Discover the new crime books our booksellers are excited about this month!
The Peak
Sam Guthrie
If you were to approach me in the shop and ask how I’d describe this book in three words, I’d say: unputdownable, propulsive, and explosive. After I’d recovered from the shock opening, the subsequent few hours I spent reading The Peak simply flew by. This is my kinda book, and it’s definitely one for all the politics wonks and nerds out there whose Sundays begin with a panel discussion on the national broadcaster. You know who you are. Very likely you’ve got a subscription to the Quarterly Essay, you rewatch Paul Abbott’s State of Play (2003), anything Armando Iannucci has done, and you reckon that the O.G. Francis Urquhart (in the BBC’s House of Cards) was the best. At least, that’s what’s on my bingo card.
Political intrigue, contemporary geopolitics, and a national security threat all bubble away over the course of The Peak while Charlie Westcott grapples with the incredible events of the morning. Who, or rather, what had his best friend and colleague Sebastian Adler become? And what the hell is happening to the country? Why is the power out in Sydney and Melbourne? We’ve all had a shocker of a workday at some point, but this one takes the cake.
As with John le Carré and Frederick Forsyth, whose careers in intelligence made excellent foundations for their thriller writing, so does Sam Guthrie’s experience as a political insider in the diplomatic corps. From the attention to detail and the level of research, it is clear Guthrie worked long and hard on crafting, and then fine-tuning, this plot. Set across a 24-hour period, this is an astonishing and thoroughly accomplished debut. Bring on the next book, please!!!
Reviewed by Julia Jackson.
An Ill Wind
Margaret Hickey
Australia’s talented stable of crime and thriller writers continues to amaze me with how they tackle the genre. Like Darryl Kerrigan from The Castle at the dinner table complimenting his wife’s rissoles: ‘Yeah, but it’s what you do with them’. Margaret Hickey’s latest offering, this time set on the Victorian plains, kicks off with a discovery of the local wind-farm operator and entrepreneur, Geordie Pritchard, hanging from the blade of a wind turbine. An imaginative way to go, don’t you think? But is it murder? Whocouldadunnit? And why? The small town of Carrabeen is deeply divided. There are those who are happy to embrace renewables and the new jobs going in the wind-farming sector, and then there are the farmers – distrustful of the technology and the loss of farming acreage. Many had already sold up after years of drought and hard labour, but for those still left in agribusiness, there’s an underlying negative sentiment. It turns out not many people like a tall poppy, and in this town there’s lots to hide.
In An Ill Wind, Hickey’s chief characters are the heavily pregnant Senior Sergeant Belinda Burney, and her bespectacled husband of the same rank, Will Lovell, who abandoned a privileged upbringing for a career in the police force serving the community. For Senior Sergeant Burney, who was brought up in Carrabeen by her single father, returning to this heavily divided community brings with it a sense of anxiety and inner turmoil.
This is a terrific novel with a great plot that reflects a lot of current issues. And gosh is it great to have two main characters with a pretty realistic workplace and recognisable personal challenges: housing affordability, job satisfaction and progression, general happiness, and that age-old question: ‘Am I good enough?’
Reviewed by Julia Jackson.
The Forsaken
Matt Rogers
It really heartens me, as Readings’ consignment buyer, to come across an author who’s scored a publishing deal after years of seriously hard graft writing and self-publishing their books. One of the last Australian thriller writers to do this was Matthew Reilly – you know, of Ice Station fame. There is much to do as a self-published author: not only do you have to write the material, but there’s also all the logistical stuff that comes after, such as printing, marketing and distributing your book. All this with no guarantee that you’ll recoup what you have outlaid. Matt Rogers is a great example of someone who has done the research to find his audience and write for them. The book sales and readership from his Dante Jacoby series as an independent writer–publisher is a testament to that. To get a publishing deal is a terrific achievement.
The Forsaken is written with the same no-nonsense, direct style as his previous books. The action, which takes place over an almost 48-hour window, is gritty and relentless. I grew up on action series like 24, and I love plots that are condensed to blocks of time. At its heart, this book is a corruption-busting revenge thriller. We follow the bitter ex-CIA strongman/assassin Logan Booth, a meat-popsicle version of the proverbial brick dunny, as he attempts to get to the bottom of why his best mate Jorge Romero is dead. What did Romero know that led to his assassination? While Logan is the titular ‘forsaken’, so too is Alice, who cuts a tragic figure grappling with her own demons.
Set largely overnight in the noisy environs of New York City, The Forsaken is a fast-paced, highly atmospheric book. Did I mention that it was action-packed?! I would be lying if I said I hadn’t already cast this movie in my head. Read this if you love Terry Hayes; read it if you love John Wick, 24, and the Bourne series.
