Sorted on book title (not in series order)
It's odd, the things that can occur to you when you're reading books. In the case of SILENT FEAR I just could not stop thinking how glad I was to be a reader and not a writer. Honestly, how do these people come up with such consistently good characters and excellent plots? Howell makes...Read more
THE SILENT INHERITANCE strides with purpose for the bulk of the novel as the field narrows and possibilities are discarded. There are a number of separate narratives running alongside each other. The characters are somewhat of a curious yet dispassionate bunch. As a result, readers...Read more
After coming to love the regular January Cliff Hardy fix it was a happy day when SILENT KILL arrived. Reading blurbs though can sometimes be problematic and so it was with this one, and the reference to a "rogue intelligence agent". Recently that seems to have been code for "no idea how to...Read more
Alicia and Gabriel were once that sparkling young couple who appeared to be dazzlingly in love with life and totally bedazzled by each other. The envy of all who knew them, the darlings of the art world to boot. Such charmed lives some couples seem to lead. It is often said that...Read more
The Emmanuel Cooper books by Malla Nunn, set in 1950's South Africa, are another excellent series in what is luckily now becoming a bigger range of crime fiction set in various parts of Africa. SILENT VALLEY (aka BLESSED ARE THE DEAD) is the third book now, centred around Detective Sergeant...Read more
SILK CHASER is the third novel set within the Australian Racing Industry by ex-strapper, trainer and punter Peter Klein. These books, unsurprisingly, have a fantastic sense of place and reality within that setting, covering the difficulties and vagaries of the Sport of Kings from exactly...Read more
Sometimes I wonder if a book gets filed under "will get around to that" because of some sort of subconscious reaction to the blurb. I'm going with that. Makes me feel somewhat less daft than if I confessed that I put THE SILVER DAGGER down on a stack of unread books and then promptly forgot...Read more
With SCRUBLANDS we had the bush, with SILVER we have the sea. It will be interesting to see if Hammer’s next book is set in a grotty city capital, just to complete the trifecta of the Australian way of living.
SILVER is set in a coastal town...Read more
It's odd the things that come to mind when you're reading a book. THE SIMPLE DEATH had me very worried for central character Nicholas Troy's female colleagues. Given that he seems to spend a lot of his time jumping into bed with other women as soon as something goes wrong with his own life...Read more
For those reading the Inspector Singh Investigates series in order, THE SINGAPORE SCHOOL OF VILLAINY is the third book. Given these are a series, is it necessary to read them in order? Whilst there's always something gained when reading books in the order that the author wrote them, this is...Read more
Caro Ramsay's second book - SINGING TO THE DEAD - has a lot to live up to. ABSOLUTION was just a fantastic book, with a particularly brave ending. That ending means SINGING TO THE DEAD starts out looking back to some of that story, and with a need to shift the focus to many of the lesser...Read more
According to her bio author Karen M Davis was a New South Wales police officer for twenty years. Starting her career on the streets of Newtown, she went on to work as a detective and undercover operative in a variety of sections, all of which specialised in the investigation of organised...Read more
As you can tell from the blurb, THE SINNER is a whydunnit, as opposed to a whodunnit book, although that's way too simplistic a description. When Cora Bender stabs a man to death in front of family, friends, and a crowded park, nobody realises that she was originally planning to commit...Read more
Having had the opportunity to read the fifth in this series a while ago I've been champing at the bit to go back to the start - SIREN OF THE WATERS. Sneaking this in amongst a lot of required reading recently was quite a treat, although now I'm wondering when I'll get a chance to read two,...Read more
THE SIREN'S STING is the second Stevie Duveen novel from Miranda Darling, following on from THE TROIKA DOLLS.
These books are thrillers, featuring Stevie who works as a risk assessor in the personal / company protection game. Starting off much where the first book ended, Stevie...Read more
Suspended from duty, Detective Frølich is working as a private investigator, when his girlfriend’s colleague asks for his help with a female asylum seeker, who the authorities are about to deport. She claims to have a sister in Norway, and fears that returning to her home country will mean...Read more
THE SISTERS' LOVER is an engaging, slightly quirky historical fiction novel set mostly within Australia. Starting out in post war 1950, Flis, Australian by birth, is returning to the family property after many years in Wellington, New Zealand. Flis hasn't been in contact with her younger...Read more
Flagged as a prequel to McTiernan's acclaimed THE RUIN, THE SISTERS is an audible only novella, set 10 years before the first Cormack Reilly book THE RUIN, which was followed by THE SCHOLAR. McTiernan's two series books have met with considerable acclaim in all parts, and THE SISTERS is...Read more
A radio play available on Audible, this was one of those "why not" picks from the list when I was looking for something to listen to a while ago. Told in a series of short episodes with lots of lead in music, lots of noise and drama, and a reasonably good cast in terms of being...Read more
SIX FOUR is one of those books that demands considerable commitment from readers. At a whopping 656 pages, it's a considerable weight to be holding onto for a long period of time, which you will be, as it's a very detailed, dense and potentially frustrating read.
A form of...Read more
A comedic styled novel tending almost towards satire, which you'll get from title, even before you've even cracked open the spine. SIX MURDERS (for short) is the tale of the weird life of Ponytail O'Gorman - a charming old-style fraudster - who somehow convinced a couple of everyday people...Read more
For the uninitiated, Matthew Reilly does not write crime. He does not write thrillers. Matthew Reilly writes ACTION. Think Indiana Jones with a healthy dose of Die Hard and you'll start to get the idea. Character development just slows down the plot too much. As always, Reilly is...Read more
Matthew Reilly was born in 1974. He is of a generation who grew up on a diet of action blockbuster movies. Reading THE SIX SACRED STONES is like reading a screenplay for one of these movies. The characters careen from one life threatening situation to another at a breakneck speed. There...Read more
The six adult children of Frazer Lattimer have an entire childhood of fraught experiences to draw upon for examples of bad parenting. Their mother, Kathleen Lattimer, was an utter saint though and often served as a buffer between her overbearing husband and their three sons and three...Read more
THE SKELETON MAN is the fifth novel in this series - "starring" Philip Dryden, journalist - once Fleet Street luminary, now small-town newspaper man, and I have to confess this is a favourite series of mine. Not because the books are edgy, or dark or particularly enlightening of the human...Read more
SKIN AND BONE has all the elements of a good crime novel. Well-developed characters: a suitably absorbing plot with intertwining threads and enough clues to allow the reader to solve the mystery.
Kathryn Fox’s first two novels (Malicious Intent and Without Consent) featured Dr...Read more
Tom Bale, it seems, is a pseudonym for David Harrison who wrote SINS OF THE FATHER in 2006, which goes some way to explaining the deftness of touch in this crime fiction thriller. It may also go some way to explaining how the author has managed to install an almost cinematic feel to the...Read more
A paranormal crime thriller with a blokey sensibility, Skin Deep is set in a Brisbane still dealing with the after-effects of many years of Joh rule. Harry Hendrick is a man of his time and circumstance. A journalist by training,...Read more
SKINJOB started out as a self-published novel before being picked up by Random House / Bantam Press. A techno-thriller this is a cross-genre story putting many of the standard aspects of classic crime fiction into a Science Fiction / futuristic setting.
The central theme of the...Read more
Mounted Trooper Augustus Hawkins was introduced to readers in Fioretti's first novel, BONE LANDS. Returned from active service in the Boer War, he's scarred physically and mentally, tortured by what happened in combat, damaged again by the love he found in the first novel having been...Read more