Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Valley of Lost Stories written by Vanessa McCausland was inspired by a real place, the beautiful Capertee Valley in NSW. In this area of the Blue Mountains, all that remains of man-made structures are the crumbling buildings of a township set up for the shale oil miners in the 1950s,
Reviewed by Rod McLary In his third novel [following Call Me Evie and In the Clearing – both reviewed in these pages by this reviewer], JP Pomare again explores the grey area between truth and lie and the unfortunate – and sometimes tragic – consequences which fall on those caught between the two. But as
Reviewed by Ian Lipke At long, long last, a writer has emerged to contest the place held by John le Carré in the canon of spy literature, who produced the immortal George Smiley series of novels. Charles Cumming has provided a book with the stimulating title Box 88 – an organisation that doesn’t exist with
Reviewed by Rod McLary The genre of crime and thriller fiction is a tough arena to break into. Populated by giants of the genre such as Ian Rankin, James Lee Burke and Harlen Coben – just to name a very small few – competition is fierce. As an aficionado of the genre, I always look
Reviewed by Ian Lipke In a postscript to A Time for Mercy Grisham writes, “The point…is to apologize for any mistakes. I’m just too lazy to go back and read the earlier books” (367). Laziness has not been confined to reading past editions but has crept into later versions of Grisham’s stories. A blatant admission
Reviewed by Ian Lipke The third volume of the Atlee Pine trilogy is called Daylight. Readers can find out for themselves why this name was chosen. It is significant that not one of the critiques I have read so far makes any attempt to explain the title. Atlee Pine, an FBI agent, is still taking
Reviewed by Ian Lipke I have lost count of the number of novels Michael Connelly has written. I can remember such classic stories as The Poet and The Scarecrow. I remember claiming that with these books, Connelly had peaked, when in fact he was just getting started. With the publication of Fair Warning, I thought
Reviewed by Ian Lipke There seems little doubt that Sophie Hannah is the right person to continue Agatha Christie’s literary legacy. The current publication is not identical with Christie’s work, but the differences are so slight that they are hard to grasp, let alone define. Christie’s stories were intelligent and timeless. There is nothing ‘just
Reviewed by Rod McLary The title of this novel – Snow – evokes whiteness and purity. Evocations which are reinforced by continued references to snow and its appearance; such as ‘expanses of unbroken whiteness on all sides’ [3], ‘the snow was deep’ [66], and ‘a glittering shell of hoar frost [123]. But beyond – or
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve In her latest mystery, not one murder but three deaths in Daylesford confront the beautiful detective who has twenty solved criminal investigations to her credit in prior adventures. Phryne Fisher, famed for her many abilities including having an impeccable fashion sense, sets off with Dot, her ingenuous assistant, who, to Phryne’s
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Having read the glowing tributes on the dust cover and found the hyperbole on the Macmillan website, I could not withhold my excitement as I contemplated the precious jewels awaiting me when I open Jeffrey Archer’s Hidden in Plain Sight. … I wondered if I’d missed something somewhere, something hidden in
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This is Matthew Reilly’s sixteenth book and the sixth in the Jack West Jr series. Fans of the author will not be disappointed with Reilly’s latest volume. It is an unashamed action thriller, designed to stir the blood of the most anaemic of readers while supplying the most hot-blooded of action
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Like a fine wine, Chris Hammer’s writing of thrillers seems to improve with age. His first two novels, ‘Scrublands’ and ‘Silver’ were very good and he was welcomed as a talented and significant crime writer. ‘Trust’, his most recent novel, is an excellent addition to his work. Once more, Martin Scarsden,
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Nobody familiar with Rankin’s writing would dispute that John Rebus is a canny Scot or that his unofficial professional partner, Siobhan Clarke, is a supporter of Rebus but a fully professional policewoman too. She is the anchor that holds Rebus back from making a fool of himself or making a misjudgement
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Jane Harper’s fourth mystery/thriller is shaped by life in a small coastal town in Tasmania, Evelyn Bay. Ten years prior, tragedy rocked the community and today, in its barely contained calm, it confronts more awkward questions when a body is found on the beach. In all her novels, Jane Harper is