Crime Scene: ROSS GRAY The Dragon’s Skin. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
The Dragon’s Skin heralds an innovative and powerful new voice on the Australian crime scene. Ben Bovell has strapped a bomb to his chest and taken his daughter hostage in her childcare centre. He will only speak to David Edge, a disgraced former copper...
Crime Scene: ANDREW NETTE Gunshine State. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
Gunshine State is an Aussie pulp thriller chock-full of colourful characters, aliases, street-wise philosophy and unrelenting action that sustains it to the very last. Meet Gary Chance, a 32-year-old ex-army crook with a distinctive missing left pinkie and a...
Crime Scene: JAYE FORD Darkest Place. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Darkest Place is Australian thriller writer Jaye Ford’s fifth book of stand-alones involving women under threat who are definitely not victims. In 2011 Jaye Ford released Beyond Fear, telling the story of a girls’ weekend away at an isolated country hideaway....
Crime Scene: BELINDA BAUER The Beautiful Dead. Reviewed by Derek Dryden
Bauer’s new novel keeps us guessing until the very end. This is the fifth book by Belinda Bauer, the Gold Dagger award-winning author now resident in Wales. Unlike some crime writers who, once they’ve developed a successful character, stick with them...
Crime Scene: B MICHAEL RADBURN The Falls. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Emotion, reaction, damage and recovery are at the core of B Michael Radburn’s dark thrillers. In 2011 The Crossing arrived in the Australian crime fiction landscape, combining aspects of the supernatural with the story of Taylor Bridges as he dealt with the extremes...
Crime Scene: HERMAN KOCH Dear Mr M. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
Metafiction is pushed to the limit in Dear Mr M, a sardonic and self-conscious thriller. This is a multilayered story told with conviction through multiple viewpoints: the jaded downstairs neighbour of ageing bestselling author Mr M, the writer himself and the...
Crime Scene: TANIA CHANDLER Dead in the Water. Reviewed by Robin Elizabeth
Crime fiction is blended beautifully with elements of commercial women’s fiction in Dead in the Water. Tania Chandler brings back the femme-fatalesque Brigitte in the sequel to her Davitt and Ned Kelly Awards shortlisted debut novel, Please Don’t Leave Me Here, but...
Crime Scene: FRED VARGAS A Climate of Fear. Reviewed by Derek Dryden
This enjoyably quirky and nourishing police procedural is typically Vargas. The Inspector Adamsberg series, of which A Climate of Fear is the eighth instalment, all contain a delicious quirkiness and sense of fun that springs from the pen of this best-selling...
Crime Scene: MELINA MARCHETTA Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil engages many of today’s pressing political issues within a well-crafted crime fiction plot. Melina Marchetta’s seventh novel, a realist crime story aimed at adults, is a switch from her previous fantasy and Australian-based YA books....
Crime Scene: STEVE P VINCENT The Foundation: Jack Emery 1; Fireplay: Jack Emery 0.5. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
The Foundation is the first book in a fun and gripping thriller series featuring a tough and resourceful Australian journalist. We first meet Jack Emery in The Foundation as he wakes from a drunken slumber, late for his morning meeting at his newspaper. Life is tough;...
Crime Scene: JANE HARPER The Dry. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
There is a very good reason for all the buzz around about The Dry, another great debut thriller from an Australian writer. In a country with a lot of mythology built around rural connections, it has always come as a surprise how much of Australia’s rural-based...
Recent Posts
NADIA WHEATLEY Strange New World. Reviewed by Sandra Hogan16 July 2026Nadia Wheatley charts what happened to the prisoners after the liberation of [ … ]
WAYNE MARSHALL Henry Goes Bush. Reviewed by James Arbuthnott15 July 2026Wayne Marshall gives Australia’s famous bush poet an alternative experience of [ … ]
JORDAN HARPER A Violent Masterpiece. Reviewed by Robert Goodman14 July 2026Jordan Harper’s new novel violently deconstructs the American dream and [ … ]
MARK McKENNA The Shortest History of Australia. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress9 July 2026Mark McKenna’s short history is both broad and nuanced, demanding a new [ … ]