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Say Hello, Carly Findlay12/07/2023 - 6:45pmI saw a Clementine Ford quote along the lines of "it's okay to be angry... All these years, people have been calling you 'angry' as if it's a shameful thing, when what they really mean is 'your refusal to be contained frightens me'. It is okay for you to be angry." Carly Findlay's taken her absolute right to be very angry about a heap of stupid things, and turned it into an opportunity to point out some truths. The micro-aggressions, the blatant ableism, the intrusion, the mindless behaviour, the staring, the sniggering, the frankly slappable offences that she's faced for ... Read Review |
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The Wrong Woman, J.P. Pomare05/07/2023 - 2:11pmTHE WRONG WOMAN is the first foray from J.P. Pomare overtly set in the US, and it was, for this reader, utterly seamless in its evocation of an American feeling small town. Helped a lot by the central character ex-cop, now Private Investigator Reid being from this particular community, and all too aware of the politics therein, the society and personal pressures and how they can lead to all sorts of problems for all sorts of people. The novel relies on a lot of complications on a lot of levels. Starting out with Reid himself, an ex-cop, now private investigator, back in ... Read Review |
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Four Dogs Missing, Rhys Gard04/07/2023 - 6:22pmYou wouldn't think reading crime fiction would leave you with a taste for wine, but here we are. Set in the idyllic surrounds of the Mudgee (New South Wales) wine region, Oliver Wingfield has set himself up as a winemaker with a fine reputation for his wines, even if everyone talks about his reclusive nature and unorthodox techniques. He's a man with a complicated past, which is dragged kicking and screaming into the light after his estranged twin brother Theo suddenly arrives after a fifteen year period of no contact whatsoever, and is promptly murdered. Physically ... Read Review |
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The Yellow Dog, Georges Simenon03/07/2023 - 3:35pmThe world is a pretty awful place at the moment and there's no way I will stomach listening to a book that casually talks about animal cruelty. So this was a DNF with extreme nope.Read Review |
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A Rake of His Own, A.J. Lancaster01/07/2023 - 11:17amFrom the Blurb: Marius Valstar doesn’t know which is worse: the dead body in his greenhouse or the naked fae prince on his desk. The only rakes of interest to Marius are garden tools. Not fae princes. Certainly not the arrogant, selfish fae prince he has the misfortune to have a history with. But when Prince Rakken turns up naked and bleeding in Marius’s college the same day a body appears in his greenhouse, scruples must take second place to solving a murder that could unravel the delicate balance between humans and fae. Marius’ ... Read Review |
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The Wonder of Little Things, Vince Copley24/06/2023 - 3:34pmA humble, gentle man who left this country a legacy that too many don't know about, and quite a few don't deserve, Vince Copley was born in 1936, and spent the first years of his life in the Aboriginal mission system in South Australia. After his father died when Vince was 4, and his mother was forced to work away a lot, he ended up as a resident of St Francis Boy's Home, run by a good man and his wife, luckily for him, giving him a chance for some education, and importantly for him, a sporting passion for both AFL and cricket. Both of which he played for many years, before ... Read Review |
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A Disappearance in Fiji, Nilima Rao20/06/2023 - 6:31pmIn the author's notes at the back of A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI, Nilima Rao provides background to the thinking behind this novel, including the structure of the Indian indentured servitude program, established by the British overseen, Indian government, coming into its own when slavery was abolished. Why am I not surprised that this was yet another example of utter bastardry, arranging for Indian workers, desperate to improve their lives however marginally, to be sent to places like Trinidad, Jamaica, and Mauritius on fixed period contracts with working and living conditions that were ... Read Review |
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Vanished, Nicole Morris15/06/2023 - 4:54pmIn 2005 Nicole Morris founded the Australian Missing Persons register, an internet resource to help find missing people in Australia. http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/ (your browser may come up with a security alert because the site is missing the encryption layer). A valuable part of that website is the FAQ - http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/FAQ.htm which provides important information if you have ... Read Review |
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A Deadly Game, Laraine Stephens05/06/2023 - 2:39pmThe third novel in the Reggie da Costa series, DEADLY GAME is set in 1920's Melbourne featuring the celebrated, well groomed crime reporter da Costa, and the brave, and very determined Ruby Rhodes. da Costa has a habit of gathering beautiful woman in his life, with problems and complicated lives of their own. None of which stops da Costa looking upon a lot of them (except perhaps the one he should be looking towards) as potential love interests. Needless to say, this never quite works out as he'd hoped. A DEADLY GAME introduces him to Rhodes, a quiet, studious museum ... Read Review |
