Karen

According to the author's notes at the end of the novel LYREBIRD, the idea for this story came on a walk in the bush one day, when Caro crossed paths with a lyrebird. Having previously lived in an area where the sounds heard never quite seemed to match what was going on around us, it's not that difficult to picture the scenario where a lyrebird is filmed mimicking the sounds of a woman screaming in terror, begging for her life. It's also very easy to image the shock that would be for anybody, let along a young, hung over PHD student, out in the bush studying birds. All on her own, having earlier heard unidentifiable noises nearby, the shock, surprise and fright would be astounding. The sounds of that call would go on to haunt Jessica Weston for years to come.

It was mostly confusing for the young, new to the job detective, Megan Blaxland who was assigned to the potential case. Quite how or what you'd be investigating with the call of a territorial bird and therefore at least an area of impenetrable rainforest to look into your only clues. No missing persons reports, no obvious victim, no obvious attack site. The case goes cold quickly.

Until 20 years later and a body appears as a result of a landslide. By that stage Weston's a biology professor, Blaxland a retired, widowed detective, and a cold case in the middle of a dangerous, threatening bushfire season suddenly becomes an active investigation. Called back from retirement as a consultant because it was her case all those years ago, Blaxland is teamed up with her original partner, and a small team of eager young cops, who find more than they bargained for in that dense forest - more bodies, and their only clue to identity, a home made shoelace.

There's lots of personal dynamics at play in this novel, Blaxland dealing with the grief of loss, Weston with the difficulties of a divorce and a teenage daughter right slap bang in the middle of the rebellious years. There's a bit of guilt from the old partner of Blaxland's as well - he poo-pooed the evidence of the call back in the day, and now he's part of a serial killer investigation. A man with enough personal problems of his own, Blaxland finds their working relationship is all over the place after her year or so away from the job.

It should be noted that this is a story which revolves around human trafficking and sexual abuse, so the subject matter can be quite confrontational and the circumstances that the women who ultimately ended up in graves in the bush like that difficult to process. There's also some aspects of the portrayal of their lives and that of a transgender witness from back in the day that some readers may find challenging. Also challenging is the way that the case story builds alongside the bushfire threat, culminating in a major firestorm and some very risky actions on the part of Blaxland's team. The way that the author has conveyed the reality of trying to function in a huge bushfire was pretty accurate - the lack of hearing (from the roar of the fire and wind), the lack of visibility from smoke, the heat, and the way they combine to affect your breathing, and your thinking, all of that felt very realistic (worth again checking the author's notes, she had some very experienced advice in all aspects of this novel).

It's also a novel that fires some shots across the bows on climate change, lack of resourcing for agencies responsible for managing natural areas, problems in funding educational institutions, and the never-ending misery and viciousness of people trafficking and enforced sex work. All barrows that I think anybody who knows even a smidgen about Caro's background and interests could expect to have included in a crime fiction novel by her. None of which came across as from the pulpit, all of the elements woven in the story fairly seamlessly.

I was slow out of the blocks in starting this novel, but once that initial setup, and that calling lyrebird, and the impact it had on a younger Jessica were revealed it became a couple of sittings read. Another good example of crime fiction that takes a long, hard look at real issues in society, and whilst the serial killer aspect is there, it's not the point. The point is the victims, the survivors and the greyness around the edges.

This book should have come with a warning - I mean a blurb that simply said 'Lawyers, drugs, deaths, and sneakiness, in New Zealand.' just doesn't cut it.

It should have mentioned:

• Shouldn't be read in public unless you want people to think you're having a breakdown;
• Definitely shouldn't be read if you're planning a serious and earnest career in the law;
• Might not necessarily reflect the reality of the practice of law in New Zealand (that one's more of fervent hope than a warning);
• Will make you laugh at the MOST inappropriate things;
• Don't climb any ladders to fiddle with any smoke alarms whilst reading.

The story revolves around Van Stilton, lawyer to FatMan (aka Fred Turner) whom he came across one Sunday morning in 2019. An odd phone call that included a hint:

'I have said nothing thus far.'

Thus?

Leading to the introduction to the reader (not Stilton) of his junior, a baby lawyer referred to as Grasshopper. I'll leave you to work out the implications.

