Karen

The second novel in the Professor Eustacia Rose series, HELL'S BELLS is out, about and well worth reading. For those that haven't met up with this character before, her first outing was in the book DEVIL'S BREATH. The same elements are being explored again here, Rose's experience as a neurodivergent woman in a world not designed to be easy to navigate, full of personal interactions, a relationship that she really values, but doesn't know how to say it, and a return to work as a professor with students, and a research lab and all that brings with it.

If you've not read the earlier novel, then Rose is a Professor of Botanical Toxicology, whose particular interest, some might say obsession, is with obscure, poisonous plants. As with the earlier novel, this knowledge puts her partly in the role of expert, partly suspect when a man is found dead on the streets, with a needle in his neck. Then an increasingly erratic and dangerous young student who has been harassing and stalking Rose, is found dead, after buying illegal synthetic plant toxins, the likes of which he believed Rose was denying him access to, and she's right in the middle of a big mess that, of course, she'll have to resolve. Solving puzzles, understanding connections, setting things in order is exactly what Professor Eustacia Rose yearns to do, and in this case, there's a portrait painted with a hidden needle poised beside her neck to give her that extra bit of impetus. Although when it comes to intimate personal relationships she's lost and way out of her depth. Thank goodness for her kindly elderly neighbour and friend, deliverer of both impetus and potential solutions. Meanwhile the final mystery is another elderly white-haired woman that is triggering some very weird memories.

As with the first novel, Johnson writes her character in a matter-of-fact manner. She's observational, often mildly confused, and possessed of profound one-track mindedness. Which makes the question mark over her relationship with Matilde (who readers meet in the first novel), a distraction, until she's aware that it can no longer be such and it's time to make some moves. Guided by her gentle, but firm neighbour who it turns out is quite good friends with Matilde, again post events in the first novel.

If push comes to shove, HELL'S BELLS probably would stand alone, but really it would be a much better experience to read this series in order. Getting to know Professor Eustacia Rose is the key to understanding how the flow of these investigations work, why she spends so much time on her roof with now, just a telescope and a few easy to care for plants, and what's she's lost. Her beloved father dead, her mother vanished when she was a child, her life's purpose taking a battering in both novels, Professor Rose is a very relatable woman, with foibles, eccentricities and heaps of personal twitches, yet she's liked, even loved by those closest to her. If she can just work out what that means.

I listened to this audio book, written and then narrated by Shane Jenek mostly because it had been on my to do list for ages, and then the 2025 Eurovision broadcast reminded me how much I enjoy watching and listening to Courtney Act and I just knew there had to be more to the story of how a young boy, raised in the suburbs of Brisbane went from realising he wasn't the same as other little boys, to become the performer she is today.

There is so much to take in from this memoir, the pain and complications of coming to terms with your difference, even though Jenek's family were supportive and loving, he still had to find a community, which search started in the gay bars and venues of Sydney, moving out to wider circles which now includes some names that were dropped oh so elegantly into this story. It's also a story of learning to understand the differences in others - Jenek's experiences with differences with the gay community being part of that, and out into the wider community of trans people and other identities.

Told with great wit, candour and very little in the way of filters at point, this was such a moving story, not just of Jenek's personal journey into the world of Courtney and the freedom she gave him, but the difficulties in finding, keeping and not stuffing up love along the way. Add to that the Act's Facts delivered at points and this is the sort of memoir that this reader found moving, funny and incredibly informative. The blurb probably puts it best:

Told with Courtney’s trademark candour and wit, Caught in the Act is about our journey towards understanding gender, sexuality and identity. It’s an often hilarious and at times heartbreaking memoir from a beloved drag and entertainment icon. Most of all, it’s a bloody good time.

Warning: The book does contain information about drug taking and sexual acts so whilst it's probably not a book for prudes and wowsers it also probably is.

The third Cal Nyx novel, THE FREEZER, would possibly work as a standalone, but the connections between this and the second novel, THE QUARRY in particular, make the characters here make a lot more sense. Nyx and her partner, DI Liz Scobie, her cousin Dif, and boarder Spike (complicated) are a great group of real feeling people and there's a backstory to how they all got here, together.

Hunt is from New Zealand, but this series is set in Australia - New South Wales - where Nyx is a ranger, working way out in the bush. She comes and goes from her city base, a house that was left to her, and the job, where, during a work outing to check the state of bush trails and general maintenance after a storm she comes across a dead body in unusual (maybe unless you're a ranger) circumstances. It may be an historic death, but the discovery creates attention, and a murderer who has evaded justice until now, is worried that may all be about to implode. Whilst Nyx's partner, DI Scobie is leading the police investigation, Nyx is busy deploying her own, somewhat unorthodox methods in a small community, where it turns out, something that she unearths becomes very dangerous information to know.

Nyx is one of those characters who leaps off the page at the reader. Physically capable, emotionally not always so much, she's loyal, hardworking, brave, and a bit daft on occasion. It's rewarding to read a female character who is independent, strong and good at her job, despite the physical challenges, and remote locations she's working in. Her partner, DI Scobie is a good cop too, and whilst they don't work "together" as such, they compliment each other, when Nyx isn't driving Scobie mad. And then there's Dif - who goes way back with Nyx, and is capable, and complicated all at the same time. That backstory from THE QUARRY would be handy to know although there are hints about the past and the reality of Dif's life in this novel.

