Karen

The third book now in the Nick Chester series set in New Zealand, this is a police procedural that uses sense of place and great characters as it's starting point, drawing them into nicely twisty plots that rely heavily on location to give them that little extra something.

The FRANZ JOSEF from the novel's title refers to a tiny South Island town which was built right on top of New Zealand's Alpine Fault, making it particularly vulnerable to devastating earthquakes, floods and landslides. It's also very exposed to the ravages of climate change, being a tourist town, that relies on visitors to a rapidly shrinking nearby glacier for much of their economy. As the inhabitants of the original town are in the process of being forcibly removed to a new location (concrete boxes gets referred to a bit), a body is discovered suspended in the glacier. Detectives Nick Chester and Latifa Rapata are sent to investigate, just as the town is cut off by floods and landslides, in the middle of a desperately cold winter, with a rising body count, and no obvious connections between the victims and hence a motive.

Reading this series from the start isn't really required, you could step in at any point, although there is a lot of backstory to Chester and how a cop from the UK ended up in NZ with a wife and young son in tow. There's also the story of Rapata, her family connections, and now her pregnancy. Only don't for a moment think that she has the slightest intention of that changing the way her career is progressing. In this novel these two central characters are combined with a lot of locals, which adds quite a bit of confusion - who can you trust / what are the connections / and how did a refugee man end up naked and dead in the ice of the shrinking glacier?

The balance between personal and professional is always well handled in these novels - giving a viewpoint of just complicated life can be when you're dealing with dangerous situations and people. The plots are always intricate and cleverly laid out, with plenty of subtle and not so subtle social commentary along the way - in this case the vulnerability of refugees is a particular thread that Carter explores with sensitive pointedness.

The earlier two novels in this series are MARLBOROUGH MAN and DOOM CREEK. If it's new to you then I can highly recommend searching out the first two books, if you're on board already then FRANZ JOSEF will not disappoint.

THE CANVAS KILLINGS is the debut novel written by Elise Janes, the pseudonym for writing combo Elise Wackett and Jane Abbott. It's a fast-paced, sometimes gruesome story set in past and present Australia.

The Past: 30 years ago renowned artist James Montague Ballantyne was convicted of murdering eight people, using their remains in his infamous paintings.

The Present: Sam Reed is a dependable, normal family man and teacher, who intervenes in a violent robbery, an act shared on social media by a couple of nearby witnesses. That unwanted attention means a carefully constructed life starts to unravel through no fault of his own. Meanwhile his friend and colleague, Aiden Voss is grieving the loss of his sister to a supposed suicide, surprised by the ferocity of his friend's unravelling.

The catalyst for the past and present to collide with force is journalist Tamsin Fischer, who has a family connection to the Ballantyne murders, and believes that Sam is the murderer's missing son, and the only person who can lead her to her mother's remains. It's her idea to establish an unlikely alliance with Voss to try to get to the truth.

Obviously there's going to be some gruesome elements to a story where human remains are used and abused by the murderer, and it is probably even more stark in this story because on the one hand art, and the other the materials used in its evocation. That's nothing however compared to the intergenerational trauma and complex relationships being played out. Employing a lot of suspense, some potentially unreliable narration, and a lot of misdirection, what starts out as a bit gruesome, quickly becomes almost saga like in it's exploration of ambition, grief, dysfunctional families, betrayal, regret and revenge.

Needless to say there's a lot going on in THE CANVAS KILLINGS. At some points almost to the level of overwhelming, especially in the build up as the complex backstories of all three main characters are revealed, necessary for the later collision's to be understood, but definitely a lot for the reader to take in to start off with. That quantity of information is, however, delivered with some humorous dialogue and a self-awareness in most of the characters which makes for engaging reading, even as the action ramps up, and the entire plot gets more and more complicated. It is highly likely that it's the characterisations that will most grab reader's attention in this one, overriding the ick factor of elements of the plot, and compensating amply for the complications thereof.

I have to admit I love a well executed potentially unreliable narrator thread line. It forces the reader to double down on concentration and mistrust. It makes you question what the characters say they do or see, and what you, as the reader, thinks you've worked out or know. The field of past infecting present has been raked over many many times now, and this debut novel THE CANVAS KILLINGS, ably negotiates that frequently turned over soil. It's got surprising elements, that gruesome storyline, and a good exploration of old and new friendships. Let's hope this duo of author's are plotting their next undertaking.

A book that was pitch perfect for over the festive season reading. Set in the fictional location of the Windmark Ranges (not too hard to figure out the basis for them though), it's Christmas, and the drunks, troublemakers and idiots are out in force. Nothing unusual then, until the death of Sergeant Jesse Redpath's much admired and loved colleague up on the road known as the Redline, dealing on his own, with yet more idiots hooning about the place.

The death of that lone cop though isn't as straightforward as it seems, and the more Redpath digs, the more unexplained deaths and disappearances in the past come to light, all while the current day body count steadily rises. On face value, at the heart of this story there is the local legend of a young man / boy living wild in the hills - known as Anarchy by the locals - who is part myth, part forest creature. It's all just a bit too weird and unlikely for the pragmatic and very level headed Redpath, who, as is her way, throws herself into this investigation regardless of what gets chucked in her path. Reckless at times, she cares, and she's determined, and more than a bit fearless. And she's perfectly suited to the world in which she operates - that of a rural cop working alone because of staffing shortages, in wild ranges and heavy bushland with goodness knows who or what lurking just out of sight, and all sorts of myths, legends and whispered tales.

The thing with any of Hyland's novels is that there are always many many layers, some of which are plain to see, some of which might require a bit of digging. The mystical elements in this - a young wild boy, a series of unexplained disappearances, all that sort of stuff is often part of bush mythology, going way back. As is the idea that the things that go bump in the night in the middle of nowhere could be anything from a tree falling that nobody heard to one being dropped on somebody's head very much on purpose. There's also a myriad of ways in which things can be hidden, and a lot of people desperate to take whatever they can from the natural world to hell with anybody and everybody else. Once you get past the face value of a convenient wild child to blame for everything, there's something odd going on out there - much more sinister than a blonde apparition that can run like the wind and climb trees like a goanna. It's almost like you want to scream at Redpath follow the money woman, there's always somebody with their face in the trough, if you look hard enough (or stumble across them in a remote clearing in the bush), and they always deserve a second and a third look. Once you've waded through the mullock heaps of distraction, disturbance and weird immediately in front of you.

All of Hyland's crime novels are character driven, with an intricate plot and visceral sense of place. Hyland is one of those writers who can take you into the psyche and atmosphere of a setting, making the location as much the attraction of the novels, as is the central character Jesse Redpath who is dedicated, determined, super human in her ability to endure physical pain and more than a bit daft as a brush on occasions.

This third novel in the series is slightly darker than the earlier two, the violence is ramped up, and the inclusion of some seriously weird, and nasty goings on is often confrontational, as it should be. We're living in increasingly dark days, where greed and manipulation are rife - and that is as rampant in the bush as it is everywhere else.

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.