The story evolves. Fatman is in a spot of bother over cocaine dealing, Stilton is in a spot of bother trying to get his client out of a tricky position, Grasshopper is hanging on to the wildest ride of her life. Potential jurors are being assessed:

The first six were unremarkable. The seventh a large blonde woman who looked like she hadn't even considered the brooking of any kind of nonsense since 1974.

The story gets madder, the action gets crazy, the potential for serious jail time switches around, Fatman gets into trouble, Stilton finds himself even deeper in the potential mire and Grasshopper, well she hangs onto the wildest ride of her life.

And I laughed more than I should have at what is essentially a criminal ride of excess, death, a bit of gore and a ladder. Oh and at passages like this:

The judge gave her decision immediately. She began by stating the facts of the search as she had determined them to be. Then she considered the wording of section 30 of the Evidence Act, and gave due regard to previous decisions by the Court of Appeal as to how section 30 should be applied. Then she undertook an overall balancing process, giving approximate weight to the impropriety of the search, but also taking proper account of the need for an effective and credible system of justice that would not easily let offenders avoid the consequences of their actions. Eventually, she came down in favour of the side that had not said that her head was up her arse.

More please.

It often pays not to read the blurb of a novel - can't help thinking something that's based in the "fascinating world of Victorian funeral customs and featuring Sydney's first female undertaker", may not scream read me to your average crime fiction reader. If there is such a thing.

Historical fiction author Deborah Challinor has created firstly a brilliant character in Tatty (Tatiana) Caldwell, and secondly a fascinating scenario which is packed with lively dialogue, a great supporting cast, and a clever and quite subtle plot with a central idea that's particularly unusual.

Tatty had an idyllic childhood in London, the only child of doting parents, who die in quick succession, leaving her destitute and heartbroken. Her parent's also had unusual backgrounds, and if there was one thing she learnt from both of them, it's that a woman can and should be independently and financially secure. So at 17 she leaves behind her dear friends and companions in her parent's home and emigrates to Sydney, which, in 1864, is a far cry from London, but starting to develop into a city of services and structure.

Her first job, as an undertaker's assistant with Crowe Funeral Services, sees her eventually married to the profoundly awful Titus Crowe, who, not long after dies, leaving Tatty to inherit the business and become Sydney's only female undertaker. Who is then left to fight off a rival, who accuses her of poisoning her husband, leading to Tatty having to fight dirty in response. The battle between the potential of a murder charge, and the search for something to use against her rival, sees her undertake some particularly gruesome, and quite risky activities.

Absolutely riveting, BLACK SILK AND SYMPATHY has a lot of good strings to its bow. Firstly Tatty is a wonderful character, full of determination and absolute grit, she's also always been able to surround herself with good people who she looks after. Each and every "reveal" in this novel is done in a wonderfully low key sort of a way, allowing the reader plenty of "well of course" type moments, to say nothing of the chance to really cheer on a woman who is standing up for herself in a world run by some very substandard men. Not to say it's all yeah the women / boo the men. The men who work with her, and support her, are a great bunch, and I must admit I loved the touches of animal kindness and concern exhibited by them. Plus, just for a change, it's the men dealing with romantic ups and downs, whilst the women press on with the unsavoury bits of the job.

In the author's note at the back of the book Challinor outlines the extensive research she did for this novel, all of which really did illustrate how much of a masterclass BLACK SILK AND SYMPATHY was in not letting the research get in the way of an engaging story.

Whilst this review might be making this novel sound a bit like a feminist treatise, it's really not. It's a clever, subtle and most enjoyable novel that has, at its heart, a young person who is forging a path ahead, despite the vested interests working against them.

Melbourne author Fiona Hardy has broken very different ground with her crime fiction debut Unbury the Dead. Full review at Newtown Review of Books: Unbury the Dead, Fiona Hardy (https://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/fiona-hardy-unbury-the-dead-reviewed-by-karen-chisholm/)

Following on from the excellent debut THE FALL BETWEEN, author Darcy Tindale's BURNING MOUNTAIN shows absolutely no sign of the dreaded "second novel syndrome". The action here is as believable, and relevant to the place as in the earlier novel, Detective Rebecca Giles as hardworking as before, the team she works with as full of the small problems of life whilst also tackling a difficult job with dedication, and the past is allowed to leak into the current in a very apt, and sometimes personal manner.

