BOYD ANDERSON The Heart Radical. Reviewed by Suzanne Rath
This compelling account of a little-known period is rich in history and plot. The fifth novel by Australian author Boyd Anderson is set in a relatively unknown time in history, covering several years in Malaya from Japanese occupation until the ’emergency’, when...ROBERT HARRIS An Officer and a Spy. Reviewed by Peter Corris
The Dreyfus Case, notorious for its betrayals and anti-Semitism, inspires this new thriller from the author of Fatherland. In the Acknowledgments to his new novel Robert Harris thanks his wife: … who has been obliged to share our house with successive waves of Nazis,...JONATHAN GRIMWOOD The Last Banquet. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Eighteenth-century France is a feast for the senses in Jonathan Grimwood’s enjoyable romp. Set in the years leading up to the French Revolution, this is the story of Jean-Marie Charles D’Aumont, whom we first encounter eating beetles from a dung heap. His parents are...Crime Scene: ANDREW TAYLOR The Scent of Death. Reviewed by Peter Corris
The winner of the 2013 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, this impressive historical crime novel gives a hard-edged depiction of the mindlessness of war. The historical crime novel is a sub-genre and a tricky one. The writer has to satisfy, as it were, two separate...ELISABETH STORRS The Golden Dice: Tales of Ancient Rome Book 2. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
The second book of Tales of Ancient Rome intertwines the stories of three women to again create a fascinating novel of love and war, richly steeped in history. There is an intriguing hiatus between the previous novel in this series, The Wedding Shroud, and The...ROSE TREMAIN Merivel: A Man of His Time. Reviewed by Peter Corris
This sequel to Restoration is a hectic, witty adventure set in seventeenth-century England and Europe. When, in my constant search for a readable historical novel, I encountered Rose Tremain’s Restoration in 1980, my day was made (several days actually). It...KATE FORSYTH Bitter Greens. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
An imaginative interweaving of magic, fairytale and history. Kate Forsyth is well known for her conventional fantasy novels – particularly for the Witches of Eileanan and Rhiannon’s Ride series. She’s also a poet, an author of several children’s fantasy books and a...The Godfather: Peter Corris on historical fiction
Historical novels have always been my favourite kind of recreational reading. From Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel to Georgette Heyer’s Regency bucks to sterner stuff like Henry Treece’s bloody tales of Saxon and Roman Britain, I escaped from a dreary...
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