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: ANN TURNER Out of the Ice; LA LARKIN Devour. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Two Australian thriller writers have each set their latest novels amid the beauty and danger of Antarctica. Antarctica is one of the planet’s last great wilderness areas – for some, a place ripe for plundering, for others, an area that must be protected. Ann...
ALICIA SOMETIMES and NICOLE HAYES (Eds) From the Outer: Footy like you’ve never heard it. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
From the Outer, a collection of tributes to and critiques of Aussie Rules, canvasses fresh perspectives on the game its fans just call ‘footy’. This book is well named. In AFL parlance the Outer was the uncovered, and usually unfavourably vantaged, spectator...
CATH FERLA giveaway
We have a copy of Cath Ferla’s debut crime novel Ghost Girls to give away. To win, simply email us at editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au by 6pm tonight (April 1st) with your name and address and ‘Cath Ferla’ in the subject line. As we cannot afford...
Kirsten Tranter giveaway
We have a copy of Kirsten Tranter’s new novel Hold to give away. To win, simply email us at editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au by 6pm today, Tuesday 29 March with your name and address and ‘Kirsten Tranter’ in the subject line. As we cannot afford...
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...NRB’s Australian Women Writers’ Quiz
Here’s a quiz to test your knowledge of Australian women’s writing, past and present. With bonus points it’s possible to get 23 out of 20 – and give yourself an elephant stamp if you can identify the photos as well. Good luck and let us know how you...
GAIL JONES A Guide to Berlin. Reviewed by Robyne Young
Imbued with Nabokovian signs and symbols, A Guide to Berlin is rich, complex and layered with meaning. Central to Gail Jones’s new novel is Vladimir Nabokov’s astounding memoir, Speak, Memory, which I had studied with Jones in a masters program at Western Sydney...







