Crime Scene: AOIFE CLIFFORD All These Perfect Strangers. Reviewed by Ruth Wykes
This taut, beautifully written Australian crime fiction debut takes a fresh approach. This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths but perhaps all of them were murders. It’s a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the...
Crime Scene: CANDICE FOX The Frank Bennett and Eden Archer series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Candice Fox is on the verge of scoring a rare hat-trick at this year’s Ned Kelly awards with the release of the third book in her Frank Bennett and Eden Archer series. In 2014, Candice Fox’s Hades blasted onto the Australian crime-fiction scene and won the Ned Kelly...
Crime Scene: SULARI GENTILL The Rowland Sinclair series. An overview by Karen Chisholm
Sulari Gentill’s award-winning historical crime series is written with verve and spirit, the fiction woven seamlessly into actual events of the time. In 2010 a new crime fiction series was launched, set in 1930s Australia where the effects of the Great...
Crime Scene: VIV RONNEBECK The Ignition Effect. Reviewed by Stephanie Smith
The Ignition Effect takes us on a tense and action-packed chase across time zones towards a dramatic finish. A leading scientist with the US National Ignition Facility, Dr David Anderson, has gone missing and a piece of technology the size of a thumbnail has been...
Crime Scene: GARY KEMBLE Skin Deep. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
A paranormal crime thriller with a blokey sensibility, Skin Deep is set in a Brisbane still dealing with the after-effects of many years of Joh rule. Harry Hendrick is a man of his time and circumstance. A journalist by training, he had managed to sabotage his job...
Crime Scene: TANIA CHANDLER Please Don’t Leave me Here; JM GREEN Good Money. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Here are two very promising debut crime novels – both set in Melbourne. Told in three parts, Please Don’t Leave Me Here by Melbourne writer Tania Chandler begins with the story of Brigitte – mother of twins and married to policeman Sam – a...
Crime Scene: MICHAEL ROBOTHAM Close Your Eyes. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
The CWA Gold Dagger Winner’s latest novel is a return to his much-loved Joe O’Loughlin series. As is often the way with series books, some knowledge of past novels can enhance a reader’s pleasure, and in this case Shatter (2008) is close to mandatory reading...
Crime Scene: MATTHEW CONDON All Fall Down. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Courage and humanity are at the heart of this final volume about corruption in Queensland. Matthew Condon’s brilliant final instalment of his Three Crooked Kings trilogy, All Fall Down, was launched at the Queensland State Library. The building is a relatively...
Crime Scene: EMMA VISKIC Resurrection Bay. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
A deftly handled plot, strong characters and a sly, dry humour make this an outstanding debut crime novel. Emma Viskic won the 2014 Ned Kelly Short Story Award and the 2013 New England Thunderbolt Award for her short crime fiction, so it’s reasonable to greet...
Crime Scene: OWEN SHEERS I Saw a Man. Reviewed by Donna Lu
This literary thriller is expansive and cerebral in its exploration of guilt, fate, grief and the aftermath of war. As Sarah Crown has pointed out in a Guardian interview, the title of Owen Sheers’s new book is hardly discernable on its cover. The words ‘I Saw a Man’...
Crime Scene: MARK DAPIN R & R. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Dapin’s prose crackles and pops, at turns bloody and poignant, in this novel of the Vietnam War. ‘You know what?’ said Caution. ‘Nobody else in the world gives a damn whether you’re an Aussie or some other kind of faggot. There ain’t one single soul in America who...
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