All these books come with intriguing plots, and the build up of that cast of characters, with some social commentary sprinkled in there for good measure. They are a bit on the gritty side without falling into noir, emotional without being over the top, much like Nyx herself, who is very much a female working class hero.

J.P. Pomare is one of those authors that always, always delivers a slightly different bent on the question "What on Earth is Happening Here?". From the confusion in the reader and character's minds in CALL ME EVIE, to the preconception twisting that's going on in THE WRONG WOMAN and the masterclass in misdirection that was HOME BEFORE NIGHT he's now added the combination of hindsight, expertise and podcasting and reworded the question slightly to "What on Earth Happened Then?" in 17 YEARS LATER.

The story is, on the face of it, a pretty straightforward one. The violent slaughter of a wealthy family when they slept, lead to the identification and lazy investigation of young live-in chef, Bill Ruatara, who was swiftly charged, and then convicted of murder. 17 years later, TK Phillips, a prison psychologist has now thrown a lot of his own life under a bus trying to get an appeal underway, before he walked away from Bill and his case. Then celebrity true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott is guilted into taking an interest in a "non-white" crime, dragging TK with her, leading to the rapid, almost too easy discovery of new evidence and a potential legal binfire.

Which needless to say leads to more digging, and some extremely unhappy onlookers, with the threat to both Philips and Abbott starting to become very immediate, and an intricate web of small town connections that looks like it might be hard to break open.

Told in varying timelines and viewpoints, 17 YEARS LATER allows Bill Ruatara to have a voice in his own case - something that seemed to have been mostly ignored in the investigation. His viewpoint, and timeline, is all about the events that led up to the murder of the wealthy, English family, which gives the author a chance to reveal a lot about their background, and some dodgy dealings that have gone on before the family arrived in New Zealand. It also provides an insight into the life of a young man, a would be chef, from a poor background who tried to find a way to do the right thing by the girl he loved and ended up in more trouble than you'd think would be possible. The current day investigation takes you more inside the head and eyes of podcaster Abbott in some ways, as she actively pursues leads and tries to understand the time and the place that the murders happened in. Phillips provides historical context in that he's been on Ruatara's side for many years, as well as a conduit between Sloane and the man in prison, as well as expertise on human behaviours. And motivations.

There's a lot under the surface of this small town that doesn't like being stirred up by Abbott and Phillips, anymore than it liked what happened all those years ago. Rapidly paced, there's nothing transparent or easy about what could be seen as a pretty straightforward botched investigation, as more and more "what the" moments are revealed along the way. Racial and class bias, flaws, laziness, blindspots, and just plain old screwups are all explored, as are the ethics and motivations of true crime podcasters. Because it's a Pomare novel, at the end of it all, nothing is left behind in the dark.

THE OTHER MOTHER and NEVER FORGET are two Michel Bussi novels that I'd somehow managed to miss reading, until I was reminded recently. Luckily the library had copies of both of them, so that gap, at least, has now been closed.

THE OTHER MOTHER is a very different undertaking from his other books read thus far (BLACK WATER LILIES, AFTER THE CRASH and DON'T LET GO) in that still a thriller in style, the format and approach of this one is very different, and it did take quite a while to get into the flow.

When four year old Malone starts claiming that his mother isn't his real mother, his school psychologist believes him. Despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, provided by his Malone's very annoyed parents, the psychologist persists. Meanwhile police have been trying to find survivors from a heist gone wrong, that left a lot of dead bodies in its wake. I, like many readers, will probably pick where this is going fairly early on, although just how it gets there is quite the ride.

What it turns into along the way is an exploration of family, relationships, loyalty, and the reliability of memory and longing, although this reader could have done without the male opinions on women who succeed "in a man's world" (frankly if the current world is theirs, they've got some explaining to do), but I digress.

The point of Bussi's writing seems to be to surprise, and the structure of this one, in particular did surprise. A lot. If you're new to this writer's work I'd probably suggest starting with one of the three mentioned above - this one involved a bit of heavy lifting and a trust in the author from past experience.

THE OTHER MOTHER and NEVER FORGET are two Michel Bussi novels that I'd somehow managed to miss reading, until I was reminded recently. Luckily the library had copies of both of them, so that gap, at least, has now been closed.

NEVER FORGET (unlike THE OTHER MOTHER) is very much a return to previous thriller stylings in books like BLACK WATER LILIES, AFTER THE CRASH and DON'T LET GO.

The story starts out with a young Arab Para-Olympic contender, on a self-imposed training camp, running along a clifftop on the coast of France in 2014. After picking up an expensive red silk scarf caught on a fence, he then comes across a beautiful, but distressed and dishevelled woman, preparing to jump from the cliff. Despite his attempts to calm her and then draw her away from the edge, she grabs the proffered scarf and jumps to her death. Young Jamal is an easy, dare we say, convenient suspect, despite his prosthetic leg, and the very unlikely possibility that he's either a rapist or a murderer, especially when the reader discovers that two women had already been attacked in the same location, in the same manner, ten years before.

Already distressed by what he has witnessed, and then by being considered a suspect, he starts to receive envelopes with details about the prior murders and investigations, when he discovers that the latest victim is the spitting image of one of the women who were killed in 2004. Which leaves him conducting his own investigation, in an attempt to clear his name, and out of a sense of basic common decency.

