Sorted on book title (not in series order)
MURDER AT THE FORTNIGHT is set in the testing arena of the "theatre" and the arts. Showbiz commentator, Stella Pentangelli is returning from a bit of a "rest" as it's known in the trade, after a stella career as a showbusiness commentator and heavyweight. Inspector Ng is an investigator in...Read more
THE MURDER BIRD is the story of a young woman who refuses to believe that her mother's death was a suicide. Sam is the young girl, her mother, Kirsten Waller is a famous poet who was working on a major new poem when she is found electrocuted in her bath in a remote Cornish cottage. Sam...Read more
My fault this one. I've been enjoying a few crime fiction novels on the cosier end of the spectrum recently, but this one, alas, was too far into that world for my taste. Perfectly good novel for fans of that overtly English, slightly dotty, eccentric small village style of novel. Just not...Read more
Borrowed this one by sheer happenstance from the library in audio format. Turned out to be an excellent choice, as it was different, and cleverly done.
MURDER BY NATURAL CAUSES is told in two timelines. In the current day, Cilla is a 22-year-old contract killer, specialising in...Read more
Originally published in 1970, this title was reprinted in 1991 by Weldon Publishing.
From the book: "When a famous, but hated, movie producer seems to have been killed by the very film technique he claimed to have invented, journalist Peter Cardiman turns detective. The tightly...Read more
Miller Hatcher made her debut as a character in NOTHING BAD HAPPENS HERE. In my review of that book I noted that she was "a flawed character, frequently almost pathetic, but there's enough in her back story, and the way her problems presented to make her understandable, if not completely...Read more
THE MURDER FARM was one of the books that I purposely read as I was seeing the author at a Melbourne Writers Festival session. I actually picked it up to take on the train in with me - a journey of just on an hour in total. I can't remember the last time I was tempted to stay on the train...Read more
The preoccupation for Scandinavian crime fiction of many readers is sometimes questioned. One response is to get people to read Karin Fossum's Inspector Konrad Sejer series. Within the one series, Fossum is able to shift the perspective, analyse the reasons why, explore the outcomes and...Read more
Even if you didn't know that author Ian Simpson regards John Mortimer as one of his inspirations, there's something slightly similar in their writing styles, although there's no Rumpole character in MURDER IN COURT THREE.
Set in the precincts of courts, and the legal fraternity...Read more
Third novel in the super-cozy Hitchhiker series which features stay at home dad Oliver Atkinson, and his propensity to pick up ghostly hitchhikers with problems that they need solving. In this outing he finds himself dealing with a precious nine-year-old and an investigation into what...Read more
In the process of getting the new AustCrime version up and running, I keep coming across books I've not read, or reviews I've forgotten to post. This fell into the later category, how I managed to miss this I'm not quite sure, but that gap has now been filled.
One of the things...Read more
MURDER IN MT MARTHA is a fictional story, inspired by an unsolved 1953 real-life murder in the Mornington Peninsula suburb of Mt Martha. Author Janice Simpson combines the real facts with a range of unconnected contemporary elements to weave a potential solution and create her fictional...Read more
No one in Heppleburn has a bad word to say about Alice Parry . . . but here she is, murdered in her own backyard on a bitter St. David's Eve. And when detective Stephen Ramsay starts asking questions in the village, a more ambiguous picture begins to emerge.Read more
I started listening to the audio of this series when it was available at the library, and I felt like something quintessentially "British". These fit that bill perfectly, with central police inspector Stephen Ramsay a laconic, feeling slightly rumpled, divorced cop, new to the area, the...Read more
Two books from the Hitchhiker series of cosy paranormal novels based around unwilling house-husband Oliver Atkinson and his adventures with the odd and quirky. Atkinson is a stay at home husband who doesn't seem to be all that happy with that situation. Although he is trying to write a book...Read more
MURDER IN PINK is the fourth book in the Hitchhiker series featuring Oliver Atkinson, his family, and his ... hangers on. Basically Oliver is an unwilling house husband, and amateur investigator who is "aided" by witnesses or involved parties, who inhabit his being. Ghosts with opinions and...Read more
In Melbourne, in 1868, theatre star Marie St Denis dies in the arms of her best friend, up and coming actress, Lola Sanchez. The accepted cause of death is suicide by laudanum overdose, something that Sanchez refuses to believe. Why would her brilliant, much admired, accomplished dear friend do such a thing? But then why would anyone kill St Denis?Read more
The indefatigable Miss Phryne Fisher returns to solve what may be her most puzzling murder.
Set in Bendigo, Victoria, it was interesting to read the acknowledgements / author's note on this one because it definitely read like...Read more
The Crooked House sits on a snowbound cliff at the remote northern tip of Japan. A curious place to build a house, but even more curious is the house itself - a maze of sloping floors and strange staircases, full of bloodcurdling masks and uncanny dolls. When a guest is found murdered in...Read more
A collection of eight different short stories, many of them past prize winners, all of them featuring crime and women from differing viewpoints.
Journalists, police officers and private investigators are some of the occupations of the different central characters. Perpetrators...Read more
Before any rumours get started, when I read MURDER IN THE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE many years ago, it wasn't quite as far back as 1948! No idea where that copy sadly disappeared to, but the book was one of those Golden Era, mostly by female author's books that got me started on a life long love...Read more
June Wright is one of the early writers who forged a way for the current vibrant Australian crime fiction scene.
Unfortunately the crime novels of June Wright have been largely forgotten and unavailable for many years. That situation is now being rectified,...Read more
There are a lot of reasons why I move heaven and earth to get hold of a Philip McLaren book when I hear there's a new one in the offing. Firstly, as you can probably pick from the synopsis above, there's a very dry, understated wit in McLaren's story-telling style. He's also writing about...Read more
In the previous book in the long and much loved Phryne Fisher series, DEATH IN DAYLESFORD, author Kerry Greenwood felt it was time for the younger members of the Fisher household to do some investigating of their own. Not surprisingly Ruth, Jane and young Tinker turned out to quite the dab...Read more
Latter day Australian Pulp Fiction at it's best, Murder is Never Pretty... is, well hilarious.
Part of the attraction is that it's 100% true to the style and phrasing of the pulp writers of bygone times - but it's all set in current day Perth - dare one say the mean and dirty...Read more
I'll be honest - I was keen to read this book because of the similarity in timeframe for its writing to that of Fergus Hume's The Mystery of the Hansom Cab - and because of Shane Maloney's excellent introduction to the book comments that Adam's made no particularly literary claims for this...Read more
Phryne Fisher returns in her 20th mystery, and one gets the distinct impression that the singer in Ms Greenwood has had issues with choir conductors in the past. But that's not the only thing that really stood out in MURDER AND MENDELSSOHN.
Fans will, as always, find Miss...Read more
First few chapters - what on earth am I doing reading this.
Next few chapters - okay I'm getting this, this is .... different.
Next few chapters - what do you mean you want something ... can't you see I'm busy.
Why do I keep hearing Henning Wehn's...Read more
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...Read more
It's been a long time since I caught up with Phryne and her household of adopted daughters, faithful retainer, dedicated companion, cook and exotic lover. Part of the reason for that was the feeling that it was all a little same old same old. What I did find with MURDER ON A MIDSUMMER...Read more