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Orphan Road, Andrew Nette05/06/2023 - 2:27pmThe second Gary Chance novel, ORPHAN ROAD, sees Chance move his centre of activities to Victoria, all because of an old friend and former employer, the once notorious Melbourne social identity, Vera Leigh. Owner of a struggling S&M club being circled by property developers, knower of decidedly dodgy characters, it all starts with Chance and another contact of Leigh's in Byron, shaking down a peace and love cult front for a major drug smuggling ring. Which turns into another one of those jobs that could be described by the quote in the blurb:
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Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes, Rob Wilkins22/05/2023 - 4:56pmTook me a while to start reading this (published in 2022), mostly because this book, of all the books around Terry Pratchett, will mean knowing something personal about the man behind the genius. Written by Terry's long-time assistant, and very good friend, Rob Wilkins, this is an emotional (inspiring / hilarious and frequently brutally honest) walk through exactly that. At the heart of the writing genius was a gloriously grumpy, irascible, kind and funny human being, with a capacity for vision and thought that was utterly astounding. Wilkins came into Terry's life as a ... Read Review |
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Naked Ambition, Robert Gott09/05/2023 - 1:18pmIf you’ve ever wondered what a crime novel written by Noel Coward might be like, Naked Ambition could provide some clues. Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead Review |
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One Hundred Years of Dirt, Rick Morton04/05/2023 - 4:34pmLess a review and more a gut reaction - I just loved ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF DIRT which was a f2f bookclub book, otherwise it could have sadly become one of those ones on the "so many books, so little time list". I realise that sounds ridiculous that you could love a book that describes a background like Morton's. This is the story of the family of Rick Morton's father and the violence, treachery, and cruelty that ran through generations of them. But it's also the story of a mother with the guts to leave, and a son who is as close to that mother as he could be, without it being cloying, ... Read Review |
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The Signatory, Stuart Black02/05/2023 - 2:41pmTHE SIGNATORY is a thriller set in and around an Australian advertising agency, leaving this reviewer wondering if there's an argument that crime fiction set in the corporate / business world is under-represented. On the face of it, perhaps an unlikely setting, but then again, there are more than reasons to think that there's villainy in day to day business, even if its not strictly illegal. The story of THE SIGNATORY revolves around Sam Pride - who has just sold his start-up company to a US conglomerate for large piles of money. His life is looking good - young, married ... Read Review |
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Fatal Isles, Wild Shores & Cruel Tides, Maria Adolfsson28/04/2023 - 3:20pmHaving had the urge to try BorrowBox from our Library system recently, I happened upon the first three books in the Doggerland series by Maria Adolfsson - FATAL ISLES (2018), WILD SHORES (2019) and CRUEL TIDES (2020). It looks like there are three more books that haven't yet been translated into English. It's a series featuring Detective Inspector Karen Eiken Hornby, and her (turns out fictional) native island of Doggerland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland). The opening book, FATAL ISLES, introduces Eiken ... Read Review |
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Beachdaze, TW Lawless27/04/2023 - 2:47pmBook six in the Peter Clancy series, set in the world of investigative journalism, BEACHDAZE sees Peter back in Australia, out of the day-to-day newspaper game and up to his elbows in neighbourhood dispute from the moment he sets foot in his new home. Readers of the earlier books in the series will find the idea that Clancy has given up the high-octane world of investigative journalism in swinging London slightly surprising. He got there via an interesting route, starting out his reporting days on the old Truth newspaper in Melbourne, Australia (denizens of the state of ... Read Review |
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The Brothers, S.D. Hinton23/03/2023 - 3:54pmSD Hinton’s debut novel uses the structure of a thriller to explore myriad responses to trauma. Full review at Newtown Review of Books.Read Review |
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Wild Place, Christian White21/03/2023 - 2:17pm"Why do good people do bad things?" is an interesting question, explored fully in WILD PLACE by Christian White. Set in the heart of Australian suburbia, during the height of the summer of 1989, seventeen year old Tracie Reed vanished one night. Her parents in the middle of a fraught divorce, Tracie's behaviour had changed in the leadup and despite her mother's protestations to the contrary, police have basically dismissed her as a runaway. Part of the local neighbourhood watch, Tracie's high school English teacher, and neighbour, starts digging into her disappearance, ... Read Review |
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Dark Mode, Ashley Kalagian Blunt09/03/2023 - 4:50pmThis fierce, unflinching thriller asks timely questions about threatening behaviour. Why don’t we recognise it? Stop it? - Full Review at Newtown Review of Books.Read Review |
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Crows Nest, Nikki Mottram28/02/2023 - 12:06pmThis latest offering of Australian rural noir contrasts urban and small-town sensibilities from the perspective of a child protection officer. Full review at Newtown Review of Books. |