Sorted on book title (not in series order)
There is a serial killer in Amsterdam, killing young women in an unspeakable manner. The body of the elderly tramp, found in a rain soaked park, is covered in scarring of all types, so police assume that he is the latest victim, despite the differences in the manner of his death. All...Read more
The back of THE DEVIL'S SANCTUARY says that it has the atmosphere of Shutter Island and the intensity of Jussi Adler-Olsen so I was expecting something... well big.
And for quite a while this was a fascinating scenario. Estranged identical twins, Daniel and Max, were parted by...Read more
THE DEVIL'S TEARS is the debut thriller from ex Army Officer Steven Horne, as well as the first fictional book I've read set in Timor-Leste. There's an excellent Author's Note at the end of the book that gives a potted history of the struggle in East Timor for those not so familiar with...Read more
If you're new to Ben Sanders work then you've got some catching up to do. Starting out with the Sean Deveraux books - THE FALLEN (2010) and BY ANY MEANS (2011) - Sanders announced himself as a purveyor of hard-boiled, American based, whatever it takes crime fiction, part hard-man, part...Read more
LA Larkin’s Devour features investigative journalist Olivia Wolfe’s world of big stories, hair’s-breadth escapes from danger and fearless reporting on the worst of human excesses. ...Read more
Emily Tempest, drawn back to Central Australia and to the place she grew up, Moonlight Downs, instantly feels at peace with the Warlpuju people. Here are her best friend Hazel and Hazel's father Lincoln Flinders, a much respected tribal elder. The Warlpuju have always been her mob and...Read more
WARNING: This book discusses sexual offences, and the related trial proceedings.
DICE is a debut novel from NZ author Claire Baylis. The subject matter is confronting, not just because it is seemingly based on a real life case, the styling is inventive, and the outcomes...Read more
There’s both highs and dips with this novel. Some of the dialogue is quite fun and the main character Cara is comically harried with all that is going on in her life. We’ve all been there. Mother and teen daughter relationships based on sarcasm are very relatable, as is the faux...Read more
I probably should sit down and give a detailed, reasoned and careful analysis of DIE TWICE by Andrew Grant. But can I just go with "I really liked this book". Because "I really liked this book".
I'm not sure why to be frank. Perhaps it was the structure - I liked the...Read more
There's a bit of a clue to the context for Gemma's death on the front cover of DIE WITH ME - "You could find your new best friend on the net ... or discover your worst nightmare". Oh dear, another the Internet is all bad story? Well no.
Gemma's death is written off as a...Read more
Before proceeding any further, it's worth repeating the trigger warning from the blurb for DIETVALE:
"Contains torture and rape. The retribution is both swift and brutal."
The story, in a nutshell, is one of recently divorced Marilyn, who, in an attempt to regain...Read more
Back when we were all a quite a bit younger Carolyn Morwood had a couple of books out featuring Melbourne based, female, professional cricketer Marlo Shaw (AN UNCERTAIN DEATH and A SIMPLE DEATH). She followed that up more recently with the Eleanor Jones series, set around the time of World...Read more
It's always interesting to see a favoured author head off in another direction, and THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL is a big directional switch for Geoffrey McGeachin. Moving away from the madcap all-Australian James Bond of the Alby Murdoch books, we are introduced to a new character, a new...Read more
After spending a fair amount of time in Tasmania in the 1970's, Canadian Gordon Aalborg did what all red blooded Canadian-Australian men do, he turned to writing romance novels. 20 or more of those novels later, he's now turned to crime fiction as well, and DINING WITH DEVILS is the second...Read more
In a commuter village near Amsterdam, upwardly mobile couples have moved in to live the suburban dream. Large houses, ostentatious wealth, room to move, safe streets for the children to play in, village atmosphere. In reality husbands leave early in the morning, the community is closed and...Read more
Should have suspected something when a friend lent me this book. There was something about the gleam in their eye that sort of suggested that this could be talked about long into the night. And boy has it been already.
Classically slow burning, obscure and cleverly done, two...Read more
January is often a very good reading month for some reason. That alone doesn't make a lot of sense - it's normally hot enough to melt the tin on the roof, which isn't conducive to concentration. Making THE DINOSAUR FEATHER look like a rather risky choice. At 535 pages it was way too big...Read more
THE DIRECTION OF OUR FEAR is such an interesting idea - multiple characters living separate lives, getting on with their day to day existences, moving through place and time without knowing each other, or even being aware that there will come that intersecting point - a morning commuter...Read more
An outstanding debut novel back in 2022 (good grief has it really taken this long to post this ...), it's very very hard to look past an Australian rural noir novel called DIRT TOWN. Sitting as I am at the moment in the middle of an Australian rural summer that's mostly putting up dust...Read more
Twenty years have passed since the brutal death of James Brandt’s beloved cousin. Will an inquiry into gay hate-crimes offer any resolution?
In 2021 journalist Michael Burge released his first novel Tank Water, a coming-of-age...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
Wonderfully evocative, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SIGNORA GIULIA imparts much information about the society in which it is set in a short, but beautifully balanced novel.
When Signora Giulia goes missing, police detective Sciancalepre follows the investigation with dogged...Read more
When the blurb says "In Northern Ireland's darkest corner" it means it. It's winter, it's wet, dark, cold and black. A landscape full of old houses, swamps and fast running streams, there's an overwhelming sense of dark, deep, close-held, life-long, simmering secrets in the world that...Read more
Right, so the paperwork up front. DISASTER INC is the first in the series, "McGarry Stateside", featuring Bunny McGarry, who has already made an appearance in the "Dublin Trilogy" which isn't a trilogy, and doesn't just feature McGarry, and has another spin off - "MCM Investigations". So...Read more
DISGRACE is the second book in the Danish series featuring Carl Mørck, who heads Copenhagen's cold case squad. A department made up of one very grumpy, sidelined cop; one civilian assistant who used to be the cleaner, and as of DISGRACE, one secretary who seems to have been shunted down to...Read more
A DISSECTION OF MURDER is the first in a series of books from Western Australian author Felicity Young. Set in London at the turn of the twentieth Century, featuring Dr Dody McCleland, the first female autopsy surgeon, the action in this book takes place in the midst of the Suffragette...Read more
I don't read horror books, nor do I watch horror movies. Even the good old Hammer Horror movies passed me by, so I'm not the best judge of these sorts of books, which makes talking about DOCTOR PERRY a tad compromised. Because of that, take this as the type of review which is all about my...Read more
Reading a series in order, I’ve decided, is too normal. Or at least that’s the best excuse I can come up with for starting the Hermes Diaktoros series at book number three - THE DOCTOR OF THESSALY.
Set in a tiny Greek village, a crying jilted bride, leads quickly to the...Read more
Summer (northern hemisphere), 2001, and religious and political tensions in Egypt form the basis of the second Makana crime novel by Parker Bilal. Whilst there's nothing new in the use of crime fiction as the vehicle for exploring society on the edge, DOGSTAR RISING set, as it is, in that...Read more