Karen
The Orient Express instantly conjures up images of luxurious travel, fine dining, people dressed in their very best, quiet and attentive staff gliding unseen and unremarked through carriages, Inspector Hercule Poirot and 12. Always 12 people.
And so it is with FIVE FOUND DEAD in which one imagines author Sulari Gentill had an enormous amount of fun constructing a story that's partly a hat tip to Agatha Christie's well known novel, and the entire golden age of mystery writing.
In this outing the 12 are the "Bar Council", a group of passengers pulled together by their backgrounds - law enforcement, private investigators, spies, a lawyer and her brother the crime writer. They are called upon by the train manager when a compartment is discovered one morning, empty of its occupant but covered in blood. Of course it's a train so that compartment will be close to somebody, but it's the lawyer and her brother Meredith and Joe - the "main characters" of this outing for want of a better description, and a recently retired French policeman who have the "honour" of being in the cabins either side of the crime scene. As the "Council" convenes to try to solve the mystery of the missing man, and what the crime scene means, a dangerous new COVID variant has been discovered, and two carriages are quarantined from the rest of the train, which also finds itself stranded between France and Italy as authorities react (badly) to this biothreat.
Full Review on my Website
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
The Orient Express instantly conjures up images of luxurious travel, fine dining, people dressed in their very best, quiet and attentive staff gliding unseen and unremarked through carriages, Inspector Hercule Poirot and 12. Always 12 people.
And so it is with FIVE FOUND DEAD in which one imagines author Sulari Gentill had an enormous amount of fun constructing a story that's partly a hat tip to Agatha Christie's well known novel, and the entire golden age of mystery writing.
In this outing the 12 are the "Bar Council", a group of passengers pulled together by their backgrounds - law enforcement, private investigators, spies, a lawyer and her brother the crime writer. They are called upon by the train manager when a compartment is discovered one morning, empty of its occupant but covered in blood. Of course it's a train so that compartment will be close to somebody, but it's the lawyer and her brother Meredith and Joe - the "main characters" of this outing for want of a better description, and a recently retired French policeman who have the "honour" of being in the cabins either side of the crime scene. As the "Council" convenes to try to solve the mystery of the missing man, and what the crime scene means, a dangerous new COVID variant has been discovered, and two carriages are quarantined from the rest of the train, which also finds itself stranded between France and Italy as authorities react (badly) to this biothreat.
Full Review on my Website
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
I absolutely get that this author is doing something different, and therefore very confrontational here, and there's a sense of humour and some expectation exploding going on. But, I don't know, it all felt a bit ... staged? Over the top on purpose. Maybe gleeful. I'm not sure, either way, somewhere just past half way through the book, we end up in a sodding bloodbath, and it all started to get very bizarre and I'd been skipping the worst of the bits that were making MY stomach churn and I found myself fondly recalling there were some shelves that needed dusting, and really I should probably do those dishes piling up, and let's face it - when housework starts to sound appealing, I'm in the wrong book.
Full review at my website
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
I absolutely get that this author is doing something different, and therefore very confrontational here, and there's a sense of humour and some expectation exploding going on. But, I don't know, it all felt a bit ... staged? Over the top on purpose. Maybe gleeful. I'm not sure, either way, somewhere just past half way through the book, we end up in a sodding bloodbath, and it all started to get very bizarre and I'd been skipping the worst of the bits that were making MY stomach churn and I found myself fondly recalling there were some shelves that needed dusting, and really I should probably do those dishes piling up, and let's face it - when housework starts to sound appealing, I'm in the wrong book.
Full review at my website
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
CUTLER, the novel, features Paul Cutler, the former undercover operative, now working "off the books" in the dangerous and unpredictable world of investigator for hire. In this story he's tasked with finding the truth about the disappearance of an Australian marine scientist, whilst on a Taiwanese distant water fishing vessel, working in the incredibly murky and dodgy world of deep sea trawling and fisheries. With the complication being Bevan's father has his own fleet of distance trawlers, and may not quite be the legal cleanskin he seems to be. Once Cutler starts to scratch the surface of Bevan's disappearance, a slew of dark, horrendous crimes against people, ocean's, environment and just about everything else in their paths, comes to light.
