by NRB | 28 Feb 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
This latest offering of Australian rural noir contrasts urban and small-town sensibilities from the perspective of a child protection officer. Readers of Crows Nest will not be surprised to learn that author Nikki Mottram has an extensive background in child...
by NRB | 14 Feb 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Maryrose Cuskelly’s novel seems to have taken Arthur Conan Doyle’s maxim to heart: ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ Cuskelly was born in Queensland, where there were several high-profile child...
by NRB | 31 Jan 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
The fourteenth instalment of Barry Maitland’s groundbreaking Brock and Kolla crime series is also the last. Scottish-born, English-raised and, since 1984, Australian-based, Barry Maitland published the first Brock and Kolla novel, The Marx Sisters, in 1994. On his...
by NRB | 28 Jun 2022 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
British crime writer Gillian McAllister’s new novel explores time travel as crime prevention. Time loops are everywhere these days. Groundhog Day might have popularised them (and in doing so entered the popular vernacular) but the narrative conceit has now gone...
by NRB | 12 Apr 2022 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
In John Darnielle’s new novel, a true crime writer confronts the limits of the genre. John Darnielle may be best known as the lead singer of the American indie folk rock band the Mountain Goats, but he is also the author of two previous novels, Wolf in White Van...
by NRB | 15 Feb 2022 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Hannah King’s debut novel is an unsettling murder mystery with a longstanding female friendship at its core. She and I is a detective story with a difference. It is set in Ireland but there are few indications of this, apart from a police officer’s query about...
by NRB | 17 Dec 2021 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
NZ-based Charity Norman’s sixth novel is her second to be shortlisted for Best Crime Novel in the Ngaio Marsh Awards. Taut, tense and cleverly constructed, The Secrets of Strangers is a thriller set in London that explores human behaviour in the high-risk...
by NRB | 2 Sep 2021 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
The fourth book in Robert Gott’s ‘Murders’ series frees its cast from the constraints of the newly formed Homicide Squad and plunges them straight into a baffling case that threatens many of their number. Readers who are new to this series might be fine starting...
by NRB | 29 Jul 2021 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
The new thriller from the award-winning author of Call Me Evie and In the Clearing has a disturbing premise. New Zealand writer JP Pomare opens his sinister thriller setting a scene as though it were a movie set — which it will be, shortly. The Auckland residence...
by NRB | 18 Feb 2021 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Inventive and brutal, there are good reasons why Iain Ryan’s third novel is being talked about. It’s fair to say that thrillers come at the reader of Australian fiction at a pretty hefty rate, and it’s hard to avoid some familiar story elements, e.g....
by NRB | 21 May 2020 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Sujata Massey’s 1920s crime series featuring lawyer Perveen Mistry continues in the absorbingly tangled mystery of The Satapur Moonstone. India 1922: The Crown Prince of Satapur, Jiva Rao, is only 10 years old. His father and his elder brother have died, so he...
by NRB | 10 Apr 2020 | Crime Scene, Extracts, Fiction |
This week our extract is from Chris Hammer’s second crime novel, Silver. It again features investigative journalist Martin Scarsden, who readers first met in Scrublands where – among other things – he fell for the beautiful Mandalay Blonde in the small Riverina town...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]