by NRB | 24 Apr 2024 | Fiction |
Kevin Jared Hosein’s debut novel is both a mystery story and a window into the lives of Caribbean indentured labourers and their families. The place is Trinidad, ‘sometime in the 1940s’. Four boys ventured to the river bank to perform a blood oath. Two brothers...
by NRB | 26 Mar 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
In Sulari Gentill’s new novel, aspiring writer Theo and her brother Gus become embroiled in increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories. The Mystery Writer is the latest book by the prolific and always intriguing Australian author Sulari Gentill. Set in the USA, as her...
by NRB | 5 Oct 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
A dementia diagnosis reveals clues to a decades-old mystery in this new novel from the author of The Secrets of Strangers – Charity Norman’s third to be shortlisted for NZ’s Ngaio Marsh Awards. In June 1994, 21-year old Emily Kirkland had been working at a petrol...
by NRB | 27 Apr 2023 | Fiction |
Set in Sydney and the Adelaide Hills, Kate Morton’s new novel unwinds a mystery stretching across generations. Anyone who has read Kate Morton’s earlier novels will know that she excels at setting the scene, creating interesting and likeable characters, leading...
by NRB | 23 Mar 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
SD Hinton’s debut novel uses the structure of a thriller to explore myriad responses to trauma. Jake Harlow is a decorated Special Forces veteran, returned from a tour in Afghanistan that went horribly wrong for him. Captured by the Taliban, he was mentally and...
by NRB | 2 Dec 2021 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
The ninth novel from Wendy James is a classic page-turning mystery that is both psychologically complex and authentically Australian. Best known as the ‘queen of domestic noir’, James brings a keen understanding of social and political history to her richly layered...
by NRB | 3 Jun 2021 | Fiction |
Zakiya Dalila Harris has made good use of her experience as a Black woman working in New York publishing in this impressive debut novel. The Preface to this story is headed ‘December 1983, Grand Central Station, Midtown, Manhattan’. A Black woman is fleeing from...
by NRB | 17 Nov 2020 | Fiction |
The award-winning author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle returns with a dark and dangerous mystery set on the high seas. The Devil and the Dark Water reminds me a little of the old circular joke: It was a dark and stormy night and the Captain said to...
EMILY TSOKOS PURTILL Matia. Reviewed by Ann Skea22 October 2024Emily Tsokos Purtill’s debut novel ranges across continents to tell the stories [ … ]
STEVEN HAMILTON and RICHARD HOLDEN Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck17 October 2024Australia’s Covid response may have had problems, but Steven Hamilton and [ … ]
ELIZABETH STROUT Tell Me Everything. Reviewed by Michael Jongen15 October 2024Pulitzer-winner Elizabeth Strout explores themes of isolation and connection in [ … ]
HARRIET CONSTABLE The Instrumentalist. Reviewed by Ann Skea10 October 2024Harriet Constable’s debut novel takes inspiration from a real-life Venetian [ … ]