Crime Scene: MICHAEL CONNOLLY The Burning Room. Reviewed by Peter Corris
Connelly makes the most of his crisscrossing plots and delivers a disturbing picture of a fearful America. I’m forced to ration my reading due to my poor eyesight and I favour history, biography and historical novels over other books. Once an omnivorous reader of...
Crime Scene: EMMA HEALEY Elizabeth is Missing. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
A crime has been committed and Maud knows this – but what was it? She can’t remember. Eighty-two-year-old Maud Horsham is losing her memory. But some things are firmly stuck in her mind – the most important being that her friend Elizabeth is missing. She knows this...
Crime Scene: MICHAEL ROBOTHAM Life or Death. Review and overview by Karen Chisholm
One of Australia’s great storytellers: Michael Robotham’s crime fiction and the tantalising premise of his new novel. Michael Robotham’s latest novel, published ten years after his first, was more than 20 years in the making. In a recent interview, the author...
Crime Scene: HELEN GARNER This House of Grief: The story of a murder trial. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
Questions of masculinity and notions of guilt and innocence are probed in Helen Garner’s disquieting examination of the tragic death of three young boys and the murder trial of their father. Most Australians will be familiar with the high-profile case at the...
Crime Scene: DANIEL WOODRELL Winter’s Bone. Reviewed by Peter Corris
A novel of abandonment, crank and the Ozarks, written with flinty integrity. Daniel Woodrell has written several novels set in the Ozark region of the central United States. One critic has termed his work ‘hillbilly noir’, and if you’re interested in this sub-genre,...
Crime Scene: MATTHEW CONDON Jacks and Jokers: The extraordinary true story continues. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
The saga of Queensland’s notorious decades of police corruption continues with Matthew Condon following the lives of key players as they seize control. The searing and sensational sequel to Three Crooked Kings will only further stoke the fire of the average...
Crime Scene: ADRIAN DEANS Straight Jacket. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
This is crime fiction with a humorous bent. In Straight Jacket Adrian Deans gives life to Morgan Tanjenz, an enigmatic and compelling leading man to whom everything is a game. Tanjenz is a lawyer living in the affluent suburb of Lindfield on Sydney’s North Shore. A...
Crime Scene: HONEY BROWN Through the Cracks. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Honey Brown moves to the city and suburbs for her new thriller, shedding light into some very dark corners. Psychological thrillers are an interesting reading prospect. Often very confrontational, the best of these sorts of books should generate a definite reaction in...
Crime Scene: KATHERINE HOWELL Deserving Death. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Deserving Death is the seventh novel in the Ella Marconi series from ex-paramedic Australian author, Katherine Howell. This is a series that just keeps getting better and better. It’s not just solid plotting and good characters that make this novel work so well,...
Crime Scene: PM NEWTON Beams Falling. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
The second book in the Nhu ‘Ned’ Kelly series, Beams Falling is an exciting crime thriller that works on many levels. Although a complete read on its own, Beams Falling benefits from the background of the first book in this series, The Old School, in which...
Crime Scene: WENDY JAMES The Lost Girls. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Wendy James’s sixth novel is a thrilling Jack-in-the-box that centres on an unsolved murder from the 1970s and its impact decades later on those left behind. Is the past something we can ever truly put behind us, or do our old traumas continue to linger over our...
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