Sorted on book title (not in series order)
ave to be the short version of this review. The blurb on BORN TO RUN didn't bode well to be honest. Politics in thrillers, a bit of pushing the envelope with the chance of the first woman to win the White House. An Australian software whiz, a TV journalist digging for dirt, and terrorists...Read more
Detective Sam Shephard is back, promoted (no longer a Detective Constable), working in the same squad as boyfriend Paul and still in head on confrontation with the boss, and slightly off centre confrontation with her mother. Which is particularly difficult as in BOUND Sam's much loved...Read more
THE BOUNDARY is the first novel from Australian author Nicole Watson. Nicole is a member of the Birri-Gubba People and the Yugambeh language group and her novel is set in Brisbane, at the end of an unsuccessful land rights claim, soon after which high profile people start dying....Read more
I know that summer is supposed to be finished, but no one told the sun and its mate, the wind that blisters off the plain, making me feel like a dry frog stranded between water points. But I see the plains grass is still green, the dust is holding low, and the kurrajong tree leaves are...Read more
Bush crime, or rural noir if you prefer, is having quite the moment as we all know. The challenges of such extreme geographic isolation in the hostile environment of outback Australia lends itself well to works of crime and dramatic fiction. It’s possible there is going to be no one...Read more
Set in small-town New Zealand, Boy Fallen is beautifully written and elegantly plotted crime fiction.
Auckland Detective Brooke Palmer returns to her home town of Taonga to support her best friend Lana when the body of Lana’s teenage son is found at the base of...Read more
Another debut Australian novel where the blurb will provide a good indication of the style of storytelling. Police procedural in concept, there's a lot going on in THE BOY, leading to a rather complicated and not always well served by procedural correctness, story of a young boy and a cop,...Read more
THE BOYS AND MEN OF AUCKLAND'S MICKEY ROONEY GANG is an unusual undertaking for more reasons than just the title. The story, starting out in 1957, revolves around eight schoolboys, mildly rebellious, obsessed with sex, and anything edgy, they are all attracted to the one bad apple - the...Read more
There is only a small cast in THE BREAKDOWN so our suspicious eyes are trained on characters that don’t have anywhere to hide; they are all close to Cass’s life and are becoming increasingly aware that her life is in disarray. Cass becomes more hemmed in by her memory glitches and is...Read more
“Tyler blinked long and slow, tried to get rid of the spots dancing across his eyes. He stared ahead at the Audi’s number plate, MH 100. A private plate on a top-of-the-range Audi, the posh house, the woman on the floor. A drawer full of iPhones and designer watches, a sawn-off shotgun...Read more
It’s no longer surprising that certain “scenarios” seem to be duplicated in a rush of books - and amnesia and/or dementia causing memory loss is the one that has been showing up a lot recently.
BREATHE AND RELEASE is by New Zealand based Katherine Hayton, and in this case, the...Read more
There's something deliciously intriguing about the idea that a top spy could lose a briefcase, which, rather than chock full of official secrets and classified documents, instead contains three mince pies, two fruit pies, the NZ Listener, a Penthouse magazine, and unfortunately a diary...Read more
Maitland has taken a break from his popular Brock and Kolla series with the release of BRIGHT AIR. It opens with Josh, having recently returned to Sydney after working in London, still mourning the death of his girlfriend Luce, they had both been members of the University climbing club. ...Read more
The first in the Mantra-6 series (Nitrate has been released now), the author of BRIMSTONE, Russel Hutchings, is a former SAS Warrant Officer with over 20 years' service in the Regiment. That experience shows very clearly in the authority of the action sequences, and the way that operational...Read more
As we’ve discovered with the two previous monster hits from this author (BEHIND CLOSED DOORS and THE BREAKDOWN ), Paris knows how to keep us in the seat and our eyes glued to the page. BRING ME BACK sets its own pace of creeping suspicion, denial, a good re-think, then circling back to...Read more
BROKE ROAD is the follow up to the excellent BLACK RIVER, the opening salvo in the series, featuring the determined and dedicated DS Rose Riley, journalist Adam Beaumont, and a serial killer that didn't make this reviewer want to chuck that...Read more
Mark Ariti is back in the third novel in this series, and for the first time, the setting moves from the bush to the seaside. On a short "break" away in the small fishing town of Broken Bay, on South Australia's Limestone Coast, he seems to be approaching it as less holiday, more purgatory...Read more
BROKEN BODIES is a follow-up to the author's first book TRUST NOBODY so many of the characters and their back story come from that first novel. Perhaps this is part of the reason why BROKEN BODIES was a bit of a slog to read, as many characters appear rapidly in quick succession in the...Read more
Many frequent readers of crime fiction (and I count myself in both these numbers) are over the mad serial killer sub-genre. This could make the opening monologue of BROKEN MONSTERS something that makes you put down the book and step away. Whilst the subject matter remains confrontational,...Read more
Joe Cashin is a Detective Sergeant from the Major Crime Squad who has been transferred to the small country station in his childhood home town, while he recovers from physical and emotional injuries sustained in an investigation. He lives, with his two poodles, in the only remaining section...Read more
BROKEN SILENCE is the story of seventeen-year-old Kelsey, a kid who has had a lot to deal with in life. Confused and very vulnerable, she cared for her gravely ill mother until she had to go into care. Her remarried father has disappeared from her life, and Kelsey finds herself living in a...Read more
There's something immensely satisfying about reading a book that tackles some very tricky subject matter head-on, with enough of the gory details to illustrate rather than titivate and just the right level of gallows humour. BROKEN SKIN is the third book featuring DS Logan McRae and it's as...Read more
I remember reading the first book in what is now one of my favourite series quite a few years ago, I really really hoped that the author felt better about life once they'd finished. I think the same sort of reaction to THE BROTHERHOOD bodes well for what I hope is going to be an ongoing...Read more
SD Hinton’s debut novel uses the structure of a thriller to explore myriad responses to trauma. Full review at Newtown Review of Books.Read more
If you're not a fan of cosy style mysteries, you could be forgiven for missing BRUNO CHIEF OF POLICE. Don't be fooled by the cover photos, or the blurb which uses a comparison with a rather well known cosy writer though. BRUNO CHIEF OF POLICE is much more of a police procedural. Well it'...Read more
A comment often made about BRUNY is that readers going in did not know it was going to be such a political read. BRUNY is one of those works that very effectively puts the frighteners on for many fronts; climate change, politics, foreign investment, cultural divides – swing the proverbial...Read more
BRUNY is a book which unfortunately (stupidly) sat in the reading piles here for, it turns out, way too long. Luckily our F2F bookclub was scheduled to read it last month, and I've never been so pleased that something was jolted out of stasis and into the current pile. It was, quite simply...Read more
The things a ministerial assistant must do. Murray Whelan's exact job title and the details of his expected duties have never been fully explained but they certainly call for a deft kind of versatility in adapting to all possible situations a Labor party man might find himself inserted into...Read more
Nailing my colours firmly to the aerial of the ute, I love a book that evokes a place and a people strongly. THE BUILD UP is set in and around Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. A bit of a frontier town - they have a habit of referring to other states as "the shoe wearing states...Read more
One Thursday afternoon in the seniors' center, a decade-old cold case --their favorite kind-- leads the Thursday Murder Club to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. A new foe they call "Viking", wants Elizabeth to kill former KGB chief Viktor, or he will...Read more