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Cedar Valley, Holly Throsby13/01/2019 - 2:46pm“On a normal morning, a lone police car would be parked out the front of the station, waiting for something illegal to happen.” Cedar Valley, Holly Throsby’s second novel, begins with the arrival of two strangers on the first day of summer in 1993. One, Benny Miller, has come to live in a house which an old friend of her recently deceased mother has offered to her. The other, a man dressed in a suit, tie and jumper, clothes which are wholly unsuitable for a hot Australian summer. When the man sits down outside Cedar Valley Curios & Old Wares and quietly dies ... Read Review |
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The Trauma Cleaner, Sarah Krasnostein11/01/2019 - 4:01pmSandra Pankhurst has led one hell of a life. From being adopted as a young child, awful childhood abuse by those adoptive parents, through to marriage, fatherhood and finally acknowledgement of alternative sexuality - firstly as a gay man / ultimately the realisation that she was transgender. Marriage breakdown led to life as a drug addict, drag queen, sex worker, gender transition, wife, severe health issues, and finally a highly successful business as a trauma cleaner. Pankhurst has not had, nor made, an easy path in life. Every time I've heard her interviewed, everything I've ever ... Read Review |
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Preservation, Jock Serong11/01/2019 - 2:45pmI've been trying to think of somebody else that could write books about abalone fishing quotas, cricket, asylum seekers and now early white Australian settlement, convicts, rum runners and shipwrecks and make them all equally compelling, memorable, and ... crime fiction. Jock Serong is one of those writers whose books induce a spot of awkward happy dancing when they arrive - you're guaranteed of something different and unusual after all. Whilst each of the settings, and approaches have varied, at the core of Serong's books is a tale of people being people. Good, bad, ... Read Review |
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Missing Pieces, Caroline de Costa11/01/2019 - 10:55amThe second in the Cass Diamond series MISSING PIECES is set in far North Queensland, with Cass Diamond investigating connected cold case disappearances. In 1992, toddler Yasmin Munoz went missing from a picnic spot near Cairns. In 2012 local businessman and former mayor Andrew Todd dies, leaving directions in his will to search for the missing child, by now a young woman if she's still alive. Yasmin is the daughter of Todd and a local mixed race woman, who has since died. Once Diamond starts digging around she discovers there's another mysterious disappearance in the Todd family - the ... Read Review |
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Crime Scene Asia : when forensic evidence becomes the silent witness, Liz Porter08/01/2019 - 1:55pmThere's a quote on the back of this book from Stephen Cordner, Professor of Forensic Pathology, Monash Universay Australia:
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The Promised Land, Barry Maitland08/01/2019 - 10:50amTHE PROMISED LAND is the 13th Brock and Kolla police procedural from Barry Maitland. The first novel in the series, THE MARX SISTERS, was originally released in 1994, and here we are at the 13th outing, and Maitland is still writing as assured, elegant and entertaining a police procedural series as you'd want. Always with that little quirk that his designer / architect mind obviously identifies with most strongly - choice of location. This time the location is Hampstead Heath, the case is the investigation of three brutal murders of women, and the quick identification of ... Read Review |
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Flight Risk, Michael McGuire07/01/2019 - 1:42pmPost 9-11 it's hard to think that there hasn't been speculation about the next shock and awe campaign. I bet nobody thought there'd be an Australian, rough and tumble ex-commercial pilot, come spy at the centre of it all. The theory that Michael McGuire proposes in his thriller FLIGHT RISK is, however, just believable enough to make you feel decidedly twitchy about the possible reality. Right from page one FLIGHT RISK is out of the starter's gate at a hefty clip, moving quickly through the back story of Ted Anderson: disgraced former pilot, widower and estranged father, former a lot ... Read Review |
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Invisible Women, Kylie Fox & Ruth Wykes07/01/2019 - 1:19pmStacked up in every corner of this house are piles of books that I should have read by now, with INVISIBLE WOMEN being one of them. As the sub-heading puts it: "Powerful and Disturbing Stories of Murdered Sex Workers". The tardiness was regretted even more once I finished the book. A lot of the power behind these stories is down to the sheer numbers. The index lists 65 women's names - murdered or gone missing since 1970 (the book was published in 2016). To put that into perspective, 46 years, 65 women listed. God knows how many more died during that period, how many more ... Read Review |
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The Bush, Don Watson05/01/2019 - 5:01pmWay too big a conceptual book for a month's lead in reading to a bookclub gathering, this is one that many of us agreed needed to be on the shelves, for dipping in and out of. I loved so much about this book, but need to think, reread, consider and probably rethink much of it. Definitely one for the to be bought stakes now though.Read Review |
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Waiting for Elijah, Kate Wild04/01/2019 - 2:35pmA police investigation can seem like an interminably slow process and on no one does the passage of that time weigh more heavily than on those mourning the loss of a loved one. It’s a process not guaranteed a satisfactory result after years of waiting, and in the meantime, lives must be picked up with again and continued on with as best they can be. Elijah Holcombe was a young married man in his mid-twenties who was blessed with both a loving family and friends who adored him. His life and future from the outside may have looked bright however Elijah was troubled by ... Read Review |
