Book Reviews

2024 is quickly coming to an end, but there is still a trickle of new Australian crime releases to enjoy before Christmas. Iain Ryan’s 2023 book The Strip, was a tough, gritty crime novel set on the 1980s Gold Coast that raised the bar for urban noir in Australia. Now… Read more: DOWNUNDER CRIME ROUND-UP DECEMBER 2024: IAIN RYAN, RILEY JAMES, NATALIE CONYER AND FIN J. ROSS

The Christmas and summer holiday season (at least in Australia) is nearly on us and I have recently read three books that would make for ideal reading over the festive season, or as great gifts for the crime and thriller aficionado in your family. Simon Kernick is one of those… Read more: NOVEMBER 2025 CRIME ROUND-UP: NEW BOOKS BY SIMON KERNICK, DAVID BALDACCI AND DAVID HEWSON

A new John Lawton novel is always a treat and in 2025 we are going to get the ninth book in his excellent series about Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, Smoke And Embers (Atlantic Monthly/Grove Press, 13 May 2025). Lawton’s last two books have been about the cat… Read more: LOOKING FORWARD TO 2025: SMOKE AND EMBERS By JOHN LAWTON

This week in the Canberra Weekly I reviewed crime novels by two relatively new Australia crime authors, Pip Drysdale and Patricia Wolf. Sydney based author Pip Drysdale has quickly established herself as a ‘must read’ writer for those who enjoy dark, edgy, first person suspense thrillers with a hot, contemporary feel to… Read more: CANBERRA WEEKLY 31 OCTOBER 2024: NEW CRIME FICTION BY PIP DRYSDALE AND PATRICIA WOLF

This week in the Canberra Weekly I reviewed three outstanding new crime novels by two of the masters of the genre, Michael Connelly and Ian Rankin, and a very clever tale by Australia’s ‘king of the twist’, Christian White. Award winning Australian author Christian White has been described as Australia’s ‘Master Of… Read more: CANBERRA WEEKLY 24 OCTOBER 2024: NEW BOOKS BY CHRISTIAN WHITE, MICHAEL CONNELLY AND IAN RANKIN

Still two months to go in 2024, but already the books are piling up for 2025. One New Year release that I have already read is the latest revamping of the classic murder mystery by Tom Hindle, Death In The Arctic (Century, 16 January 2025). Hindle has been described as… Read more: LOOKING FORWARD TO 2025: DEATH IN THE ARCTIC by TOM HINDLE

Pip Drysdale is ‘must read’ for those who enjoy dark, edgy, first person suspense thrillers with a hot, contemporary feel to them. Her books feature young, quirky, slightly unreliable female narrators, who mix bad decisions, usually about men, with courage and a willingness to push through. Her books have progressively gotten… Read more: THE CLOSE-UP By Pip Drysdale

2024 is finishing on a bit of a high note for spy fiction fans, with David Goodman’s impressive spy debut A Reluctant Spy, a new George Smiley novel (Karla’s Choice) by John le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway, David McCloskey’s The Seventh Floor, and now a new spy novel by Henry… Read more: 2024 SPY FICTION: THE ENIGMA GIRL by Henry Porter

As Benjamin Stevenson points out in the ‘Prologue’ to Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret, (Penguin, 22 October 2024), Christmas mystery stories, or yuletide cash grabs as he calls them, have a long history, and were even indulged in by no lesser stars than Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.… Read more: IT’S THE SEASON FOR MAYHEM: CHRISTMAS 2024 THEMED BOOKS BY MIKE RIPLEY, BENJAMIN STEVENSON AND LISA UNGER

There has been a flood of new releases over the past month, or so, making it very hard to keep up with them all. Here are quick reviews of three books that have made it to the top of my reading pile! Chris Hammer is a leading figure in Australian… Read more: CRIME ROUND-UP OCTOBER 2024: NEW BOOKS BY CHRIS HAMMER, PETER JAMES AND PATRICIA WOLF