For those that didn't read the first novel (you really should btw), Detective Rebecca Giles is back in the town of her birth, where her father is succumbing to an awful, and deadly, ailment. She had one of those childhoods, mother dead at a very young age, she was a typical country kid, raised by a caring but frequently overworked cop, Superintendent Benjamin Giles. Until she was suddenly sent away to boarding school, something she never quite understood, although the discovery of a skeleton buried on Mount Wingen sets off a chain of events, and unearths a suspect who starts to bring back some worrying memories.

The skeleton is eventually identified as fifteen-year-old Oliver who went missing in 2006 when he was hiking on nearby Burning Mountain with 4 school-friends. Supposedly, after a bit of a kids spat, at the top of the mountain, he'd hiked back to the pickup point where his mother expected to meet him, on his own. He wasn't there when she arrived and despite Giles senior pulling out all the stops with search parties combing the area, no trace of him was ever found. Until a skull is unearthed in that nearby location by a dog on a walk with its owner, and a well dug grave is then identified. Cue the difficulties associated with the forensic search for the body, then the retrieval, and finally identification, although the investigation itself has a bit of a head start because there aren't that many missing people in the area and there are clues on the skull that indicate a rough age for the victim.

Luckily Giles senior is still well enough to have his memories of the case, and the ability to talk about it, and he provides Giles the younger with an unexpected name, based on the loose idea that he was in the area at the time, and there were rumours, reports and worries about that man already. A time when the suspect lived next door to the Giles family home, and exhibited a lot of behaviour that looking at it with the eyes of an adult, Rebecca Giles can clearly see as the grooming of children.

Those revelations send her on a spiral of remembering, whilst also being very keen to catch this man, still resident in the area, still suspected it turns out. It's only the pointed guidance of her senior officer that stops her from doing some really precipitous things, as the investigation into who killed and buried young Oliver links up with old allegations of child abuse and child grooming. But Tindale isn't finished with her readers - not by a long shot, so there are plenty of twists and turns in this story, including (hard not to feel some pleasure in) the death of a domestic violence perpetrator and the story of his wife and child, before the final revelations fall into place.

Rebecca Giles is a great character - very real and believable. Her relationship with her Dad is touching, and his illness all the more sad because he was obviously a bloody good cop, and a loving, caring, if only slightly haphazard Dad. The sense of place is well delivered and the way that crimes intertwine with the life of small rural locations works, as does that idea of the things that people knew in the past and present and didn't talk about, being part of the stuff that comes back to bite hard years later.

I borrowed a copy of this audio from the library recently on a whim. No idea what drew me to it, but boy am I glad I did. Two sitting listens aren't common in these parts but I was so enthralled by DEAD MILE, I ended up sneaking the earbuds in and pretending to be getting on with other things, glued to the story of a locked room mystery on an inescapable section of freeway (motorway in English parlance).

Sergeant Belinda Kidd (unsurprisingly with the nickname of 'Billy') is on return from a career sabbatical in Australia, ready to resign from the police after a series of events that have left her traumatised. Combine that with a bad menopause experience and she's fed up, lacking in confidence, and in a hire car, sleep deprived and jet-lagged to hell. As the motorway she's on is forced into gridlock by a series of planned, and carefully executed terrorist bombings, her problems turn out to be more immediate when the body of a man is found in a black sedan also stuck in the traffic. Only nobody was seen going near the sedan, nobody seems to know who he is and she's the only emergency services officer in cooee.

Killed by a metal skewer in the back of his neck, obviously the murder had to have been done at the same time as traffic ground to a halt, but how did nobody in any of the surrounding cars see anyone, and where on earth would they have gone. Which makes the traffic jam an interesting problem - if the traffic clears, she could lose any potential suspects, but she's got no equipment, no help, and no idea where to start with an investigation. It's also hot, and everybody in the vicinity is fractious and scared, given the terrorist bombings occurring around London.

This was absolutely riveting for reasons that I really can't explain fully. It's a very current day locked room scenario - motorway and terrorist threats combining. Billy Kidd is a great character, an older woman who is resourceful, determined, and a bloody good cop for all her personal doubts and insecurities. There were some other really good characters around her on that road, and some nice twisty sub-plots to work through, keeping the pace high, and the hits coming from all directions.

I suspect it might work as well in the written form, but the audio of this was absolutely absorbing. Just make sure you've got plenty of stuff to do that makes you look like you're really busy, so everyone leaves you alone to get on with it.

The second novel from Australian writer Paula Gleeson, BONEY CREEK is set in the dying town of the same name, a hot, dusty, dry place that the world forgot about when the highway bypassed it.

