The Wrong Daughter by Dandy Smith
Two young sisters enjoy an idyllic childhood, until one of them is snatched and the family’s world falls apart in Dandy Smith’s psychological thriller The Wrong Daughter, which sets out to grab the reader from the very first page. Olivia is 13, and is proud…
The Broken River by Chris Hammer
The parched landscape of the Australian outback has provided a compelling backdrop for many a crime novel in recent years. Think of The Dry by Jane Harper, Gabriel Bergmoser’s The Hunted, or Chris Hammer’s debut, Scrublands. But there’s water aplenty in Hammer’s latest, The Broken…
An Ethical Guide to Murder by Jenny Morris
Last year I read and reviewed Here One Minute by Liane Moriarty, and it changed my attitude to flying. The book’s central character is an elderly woman who stands up on a flight between Hobart, Tasmania and Sydney, Australia and proceeds to tell each of…
Double Takedown by Kevin G Chapman
Ah, New York! Home of Times Square, the Mets, the Met, the Statue of Liberty… the list could go on and on. Oh, but let’s not forget Broadway and NYPD Detective Mike Stoneman – because it’s the latter rather mismatched pairing that features in Kevin…
DeathBecomesHer: Top five books of 2024
As the months of 2024 whizzed past, there were times when real life seemed way stranger than fiction. But when everything around you is going to hell in a handcart it’s the perfect opportunity to lose yourself within the pages of a book – and…
Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney
In a world populated by off-kilter characters, it takes a certain something to make a protagonist memorable for a crime fiction reader. For me there are just a handful that stick out – Elizabeth in Emma Healey’s Elizabeth is Missing, for example; Liz Nugent’s Strange…
Murder Town by Shelley Burr
Where would Australian crime fiction be without its small, isolated outback towns, complete with crime rates to rival Midsomer Murders? The likes of Chris Hammer, Jane Harper and Garry Disher have put such places on the map – and long may they continue to do…