In 1911, Augustus (Gus) Hawkins is a mounted trooper in rural New South Wales. A veteran of the Boer war he's a complex man with a severe case of PTSD and a bad dose of long-standing longing for Flora Kirkbride, eldest of four children of a local "landed gentry" family. Until the night he...Read more
'Isn't it your job to stop people being murdered?'
1911, on a winter's night in arid New South Wales wool country, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins discovers the bodies of three young people. They are scions of the richest family in the district, savagely murdered on a...Read more
A husband and father is betrayed, a son chases a ghost through the decades, a Russian arms dealer wants his hands on a priceless ruby, a young woman disappears with the keys to the mystery, and a female insurgent fights for her life. The Past and the Present are on a collision course....Read more
A VIP Protection job goes wrong, the brutalised body of a young man is found in the jungle, a triad wants its $2.5 million back, a girl goes missing and a friend is murdered. Galahad Jones’ world is about to tilt.
When a simple VIP Protection job goes horribly...Read more
A woman wants her errant husband tracked, an undocumented Cambodian girl is found dead, the city’s two biggest criminal societies vie for power, a loan shark wants his money back, and a corrupt cop is pulling strings from the shadows. It’s just another day in Hong Kong.
Former...Read more
In BM Carroll’s latest crime novel, one family’s celebration turns to disaster as a teenager disappears amid a crowd of concert-goers. Full Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead more
In Aoife Clifford’s third novel, the death of a local celebrity brings two old schoolmates together to answer some troubling questions. Full Review at: Newtown Review of BooksRead more
A new crime novel by Garry Disher is always exciting. In Sanctuary, he introduces a new protagonist: a female lone wolf. Full Review at...Read more
In Sulari Gentill’s new novel, aspiring writer Theo and her brother Gus become embroiled in increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories. Full Review at Newtown Review of BooksRead more
A disgraced son of a powerful Australian media tycoon, the traumatised daughter of a small town newspaper editor, coincidentally owned by the aforementioned tycoon. One is sent to "learn the ropes of journalism" / ie been kicked down the line, the other is in town after something sent her...Read more
Growing up in any rural community in the 1970's meant a LOT of talk about football. The boys that played were always the hero's, the girls that watched never mentioned, except if they were connected to the tuck shop at the ground in some way. Or cleaning the change rooms, and the toilets,...Read more
The author of THE CONCIERGE, Abby Corson, has been a luxury travel and lifestyle writer for over 10 years, and it shows in the way that she's able to depict a luxury hotel in the English countryside, with it's own concierge, Henry Harrow, the narrator of this, her first novel.
...Read more
THE GOOD DOG is the third novel featuring DS Zoe Mayer and her service dog Harry. The background to why Mayer has Harry, and some of the back story about why a new partner is working with her is in both of the previous books, and touched on enough here to give new readers some hints as to...Read more
Book Two in the DS Lucas Walker series sees him away from his family home in the dry, arid interior of Queensland, working on the Gold Coast. He's under investigation / threat of his job after the events in the first book, OUTBACK, and temporarily doing some training there. He's been lucky...Read more
Bit of background to commence - KILL YOUR HUSBANDS is billed as a follow up to KILL YOUR BROTHER, which I've not read / listened to yet. None of which seemed to matter a jot, although I understand there is some character crossover it's definitely didn't feel like I should have read these in...Read more
You have to give it to the publishing gods, once they find a location or concept that appeals to readers, they stick with it like sweaty thighs to a vinyl car seat. Outback Noir is something that's been ticking away in Australia for quite a while now, with settings from the red, dry...Read more
I was so looking forward to THE YEAR OF THE LOCUST, and yet, somehow, it's arrival in my ebook queue came as a hell of a surprise. So, needless to say, everything else got swept aside and I settled in for what I hoped would be some days of engaging espionage thriller reading.
...Read more
In Adrian Hyland’s latest crime novel, Jesse Redpath is back, stationed in a new town during a time of stormy weather. Review at: Newtown Review of BooksRead more
My review of Bryan Brown's first full length crime novel - The Drowning has been posted at Newtown Review of Books:
https://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/bryan-brown-the-drowning-...Read more
ECHO LAKE is the debut thriller from screenwriter, producer and author Joan Sauers. Set in the sleepy, scenic vista of the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Rose McHugh has just moved to the area, as a result of a tumultuous divorce. This is an area she loved to visit when younger, and...Read more
It must take real writing skill to create a novel around 3.5 of the most unpleasant, conflicted, dysfunctional and frequently flat out awful people you'd ever read about, and make it as compelling and downright fascinating as KEEP HER SWEET.
The premise is quite the...Read more
In 2018, Katherine Ashworth is struggling. The death of her daughter has precipitated a major falling apart, which she's self-medicating with sleeping pills and vodka. A move to the small town of her husband's childhood - Lowbridge - is the beginning of the fight for Katherine to regain a...Read more
Harrowing and insightful, DOUBLE LIVES by Kate McCaffrey is a very topical exploration of issues around gender, identity, acceptance and truth. There is, for some readers, some confrontational and topical subject matter being addressed here, revolving as it does around the murder of...Read more
Fans of crime fiction, raised on a diet of lone wolf PI's, limping the dark and rainy backstreets in pursuit of justice for the downtrodden, or retribution for wrongs that nobody else cares about, might find the tales in PROBLEM SOLVED a bit of a surprise. Most of the cases that PI Andrew...Read more
Pete McAuslan is Vietnam Vet, and retired police officer, now holed up in the family's remote cabin near the small Tasmanian town of Mole Creek, writing his memoir. His grandson Xander is a Sydney based journalist, and they are close. So close that the shock of the death of Pete, and the...Read more
It's hard not to wonder what the line "Phyrne Fisher meets Underbelly in an arch, out-of-the-box debut historical crime caper" actually means. Turns out it's a bit the timeframe and environment, the character of Violet Kelly, and the situation she finds herself in.
Set in 1930'...Read more
Jane McDonald has been working as a contract tracer in Sydney's western suburbs, during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Contact tracers get used to working with a huge range of people and they expect to patiently work through all sorts of issues, making sure that everyone keeps themselves, and the...Read more
Kirsty Jagger’s debut novel is a confronting story about growing up in the worst of circumstances, and how violence and poverty can happen to anyone. Full Review at Newtown Review...Read more
You 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...Read more
In 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...Read more