After a traumatic experience in the city, Abbie and Toby move there, the new owners of the town general store, service station and post office - the sort of combination one stop shop that's very familiar to country residents. Groceries, fuel, the mail, odds and ends, and in more modern times, a place to get a coffee and sometimes some hot food and baked goods made by the store owner.

Only this is a town with secrets, Toby has a secret reason for them ending up there, while Abbie is keeping secrets about their experience in the city. Which makes for a lot of uncomfortable discoveries, and conversations. Especially as it quickly becomes apparent that there are seven questionable deaths in this community.

Turning from her previous role of journalism to that of an amateur detective / blogger, Abbie finds herself drawn into the town's story. Toby already had an in to events, but it's Abbie who really find herself deep in trying to understand what's happening in this strange little place.

And strange is the word that I keep coming back to as I sit down to write this review. BONEY CREEK is written by an Australian writer, who has the cadence and style of an Australian - you can pick it immediately. But the spelling and some (but not all) of the terminology is American. Every occurrence of "Mom" stood out, as did a severe shortage of u's. The story is very careful to not mention where Boney Creek is, yet it felt Australian rural, which made the inconsistent American-English usage jar. Whilst there was a sense of a small dying town in the heat, dry and dust, that inability to firmly locate it somewhere gave the novel a floaty feeling. Obviously this won't be an issue for US readers, and quite possibly that's the intended audience.

But the feeling did feed through to some of the plot points, in particular, Toby's revelations about his reason for choosing Boney Creek floated into view very early on in the plot, only to float away again until the last chapters of the book - which was strange. It seemed an integral part of the central premise, which overall had huge potential, but wasn't best served as well by the floaty, almost flighty nature of the two main characters, both of whom never quite managed to maintain a consistent believability. Overly dramatic when things were low key and almost blasé around the big stuff, for the longest time this reader was wondering about unreliable narrators. And I'm still not sure why, but the final chapters seemed to allow them both to let some very big stuff go straight through to the keeper.

Readers may also find an interesting juxtaposition of violent intent and reaction - you can't have seven suspect deaths without expecting that it's not all tea and scones after all, yet the style is lighter, veering towards cosy in places. The language of the blog that Abbie uses as her way of getting the story out, without going full on journalist, isn't quite what this reader had had expected of someone with her background, although her ability with the coffee machine, as somebody who had worked their way through Uni as a barista was.

Couldn't help but think I'd be very pleased to come across an espresso or a mocha the way Abbie makes them in a small service station in a dead town off the main highway. But that wouldn't come as too much of a surprise in Australia nowadays. All in all BONEY CREEK is going to very much be a YMMV.

The 4th book now in the DS Lucas Walker series, those who are new to it might need a tiny bit of background. Walker is with the Australian Federal Police, but it was on his personal home territory, in outback Australia where he first met Barbara (in book one to be precise), when she heads from her native Germany to the area to look for her missing sister. Long story short, her sister endured an horrific experience, but survived, there was the spark of something between Walker and Barbara, and their lives moved on. Having kept in touch since that time, it's NEMESIS now that brings them back together on Barbara's home territory, in Berlin. She's working a mysterious multiple murder by plant toxins at a collection of rustic cabins lakeside, out of Berlin, and he's in town to try to catch the bikie Stefan Markovich that was also part of the earlier storyline.

Is this therefore a novel that won't work as a standalone? Not if you crave the full backstory to Barbara and Rita's ordeal, and Walker's involvement. If you're happy to let a lot of that just be, then yes, because the personal romantic tension / will they / won't they is a big part of this outing, as is Barbara's local case. It might help to have read the earlier books as well as the "fish out of water" aspects of this are tipped on their head here - deliberately - and there's a bit of a gotcha there in who handles what best.

But, Walker's in Berlin because the notorious Vandals motorcycle club leader Stefan Markovich has been tracked there. The whys and wherefore's of that are laid out at the start of the book, and then the action switches to the death of a man that is eluded to in the prologue. In an idyllic, rustic settlement made up of small off-grid cabins, a man dies horribly from a poisoning that is eventually identified as a plant based toxin. There are then more poisonings, and a local police service more than keen to make sure the Berlin incomers take the blame, rather than the local weirdo stalking around in the bushes. Meanwhile there's a developing romance between Barbara's sister Rita and her local offsider cop, and the will they / won't they thread around Barbara and Lucas. So quite a bit going on.

