Book Reviews

This week in the Canberra Weekly I reviewed three exceptionally good thrillers and crime novels by David McCloskey, Ian Rankin and Jack Heath. Late 2026 has certainly delivered some top class crime fiction and thrillers. This week in the Canberra Weekly I reviewed three of my favourite ones from the… Read more: CANBERRA WEEKLY 5 NOVEMBER 2026: NEW THRILLERS FROM DAVID McCLOSKEY, IAN RANKIN and JACK HEATH

Popular pulpy thriller writer James Hadley Chase (pseudonym of Rene Lodge Brabazon Raymond) covered a wide range of styles across his nearly ninety novels and forty five years as a crime writer. From faux American gangster tales written during World War II, to books about PIs and insurance investigators, to… Read more: FORGOTTEN CRIME: A LOTUS FOR MISS QUON by JAMES HADLEY CHASE

We have already had one very good book by Michael Connelly this year, Ironwood, and now, just in time for Christmas, we have a new Harry Bosch novel, The Hollow (Allen & Unwin, 27 October 2026). The main story at the centre of The Hollow harks back to Bosch’s childhood.… Read more: NEW 2026 HARRY BOSCH! – THE HOLLOW by MICHAEL CONNELLY

This week in the Canberra Weekly I reviewed three new crime novels that range in style and location from a regional Australian mystery to suspense in the Austrian Alps and serial killer thrills in an anonymous city setting. Tell Me Something True, (Letterwing, 29 September 2026), is the first locally… Read more: CANBERRA WEEKLY 22 OCTOBER 2026: NEW CRIME FICTION FROM MICHAEL ROBOTHAM, TARA GOEDJEN and A. W. HAMMOND

November is always a great month for thrillers, as publishers try to entice buyers looking for an ideal Christmas present, or an enjoyable holiday read (especially here in Australia where the festive season coincides with long summer holidays). This year readers are particularly well served with three highly entertaining thrillers… Read more: LATE 2026 THRILLERS: NEW BOOKS FROM JACK HEATH, SIMON KERNICK & LINWOOD BARCLAY

2026 was an extraordinary good year for espionage novels, with an impressive roll call of high quality books by some of the genre’s best authors. The early signs are that 2027 is also shaping up to be an entertaining year with new books by Paul Warner (Funeral For A Spy),… Read more: LOOKING FORWARD FRIDAY: A TRAITOR’S CALL by DAVID GOODMAN

Way back in 2006 I read and warmly reviewed Patrick Quinlan’s entertaining debut crime novel Smoked. Although I enjoyed it, and Quinlan’s subsequent book The Takedown, I never got around to reading Smoked‘s sequel, The Drop-Off until recently. Before reading The Drop-Off, I thought I would go back and have… Read more: THROWBACK THURSDAY: SMOKED and THE DROP-OFF by PATRICK QUINLAN

Ian Rankin is in good form with his first standalone crime novel in over two decades. Drawing on a limited release short story (The Rise) from 2023, The Heights (Orion, 8 October 2026), is a totally engaging police mystery that grips to the last line. Rankin skilfully places the reader… Read more: THE HEIGHTS by IAN RANKIN

2026 has already seen an abundance of outstanding spy novels, including top drawer books from Charles Cumming (Icarus 17), James Wolff (Spies And Other Gods), William Boyd (Cold Sunset) and David Goodman (Solitary Agents), to name a few. And now in the fading months of the year, we have outstanding… Read more: NEW SPY FICTION OCTOBER 2026: THE BRITISH AGENT by SIMON CONWAY, LONDON STATION by DAVID McCLOSKEY and THE FIFTEENTH MAN by WILLIAM COOK

I have collected over recent weeks a number of interesting older covers from small and obscure publishers. I have also added to my collection two different Horwitz versions of a Carter Brown novel that had its title changed for the American market. Domino Mysteries were a short-lived series of digest… Read more: TRASHY TUESDAY: RARITIES, ODDITIES and an AUSTRALIAN CARTER BROWN COVER