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An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good, Helene Tursten31/12/2018 - 5:28pm“Barely a week later, the doorbell rang, loud and long. In Maud’s world it felt as if her visitor had only just left.” When Swedish crime writer Helene Turston was asked to write a short story for a Christmas anthology she created the character of Maud, an 88 year lady who has no qualms about committing a murder. Since writing An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace At Christmas Helene Turston has written another four short stories featuring Maud. All five Maud stories, which have been translated by Marlaine Delargy, are now available in a single volume entitled An Elderly Lady Is Up ... Read Review |
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The Quaker, Liam McIlvanney26/12/2018 - 11:35amIn 1977 William McIlvanney released Laidlaw, a novel which is widely regarded as being the first Tartan Noir novel. Following his death in 2015 the award for the best Scottish crime book was renamed the McIlvanney Prize in his honour. This year the prize was awarded to William McIlvanney’s son Liam for his novel The Quaker which is loosely based upon the three Bible John murders in Glasgow in the late 60’s. Fans of Ian Rankin will recognise Bible John from the 8th Rebus novel Black and Blue. After a Prologue and the first of three disturbing chapters telling the murders ... Read Review |
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Country of the Blind, Christopher Brookmyre24/12/2018 - 2:48pm“But Parlabane, tears welling in his eyes as knelt trembling on the carpet, knew exactly what they meant. They meant black was white, white was black, something was very, very wrong- and only he could prove it.” When I started my summer favourites series of reviews I knew it wouldn’t be too long before I picked up a Chris Brookmyre novel, the question always going to be, which one? After the release of his debut novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, Brookmyre wrote three equally excellent novels, Country of the Blind, One Fine Day in ... Read Review |
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The Girl Without Skin, Mads Peder Nordbo22/12/2018 - 8:10pmOpening with a breathtaking first-person account of the car accident that killed Matthew Cave's wife and unborn daughter, THE GIRL WITHOUT SKIN isn't as straight-forward an undertaking for fans of Nordic Noir as it might seem. Early on in the novel you're going to find yourself ticking off the required elements list. Awful personal tragedy; man lost in grief and lacking direction; isolation in a cold and inhospitable location; tension between different groups of people; local indigenous stories and customs; bone-chilling cold and weather creating a closed room setting; an ... Read Review |
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Mort, Terry Pratchett22/12/2018 - 4:27pmBack to full versions, narrated by Nigel Planer, this was 7 hours and 27 minutes of listening joy :)Read Review |
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Sourcery, Terry Pratchett22/12/2018 - 1:56pmAnother full version, narrated by Nigel Planer, this was 7 hours and 63 minutes of listening to how books and stuff aren't the point, it's all about real wizarding.Read Review |
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Wetland, Colin King22/12/2018 - 1:26pmBased around an event that followers of the Underbelly wars in Melbourne will likely recognise, this tale is the second outing for Detective Sergeant Rory James, based in part in the Bendigo region. The first book in the series A VINTAGE DEATH was set firmly in winemaking region of Heathcote, with the action interwoven into the history of the place. WETLAND takes a slightly different tack in that James is still involved in the Bendigo region, and there are aspects of the action that take place in the area, but the feel is more Melbourne-centric this time. ... Read Review |
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Know Me Now, C.J. Carver14/12/2018 - 2:49pmThird in the Dan Forrester series, we're into classic thriller mode now with this series. Heaps of action, a fast moving, multi threaded plot, this one creates a partnership quickly between Forrester and ongoing series character Lucy Davies that works well. Again we have a couple of main threads, a supposed suicide and a seemingly natural death that turn out to be murder, with a very personal connection to Forrester. In a nutshell KNOW ME NOW is a better outing than the second, but not quite to the heights of the first novel in the series. To be fair, a lot of the ... Read Review |
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Spare Me The Truth, C.J. Carver14/12/2018 - 2:17pmAustralian readers will probably remember C.J. Carver as Caroline Carver - writer of a series of Australian set books <cough> years ago. Recently, she's returned to notice writing under the name C.J. Carver - with a series of thrillers built around Dan Forrester, recently bereaved father, spy, sufferer of amnesia. There are now three novels out in the series - all of which have been recent entries in the Ngaio Marsh Awards. The opening novel, SPARE ME THE TRUTH, introduces Forrester, and the background to the death of his young son; Grace Reavey, accosted at her ... Read Review |
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Tell Me A Lie, C.J. Carver14/12/2018 - 12:22pmDan Forrester and Lucy Davies return in the second novel in this series: TELL ME A LIE. It's hard to say that these novels must or must not be read in sequence, or if there's enough leeway for readers to start anywhere. There is a bit of back story in this second outing that should help fill in the gaps for new readers, but those returning to the series may notice the obviously similar structure deployed in both novels. Again we have seemingly disparate story-lines converging, pulling the two main characters into a collaborative relationship, although in TELL ME A LIE that happens ... Read Review |