The local investigation is interesting, and it was great to get to "see" Barbara on her home turf, determined to solve this case in the light of feeling very much like her bosses don't appreciate her. Meanwhile Lucas is lurking alone, around the streets of Berlin, a country where he can't speak the language, with a cover story of being a forger, trying to flush Markovich in the face of a lot of disinterest from local police until a drive-by shooting is linked in, which leads to a bit more co-operation. To be honest a lot of the reasons for Lucas being in Berlin and the whole chasing Markovich thing didn't quite jell, it all felt a bit "hammered" into place to get Lucas to Berlin on any pretext so the relationship between the two could be explored. At one point I thought well just have him show up on a holiday and a romance fishing expedition - that would have worked as well, and not have had to led to some slightly distracting goings-on at one point around Barbara, and a final "storyline" which whilst had a bit of crash bang excitement about it, felt a bit plopped into place.

Which all makes this sound like the book wasn't an enjoyable read, which is unfair, because in most things it was. As a reader of the first couple of books, it was almost expected that there would be something between Lucas and Barbara and pushing that fish out of water angle to the other side was worthwhile. Her local investigation was also really well done, the use of plant based poisons really well explored, and the sense of place of those murders really strong.

Having said all of that, NEMESIS is definitely going to be a police procedural designed for people who like a hefty dose of tortured romantic attachment thrown in.

Our ancestor once lived close to the house where he was shot. She was at the river when a man approached her and offered her some peaches from a can, but then he attacked her.

KATARAINA is the much anticipated follow up to the, frankly, gut-wrenching AUĒ, which at the time I reviewed it, and since then, whenever I return to the book I remember saying:

Understanding the meaning of the verb auē doesn't quite cover the visceral, gut-wrenching capacity of it in the way that the novel AUĒ depicts it. The characters in this novel experience it in all sorts of ways, including love, lamentation, surprise, annoyance, and sorrow.

When the publishers got in touch to say this follow up was now available, the news bought anticipation and the slightest sense of trepidation. Whilst reading AUĒ was truly a gut wrenching experience though, KATARAINA is similar, but different.

The backstory is that in AUĒ, eight-year-old Ārama was taken by his brother, Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaikōura, setting in train the tragedy that unfolded. Ārama’s aunty Kat was at the centre of events, but, silenced by abuse, her voice was absent. In KATARAINA, Kat and her whānau (family) step forward to tell of their childhood, and the relationships between them and the land around them. In particular the nearby swamp, which reflecting stories from all First Nations, is part of their very being - as she puts it "she feels the greenness of the swamp in her veins". The swamp that is partly their tears, exists in the land owned by Stu, a place that has been part of their story since the girl shot the man.

AUĒ was also a family story, exploring violence, connection, separation and redemption. KATARAINA is a more reflective, complex undertaking, still within the contexts from the earlier novel, but looking more closely at the past, future, present connections that bind, separate and create that complexity. Whilst it's not necessary to have read the earlier novel to get the undertones in KATARAINA they are interlinked, a construction of their place and time, woven together by this family impacted by so much pain and suffering, looking always to their surroundings, their relationships with each other and the land - the country that supports, heals and hides them.

KATARAINA is also an incredibly clever novel, told from a number of perspectives, that span family history. It will beguile the reader, despite the unusual, fractured timelines in which the story is told. There is the central incident that is constantly referred to without explanation "the girl who shot the man", and the timeframes are mostly before, and after that event, with a secondary thread about field study days running alongside. At points throughout the novel the introduction referred to at the start of this review is expanded, providing more snippets about the girl, man, river, and the peaches. All of which sounds complicated, but the reading of it simply flows. You will bounce backwards and forwards but it's seamless, partly because it's beautiful reading, intricate yet lyrical, with the forward momentum held in the shimmer of "the girl's" identity. And the why. If "the girl shot the man". Why? And always that beautiful, involving, sensuous prose that was there even in the desperation of AUĒ and given permission to rage in the hope of KATARAINA.

Woven throughout this text, with a glossary at the end of the novel for those that really struggle, the beauty and pointedness of te reo Māori, and the Kāi Tahu dialect is front and centre. Readers new to the language will have to work a bit to pick up meaning from context, or break the flow of the story a little to refer to it. Some, like this reader, with an understanding of the meaning of some of the words, didn't want to move away, instead just went with the flow, picking up the unknown from the reactions of the characters and their intent.