In this novel Bussi is exploring not just rape, murder and overt violence, but expectations, aspiration, racism, and attitudes towards disability and difference. He does that in a twisty, dark, psychological thriller style, that will have your head spinning, and any sense of clarity and understanding blown out from under you chapter by chapter. It does beggar belief that despite the timings, despite the witnesses to this latest fall, and despite the unlikeliness of Jamal as a suspect - just based on the time gap between the three rapes and murders, that he would remain prime suspect for a nanosecond, but this is the sort of story where you just have to go with the flow, ride the peaks and troughs and stay with Jamal and his battle to discover the truth.

The Beaufort Scales Mysteries are another paranormal cosy series from Kim M. Watt - this time with dragons. And tea and cakes, a dodgy water supply, endless rain, a water sprite called Nellie who has vanished, a battalion of furious geese (that one I can get behind, got one of those myself) and a wellness guru.

I mean a wellness guru shows up and you know you're in trouble, unless you've got a dragon who is more than prepared to step in I guess.

You get the picture, this is another series for those that like their crime on the fluffy, crazy side, with hefty doses of tea, cakes, paranormal goings on, water sprites, arch humour, and dragons....

Oh and a bit of a concentration of ladies of "a certain age". Being somewhere in that category myself now I'm not sure whether the recognition is appreciated, or I should take the time to point out that not all of us get to that age, and insist on going fluffy and cosy. Some of us are still listening to heavy metal and punk music and actively engaged in a lot of pointed swearing and glaring.

Whatever it is you've come to expect from a Zane Lovitt novel, forget it, this is an author who appears not care one jot for expectations. He appears, instead to care about writing wonderful, engaging characters of amazing variety.

His first novel, THE MIDNIGHT PROMISE, introduced John Dorn. Classic gumshoe, his woman has left him, he lives in the office, drinks too much, and specialises in lost causes, hopeless cases, the underdogs and the oppressed. As noted in the blurb - he was drawn to them “as a sledgehammer is to a kneecap.” Hardboiled, dark noir short stories.

Then BLACK TEETH, which had some of the dry darkness of the earlier novel, but bought to us Jason Ginaff, an anxious man who works from home, researching job candidates, whilst running a dedicated side project looking for his own father. Which leads him to get mixed up with somebody else looking for the same man, only Rudy wants to kill Jason's dad. Populated this time by likeable and unlikable characters there was a sly, dry sense of humour at the back of this novel in particular.

Which is, now that I come to think of it, a similarity (and I'm digging deep here) between that last novel and the current one - THE BODY NEXT DOOR. The tagline for this one is "Glorious suburbia ... a romantic diary ... two accidental sleuths", which should not, for a moment make you think cosy. It's not. It's populated with mostly pretty likeable characters, sure, it's a classic little closed off suburban street called Carnation Way, tucked away in the suburbs of Melbourne, full of houses with gardens out the front, cars parked on the street, kids playing, people popping in and out of each other's houses. and a surprising body count given the ordinariness of it all.

There are some families in this street with a lot going on. Young Jamie, has moved back in with his Dad Bruce, who is starting to show rapidly increasing signs of dementia - setting fire to the kitchen being the big red flag. But it kind of worked out okay for Jamie, his marriage was imploding anyway, and he loves his Dad, his odd ways, and the community he grew up in. There's still people here from when he was younger, and it feels, safe, and very normal. If you ignore the discovery of a dead young man under the neighbouring house years ago, and the sad and odd death of George. Much of which could be put down to bad luck, until the night that Claire Corral disappeared.

Claire's lived in Carnation Way for a very long time, long enough to have been there when young Lachlan's body was found, to have known Jamie's Mum Holly before she died, his dad when he was still teaching, and Yasmin before the twins were born, George when he discovered Lachlan's body, and everybody and everything else. Born in England, she'd moved to Australia with her first husband, but the marriage had imploded (Solly was a bit of a sod), and she's now got a new partner. And the reader knows all of this as chapters that make up Claire's diary form part of the narrative, going back over the years, talking about the time the body was found, suspicions and resolutions, and not quite enough detail to explain why she's now vanished, but more than enough hints to suggest she might have known quite a bit.

Yasmin is one of Claire's best friends, with twin boys, a busy career and an ex-con-ex-husband who was a real snake in the grass, until Claire saw him off. George on the other hand had been a harmless, kind old Greek man who unfortunately smelt something odd from the house next door, and then, after the trauma of finding Lachlan's dead body, died tragically in a car accident on the Great Ocean Road, one of those weird bits of irony that happen, given he had been the driving instructor who taught all the kids how to drive. Mind you, nobody ever did really fully explain how it was that somebody, unknown to all of them, ended up getting murdered under a house in a quiet little St Albans street.

The contents of Claire's diaries would have have been useful for Jamie to know as Tessa moves into the house where Lachlan's body was found, and the connections between her and Claire come to light, about the same time that Jamie starts to feel a bit like life might be worth living again, only what is Tessa really up to, and what do the ramblings of a demented old man actually mean? And why on earth would somebody as "normal" and everyday as Claire just vanish like that?

