Reviewed by Ian Lipke Roland Perry has been a regular figure on both the fiction and non-fiction landscapes for many, many years. I remember reviewing his non-fiction book The Changi Brownlow when it came out in 2010. That book, like the present volume, was thoroughly researched and particularly well told. It was short-listed for the
Reviewed by Rod McLary Henry David Thoreau – in his series of essays Walden – said ‘the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation’. Sometimes – and incorrectly – the words ‘and die with their song still inside them’ are added. If ‘men’ is replaced with ‘women’, then this quote and its addendum is
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Until I read Tom Gilling’s book, I had never heard of a soldier called Jock McLaren, a soldier who seems to have become a casualty of history. Only a very driven man could escape from two Japanese-held prisons during World War 2 and then carry the fight with guerrilla contingents after
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Paris Affair is the third novel by Pip Drysdale. Her two earlier books The Sunday Girl and The Strangers We Know were both best sellers, sold worldwide with the second being developed for television. Her latest contribution, The Paris Affair, is a novel about modern society with much reference to
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This is a page turner! A gentle easing into a complex story, a story of friendship and betrayal, of power misused and innocence scuttled. The ideas on which the story builds are simple but are manipulated so well that the reader is immersed in mystery as dense as a London fog.
Reviewed by Ian Lipke I began reading this study with high hopes. What an interesting person Kate was! Her family is comprehensively described in history and, to my mind after numerous assays by various scholars, probably accurately. Soon I discovered, despite the sub-heading emblazoned on the cover viz. The True Story of Ned Kelly’s Little
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Experienced reviewers of the ‘in Death’ series know there will be blood, that Eve Dallas will be up to her elbows in it, that the faithful Peabody will be dancing to keep the blood from her pink boots, that McNab, the electronics wizard will be doing mysterious things, while Roarke will
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Outlawed is set in 1894 in an unidentified State of the USA. Ada lives under a law that requires young women marry and have children. Failure to produce a child in a reasonable time carries the consequence of divorce and social disfavour. Rumour is sufficient for a charge of practising witchcraft,
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders At the height of Saddam Hussein’s sinister rule, three women form an unlikely alliance that is born of deception. Two of the women are Iraqi from different social classes whose childhood friendship was severed by an act of betrayal and resultant tragedy. Brought together a generation later by a fear of
Reviewed by Rod McLary With a somewhat ambiguous title, People Like Her opens up the world of Instagrammers and sets out what it takes to be a successful one with in excess of one million followers. Does the ambiguous ‘like’ of the title mean ‘similar to’ or ‘have affection for’? Well – both actually and
Reviewed by Gerard Healy An informed look at intergenerational poverty in Australia by Glyn Davis AC, the former Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University. It is both an easy read and a hard-to-read text, the former because it is only 70 odd pages long but the latter because it asks us what we are doing to solve
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve English/American author, Simon Winchester has written many fine non-fiction books, amongst them The Map that Changed the World and The Surgeon of Crowthorne. He presents facts and information in a way that engages readers and otherwise dry subjects are so discussed that his books are a pleasure to read. In a
Reviewed by Rod McLary The Spiral is a very appropriate title for this book given the word’s association with vortexes and whirlpools and the sense of being drawn down into the unknown. Beginning this book is very much like embarking on a journey into the deep recesses of the mind where – to continue the
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke For those readers who enjoy the intricacies of solving a crime, Lee Christine’s latest book, Crackenback, is a puzzle worth investigating. The author has followed police procedures and investigative knowledge to gather information from a diverse range of places and situations. Each new piece of relevance is revealed until the reader
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Strange and unusual stories have been a feature of Australian life since colonisation. As we all become more familiar with new cultures our collection of unusuality is expected to expand. We’ll hear other strange, and perhaps unexplainable incidents. There is a rich harvest to emerge as yet from indigenous and Asian