Sorted on book title (not in series order)
One reader's darkly comic domestic noir is another reader's vegan sausage. Which is a really bad way of saying I just didn't get VILLIAN. Not for a moment, and try as I might I'm not even sure I can explain it adequately.
At the core it's a very "current day" idea - what would...Read more
With tongue firmly in cheek, and only because I live in the Pyrenees wine district, yes, well why on earth WOULD somebody kill for a Heathcote shiraz??? (Kidding!)
There's nothing better than books that are set in your own stomping grounds. Places that are very familiar,...Read more
Katherine Howell is rapidly becoming one of my stars of crime fiction writing in Australia. Part of what really works in Howell's books (and VIOLENT EXPOSURE is no exception) is the way that the viewpoint is slightly skewed from the common police, detective, investigator concentration. In...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
Nobody could possibly call reading VODKA DOESN'T FREEZE a pleasure - it's an absolutely heartbreaking and very discomforting book. The author is a trauma psychologist who works with victims, and victims are very much the focus of VODKA DOESN'T FREEZE.
A young girl, victim of...Read more
Leah Giarratano is a trauma psychologist based in Sydney. Among her clients have been victims of sexual abuse and men serving sentences for child abuse. VODKA DOESN’T FREEZE is her first novel. I had the good fortune to hear Giarratano speak last year. She talked about the book being...Read more
VOODOO DOLL is the second book featuring Jill Jackson - the first, VODKA DOESN'T FREEZE is a worthy nominee on the Best First Crime Fiction novel list for 2008. VODKA DOESN'T FREEZE explored - very graphically - the impact of child abuse, VOODOO DOLL takes us into the violent world of the...Read more
Joss Preston-Jones, his wife Isobel, and their young daughter Charlie are spending the evening at the home of Isobel’s boss when they are caught up in a vicious home invasion. Terrorised by the machete wielding, balaclava clad gang, Joss is horrified when he recognises one of them, and...Read more
WAKE won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2019, and it's not at all hard to see why. Atmospheric and cleverly constructed, with a strong sense of place and realistic characters, WAKE has a plot that bring past trauma, grief, guilt and violence forward in a family, and community, to the consequences...Read more
Four children telling a lie to stay out of trouble and a man shot in the head in London 40 years later. Obviously there's some sort of connection as they are both elements of WATCH OUT FOR ME by Sylvia Johnson. What's always intriguing with these sorts of unlikely components, is how and...Read more
Clinical psychologist and best-selling author Leah Giarratano is known for exploring various criminal and/or psychological behaviours in all of her books, and in WATCH THE WORLD BURN, the fourth in the Sergeant Jill Jackson series, she's exploring family, along with extreme psychopathic...Read more
In this seventh novel in Michael Robotham’s Luiz/O’Loughlin series the sense of unease and anticipation builds from the opening lines. Marnie Logan, young, married, with two children, is struggling to survive since her husband Daniel simply vanished a couple of years earlier and it quickly...Read more
THE WAY IT IS NOW is another new character from Garry Disher, mining some familiar territory for him, in that we've got a cop who is struggling with his past, present and future. Even for a youngish man, Charlie Deravin has been a cop for years, and there's a lot of backstory to his life....Read more
Ever read a book that you know you should just absolutely love, and yet somehow you're not quite getting it. It's a bit like that feeling you get when you're invited to a party and show up in fancy dress only to realise that you'd muddled up the invitations.
The quote for the...Read more
The lives of paramedics entwine with a police investigation to remind us just how good Australian crime writing can be.
Web of Deceit, the sixth book by ex-paramedic Katherine Howell featuring Detective Ella Marconi, continues to build a solid, clever...Read more
Based 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...Read more
Are you allowed to write reviews that just say "WOW"? No, well okay - an explanation of why "wow".
From the opening lines of WHAT CAME BEFORE it's hard not to be hooked. The man talking directly to the reader has just killed his wife. He's a lawyer, so his immediate reaction is...Read more
Kirsty Ferguson's WHAT LIES BENEATH US is a story in two parts. On the one hand you have Jessica the mother, with a 10 year old son she almost obsessively adores, a husband she loves, and a good life in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Jessica had problems bonding with Jack when he was first...Read more
WHAT SHE LEFT has created a record in these parts as one of the most picked up and put down, unable to continue books that this reader has struggled with for quite some time. Part of the reason for pressing on is that it was a review book, but the more pressing reason became why was it so...Read more
Michael Robotham’s crime novels have always had an easy grace about them, somehow managing to be dense works without appearing to be so. As with all second novels, the second novel of a new series has much on the line in proving to fickle readers that their leap of faith into new territory...Read more
Given the juxtaposition of this review, and my recent one for THE STONING, I probably should mention that Aoife Clifford was the author I was discussing rural noir versus rural crime with. To my eye, Clifford is one of the great writers of rural crime in Australia at the moment, and she's...Read more
What would you do if your teenage sister just simply disappeared when you were a little girl. And then reappeared at about the same time as your mother's estate was to be distributed?
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? by Wendy James explores what Susan and Ed Middleton do when Susan's long...Read more
Shortlisted for the Unpublished Manuscript Award in the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, Karina Kilmore’s debut has got a lot of Australian crime fiction fans talking. ...Read more
Put a book with Garry Disher's name on the cover down on the table at our place and there's bound to be a bit of sighing from certain quarters. Fair enough, it normally means that all forms of communication will cease until the book is finished. Whilst I will admit a slight preference for...Read more
Book Five now in the Reggie da Costa series of historical crime fiction set in and around Melbourne (with some trips to Geelong incorporated in this one), THE WHITE FEATHER MURDERS really has cemented these novels as a favourite in these parts.
If you're new to the series, it...Read more
WHY NEVILLE SHOT GUS is a novella with author foreword and afterword, from Tasmanian based author, David Owen, best known for his series of crime fiction novels featuring DI 'Pufferfish' Franz Heineken.
The foreword explains how this project came to be:
...Read more
Grazier Mathew Dunbar led a quiet life, working on his farm, helping out with the local poultry club, meeting up with the few very close friends he had. An adopted child, he'd had a tricky relationship with his parents, his father dying not improving things between Dunbar and his mother,...Read more
Second novels are tricky beasts loaded with expectations, particularly when they come on the heels of recent stellar debuts. Australian author Christian White has written another confidently executed work of family drama and generational intrigue that will take up a just a few hours of...Read more
Will confess to being more than a bit pleased when WILD CARD, the second DS Zoe Mayer (and her service dog Harry) novel arrived. The initial outing - THE LONG GAME - had all the hallmarks of a long, and good series in the making, and the follow-up does nothing to dispel that belief....Read more
In 2016 the unpublished manuscript of Wimmera won the UK Crime Writers’ Association debut dagger – now it’s published and we can see why. Reviewed at ...Read more