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.
Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.
Trainee private investigator Lee Southern finds himself drawn into a web of danger and deceit as he investigates a series of bribery attempts targeting a wealthy entrepreneur. Under the expert tutelage of retiring PI Frank Swann, Lee uses all of his developing skills, instincts and cunning to get to the heart of a sordid mystery.
On a bitter winter’s night in Pine Creek, 1989, central New South Wales, 14-year-old city boy Alec tells his mother a secret before he goes to bed. It’s the last time she will see him alive.
Two Australian police officers travel to San Francisco and Los Angeles in the summer of 1967 in search of a missing young man, only to find themselves fully immersed in the world of music, free love, drugs and hippie counterculture. They soon realise this isn' t just any ordinary missing person investigation.
To be released at the end of October, 2023 Australian Actor Bryan Brown has his first full length thriller novel, The Drowning coming out (his first foray into crime fiction was a collection of short stories).
The body of a local teenage boy is found on the beach of a sleepy northern New South Wales town. David went for an evening swim and got into trouble . . . at least, that's what it looks like.
A rare, but nonetheless, does happen DNF of Under the Night by Alan Glynn. I've tried to read this book a few times now and I just can't find a connection.
My reading of work by writers from the Czech Republic this month continued with the collection 'Prague Noir' edited by Pavel Mandys, which is from Akashic's Noir imprint. It's a strong and varied selection of stories, not traditional noir but tales with a darker edge that incorporate Prague's history and traditions of the mystical.
In 2018, Katherine Ashworth is struggling. The death of her daughter has precipitated a major falling apart, which she's self-medicating with sleeping pills and vodka. A move to the small town of her husband's childhood - Lowbridge - is the beginning of the fight for Katherine to regain a purpose to her life, and stop the self-destruction.
It must take real writing skill to create a novel around 3.5 of the most unpleasant, conflicted, dysfunctional and frequently flat out awful people you'd ever read about, and make it as compelling and downright fascinating as KEEP HER SWEET.
Published in 1978, THE DECAGON HOUSE MURDERS is credited with launching the shinhonkaku movement, a return to Golden Age style plotting and clue provision for the reader to discover along the way. It's often described as a subgenre of the honkaku style - which can best be described as whodunit's rather than why or howdunits.
“I think the fact that Scotland has such a rich tradition of dark, macabre storytelling – back to the Gothic fiction of James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson and even further back to the ballads – gives crime writers a deep well of inspiration to draw on […] that Calvinist preoccupation with good and evil, with the cloven hoof beneath the spotless robe, has to be a significant factor.”
Pete McAuslan is Vietnam Vet, and retired police officer, now holed up in the family's remote cabin near the small Tasmanian town of Mole Creek, writing his memoir. His grandson Xander is a Sydney based journalist, and they are close. So close that the shock of the death of Pete, and the suicide note found with him, is profound, and worrying.
There are times when I kick myself for being so far behind with my reading list - The Wife and The Widow by Christian White is a case in point:
If you've not read THE WIFE AND THE WIDOW yet then you're in for an absolute treat - but stay away from too many spoiler's and see if you can pick the twist before it slaps you over the head like it did this reader.
"... it's not a particularly bad outing, it's just not a standout, grab you by the throat, this is great stuff outing. And it's definitely going to be better if you can hear Mortimer's voice when Gary's on page. "