All the Reviews

Black Silk and Buried Secrets, Deborah Challinor

The author of this series of now 2 novels, is a bestselling historical fiction writer, and you can tell just how impeccable her research is, even without reading the author's notes at the end of both novels, expanding on the thinking, and investigations that went into the construction of these stories.

Featuring the now twenty-five-year old, and widowed, Tatty (Tatiana) Crowe, the first female undertaker in Sydney, her life now, post the death of her awful husband, is going well. The business, originally her husband's family's, is doing well under her guidance, they are ... Read Review

Innocent Guilt, Remi Kone

I have no idea what made me pluck this one out of the library's lists, but I am so very glad I did. The blurb gives some hints about the set up of INNOCENT GUILT, but it didn't say anything that made me think this would be as compelling, and as engaging as it was until I noticed Christopher Brookmyre's quote: 'A pedal-to-the-metal trip into the scariest places in the human mind'. I mean if HE thinks that it gets into the scariest places in the human mind, then I'm in.

It all kicks off when an uninjured woman, covered in blood, clutching a blood covered ... Read Review

Five Found Dead, Sulari Gentill

The Orient Express instantly conjures up images of luxurious travel, fine dining, people dressed in their very best, quiet and attentive staff gliding unseen and unremarked through carriages, Inspector Hercule Poirot and 12. Always 12 people.

And so it is with FIVE FOUND DEAD in which one imagines author Sulari Gentill had an enormous amount of fun constructing a story that's partly a hat tip to Agatha Christie's well known novel, and the entire golden age of mystery writing.

In this outing the 12 are the "Bar Council", a group of passengers pulled together ... Read Review

The Pool, Hannah Tunnicliffe

The promotional material pushes the connection, and it's hard not to get a vibe of THE SLAP from the blurb of this one  - young families, a tragedy at a bbq that implodes relationships, crumbles friendships and all, but fear not if you're feeling like this is another commentary on parenting, because I will confess that's kind of the worry I had going in as well, and not the feeling I had coming out the other side of Hannah Tunnicliffe's THE POOL.

The catalyst of this story is events at a bbq, nine years ago in Melbourne, after which prince of spin, life of the party, ... Read Review

The Secret of the Angel Who Died at Midnight, Rosy Fenwicke

The first in a new series from NZ author Rosy Fenwicke, THE SECRET OF THE ANGEL WHO DIED AT MIDNIGHT is a police procedural novel introducing DSS Kate Sutton.

Set in a wine-growing region of New Zealand, the sense of place in this one is pretty strong, drawing on a small town, with tensions between the old residents and newcomers staying very close to home. The victim in this novel is the local GP, Dr Geoffrey Scott, a man who has taken over his father's practice, a well known figure in the small community in which he's lived his life, his wife being the incomer. Younger ... Read Review

Glass Barbie, Michael Botur

If you're looking for something that's wild, ranty, full to brim with nobody (including the good, bad, and slightly deluded) winning at anything, then GLASS BARBIE could be just the ticket.

It's a roller coaster ride alongside wild man, crackhead, Karl Copley. He of the big mouth and small brain, who somehow convinces an old mate, now a senior cop, Richie McMullan the two of them can rescue Copley's high school sweetheart Barbara Konstantinou (the Barbie from the title), who is being held for ransom by bikies. I mean why wouldn't a senior cop buy into a plan which doesn't ... Read Review

Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud, Lee Murray

Wellington, 1923, and a sixty-year-old woman hangs herself in a scullery; ten years later another woman ‘falls’ from the second floor of a Taranaki tobacconist; soon afterwards a young mother in Taumarunui slices the throat of her newborn with a cleaver.

What connects these women, and the short, pointed tales in FOX SPIRIT IN A DISTANT LAND is that all these women are part of the Chinese diaspora in New Zealand, and all the stories are inspired by real events. Murray has chosen to explore these stories of violent crimes, by and towards a ... Read Review

The Defiance of Frances Dickinson, Wendy Parkins

This novel, soberingly based on a true story, is set in the 1830's in England, telling the story of a sensational divorce trial instigated by Frances Dickinson after years of enduring abuse and degradation at the hands of her appalling husband. 18 years old and wealthy when she married Lieutenant John Gells, she soon discovered there was much more to him. A cruel, violent, predatory man he subjected her to years of physical, sexual and mental abuse, spending her money with abandon, whilst preying on their staff, she was kept separate from everyone, hidden away on his family's Scottish ... Read Review

People With No Charisma, Jente Posthuma

The description of PEOPLE WITH NO CHARISMA starts out:

From the International Booker Prize–shortlisted author of What I’d Rather Not Think About comes a darkly humorous novel about multigenerational family dynamics and individuality in Dutch suburbia.

It's worth stating the bleeding obvious here - humour is a very subjective thing and what's hilarious for one reader will simply be dumbfounding for another. Or there will be readers, like this one, who spend a fair amount of time both amused and profoundly ... Read Review