Crime Scene: KATHERINE HOWELL Web of Deceit. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
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...THE NRB QUIZ Answer ten Australian true crime questions to win The Waterlow Killings
For a copy of Pamela Burton’s The Waterlow Killings: A Portrait of a Family Tragedy – or just for fun – do this quiz and send us your answers by email. The earliest correct entry wins. Good luck! 1. Who wrote Mad Dog Moxley? 2. What was the name of the book that...C JOSEPH GREAVES Hard Twisted. Reviewed by Peter Corris
Greaves channels Cormac McCarthy in this compelling Depression-era novel of a couple on the run. If, like me, you’ve been waiting impatiently for Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Passenger, which is said to be ‘forthcoming’, Hard Twisted will do until it gets here....The Godfather: Peter Corris on those long sleepless nights
For more than 69 years I never had any trouble sleeping. As a kid I was very active, riding a bike to and from school and playing back-yard and street cricket and football after school until darkness fell. Later I pounded a tennis ball against the back wall of the...THE NRB QUIZ Answer ten Australian literature questions for a 2012 prize-winning book
For a copy of Paul D Carter’s 2012 Australian/Vogel’s Award-winning book Eleven Seasons – or just for fun – send us your answers via ‘Leave a Comment’. The earliest correct entry wins. Good luck! 1. George Johnston...The Godfather: Peter Corris on all his houses
Jean Bedford and I have owned ten houses together – one in Melbourne, three in Sydney, several in the Illawarra. We had a kit house built for us on Coochiemudlo Island in Queensland and later bought a house in Byron Bay. We have rented ten others – in all the...HUGH HOWEY Wool. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
Inventive and page-turning, this dystopian tale turns on a society’s clash of values. This is the kind of science fiction that is very close to realism. Hugh Howey deals with a very believable dystopia, where humanity lives in a vast silo set in an environment...The Godfather: Peter Corris on the pleasures of biography
When, some years ago, I ruthlessly culled my library down from several thousand books to a few hundred, a surprising number of biographies made the cut. My principle of selection was, ‘Will I ever need to read or refer to this book again or do I have a particular...Crime Scene: JOANNE DRAYTON The Search for Anne Perry: The Hidden Life of a Bestselling Crime Writer. Reviewed by Paula Grunseit
Crime novelist Anne Perry began her life as Juliet Hulme, who in 1954 was convicted of murder. Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson’s eerie film about the Parker-Hulme murder (starring Kate Winslet) is not easily forgotten. Set in 1954 in Christchurch, New Zealand, it...MICHELLE DE KRETSER Questions of Travel. Reviewed by James Tierney
From colonialism to the internet, Michelle de Kretser explores big themes in this tale of two travellers. Australian literary fiction is sometimes accused of lacking ambition. Michelle de Kretser’s fourth novel attempts to defy this criticism with a palimpsest of...The Godfather: Peter Corris remembers friend and co-writer Roger Keesing
I’ve worked as a writer with some justly well-known and extraordinary people, like ophthalmologist Fred Hollows, feisty euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke and larrikin actor Bill Hunter. Much less well-known but equally extraordinary was anthropologist Roger...
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