All the Reviews

Aukati, Michalia Arathimos

Author Michalia Arathimos has Greek-New Zealand heritage which is strongly reflected in her novel AUKATI. Set in New Zealand, this is a crime novel based around the scourge that is fracking.

Featuring two main characters, Alexia, a law student with a controlling Greek family, and Isaiah, a young Maori man trying to reconnect with his own family. Cut loose from their backgrounds, and their cultures, they are drawn into the fight to protect Isaiah's Taranaki iwi from the devastation that the fracking is causing. As a protest march turns violent, and the group start to ... Read Review

Take Me In, Sabine Durrant

Four thriller novels in, Sabine Durrant is already in the stable of authors of whose works I will read no matter what the blurb on their upcoming release has to say.   Each book has been just as good as the one before, and Durrant knows exactly what needs to be done in order to pull the reader in close by the end of the very first chapter, if not the very first page.

The central premise of TAKE ME IN is an interesting one. The notion of gratitude, and the varying levels of what that can ascend to, comes up often in work and personal relationships.  There’s nothing more ... Read Review

Second Sight, Aoife Clifford

When Eliza Carmody returns to the small seaside town she grew up in, some things have changed, and a lot hasn't. Often the way when you return to the small town of your youth. Carmody's changed a bit though, and this daughter of the local cop, now lawyer, is there as the legal representative of a large corporation, defending a bushfire class action bought by residents of Kinsale, after it was nearly wiped out in a massive bushfire. 

On the way into town to meet up with an expert witness a road rage incident unfolds in front of her, rapidly spiralling into deadly assault, ... Read Review

Hell Ship, Michael Veitch

Could NOT put this book down and polished it off in a day.  Absolutely gripping with great care and dignity afforded to all of those who set sail, seeking a better life for themselves and their families. The research undertaken to write such a detailed work must have been incredible, and it is with this care that Australian author Michael Veitch has written a book detailing of how his great-great grandfather, James William Henry Veitch, first came to Australia and married the woman who saw him through the horror, the stalwart Anne Morrison. HELL SHIP was, if you’ll forgive this, ... Read Review

The Other Wife, Michael Robotham

THE OTHER WIFE is the latest bittersweet entry in an excellent series that progressively takes a little bit more of your heart with each encounter.  And these are crime novels, so that is truly a testament to the author’s mastery of characterization.   Creating characters that we are fully invested in will always trump the impact of a complex and clever plot.   THE OTHER WIFE is a shining example of both achievements.

THE OTHER WIFE serves well as a standalone but if you’ve been on the bandwagon with the rest of us crime readers, you have likely read at least one of the ... Read Review

The Woman in the Woods, John Connolly

Sixteen novels in and are we tired of hearing about the troubled Charlie Parker? No, indeed we are not.  He has marvellous entertaining friends too. THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS is brilliant, and its hard to fault at all a series that bundles you so successfully through the emotional washing machine with each novel. At the end of each Parker book we have been through a hell of a ride, and we are inevitably changed.  Or at least until the next Parker outing anyway; then we will possibly have even more love and grief wrenched out of us for someone we just want to see toddle happily off on a ... Read Review

A Scandal in Bohemia, Gideon Haigh

Gideon Haigh must like a challenge if the story of the murder of Mollie Dean is anything to go by. There's not a lot known about Mollie - during her lifetime, or sadly about her violent and vicious death. What little is known is gleaned from small clues left behind, a single photograph, some of her published writing, newspaper reporting and extrapolation of the contradicting societies in which she mixed.

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA starts out concentrating on those societal aspects. Mollie Dean's life initially took the expected path of the daughter of a respected school teacher ... Read Review

The Trials of Minnie Dean, Karen Zelas

It is rare, but not unknown to encounter a crime fiction novel in verse. Dorothy Porter's written some of the best examples of this that I've been fortunate enough to read, but I think this might be the first biography of a true crime figure in verse I've come across. Equally beautifully written and wonderfully laid out on the page, THE TRIALS OF MINNIE DEAN is fascinating reading.

Minnie Dean 1872

an open face one

could say    dark hair

drawn back    nothing to hide

a little lace at

... Read Review

Murder Most Malicious, Kitty Jackson

Set in the early twentieth century in mannered and beautiful Dunedin, New Zealand there are plenty of similarities between the stories of Mr Mancini and the delightfully idiosyncratic Hercule Poirot. A cerebral solver of crime, his collaboration with the acerbic Detective Haynes is a nice pairing, and then there is his sounding board, and escaper of tyrannical sisters, neighbour and dog lover.

An interesting piece of historical crime fiction, MURDER MOST MALICIOUS is entertaining reading. Great characters, a lovely sense of the time and place, and a good plot into the ... Read Review