Whish-Wilson has a number of strengths when it comes to his fiction writing. For a start he's a serious, dedicated researcher who is motivated by wrongs in the world. Read the author's note and acknowledgements at the back of this novel and you can get a very clear sense of what triggers his thinking, and how he goes about his work. He's also blessed with the ability to write lean, mean, pointed and unflinching prose in a way that, confronts, but never repulses to the point where readers are forced to look away (remembering always that the subject matter in this one is pretty bloody awful all the way down).
More of this review on my website.
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
CUTLER, the novel, features Paul Cutler, the former undercover operative, now working "off the books" in the dangerous and unpredictable world of investigator for hire. In this story he's tasked with finding the truth about the disappearance of an Australian marine scientist, whilst on a Taiwanese distant water fishing vessel, working in the incredibly murky and dodgy world of deep sea trawling and fisheries. With the complication being Bevan's father has his own fleet of distance trawlers, and may not quite be the legal cleanskin he seems to be. Once Cutler starts to scratch the surface of Bevan's disappearance, a slew of dark, horrendous crimes against people, ocean's, environment and just about everything else in their paths, comes to light.
Whish-Wilson has a number of strengths when it comes to his fiction writing. For a start he's a serious, dedicated researcher who is motivated by wrongs in the world. Read the author's note and acknowledgements at the back of this novel and you can get a very clear sense of what triggers his thinking, and how he goes about his work. He's also blessed with the ability to write lean, mean, pointed and unflinching prose in a way that, confronts, but never repulses to the point where readers are forced to look away (remembering always that the subject matter in this one is pretty bloody awful all the way down).
More of this review on my website.
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
The promotional material pushes the connection, and it's hard not to get a vibe of THE SLAP from the blurb of this one - young families, a tragedy at a bbq that implodes relationships, crumbles friendships and all, but fear not if you're feeling like this is another commentary on parenting, because I will confess that's kind of the worry I had going in as well, and not the feeling I had coming out the other side of Hannah Tunnicliffe's THE POOL.
The catalyst of this story is events at a bbq, nine years ago in Melbourne, after which prince of spin, life of the party, father, Baz King vanished. It's easy to imagine that he's simply done a runner, what with a history of dodgy dealings and a plethora of reasons for him to disappear himself, but there's a lot of suspects on that day including ex-wife Birdie, new wife Madison, colleagues, friends and a complicated interweaving of children, staff, lovers, and married partners who also have lovers. And a eye-watering and skin-crawling tendency towards flaunted privilege, tacky interpersonal relationships, misogyny, and, it has to be said, some truly bloody awful parenting.
Full review on my website.
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
The promotional material pushes the connection, and it's hard not to get a vibe of THE SLAP from the blurb of this one - young families, a tragedy at a bbq that implodes relationships, crumbles friendships and all, but fear not if you're feeling like this is another commentary on parenting, because I will confess that's kind of the worry I had going in as well, and not the feeling I had coming out the other side of Hannah Tunnicliffe's THE POOL.
The catalyst of this story is events at a bbq, nine years ago in Melbourne, after which prince of spin, life of the party, father, Baz King vanished. It's easy to imagine that he's simply done a runner, what with a history of dodgy dealings and a plethora of reasons for him to disappear himself, but there's a lot of suspects on that day including ex-wife Birdie, new wife Madison, colleagues, friends and a complicated interweaving of children, staff, lovers, and married partners who also have lovers. And a eye-watering and skin-crawling tendency towards flaunted privilege, tacky interpersonal relationships, misogyny, and, it has to be said, some truly bloody awful parenting.
Full review on my website.
Originally posted at www.austcrimefiction.org.