Told with enormous affection and a gentle, almost kind regard for his characters, Lovitt has this time served up a cast of characters who might have some deadly secrets, but in the main are pretty "ordinary". The major darkness in this novel turns out to be the blinkered viewpoints that have persisted, and those crawl spaces under all those houses. Turns out that glorious suburbia is only glorious when you keep those blinkers firmly taped to the side of your head. Because taking them off gives Jamie and Bruce a whole different outlook.

Sitting down to read THE FORSAKEN (late to the party as usual), wasn't at all sure what to expect. The blurb explains that for ten years, Logan Booth, served as a contract killer for the CIA, never knowing that was what he was doing. Finding out he wasn't a rogue hitman for a band of vigilantes, but rather a means by which governments of the USA furthered their own interests is .. well it's a lot. Starting out reading a book about somebody who is fine with the killing bit, but very particular about the motivation element is something to think about.

Although to be honest, thinking about motivations, morals, rights and wrongs, became somewhat secondary to the wild, bare-knuckle, no holds barred, violent, extreme and, uncomfortably horribly train wreck that became an equally uncomfortably enjoyable crazy ride, that is Logan Booth, and just about everybody who comes into contact with him.

Don't get me wrong - this is NOT a novel for the squeamish, or violence intolerant. It's also not a novel that's necessarily going to drag readers into deep contemplation of human nature and the choices we make. Only, it kind of is that latter bit. You can "get" how it would be that somebody who thought they were a lone-wolf, vigilante killer with a "reason" for the job, might be more than a bit miffed to discover that a government was pulling the strings. Grey, faceless, suit wearing, desk sitting behind men who were simply powering through anybody or anything that they felt was in the road of their aims and machinations. It's easy to see how that would screw up your head just a little, and acceptance of that is helped by Logan Booth being a great character. Superhuman freaky violent, dangerous, utterly controlled and clear headed about what he's doing, he's also oblivious to pain, mad, bad, and more than a bit crazy, alcoholic and suicidal, and he's had a lot going on. So he's not at all pleased when people won't just bugger off and leave him alone. Then, they murder his oldest, only really, friend and the switch from despair to fury saves him, although it makes life very short for a lot of other people.

Picking up a most unexpected ally along the way in the person of homeless, crack addict, Alice Mason, Booth starts out avenging his friend's death, making sure that whoever killed him doesn't get Alice as well, and generally dishing out a bit of vengeance and justice for everybody and everything, before he finds himself chasing corruption, money, influence and rotten power into a lot of dark corners. All while facing the same sort of demons he's insisting Alice front up to as well.

As weird as this sounds, this was a thoroughly enjoyable, absolutely engaging, enthralling, extremely violent, over the top thriller with great characters and a core of humanity in amongst the blood, sweat, flying teeth, gunshots, broken bones, flying bodies, falling bodies, tripped over bodies, and corruption. As always it comes down to corruption and the pursuit of money.

BROKE ROAD is the follow up to the excellent BLACK RIVER, the opening salvo in the series, featuring the determined and dedicated DS Rose Riley, journalist Adam Beaumont, and a serial killer that didn't make this reviewer want to chuck that first book against a wall, hard.

Riley is back, with her sidekick Priya Patel, and Beaumont, this time in the wine tourism area of the Hunter Valley around Cessnock when a young woman is found dead in an isolated new townhouse, by her husband late one night. No forced entry and no signs of a struggle means that the husband is obviously suspect number one, and whilst a local tabloid journalist is busy spinning her own story about all of that, Riley is questioning everything and everybody. When Beaumont arrives on scene they slip back into the sort of working relationship that opened up in the first novel, collaborative without being unbelievable, cautious and friendly, Riley, Patel and Beaumont are joined by a local cop this time, in an investigation that takes some most unexpected turns along the way.

There are quite a few references back to the earlier novel, particularly in terms of how these three main characters met, and developed the friendship that they have. This novel also looks back a little further at Riley's own childhood, in this region, on a farm that was marginal, before the wine industry moved in and turned the place into a tourism mecca. There are nice touches of the clash between the old and the new, the old pub where Beaumont finds himself staying, compared to the swish new, hands off model motel where the women are staying. The older residents, many of whom have now found work, for the incomers, the big winemakers, the restaurateurs and the entrepreneurs. The differences between the region midweek and weekends when the tourists arrive, and finally the tension between the mining industry and the winemakers, something reflected in the household of the dead woman who worked in PR and marketing for the wine industry, and her coal mining geologist husband.

Whilst there is a lot going on locally, including some hefty doses of corruption involving some of those wealthy incomers, the police and the local media, the investigation finds tentacles outside the area - to Adelaide, Canberra and potentially other locations, and it's those leads that flush out some complicated connections. To say nothing of the goings on at the motel where RIley and Patel are staying. All of which makes up for a wild ride of a read, which for this reviewer, was basically a one sitting inhalation.

The balance between personal and professional here is great, as is the sheer slog of detective work, analysis and thinking outside the box that goes towards an investigation that could easily have got bogged in the local. The characters are great - flawed but not overtly so, dedicated, determined, and a bit messy along the way, these three are a great, and surprisingly believable team, given we're talking a journo and a couple of cops. The friendship is well portrayed, the interactions really fun to read, and the sense of place well executed.

Wine growing areas, where the tourists and the developers arrive in a landscape that's originally settled into marginal farming, with old families, old connections, and many layers of stories make for an interesting place to set a story that's about the murder of an incomer, a woman who on the face of it had no reason to die. Take that idyllic place, and stick in an undercurrent of sick, perverted weirdo's and you've got a well executed, disquieting novel that works on a number of levels.

