/09/2007 - 2:38pmThere is an awful lot to like about Maigret in AND THE IDLE BURGLAR. Despite dreadful facial injuries, Maigret knows the identity of this man instantly from a single tattoo on his body. The victim, Cuendet, is well known to him. He's a career burglar - a Swiss man, who started out very young as a run of the mill burglar; graduating after a period in the Foreign Legion to an extremely professional, cautious and studied burglar. He has a particular method - he carefully cases out a target, using the newspapers and social magazines to pick a victim; frequently moving into a room or ... Read Review |
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Orpheus Lost, Janette Turner Hospital18/09/2007 - 12:10pmORPHEUS LOST is latest novel from Janette Turner Hospital, her last crime fiction novel being DUE PREPARATIONS FOR THE PLAGUE, which won the Davitt Award for the "Best Crime Novel by an Australian Woman in 2003". ORPHEUS LOST is the story of 3 people. Leela is a mathematical genius from a small town American Southern state, studying in Boston. Cobb is her childhood friend, mathematically gifted as well, but he took a different path in life - into the Armed Services and ultimately Iraq. Mishka is a young Australian musician, grandson of refugee Jewish Hungarians, ... Read Review |
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A Venetian Reckoning, Donna Leon17/09/2007 - 4:33pmRather than the normal method of being called out, Commisarrio Guido Brunetti learns of the death of prominent international lawyer Carlo Trevisan from the headlines in the newspaper the next day on the way to work. What starts off as a baffling investigation of a seemingly blameless victim, turns into something altogether different as a suicide and another shooting see the death of a well-known Accountant, and then Trevisan's own brother-in-law. What is not immediately clear is why these three become victims. Brunetti is desperate to find some clues about ... Read Review |
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Shadow Alley, edited by Lucy Sussex17/09/2007 - 2:42pmFirst published in 1995, Shadow Alley is a compilation of short crime stories written around the premise of detectives when they were teenagers. A majority of the authors stuck to this premise, whereas some chose instead to write about teenage characters within the stories themselves. Kerry Greenwood takes Phryne Fisher back to her boarding school days in England, ... Read Review |