There is so much to KATARAINA and your reviewer lacks the language and nuance that the author has such a firm grip on to truly explain the impact of a novel like this one. It, and it's predecessor are now lurking on my keep forever shelves, filled with bookmarks at points where the storyline was so intense, moving or simply illuminating that I'm going back to look at them over and over again. These novels, like the work of some of the stellar authors of our own First Nations people (Melissa Lucashenko particularly comes to mind), have given this reader a glimpse into the thought patterns, and an understanding of the world through eyes more connected to a land on which they have lived for so many generations. It's a more experienced, more aware, more nuanced view, and I profoundly hope that writers like this keep writing.

The second book in the historical series featuring Sergeant Akai Singh, A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI follows on from A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI. This series makes for particularly interesting reading if you're aware of the motivation behind the books, which Rao spells out in her author's notes. In this book she comments:

The short answer to 'why set a book in Fiji' is to explore my heritage. But who wants a short answer? .... I was born in Fiji of Indian descent, and my family moved to Australia when I was three. Growing up in North Queensland in the 1980s, I was focused on fitting in and didn't want to know anything about my heritage. ...

It's really worth knowing that aspect of the author's approach, as there is a really strong sense of the central character in these novels, Sergeant Singh, trying to work out his place in the world. Sent to Fiji as "punishment" for an indiscretion in Hong Kong, he's of Indian descent, with strong family connections there, as well as the connection back to Hong Kong. Arriving in Fiji, where the Indian diaspora's backstory is made up of indentured labourer's who are often poorly treated, and those that could have returned to India but didn't for various reasons. This sense of different people in a new place, there because they want, and more frequently because they can't leave, strikes a chord with him. It also has considerable resonance with current day refugee and immigrant experiences. In A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI Rao really sets out to understand the reasons for the Indian diaspora remaining in Fiji, but she also does not neglect the local Fijian First Nation's people. Again referring to the Author's Note:

In this book, I've taken a risk I wasn't brave enough to take in the first book. I've added a lot more about indigenous Fijian culture, the culture of the iTaukei (literally meaning 'owner') people. I avoided this in the first book because I was concerned about writing about a culture that I didn't feel like I was authentically in a position to talk about.

Looking back at the reading experience of A SHIPWRECK after finishing the Author's Note you can see that respect. The book doesn't ever move away from the core fundamental's of a police investigation - and a pretty confrontational one at that, as two Indian men are found dead on a tropical paradise, where Singh is ostensibly escorting a couple of English women back to the home of their brother and uncle. On the other hand, he's also searching for a small party of German's supposedly hiding out on the island, this being 1915 and wartime tensions having reached even this far. Whilst it's easy and obvious to want to blame the lurking Germans for the murders on the island, there's something else going on, with tensions within the Indian diaspora revealing themselves, and a complicated scenario of connections and pasts colliding.

Meanwhile there is tension between that party of shipwrecked Germans, trying to pass themselves off as Norwegian, and the village of Singh's sidekick Taviti Tukana, and the clash of traditional law and colonial overreach. All of which is delivered in a charming, readable, historical novel that's populated by wonderfully strong characters and a tremendous sense of place and time. It's a privilege to be taken along on the ride that is Nilima Rao's exploration of her own family background and history in such an engaging manner.

Years (sadly) ago now I read the first book by Femi Kayode, LIGHTSEEKERS, and loved it. Partly because it was very much a whydunnit and partly because the central character, acclaimed investigative psychologist, Philip Taiwo is such an interesting take on an investigator. Having lived most of his life in the US, he's now in Nigeria, with his family, reconnecting with his families origins, and, to be frank, looking for somewhere that everyone else looks like them.

In GASLIGHT, that project is not going so well on a personal level, with a lot of tension in the family around his young daughter who is struggling with the change in life and loss of friends and connection. On the professional side he finds himself drawn into the investigation of the disappearance of the young wife of his sister's megachurch's pastor. Whilst it might look like a simple enough undertaking, it rapidly becomes complicated with the church rife with infighting and resentments, and it turns out, a hefty dose of corruption and worse.

