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...
MARIANNE DE PIERRES Mythmaker. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
Virgin Jackson confronts demon wolves, gang lords and stone witches in this sequel to Peacemaker. In 2014, Marianne De Pierres pulled off an impressive hat-trick with Peacemaker, the first book in her Virgin Jackson series, effortlessly blending crime, sci-fi and...
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: 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...
SUSAN JOHNSON The Landing. Reviewed by Robyne Young
This novel artfully articulates the search for the perfect self, the perfect emotional and sexual mate, and the perfect life. In the opening sentence of her new novel, The Landing, Susan Johnson pays homage to one of the greatest writers on love and matrimony, Jane...
MIREILLE JUCHAU The World Without Us. Reviewed by Annette Marfording
This is a story of loss and grief, motherlessness and environmental destruction – but also of survival, renewal and the importance of community. Mireille Juchau’s third novel is set in an alternative community in northern New South Wales. Run-off...
LEAH KAMINSKY The Waiting Room. Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen
This debut novel of traumas past and present is both compelling and surprising. Leah Kaminsky’s The Waiting Room starts with a heavily pregnant woman picking through shattered bodies in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. In the mess there are the unseeing eyes of...
Crime Scene: FELICITY YOUNG The Insanity of Murder. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
This is the latest in a series of intelligent, well-researched and engagingly written crime-fiction novels set amid the suffragette battles of early 1900s England. Young’s first book, A Dissection of Murder, released in 2012, introduced readers to Dr Dody McCleland...
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