NOTE: For the American audience that this has obviously been "edited" for - Shoes and Tires would be Shoes and Tyres here / for local audiences if you do happen to come across that edition, the shoes aren't looking for a lie in.... (Why publishers do this is beyond me, I mean we can "translate" the reverse - seems a bit disrespectful to suggest your reader's can't do the same ... ).

Wellington, 1923, and a sixty-year-old woman hangs herself in a scullery; ten years later another woman ‘falls’ from the second floor of a Taranaki tobacconist; soon afterwards a young mother in Taumarunui slices the throat of her newborn with a cleaver.

What connects these women, and the short, pointed tales in FOX SPIRIT IN A DISTANT LAND is that all these women are part of the Chinese diaspora in New Zealand, and all the stories are inspired by real events. Murray has chosen to explore these stories of violent crimes, by and towards a number of woman using a combination of styles: biography, mythology, horror and poetry, using, as a connecting thread, the mythological Chinese nine-tailed fox.

Harrowing, and yet beautiful, this is the story of foul play at it's most confrontational, death by others and own hands, the brevity of this collection is part of its strength, and in a weird way, it's saving grace. There is so much in this that's confronting that the language, the style, and the almost shorthand in which the stories are told make them even more compelling and audacious.

Less a full review, more of a note to self to keep track of this series because it really is extremely good fun. Robert Thorogood is the author behind Death in Paradise, and now the Marlow Murder Club series has made it's way to TV as well. Haven't watched any of them yet but they promise to deliver exactly what the books do, a clever series with strong female lead characters, a touch of dotty English village going's on, and a startling amount of murder and mayhem in such an unlikely setting. And Judith Potts swimming naked in The Thames - and if you don't quite get that reference, then you'll need to head back to book one of this lovely, entertaining little set of books and start there.

Book 4, MURDER ON THE MARLOW BELLE again centres around the river, boats, a local theatre group, and a local actor who has made it big in Hollywood. The death of the local founder of MADS (Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society) after the hiring of a private pleasure cruiser for an exclusive party, makes for a sort of locked room (middle of a river) scenario with champagne, intrigue and tensions. As well as some of those lovely interpersonal connections between everyone that happen so easily in small communities.

Saved from straight-out cosiness by a strong, and eccentric cast of central characters, Judith and her friends Suzie and Becks are a great group of "amateur sleuths". Local cop Tanika hangs onto her job just as always, and the truth behind the death of Oliver Beresford is nicely twisty and convoluted.

I have listened to the audio version of all these books, and the narrator Nicolette McKenzie does them with what sounds like the perfect sort of English village, slightly clipped, sometimes strident sort of voice that just fits in perfectly with all the characters - Judith the crossword setting, Suzie the dog walker, and Becks the vicar's wife. The fifth book in the series, The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts (also seen around the place as The Marlow Murder Club - so goodness knows), is due out in early 2026.

I've been dipping into this series on audio as and when there's time, and the books are available at the library. This is the third in the Inspector Simon Ramsay series, set in small village England. In this case, Dorothea Cassidy is the wife of the local vicar, who spends her Thursday's doing her own thing, away from the routine duties of a small village vicar's wife. Which leads to a bit of a multifaceted mystery, firstly why Dorothea married the very different vicar, why she thought her respite would involve visiting people was so different from the routine duties, and how she ended up strangled out in the open after not coming home on Thursday night.

Painstaking police work is at the heart of this series, with Inspector Ramsay a good, dedicated, and quiet sort of a cop, with a few personal problems of his own, and a community he's coming to know but not quite understand yet.

They are a good option in audio with the pace being slightly slower, the investigations being quite methodical and meticulous, it's possible to listen without having to have a laser like focus on intricate details. Which makes then sound a bit wishy-washy, which the series is anything but, it's just one of those that works as an audio, is entertaining without being overly distracting and the narrator has one of those voices that holds attention without overwhelming everything else.

I don't know why I read this, but I guess these two have been in the news again recently, I have Virginia Roberts Giuffre's book on the stacks, and I realised I knew next to nothing about Andrew or his ex-wife, other than the occasional bit of gossip that passes as news. Which I kind of suspected this book might turn out to be, or even worse, a massive attempt at reputation restoration.

It was neither. Mostly it's politely scathing, although I could have done without the little bit of motivation explanation - mostly on her part at the end, although to be fair, it was minor and it wasn't wholehearted. I think, on reflection, this book is exactly what it needed to be. Scathing, pointed, detailed and illuminating, without sensationalism, or judgement. This reads as well researched, with plenty of comments and observations from people close to them, as well as facts (like the eye-watering dollar amounts churned through on nothing much), and the never ending pushing, shoving and demanding of yet more money. There's details about both their childhoods, and their meeting, a bit about their marriage, and a lot about their "business" dealings, and associations. It's a litany of what might seem like poor choices, if it wasn't the same story over and over again.

Ultimately came away from this read realising what a particularly appalling pair, in a world full of appalling people. Money-grubbing, attention seeking grifters. Nothing admirable or redeeming about either of them. Let's hope with the burying of his existence going on at the moment they both disappear from view and we can all concentrate our attention, more rightly, on victims.