No fan of organised religion himself, Taiwo has to walk a very fine line between the influence of the church, the charismatic nature of their pastor, his sister's devotion and his responsibilities to work and family. When the missing First Lady is discovered dead, and a direct attack is launched on Taiwo's family, he rapidly comes to understand the threat, and the way that churches of this kind wield their considerable power and influence. Mind you, there's also the question marks over the death. Suicide or murder and is someone framing the Bishop?

I find these such fascinating stories. Steeped in a sense of place and people that's seen through the eyes of an outsider who, for all the world, should be an insider. Taiwo is ethnically Nigerian but emotionally from elsewhere. The culture shock is as fascinating to him as to the reader, although considerably more confronting for his family, and his teenage daughter in particular. At heart a dedicated and loving father he's struggling with the difficulties of raising this girl, as his wife and daughter clash, and his daughter struggles to sort out her place in the world. Add to that an interesting look inside the world of the megachurches in Nigeria, and the power, influence and control they wield, and the way that they can manipulate, and be manipulated in their own right. The whole thing is nicely messy, complex and feels very real, very human, and all too believable, including the way that Taiwo struggles, even with his absolute understanding of human nature, to see the wood for some very dense scrub.

Whilst THE THRILL OF IT is a work of fiction, it is, as explained in the Author's Note, inspired and informed by the real-life brutal slayings of six older women on Sydney's North Shore by a man who came to be known as the Granny Killer (and god knows that's such a disrespectful moniker it's hard to know where to start). There is also a clear reference to the murder of the well-known Sydney identity, Florence Broadhurst. The author goes onto explain:

My hope is that THE THRILL OF IT can in some way restore agency and power to these older women, whose names - listed in the dedication of this novel - have been lost with time: women who were invisible and seemingly without a history, or a story as they aged. This, and the media's ongoing glorification and sensationalism of the lives and actions of perpetrators of violent crime, whilst so often ignoring the victims and their once rich and meaningful lives, speaks to the kind of society we have become.

An admirable aim and stance, making for a slightly unusual "crime" story read in that the focus is firstly on the granddaughter of Marlowe Kerr, grandmother, socialite, "identity", wallpaper designer and victim of an unsolved murder. Emmerson Kerr found her grandmother's dead body on the floor of her Paddington Studio, many years ago. The other focus is on a man, an English immigrant, pie salesman, a revolting controlling, horrible human being who kills, assaults and terrorises older women. Easy victim's the "blame" in his mind seems to be on his mother, his mother-in-law, his wife, everybody but the sick, twisted, nasty, revolting human being that he has allowed himself to be. You'll spend a bit of time in his head in chapters that take you through his actions and activities. It's not a great place to dwell. On the other hand, Emmerson is portrayed as a would be party girl, set up for life by her grandmother's legacy, who turns to investigation and the police force in an effort to identify her grandmother's killer, and give herself a purpose other than gadflying about town.

Flagged as a thriller (helped along by the title), this isn't really a thrilling read, it's about a sick man who kills for the thrill of it. Which makes it a confronting experience, even as it does come from a slightly different author perspective. Which you can see the author attempting to keep as the focus, although, frankly, the time spent in her killer's head is something that's hard to forget.

Definitely one for somebody who is looking for something from that different perspective, who doesn't mind time spent in the head of a disgusting human being, balanced against time spent with a young woman coming of age with an experience that has profoundly affected her hanging always there, in front of her, privilege and direction both gained through loss.

This was a happenstance discovery in the libraries audio listing, which I jumped at the chance of listening to. The narrator, Akira Matsumoto, has a very easy to listen to voice, and to hear the correct pronunciation of the Japanese words an absolute pleasure and an education.

Originally published in 1951, this story is set in post-war Tokyo, with the Tsubaki family in mourning for their patriarch, a brooding, troubled composer known as Viscount Tsubaki. As the family gather for a divination ceremony to conjure the spirit of the Viscount, another death befalls the household and the brilliant, and very eccentric Kosuke Kindaichi is called upon to investigate.

This is the eighth Kindachi story and the 5th in English translation order, the series relying on the observational and deductive reasoning of the detective who has a low key style, despite his various eccentricities.

This particular edition is part of the brilliant Pushkin Vertigo series, a list of books that I'm dedicated to getting hold of one by one although they keep pushing the list out longer and longer and I'm not getting any younger darn it all. https://pushkinpress.com/imprint/pushkin-vertigo/

Mark Brandi has always been a writer of great male characters, from Ben and Fab in his standout debut WIMMERA, to Jimmy in SOUTHERN AURORA, Anton and Steve in THE RIP and Jacob in THE OTHERS, they are very real people. He's also not afraid to portray these boys and men as sometimes victims, sometimes perpetrators, struggling, living difficult lives from difficult circumstances, often as a result of societal expectations and failures. As it is now for Tom in EDEN.

