Book Reviews

The Australian crime fiction titles have been coming thick and fast so far in 2026. There has been quite a bit of variety, although the old favourite of outback/small town mystery still seems to dominate. Continuing the diversity of approaches, are three new releases for July and August by Riley… Read more: NEW AUSTRALIAN CRIME FICTION JULY 2026: SUSANNAH GLENN, RILEY JAMES, A.T. PREWETT

2026 has already produced some very good spy novels, including James Wolff’s Spies And Other Gods, David Goodman’s Solitary Agents and the very recent Icarus 17 by Charles Cumming. And the good news is that more are on the way. Alan Park’s Deception has just been released, and Mark Ezra’s… Read more: HISTORICAL SPY FICTION: NEW 2026 ESPIONAGE NOVELS BY WILLIAM BOYD, ANTHONY BYRT and WILLIAM COOK

This week in the Canberra Weekly I reviewed three new Australian crime fiction novels by Jason Summers, Sherryl Clark and Matt Nable. First up was Red Lake, (Macmillan, 30 June 2026), by Jason Summers. Red Lake is Summers’ first novel for Macmillam, after a prolific series of Kindle and self… Read more: CANBERRA WEEKLY: 9 JULY 2026: NEW AUSTRALIAN CRIME FICTION by MATT NABLE, SHERRYL CLARK and JASON SUMMERS

The heist, particularly the idea of one last job before going straight, has long been a popular trope of crime novels. Probably reaching its peak during the hardboiled writing of the 1960s and 1970s, it has nevertheless persisted through to present times via movies and television shows, and the writing… Read more: ONE LAST HEIST: THE HAUL by GARY PHILLIPS and COMPLICATIONS ALWAYS ENSUE by PAUL BISHOP

July brings two new Australian crime novels that buck the recent trend of outback murder and damaged detectives returning home. Australian/New Zealand author Sherryl Clark has been steadily improving as an author over her first four books and her latest, For All The Dead Girls (HQ, 30 June 2026), is… Read more: NEW AUSTRALIAN CRIME FICTION JULY 2026: FOR ALL THE DEAD GIRLS by SHERRYL CLARK and MIRE by MATT NABLE

Night Without End was one of my favourite Alistair MacLean novels, and it instilled in me at a young age a liking for Arctic thrillers. In the early days authors like Desmond Bagley, Hammond Innes and even Gavin Lyall (The Most Dangerous Game) ventured into icy locales with good effect,… Read more: THROWBACK THURSDAY: THE ICE by JOHN KÅRE RAAKE

Quality spy fiction continues to trickle out in 2026, with these two new releases adding to the good books from James Wolff and Paul Warner earlier in the year. There are also some very promising new spy novels coming later in the year, some of which I have mentioned at… Read more: SPY FICTION 2026: SOLITARY AGENTS by DAVID GOODMAN and THROW AWAY THE KEY by JASON M. HOUGH

I had two columns in the Canberra Weekly in June 2026, which covered a range of crime fiction from international writers Michael Connelly, Jo Murray, and V. A. Vazquez, and local Australian authors Mark Smith and Inessa Jackson. There was also a powerful non-crime novel by Canberra writer Ayesha Inoon.… Read more: CANBERRA WEEKLY JUNE 2026: NEW BOOKS by JO MURRAY, MICHAEL CONNELLY, INESSA JACKSON, MARK SMITH, V. A. VAZQUEZ and AYESHA INOON

2026 has already seen a real smorgasboard of Australian crime fiction, from the almost obligatory outback crime to big city murder and a surprising number of cosy mysteries. There have also been some promising debuts, and books by established authors that head in new directions for them. So far, Tim… Read more: AUSTRALIAN CRIME FICTION JUNE 2026: RED LAKE by JASON SUMMERS and FIND ME by HOLLY CRAIG

Happy Publication Day! Happy Publication Day to Mike Ripley for his crime novel Played To Death, (Severn House, 2 June 2026). According to Mike, it is possibly his 35th book! Below is a review of Played To Death that I did earlier this year: Last year Mike Ripley moved away… Read more: PLAYED TO DEATH by MIKE RIPLEY