All the Reviews

Death Adder Dreaming, Ian Moffitt

Tony 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

Involuntary Witness, Gianrico Carofiglio

When 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

Death in Time, Mignon Warner

Mignon 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

Crook as Rookwood, Chris Nyst (review by sunniefromoz)

What  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

The Bethlehem Murders, Matt Rees

As 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

Maigret and the Idle Burglar, Georges Simenon

There 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

A Venetian Reckoning, Donna Leon

Rather 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

Dead Set, Kel Robertson

DEAD SET is the first novel for barman, labourer, industrial advocate, policy advisor and now author Kel Robertson and it's a very promising debut.

Brad (Bradman, but don't mention that in front of his colleagues) Chen is an ex-football star, Australian Federal Police Detective, hit and run victim. He's on crutches with a badly broken leg and nursing an Amaretto and pain-killer addiction. He's back on duty and involved in the big, high profile murder of of the Honourable Tracey Dale, Minister for Immigration which is causing a lot of political ructions in Canberra. ... Read Review

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Fergus Hume

This is hardly a new book, being originally self-published in 1886, but it is a really important book in the history of crime fiction. Firstly, it was the best selling crime novel of the nineteenth century - outstripping both Arthur Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins. It actually pre-dates Doyle's A Study in Scarlet by one year, and it was an overnight sensation when originally published, selling around 750,000 copies during Hume's lifetime, nearly half of those copies within the first six months of re-publication in London in 1887. By the end of 1886 a total of 20,000 copies had been ... Read Review