All the Reviews

Katpio Joe: Blitzkrieg, Brian Falkner

The winner of the 2021 Ngaio Marsh Award for Younger Readers, KATIPO JOE is an almost pitch perfect vehicle for older kids (12+) to get some insights into the reality of war, and how identity can come with consequences, and loyalty is hard.

A 12 year old New Zealand boy living in Berlin in 1938, Joe's parents are diplomats, and they all watch as the Nazi's rise in power, and the mistreatment of local Jews escalates. Discovering his parents are actually spies causes a big enough shock in Joe's world, but when is father is arrested by the Gestapo, Joe and his mother manage ... Read Review

Outback Creed, Jonathan MacPherson

When author Jonathan Macpherson sent me an ebook copy of OUTBACK CREED for review, it slipped a little down the queue as some pressing judging responsibilities got in the road. Having subsequently realised it was somewhere between a novella and novel in size, it snuck back in, as a palate cleanser / head clearing read was required.

Action packed, with a interesting idea at the core, OUTBACK CREED is well worth reading if you're a fan of action packed thrillers. The basic idea is that three lawyers, after a meeting in a small outback town, head out to a remote spot in the ... Read Review

The Tally Stick, Carl Nixon

In the middle of reading this novel an Antiques Roadshow episode popped up that included an old tally stick, bought in by an elderly gentleman who had kept it in a drawer for many years. Very useful and timely to be reminded that they were used as an aid to memory, often for financial or legal transactions, to keep track of debts. In the case of the novel THE TALLY STICK, one is found, at the same time as the remains of the eldest Chamberlain child, discovered in a remote part of New Zealand's West Coast. The entire Chamberlain family had arrived in New Zealand from Britain, and ... Read Review

The Snow Thief, C.J. Carver

THE SNOW THIEF is set in Tibet, with a Chinese Detective as it's central character, fighting her bosses for permission to look into the mysterious deaths of multiple little boys. It's a story of murder, a serial killer, stalking the entire country, obviously killing to a pattern, but it's also the story of the tensions between Tibet and China and the way that every step could be your last if you offend the wrong people.

Told with what feels like great authority, Carver has created central characters in this novel that draw you into the story, and the place deeply and ... Read Review

Shakti, Rajorshi Chakraborti

Magical realism in a disturbing political thriller, told in a confessional first person voice, SHAKTI is not the sort of novel that you'd normally expect to show up in the list for a crime fiction award, but if the Ngaio Marsh Award has shown me anything over recent years it's to expect the unexpected, and go with it.

A story of women, their courage, their struggles and secrets, set against a backdrop of right-wing, nationalist politics, this is about three Indian women who find themselves dealing with a great gift, and the consequences of that. What if the greatest gift ... Read Review

Tell Me Lies, J.P. Pomare

It increasingly feels like the things you can be guaranteed of when starting a new book by J.P. Pomare are it's going to be a fast paced, high tension thriller; it's likely as not going to frighten the daylights out of you; and it's going to be littered with twists, turns, red herrings, misguidance, clues and hints. Despite that, they have all been very different novels indeed.

TELL ME LIES is his third, focusing in on Margot Scott, a registered psychologist with what seems to be everything - a successful practice, wonderful family life, solid and loving marriage, ... Read Review

The Beautiful Dead, Kim Hunt

Another book from the Ngaio Marsh list of 2021 that feels like the start of a series. This one is set north-west of Sydney, Australia, featuring park ranger Cal Nyx, who finds a badly decomposed body in the bush. Identification shows the body to be that of somebody she once knew, and Cal becomes a suspect in the death as a result. The whole thing gets even more complicated when it turns out the victim was wanted for murder in their own right.

Nyx is living with plenty of family complications and skeletons in closets, which takes a probe of her personal life as part of the ... Read Review

Dark Empire, John Horrocks

DARK EMPIRE is an historical mystery novel, with at it's core, characters created by Katherine Mansfield:

"Katherine Mansfield created some of literature’s most chilling characters, not least Harry Kember and his wife. They seemed out of place among the families enjoying summer holidays at Wellington’s Days Bay. Some of the women at the Bay thought that one day Harry would commit a murder."

I have to confess I had to look up Katherine Mansfield's character Harry Kember, and found amongst other entries THE GARDEN PARTY AND OTHER STORIES, which I'd totally and ... Read Review

Deadhead, Glenn Wood

Aimed at getting younger generations to read books (and I'd guess particularly boys), DEADHEAD is a very funny romp, populated by wonderful characters, incorporating messaging about power balances and friendship that's subtle, and cleverly executed.

Combining text and cartoon / graphic replays of previous events, this story starts out with the death of Constable Garrett, and continues with his resurrection as a conscious cyborg initially controlled by 13 year old inventor, entrepreneur and car thief Spencer Langley. Right here I guess some parents are wondering about ... Read Review