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...
Crime Scene: ZANE LOVITT Black Teeth. Reviewed by Chris Maher
Zane Lovitt, winner of the 2013 Ned Kelly Award, has produced an original Melbourne take on the noir crime novel. Black Teeth is peopled by loners. A protagonist who suffers breathless anxiety in public, his neighbour who cloisters herself away in her flat, an absent...
Crime Scene: MEG AND TOM KENEALLY The Soldier’s Curse: Book One, the Monsarrat series. Reviewed by Chris Maher
Literary icon Tom Keneally has teamed up with daughter Meg to launch a detective series set in Australia’s brutal past. Readers can feel totally confident in the veracity of the convict-era setting of The Soldier’s Curse. Although Booker laureate Tom needs no...
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...
NRB Crime Fiction Giveaway – four Sulari Gentill titles
This draw is now closed. Congratulations to our winner, Tien Ha from Pemulway, NSW! A Decline in Prophets The second in the series. In 1932, the RMS Aquitania embodies all that is gracious and refined, in a world gripped by crisis and doubt. Returning home on the...
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: 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: 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...
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