Recently released from jail after a long stint for a crime that is eventually revealed, he's lost and drifting, without family, and the only thing he really wants, to repair the fractured relationship with his girlfriend, complicated by the theft of the cash he'd saved while in jail, and her moving on in Queensland. Stuck in Melbourne, after one night only with a roof over his head, he's on the streets and looking at the distinct possibility of going straight back to jail, when a chance encounter suggests a good place to doss down is the cemetery off to the edge of the city. He's safe there, hidden away in a rotunda far inside the locked cemetery grounds, or so he thinks, until the next morning when he's awoken by head gravedigger Cyril, with friendship and a surprising offer. Tom soon finds himself a paid employee, living in the gravedigger's shed, seemingly on his way to that trip to Queensland and reconciliation, only there's always something, and it turns out that a spidery sense, the words and an avenue that might have helped him stay out of jail in the first place, don't quite work out the same way this time around.

There are hints, and clues along the way for the astute reader, as the details of Tom's past are revealed, along with the story of what's really going on in the cemetery. But it's the arrival of a journalist on the scene, a man who reported on Tom's original trial that blows everything up and puts Tom in a really tricky position. The dilemma for Tom is to talk about the past to a man hell-bent on publishing his story and outing the truth, or talk about the present, and put himself in real danger. All whilst absolutely, utterly and totally on his own.

The strength's of Brandi's previous characterisations - that depiction of perpetrator and victim, men and boys in extreme circumstances, coalesce once again in EDEN. There are a lot of flawed people around Tom and there's obviously something about a lone individual, recently released from a very long stint in jail, that puts them in a particularly vulnerable position. And then there are the sorts of men who sense vulnerability and exploit it. In the past and now again in the present. The reader can't help but be left fervently hoping that something changes in the future.

The third book in The Tea Ladies Mystery Series, sees Hazel, Betty and Irene take on one of their most dangerous challenges yet, with a real threat to Hazel's life on more than one occasion, Betty finding herself naked in front of a lot of strangers, and Irene hoicking a Molotov Cocktail straight back to where it came from.

All of which might come as a bit of a surprise, even to followers of this lovely series of books, because these three are tea ladies after all. I mean who tries to drown or truss up tea ladies and shove them in wardrobes. Or pitch Molotov Cocktails at them (okay well that's Irene and you could be forgiven ...).

But it's 1967, Hazel has a new job as a part time tea lady at the docks, and there's been a million gold coins vanish from a cargo ship, and a young man whose mother is very worried about him. Meanwhile back where Hazel used to work, at Empire Fashions, Pixie's had enough of her mother's ridiculous interference and she's looking to spread her wings. At the same time the Tea Ladies Guild has a fundraising challenge on their hand's and Merl's behaving like a prat again.

Needless to say readers will probably have to have read the earlier books (THE TEA LADIES and THE CRYPTIC CLUE) to have any chance of knowing who is who and what's going on. That shouldn't be much of a trial though - take it from somebody who spent a fair bit of time thinking this series probably wasn't for me - only to find myself rapidly hooked - this is a lot of fun. The characters are wonderful women on the slightly older side, they have had their trials and tribulations, jobs that aren't seen as much but they value, and do well, friendships that go back or are newly formed, husband's who are regretted or cherished, and some nicely eccentric behaviours. Unlikely friends all of them, they rub along, as Hazel reflects on at the end of THE DEADLY DISPUTE:

As they sit in companionable silence, Hazel experiences a moment of the breathless panic she felt trapped in the blackness of that wardrobe. It's the memory of loneliness, more than the fear, that comes back to her vividly in the night, and occasionally in the day. She takes a deep breath and calms herself.

They are books about crime and investigation, they are also books about female friendship and companionship in good, hard and downright dangerous times. They are also light, fun and populated by vivid and very engaging women.

Glancing up from her jigsaw, she looks across the room at Irene stretched out on the sofa, puffing away on her cigar, and Betty, busy knitting for the orphans. She takes a moment to appreciate the ordinary loveliness of this time together and feels a sense of contentment settle on her. She is home in the truest sense of the word.

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.