Can't remember quite how this novel piqued my interest, but I do love whimsical, gentle Japanese crime fiction and the library had a copy so...

First up, this was a fabulous read, full of whimsy and gentle humour, with a fantabulous setup: a library that only opens after dark, never allows patrons to check books out, and consists entirely of the collections of books that were once owned by now deceased Japanese authors.

The employees are also an eclectic set of people - former booksellers and librarians who have had rocky past careers, all of whom have come to work in the library after an approach from the mysterious and anonymous owner of this magnificent building. Most employees have also been given accommodation in a nearby set of small apartments, and it's between their home lives in such close proximity, and such an odd, enclosed working environment, where even the meals provided by a small onsite cafe and an eccentric chef, are related to well known books, that everyone is given a chance to come to terms with what they do, and who they are.

The Night Library is part museum, part collection library, with patrons who pay to come and sit with the books, a security guard, a manager, and a very different little set of employees, all of whom are not just grateful for the job, but come to be quite passionate, or they find a pathway to something else.

Whilst this is mostly a story about people, and life circumstances, there are also a couple of minor mysteries dotted throughout the story - the biggest of which is the identity of the anonymous, and seemingly infinitely wealthy owner of the complex, one of the smaller ones being the discovery of many books that don't belong to any of the collections, which causes great consternation. At the centre of the tale is a very new employee, Otoha Higuchi, and given the story is about her coming to terms with the job, and the environment, it's a journey of discovery for the character, and the reader. The moral of the tale appears to be that you must do what you love, and seek out the things that bring you joy, what you really want to do with your life, regardless of what other people think.

Or it could be something completely different - the joy of novels like this one is that you're free to immerse yourself in this strange little world and come out the other end thoroughly beguiled, or utterly confused.

There's a few books in this house that sit on the "reread bits" stack permanently, and this is one of them. There are so many coloured tags sticking out of my copy it looks like it's growing something, and in a way it is.

Very pointed and frequently subversive Yunkaporta's voice in this one is incredibly strong, powerful and just ever so slightly sarcastic at points. It's funny, it's generous, and it's educational. So lives up to the subtitle "How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World". I mean I have no idea why we would for a moment think that a culture and people that have survived and thrived (up until we arrived with our diseases and our European thinking) in a harsh and difficult country like this one would not have lots and lots and lots of wisdom, insight and learning to pass on. Well, let's face it, I do. And I will continue to dip into this book, particularly when the white world screws it up again, and again and again. Much like now, right at this point in history, when history is something so many people are happily ignoring. To say nothing of future planning.

A slow burner novel, THE GRAPEVINE is the tale of a murder from the perspective of its fallout in a small suburban community in Canberra, in 1979.

It's also a breathtakingly clever takedown of much of what remains flat out stupid - xenophobia, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and the restrictions placed on women. Done so cleverly in fact, that it may take a while for reader's to get to grips with what's going on in THE GRAPEVINE, which leads the reader oh so gently, persuasively into a false sense of the mundane, the suburban, the predictable.

Helped in that undertaking by the weather. It's a stinking hot summer in 1979, without the benefit of the ubiquitous air-conditioners and backyard pools of the current period, this is the sort of summer that many of us remember from our childhoods. When it's so hot that moving is an effort, clothes stick to damp and sweaty bodies, car seats are an unbearable combination of heat and sticky vinyl, and people get very snarky.

In Warrah Place, the sun rises to the news of the presumed death of Antonio Marietti. He's from the "Italian House" in the street, an outsider, but the neighbourhood is transfixed with the horror and, frankly for some, excitement, of a murderer in their midst, before the adults all take up a divide and conquer model that does not play out well for any of them. Meanwhile twelve-year-old Tammy, amateur observational scientist, switches her attention from tracking ant colonies and their behaviour, to tracking the nearby human equivalent. Getting herself into a lot of hot water along the way, and very nearly dragging young Colin, their neighbour, a sad, lonely little boy, into it all with her.

For fans of traditional crime fiction, where a murder investigation forms the major focus of a story, THE GRAPEVINE will be an unusual undertaking. What this novel is doing is looking at the outward waves from a murder that shake a small community. By creating this focus on the small place, a few houses clustered together, a few mismatched families with their internal divisions and problems, it starts off slightly claustrophobic and uncomfortable viewing for the reader. Add to that the tensions within the community and the outspoken awfulness of the 70's - the overt racism, xenophobia and homophobia, and if nothing else, THE GRAPEVINE should serve as a reminder that this is NOT a way of living that anybody should be aspiring to. The interactions of a small cast here serve to reinforce just how pathetic preconceptions based on mindless bigotry are. In an elegant twist, a pointed choice has been made here in terms of us and them. The us forms from a group of outsiders, the them insiders. Frankly if I had to choose, it would be the outsiders every time - the insiders were just plain awful people - even if there were excuses posited for some.

By using the perspective of a young girl, the observational aspects of this novel are clear-eyed, and cutting. The layers of justification and explanation that adults tend to have put into place for behaving like buffoons haven't formed in this young girl, and her identification of short comings all the more crystal clear, as she searches to find descriptors for them. The resolution to the murder has a kicker of a twist sure, but even then, the fallout from that is the thing. The characters in this novel, alive and dead are vibrant, and the observations cutting, and unflinching.