Reviewed by Julia Jackson.
Broke Road
Matthew Spencer
Over the border in New South Wales, the body of a woman is discovered in her home. While the local ambulance-chasing media and other ‘content creators’ have pegged the woman’s husband as the culprit, the police, headed up by homicide detective Rose Riley, are baffled. This is Matthew Spencer’s second Rose Riley book. I confess I didn’t read the first, but it’s not essential before diving into the second.
Broke Road is thoroughly entertaining. This is more of a traditional police procedural, and there are lots of shifty and unsavoury characters you can love to hate. I was surprised by how the plot unfolds: at first slowly, but with a quickening pace as the momentum with the investigation shifts. This apparent single-murder case quickly morphs into a bigger, cross-border investigation with a greater sense of urgency. Rose is reunited with true-crime journalist Adam Bowman, who ‘embeds’ himself closer to Rose and the action.
Australia is full of fabulous wine regions, and the Hunter Valley and its small townships west of Newcastle provide a picturesque setting for this book. Sweeping landscapes of vineyards are easily conjured in the imagination of readers. In the genre, there’s always an element to the landscape or setting that directly ties to the main character’s personality and history. In Broke Road, it’s Rose’s own family background and grandparents’ land, long since subsumed into the vast estates of a greedy local wine baron. With its twisty plot and satisfying end, this is a book to take on a weekend getaway to devour in front of the fire.
Reviewed by Julia Jackson.
Also recommended are:
The Midnight King
Tariq Ashkanani
Lucas Cole is a bestselling writer. He is also a father, a widower, and a beloved celebrity in his small town. He is an unassuming man – tall, thin and quietly friendly. Lucas Cole is also a serial killer.
Nathan Cole has known the truth about his father since he was ten years old. Too terrified to go to the police, he ran away from home as soon as he was able, carrying the guilt of leaving his sister behind. But when Lucas is found dead in a dingy motel room, Nathan returns to his childhood home for the first time in seventeen years. It's there he finds The Midnight King, his father's final unpublished manuscript, a fictionalised account of his hideous crimes, hidden in a box of trinkets from his victims. Trinkets that include a ribbon belonging to a missing eight-year-old girl who disappeared only days before his father's death.
Now, Nathan must deal with the consequences of keeping his father's secret. But it may not be as simple as finding a lost child. For The Midnight King holds Nathan's secrets as well as Lucas's, and he is not the only one searching for the truth...
Etiquette for Lovers and Killers
Anna Fitzgerald Healy
It's 1964 in the tiny town of Eastport, Maine, and Billy McCadie is bored to death. She's surrounded by Jell-O salads and dull people with more etiquette than sense, with absolutely no sign of the intrigue or romance that fill the pages of her beloved novel collection. That is, until an engagement ring and cryptic love letter turn up, addressed to 'Gertrude'.
As Billy gets pulled ever-deeper into in a bizarre and stranger-than-fiction mystery that the local police can't begin to handle, and despite sorely lacking Nancy Drew's effortless charm or Miss Marple's social graces, she finds herself with no choice but to put on her detective hat. But as the body count rises and the danger starts to feel ever closer to home, why does it feel like she's much more than just a side character? Is someone trying to mess with her, frame her, or write her out for good? And after so long yearning to be in the action rather than reading it, and with the only man with two brain cells in Eastport within her reach, would it be so terribly unladylike for her to have some fun of her own?
The White Crow
Michael Robotham
As the daughter of a London crime boss, Police Constable Philomena McCarthy walks a thin blue line keeping the two sides of her complicated life apart.
On patrol one night she discovers a child in pyjamas, wandering alone. Taking Daisy home, Phil uncovers the aftermath of a deadly home invasion, as three miles away a prominent jeweller is found strapped to an explosive in his ransacked store. The crimes are linked, and all the evidence points to Phil's father as the mastermind.
Phil's two worlds are colliding, trapping her in the middle of a vicious gang war that will threaten her career and everyone she loves. Who can she trust – the badge or her own blood?
We Are All Guilty Here
Karin Slaughter
Welcome to North Falls. A small town where everyone knows everyone. But nobody knows the truth.
Emmy Clifton has lived here all her life. She thinks she knows her neighbours. She's wrong. She thinks it's just another hot summer night: a night like any other. She's wrong.
When her best friend's daughter asks for help, she thinks it's just some teenage drama. She thinks it can wait. She's never been more wrong in her life.
As the town ignites in the wake of the girl's disappearance, Emmy throws herself into the search. But then she realises: You never really know a town until you know its secrets. Is Emmy ready for the truth?
