Sorted on book title (not in series order)
The author of THE WILD CARD, Renee, is a much loved and prolific writer of novels, memoir, poetry and plays in her native New Zealand. She won the NZ Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in 2018, following which she wrote this, her first crime novel, at the age of 90....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
Detective Inspector Karen Hornby returns in this second thrilling novel from international bestselling author, Maria Adolfsson.
One terrible truth will create a perfect storm.
While her colleagues enjoy the seasonal festivities, DI Karen Hornby is called to...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In 2016 the unpublished manuscript of Wimmera won the UK Crime Writers’ Association debut dagger – now it’s published and we can see why.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
Many years ago there was a specialist bookshop tucked away in Auburn Road, Hawthorn run by a crime fiction expert and massive enabler (I think his name was Malcolm Campbell). He was one of those real-life people that made me thankful I'd made the trek from the bush to the big city, and...Read more
The 11th Montalbano book this is a series that I'm tragically reading out of order, behind the publication dates and sadly not often enough.
Of course fans know about the food, and the scenery, and the grumpiness of Montalbano. Combine that with the vague lunacy of the members...Read more
WINK MURDER is the debut book from ex-journalist and sub-editor Ali Knight. Given that the book is set within the cut-throat and odd world of tabloid television, perhaps her background has informed the way that the world of the media (albeit she worked in print) works.
There...Read more
I cannot believe, firstly that I've left the last two books in this series unread for so long, and secondly I'd be daft enough to read the third, THE WINTER OF THE LIONS out of order. Not that it made a lot of difference to the experience. It's hard to use the word enjoyable when you're...Read more
Familial love, tension, friendship and interconnections are all part of Laurence Fearnley's novel WINTER TIME, set in New Zealand's MacKenzie Basin, a location which absolutely stars in this story. A place in which breath frosts, mists are all encompassing, peaks are starkly white, snow...Read more
I used to keep count of "girl in a hat" (and man standing on a foggy street corner) book covers. But in this case, you know the sort of thing, book covers for rural / romance styled novels with girls looking off into the distance, over fields of golden (dry) grass, akubra style hat firmly...Read more
In Adrian Hyland’s latest crime novel, Jesse Redpath is back, stationed in a new town during a time of stormy weather.
The much anticipated follow-up to Canticle Creek, The Wiregrass is set in the temperate rainforest area of Victoria in the fictional...Read more
There's something profound and slightly unsettling about how much the idea of killing off politicians appeals. At least for a reason like this one. Let's face it - there's probably very few of us that haven't longed for something similar - if not actual death - than at least a tad painful...Read more
This will be a lukewarm review, although I can't entirely put my finger on why. It wasn't a bad book but I think it has some genre identity issues. It is touted as an action thriller, but there's too much of the "thriller" getting in the way of the action, and there's too much explained...Read more
On paper this should have been right up my cobblestone alley, but I've been thinking about it for over a week now, trying to identify what didn't quite tick my personal boxes. And this is very much a personal reaction. As with all books, there will be lots of readers for which WITH WINTER...Read more
‘If you know where to look, kiddo, the world is full of magic and monsters.’
Six-year-old Henry believes his life is a fairytale. He’s a Star Prince, his mum is a Star Queen and they’re hiding from Henry’s father, the mysterious ‘Wolf King’.
When news arrives that his...Read more
Sometime ago, a local author who worked in the local justice system, albeit in a different capacity to this author, wrote a debut novel which, at the time, read a lot like a spot of personal therapy. THE WOMAN BEFORE ME has a little of that feeling about it, but more importantly, and not...Read more
It feels like such a relief to have a woman in Cabin 10, and not a girl, that you'd almost be forgiven for cutting THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 a lot of slack. Along with all the "girls" around there's also been a propensity for unlikeable protagonists, some of whom are unreliable - unknowingly or...Read more
The Wikipedia definition of metafiction is:
"Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the audience to be aware they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about
...Read more
Sixteen novels in and are we tired of hearing about the troubled Charlie Parker? No, indeed we are not. He has marvellous entertaining friends too. THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS is brilliant, and its hard to fault at all a series that bundles you so successfully through the emotional washing...Read more
A short story that is officially flagged as 9.5 in the Vera Stanhope series, this is another one of those serendipitous pickups from the BorrowBox catalogue when I was looking for a short story to fill in a bit of time.
Set up as the precursor to THE RISING TIDE, it introduces...Read more
An historical mystery that mixes fact and fiction, THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE is set in Adelaide in late 1948. It's a story about female police officers built around the factual case of the Somerton Man, a notorious tale that has captured much speculation for many years until recently...Read more
Sherryl Clark is an author with a keen eye for a fascinating central female character, and Lou Alcott is one out of the box. A Melbourne based Private Investigator with a prominent organised crime figure for a grandfather, she's a disillusioned ex-cop with a major attitude when it comes to...Read more
Rediscovery is exactly the word that needs to be applied to this small, but incredibly packed offering from renowned Senior Research Fellow Lucy Sussex.
Sussex has to be one of the greatest proponents of the discovery and telling of the tales of the earliest female writers -...Read more
Launched into listening to this on audio without really doing any blurb reading or background checking of any type. Basically grabbed it because we'd recently watched THE MAGPIE MURDERS which we'd loved, and, well it was there.
One of those reinvention style novels, where the...Read more
A Novella in the "Censored City" series, WOULD SHE BE GONE packs a big punch in a short, sharp delivery. A dystopian future awaits, where the Librarian Algorithm enforces censorship of stories and words that could cause trauma or crime (not a future I can get on board with at all). In this...Read more
Reading the blurb of WRATH the final statement seemed like a pretty brave one - "A novel about a mistake we could all make and redemption". Especially when you know that the inspiration of the book is the real-life story of a 24-year-old Tennessee man who was executed for murdering...Read more
I can't tell you how pleased I was to finally get to read THE WRECKAGE. I've been a fan of this series since it's inception, with only one minor disappointment in the last book which headed off into shock tactics a little too overtly for my liking. THE WRECKAGE, however, is a terrific...Read more
Originally published in Norway in 1995, Gunnar Staalesen's The Writing on The Wall is set in Bergen Norway in the early '90s. Private Eye Varg Veum returns from the funeral of his ex-wife's most recent husband to find the distressed mother of missing 16 year old girl Torild waiting to see...Read more
He is a record collector — a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the “Vinyl Detective” and some people take this more literally than others.
Like the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to...Read more
Okay, so Ed Loy is a bit of a lone wolf character. He's also obviously been endowed with some sort of minor super-powers. You know the sort. No matter how much of a kicking he takes, no matter how much battering, beating, brawling and bashing goes on, Ed keeps on keeping on. He might...Read more