Crime Scene: KATHERINE HOWELL Tell the Truth: An Ella Marconi novel. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
This is the end – for now – of the Ella Marconi series by Australian thriller writer Katherine Howell. In 2007 paramedic Katherine Howell caused quite a stir in crime-fiction fan circles with the release of her debut novel Frantic. Detective Ella Marconi made her...
EILEEN ORMSBY Silk Road. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
A toxic mix of timing and questionable ethics: the fascinating true story of the dark web’s most famous site. Silk Road is a story about a trade route, a trade route equivalent to the Silk Road network established during the Han dynasty of China, which linked the...
JULIET MARILLIER Dreamer’s Pool: Blackthorn and Grim 1. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
A bargain for a healer’s life is struck amid simmering anger and revenge in the first instalment of this new epic fantasy. This fine fantasy novel opens with the main characters, Blackthorn and Grim, in a brutal prison, filthy, demoralised and damaged, both physically...
SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM Warning: The story of Cyclone Tracy. Reviewed by Kathie Rea
What happened to Darwin, and the response to it, sends a warning as we prepare for more extreme weather events. This Christmas Eve marks 40 years since Cyclone Tracy flattened the city of Darwin. Christmas decorations and dazed half-naked people amid the ruins of...
JOAN LONDON The Golden Age. Reviewed by Robyne Young
At its heart The Golden Age is about transformation, both for its characters and their culture. Joan London’s first novel, Gilgamesh, delivered a remarkable reading experience and a master class in writing. Inspired by the world’s oldest known poem of the same name,...
JILL JOLLIFFE Run for Your Life: A memoir. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
The author of Balibó turns her focus on herself with this gripping examination of how a traumatic childhood shapes an entire life. How long does it take to see your own story? For Jill Jolliffe, it was only after a lifetime of reporting the experiences of people in...
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,...
KRISTINA OLSSON Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir. Reviewed by Paula Grunseit
This ‘shatteringly beautiful’ memoir of a mother forcibly separated from her baby son won the Non-Fiction prize at the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards. It is the summer of 1950. On a railway station in Cairns, in broad daylight, an infant is snatched from...HANNAH RICHELL The Shadow Year. Reviewed by Jody Lee
The second novel from the author of Secrets of the Tides explores the sinister legacy of an idealistic experiment. It is 1980 and five university students coming to the end of their studies are facing the uncertainty of their future. In the haze of summer they...Crime Scene: HONEY BROWN Dark Horse. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
A classic of foreboding and suspense set in the Victorian High Country. There are a few authors out there who write books that just about guarantee that sleep will be lost, and lights will be left on for quite some time after finishing them, and as with...
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