Sorted on book title (not in series order)
The third novel featuring DSS Archie Baldrick and DC Ben Travers, A VIRTUOUS LIE follows on from INTO THE VOID and RETRIBUTION. This is a series that might be best read in order, which shouldn't be a trial for anyone new to it - the first two are tightly plotted, engaging and only 160 and...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
There's a Renault Twingo referred to as having "committed suicide" when Gallo, the station's driver, he of the "Indianapolis Complex", slams into it in a spectacular example of mad driving that had me crying with laughter on page 4 of VOICE OF THE VIOLIN. Which is not a bad writing feat at...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
WAKING THE TIGER is set in 1939 Singapore. Dripping with sense of place and time, there's something vaguely reminiscent of Chandler's styling, and the excellent Inspector Le Fanu series by Brian Stoddart in the characterisation and plot.
Inspector Maximo Betancourt is working a...Read more
Okay, so what I'm really saying is that I don't get vampire fiction, unless it's Swedish or funny, and it probably helps to be set in my home state. To be honest I doubt I would have even given WALKING SHADOWS another glance, only I was doing the formatting of the ebook, and phrases,...Read more
Well this is a disappointment. Not the book, but the fact that this another audio journey through a series that's gotten to the end. Jack Parlabane, book number 8, WANT YOU GONE. Here's hoping there are more on the way because I do so love this series (having read them all / now listened to...Read more
From the blurb:
1943 – Bletchley Park, England
Mae Webster, immersed in the clandestine world of codebreaking at Bletchley Park, is recruited to help unveil a spy who’s on the brink of exposing Britain's most
...Read more
Joe Blake is a cop and it's hard being a cop in Perth, Western Australia. You have to drive around in a hotted up super special cop Commodore. You have to be a sexual gymnast and super athlete, just to keep up with the women throwing themselves at you. You have to have nerves of steel -...Read more
There are some books around that may not be good for your health. Since finishing WASHED UP I've had this nagging feeling that all problems should be resolved with a glass of Lagavulin malt in one hand and a shot of espresso in the other.
WASHED UP is the second book from UK /...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
You do want to Lily to succeed, as her clumsy and inept forays into investigating the murder of her neighbour are almost charming. She is a lone woman against the world and her husband is of little or no help. You do feel her frustration when the efforts of others to shut her down send her...Read more
Billed as one of Priscilla Masters Medical Mysteries, this author has written around 15 books, some standalone, some with a central series character. THE WATCHFUL EYE is set, as the synopsis says, in a classic small English village where Daniel Gregory is the local GP. Recently divorced,...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 WATER'S DEAD is the first novel featuring DI Nyree Bradshaw (BETTER LEFT DEAD is out in September), set in the upper north island region of New Zealand, with idyllic scenery, pockets of poverty, a strong, tight knit Māori community, and a lot of fractious relationships.
...Read more
One of the things that I particularly love about really good crime fiction is the way that it highlights the human condition - warts and all. The thing I particularly love about Karin Fossum's books is the way that she explores the notion of the sad, the stupid, the moments in which things...Read more
In the author notes to THE WAY BACK, Kylie Ladd says she became interested in the idea behind the novel when US teenager Elizabeth Smart was reunited with her family months after she was abducted. Whilst the media focused on the story of her captivity and release, what intrigued Ladd was...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
Combining a coming of age story, with paranormal aspects, this YA novella sensitively incorporates the subjects of disability and same sex attraction.
The main character, Myra, is a circus kid, who once old enough, had joined her parent's aerial act. Then she fell, injuring...Read more
First in a new series from The Thursday Murder Club author Richard Osman, WE SOLVE MURDERS uses many of the stylings and touches that make all his books very readable.
WE SOLVE MURDERS features two new main characters. Amy Wheeler is a close protection agent, working for a...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
This young adult novel from NZ author Denis Wright explores the manner in which dangerous cults can target, and draw vulnerable people into their grasp. In this case, Lucy Sorrenson is the daughter of a father who still thinks he's the only teenager in the household. She lives with him and...Read more
‘No one will invest in a business focussed on family violence – it’s the opposite of sexy.’
Lauren Brown, owner of Weeping Angels, smiled. ‘Maybe to men.’
Lauren Brown has a booming business on her hands - an agency that...Read more
THE WESTERN BANKER is Barrett's first book, set in the world of International Bankers and high finances, a world that the author undoubtedly knows a lot about. The book takes a slightly unusual approach in that the central character is... not to put too fine a point on it .... a bit of a...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