Book Reviews

Here are three very good, and very different, thrillers to get your spy reading off to a good start in 2025. Fans of spy fiction after something a little different, and with a literary flavour, will enjoy Shankari Chandran’s Unfinished Business, (Ultimo Press, 1 January 2025). Australian author Shankari Chandran… Read more: NEW 2025 SPY FICTION BY JOHN LAWTON, SHANKARI CHANDRAN AND JOSEPH FINDER

Each year George Easter from Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine does a mammoth job in collating the various best mystery, crime fiction and thriller lists from around the world and seeing what they tell us about the year’s best books. In 2024 he found 108 ‘best lists’. There is a strong American flavour… Read more: THE BEST OF THE BEST

2025 has already gotten off to a good start with two enjoyable early British crime novels by Marion Todd (Dead Man’s Shoes) and Hannah Richell (One Dark Night), and a gritty outback noir tale by Michael Trant (Blood And Gold) arriving in a couple of weeks. At first glance, it… Read more: CRIME NOVELS THAT I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO READING IN 2025

Here are three good, British based, police novels to start your 2025 criminal reading off with. Marion Todd has established herself as a leading member of the Tartan Noir brigade with her novels about Scottish police detective DI Clare Mackay. Based in Dundee, Clare is a caring and effective policewoman… Read more: BRITISH POLICE DETECTIVES 2025: NEW NOVELS BY HANNAH RICHELL, MARION TODD and FIONA McINTOSH

With Christmas and New Year on the very near horizon, 2024 is virtually wrapped up, and my reading over the holiday period will be largely focused on the new releases for 2025 that I have received, plus a couple of books I meant to get to earlier. In selecting my… Read more: BOOKS AND DACHSHUNDS: HOLIDAY READING DECEMBER 2024

In Australia one of the main rivals to Carter Brown was the series of Marc Brody books which appeared between 1955 and 1960. Marc Brody was supposedly the author and main character in a series of tough novels written for Australia’s Horwitz Publishing. Like the Carter Brown and Larry Kent… Read more: TRASHY TUESDAY: MOVIE STARS, FEMME FATALES AND DAMES – MORE MARC BRODY COVERS

2025 is shaping up to be a big year for Australian crime fiction with a virtual flood of new books by some of our best writers, including Michael Robotham, Dervla McTiernan, Michelle Prak, Shelley Burr and Garry Disher, to name a few. There is also a very promising looking first… Read more: NEW OUTBACK AUSTRALIAN CRIME FICTION FOR 2025: GUNNAWAH By RONNI SALT

Harlan Coben is one of the most popular authors in the world today and his books are always a ‘must read’. In recent years the success of his twisty, unpredictable novels has been enhanced by a well produced succession of Netflix mini-series based on his books, which have ramped up… Read more: NEW HARLAN COBEN BOOK FOR 2025 – NOBODY’S FOOL – AND LOOKING BACK AT MISSING YOU BEFORE ITS RELEASE ON NETFLIX!

Debuts are the lifeblood of crime fiction. Without new authors and new ideas, the genre would become stale and boring. Every year we see an influx of new authors, including an increasing number of self-published and small press books. While many debut authors pursue familiar paths and storylines, there are… Read more: BEST DEBUT CRIME NOVELS OF 2024

Coming up with the Best Books of the Year is always a challenging task. The idea of ranking and rating books never really sits right with me, as so much comes down to individual taste and even the mood that you are in when you read the book. There is… Read more: THE YEAR’S BEST: MY FAVOURITE CRIME NOVELS AND THRILLERS OF 2024