Reviewed by Wendy Lipke In his twenty-first novel, Vendetta, Tony Park has once again taken his reader to South Africa and specifically in this story, to the South African apartheid-era Border War. The book includes two storylines, 1987 in Angola and the present in South Africa and Namibia. In the current storyline, middle-aged veteran of
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Written in the third person, the story begins in Soul Alley, Saigon in 1969 where a young soldier finds himself in a sticky situation after a night of drinking. The story then swings to 50 years later, still in Saigon, with two Russians conspiring together and the deaths of two seemingly
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Contemporary thrillers depict an aspect of lives that are ordered, sedate almost staid when compared with Harlem Shuffle and Colson Whitehead’s latest novel, Crook Manifesto. Its pages cover the actions of people caught in a complex web of the struggle to survive by any means available to them, be it violence,
Reviewed by Rod McLary The beginning of this new novel by Gabriel Bergmoser is deceptively simple and straightforward. Charlotte Laurent aspires to be a writer and is currently enrolled in a Creative Writing course at a university in Melbourne – but she is not convinced of her ability to write anything until she meets Leo
Reviewed by Rod McLary Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free. The above line from Bob Dylan’s rather enigmatic song Mr Tambourine Man is the epigraph to this new novel by Kathy Reichs which features Temperance Brennan; and its relevance to the narrative becomes clear at the novel’s dénouement. The
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Two couples travel from England to Indonesia for their honeymoon. Another older couple also travel there for a silver wedding anniversary. On the last night of their stay, a drink is accidently spilt on another man who is passing behind a table of the two honeymoon couples. He is obviously drunk
Reviewed by Rod McLary This debut novel by Tasha Sylva delves into the consequences of searching through property which doesn’t belong to you. Tess Hartley is grieving for the death of her sister Rosie who was murdered by an unknown assailant. In an attempt to assuage her grief and loneliness, Tess has moved into Rosie’s
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Crime fiction is probably top of the list when popular appeal to readers is gauged. Producing a novel in this genre demands skill in plot, and of course, originality. The psychological thriller offers infinite possibilities because of the uniqueness of each individual. M.T. Edvardsson’s new novel, The Woman Inside, is a
Reviewed by Ian Lipke To align one’s name with an author who is highly regarded in the field of fiction is praise indeed. In the case of James Comey, the comparison is with John Grisham, the man widely regarded as having invented the legal thriller. Comey takes his readers deep inside the hate-filled and treacherous
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This book is very much a tongue in cheek account by a Fijian-Indian-Australian who refers to herself as culturally confused. In fact she has one of the sharpest minds to be found in the world of fiction. She demonstrates this in her new book A Disappearance in Fiji where readers are
Reviewed by Ian Lipke I read Death of a Bookseller in a state of apathy, mildly amazed that such vulgar writing could be sold as “deliciously dark, unsettling, and utterly addictive”. The book is said to be a thriller; I found not even the vestiges of a thrill. Maybe I’m a worn-out curmudgeon who has
Reviewed by Gerard Healy This is a first-class crime novel by American writer Dennis Lehane, with a plot that builds steadily towards a tense show-down. But it’s the characters that make the story stand apart from the everyday: the more moral ones have foibles, while the wicked seem ordinary. It is set mainly in a
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This book straddles the shaky fence between crime and thriller writing. It is best described as a crime novel amply boosted by patches of quite scary writing that makes the heart skid into overdrive until the situation is resolved. Such passages combined with some very good writing make a much more
Reviewed by Ian Lipke The Rush is, at long last, an outback thriller with backbone. No longer is some suburbanite translated to a property south west of Nowhere, who thinks like a city person armed with a bit of knowledge she has read in some novel located in the corner store. Rather we meet people
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Echo Lake was meant to scare its readers. It is the standard “who-dunnit” that, apart from the aim of untangling clues and deciding who caused the death of Victim X, builds an image that scares the reader as it unfolds. It is the author’s intention that readers should be left uncomfortable