Ten years ago six teenagers hiked into the wilderness and five of them came back alive. They were school friends. Ed (whose family farm was their starting off point), Hugh, Charlotte, Laura, Jack and Alex, close, but with the sorts of slightly complicated romantic attachments and fractures that you find in groups of kids of that age. Nobody for a moment thought that this would be a dangerous hike, they were experienced walkers, fit, and Ed knew this area from a childhood growing up here. Only Ed died, and for the ten years since his mother Mary has had plenty of time to think about her beloved only child's death.

Maybe it was triggered by the anniversary, maybe it was too much time on her hands since the inquest into her son's death, then the suicide of her husband, Ed's father, but the house wasn't the same happy place that the five returned to, invited by Mary for an anniversary weekend. The once immaculate place is ramshackle and neglected, and there's something very odd about Mary. The problem is that none of remaining five friends could ever have imagined just how obsessed, how determined to get to the truth she is, until it's almost too late for all of them.

Told in a series of differing POV chapters, the early part of the book will require some concentration on the part of the reader as you're taken back to each person's teenage years, as well as who they are as adults. There's reminiscence and past transgressions to be fleshed out, as well as present life changes including marriages, pregnancy, careers that have taken some in unexpected directions. Importantly, there are the connections between them then and now, events that shaped their interactions and relationships, and the cryptic questions laid out in notes that they start to find around the property, as they search for ways out of the intricate and very specific trap set for them.

Whilst it's a thriller in nature, there's also something surprisingly reflective about THE REUNION. Whether it's the contrasting experiences and pasts of the main characters, including Ed, and the sorts of secrets they have been keeping for a very long time, or their individual responses to pressure, these are adults forced into confronting their pasts and who they were and have become. Making the reader unsure at every step of where this is heading, setting up some really tricky characters as people that you may just end up with some respect for, leading to a resolution that did feel like it might be surprisingly gentle on a lot of very traumatised people. Until a final kick in the tail that readers less rattled may say they could see coming, but put this reader, by then, in the thoroughly rattled camp.

A debut novel, THE REUNION, started out as a bit of a sleeper, ended up as a haunter of nights.

Set amid the ferocious cold of a Canadian winter, Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s new novel continues her exploration of the threats of life online. Full review at Newtown Review of Books https://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/ashley-kalagian-blunt-cold-truth-reviewed-by-karen-chisholm/

A standalone from the author of the well-known Gemma Woodstock series, THE HOUSEMATE is a story told in two timelines. Back to nine years ago when three housemates were sharing a property, one of them is killed, one goes missing, one is accused of murder. The current timeline sees journalist Oli Groves, who worked on the original murder story as a junior reporter, still a reporter, drawn back to a case she has always been obsessed with, when the missing housemate turns up, possibly as a suicide, at a Dandenong Ranges property.

The basis of this story is an intriguing one. The reasons for the three housemates supposed falling out was never really explained, their lives at the time of the murder never fleshed out, the missing girl never located. The problem is now the housemate accused of murder is out of jail, the missing girl is assumed dead by suicide, and there's something in the past that everyone's trying to keep quiet. Cue Oli back on the case, only this time, reporting has changed, and the paper she is working for have decided that podcasting is the new thing, so Oli is paired up with Cooper Ng, a young, relentlessly cheerful millennial producer. These two are destined to clash, and yet they might also be able to find a way to work together.

That is if Oli can dig herself out of the personal mess that she's buried herself in, and her obsessive nature. Engaged now, to the widower of the original police detective on "The Housemate" case, who was killed in a mysterious hit and run leaving her husband with two small twin daughters to raise. Only he was having an affair with Oli in the past, she was in a relationship with one of the cops that's now on the case, the twins are now older, and he mostly seems to be looking for a live in childcare provider, or something that certainly doesn't feel right. The personal story in this is novel is BIG, and it's complicated, messy and more than a bit overwhelming. In fact, I wouldn't recommend THE HOUSEMATE to anybody with an allergy to huge chunks of personal angst. Needless to say, the ex-boyfriend's the good bloke, the fiance a controlling creep, and Oli seems to be unable to sort out her feelings about the personal or professional. There are times when Ng's relentless upbeatness is a bit of a relief to be honest.

In amongst all the personal stuff there is a crime story lurking, with the story leading up to the original murder likely to explain the current housemate death. Or not. There are plenty of red herrings, complications, missteps and misleading elements in there - more than enough to keep a reader guessing. That aspect of the story was interesting, and cleverly constructed, but for this reader, not quite cleverly enough to have it rise beyond the soap opera threatening to subsume it.

The opening line of HUMIDITY made me laugh:

Word gets 'round when you're a nude model in a small country town.

That would most definitely get around our nearby small country town, even though it could never be said that we have the rampant violence and hellish humidity referred to in the book's blurb.

An unusual crime novel, HUMIDITY is set in a one of those small towns that has lost most of its economic basis and is slowly dying as a result. The story revolves around Ben, a broke, desperately lonely, lost sort of a young man with a sad family backstory, who lobbed into town and ended up working as a nude model for the local art class. He lives in a tiny, mould infested granny flat at the back of the house his best mate shares with his elderly Granny, and sort of just mooches about. Until he falls for the local barmaid. Marty's whip smart, violent, and rapidly muscling in on her own brother's drug and gun-running business, dragging Ben with her, who frankly is more than a bit sex struck and in way over his head - sex, relationship, business, and friendship wise.

It may take a little while to get into the swing of HUMIDITY because there's a lot of nothing in Ben's life, and his lost and directionless act plays out slowly, and in a slightly meandering manner. Until it's not anymore, and there are bikies, drugs, guns and violence aplenty, as well as some athletic sex and unexpected interpersonal relationships building. The story is kind of less a murder mystery, although there are dead bodies, and more how the hell are these people going to keep living mystery though. As well as a little too realistic a portrayal of a lost young man who got himself into the wrong company and missteps constantly in his attempts to get back out again.

Slyly funny in places, mightily violent in others, the build up is steady, the resolution twisty and unclear, and the reality of the whole thing shone, sadly, through.

Not for a moment would this reviewer wish to suggest that this is a time in history when the murder of an obnoxious rich person, on a luxury island, busily engaged in being obnoxious and threatening to all and sundry is an enjoyable idea, but it did come across, in this novel, as particularly pleasing. In a not as uncomfortable as as you'd think way.

THE PRIVATE ISLAND by Ali Lowe is a take on a locked room scenario, combined with some filthy rich unpleasant people and some not so filthy rich, but guests as well people, who all come together with a lot of motives to want somebody dead. As the blurb describes the main players:

The billionaire's daughter, glamorous, untouchable, hungry for her inheritance. The start-up founder, out of money, and out of time. The young dive instructor, in way over his head and struggling to stay afloat. The husband, blinded by desire, in all the wrong ways. And the lover, hidden in the shadows, where no one can see them....

This list doesn't include a deeply put upon wife, an estranged and angry sister, and a quietly determined and clear-eyed Head of Housekeeping and Aunt.

It all comes together in a very engaging combination of characters, and idyllic setting. A tropical island preparing to see in the new year with a masked party, champagne, fireworks and a few more deaths than the staff are quite used to dealing with. Whilst one death seems natural, the second, on the other hand, is quite obviously anything but. The problem is that there are more than enough suspects, almost too many of them really.

THE PRIVATE ISLAND very quickly became very compulsive reading. Got to love an author with the skill to write deeply unpleasant people with this much joie de vivre. The author's that is - the characters demonstrated just how money does not make you happy, or human for that matter. The standout "investigator" in the bunch is definitely housekeeper Una although the put upon wife Kitty, eventually emerges from her internal conflict to become both an ally, and a lot more that's particularly unexpected.

The setting serves as a great exclusive locked room resort, but there's also connections between some of the characters and the place which help to bring the staff and the client's together when required, and all the while, there's trouble brewing, and murderous intent that includes the distinct possibility that there's more sympathy for the main suspect than there ever could be for the victim.

Right from the very start THE PRIVATE ISLAND was engaging, entertaining, and an excellent whodunnit. The why always seemed pretty obvious, the only mystery there seemed to be why it took so long for somebody to kill a person that obnoxious, but the lovely twist in the tail was that second to final reveal. It was so... base, so nasty, so apt. And then there's an ultimate reveal.

This is a small collection of short stories, fictional, about life in the Australian country. It's a combination of stories about families, individuals, farms and small towns. Some of them are funny, some of them heartbreaking, and all of them pitch perfect little exponents of their place and their community. As the blurb puts it "showcases the beauty of lives lived outside city walls." Because there is much to recommend life away from the cities, where resilience and personal fortitude come with the territory and the battle for survival is trickier due to the lack of hand holding and delivered to your doorstep resources. None of which matter when you compare it to the wide skies, and the natural world and the sheer humour and gritty determination that's reflected in this collection.

Picked it up in part because Margaret Hickey is now high on my will read come hell or drought list, and because, as a smallish volume it felt like a great little distraction from a heap of reading I "should" be doing. Worked on all levels, this is clever writing from someone who knows the world, the people, and the up and downs.

Originally published in 2022, this is a series that slipped past me, but something drew my attention to the setting mostly, and after this last awful summer, reading about Mallee towns in the heat sounded like a fictional pursuit that might distract from the reality outside the door.

In this series, Greg Bowker is a young senior constable who got himself in a bit of bother in Ballarat, and was transferred to a one-officer station in Manangatang, town that is still going despite all declarations of the imminent death. In an interesting twist the author was raised on a farm in country Victoria, and at the time of writing the blurbs for his books, was living in Ballarat. So a reverse Bowker if you like. Either way he's certainly very good at writing the heat and dust of places like Manang, and the references to nearby locations such as Ouyen (with it's mind-blowingly hot summers and frequently cool to cold winters). He's also particularly good at conveying the complications of being the only cop in a massive area that he doesn't know, with not a lot of people in it into the bargain.

The conveying of small town policing is pretty good as well. As is the way that he and his young wife have to adjust to the community and the sport / what is it with these places and bloody tennis and football! (I know, no need for correspondence on the issue - I just can't stand either pursuit), whilst dealing with a couple of delinquent teenagers and some deeply buried family secrets.

There's a realistic feeling of small bush town's in the 1980's though, and the treatment / attitudes to women, people with any sort of difference to the white, tanned to leather farmer types, and outsiders in general. And strangely enough the feeling of dark and deception flagged in the blurb kind of fitted in with a world of heat, dust, snakes, and physical as well as mental challenges.