Discover the new crime books our booksellers are excited about this month!
Melaleuca
Angie Faye Martin
Set in the fictional small country town of Goorungah, Queensland, police officer Renee Taylor has only returned to her hometown to look after her mother before leaving for her new home in Brisbane. But when the body of an Indigenous woman is found brutally murdered by the creek, Renee takes on the task of leading the investigation into the mystery woman’s death. In her search, she finds a web of secrecy that the sleepy town has hidden for decades, including the bizarre connection between the victim and two Aboriginal women who went missing more than 30 years ago.
Crime fiction, I believe – as someone who reads a lot of it regularly – can ironically be an underrated genre. It’s extremely popular for its cosy whodunits or its dark and twisted thrillers full of gory details. However, crime fiction is often the most overlooked genre when it comes to bringing important real-world issues to attention, conveying a crucial message that people don’t expect to see beyond a juicy murder. Angie Faye Martin’s debut explores systemic racism, violence against First Nations women, and the vast difference in rates of domestic violence, abduction, and homicide between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and non-Indigenous women.
Renee is a complex protagonist who struggles at times with her identity as an Indigenous woman and as a police officer. Her investigations reveal the lack of news coverage or general knowledge about the two missing Aboriginal girls, which we can certainly relate to today. In her author’s note, Martin writes that although the location and characters are entirely fictional, the novel nevertheless ‘provides a window into the lived reality of many Aboriginal people.’ Melaleuca is a masterful debut that calls for justice and change within Australian politics, the judicial system and cultural mindset.
Reviewed by Aurelia Orr.
King of Ashes
S.A. Cosby
Sometimes when reading a crime novel, all the initial plot setting, character analysis, exposition, etc. can feel a bit laboured, and you ask yourself if you want to continue. Then you hit the sweet spot and something clicks and the next thing you know you’re on page 150. The sweet spot in King of Ashes is about page 5.
Roman Carruthers is the oldest son of a family that runs a crematorium in Jefferson’s Run, Virginia. He is summoned home from his high-flying life in Los Angeles to help his siblings look after their father, who has been run off the road in a suspicious accident. Once home, Roman discovers that his baby brother Dante is in debt to local gangsters. He meets with them to pay off the debt and offer his financial services, but quickly becomes aware that he is way out of his depth, as his capacity to organise tax structures is no match for their brutality and violence.
Neveah has been helping their father run the crematorium, but is overwhelmed by the task now that she must manage alone while their father is in a coma. Dante is a mess and a hindrance to any solution, and Roman discovers the beautiful young woman he is interested in is the sister of the gangsters that he is trying to extricate his family from.
S.A. Cosby is one of the leading young crime writers in the USA and has worked as a mortician’s assistant, so all the background details in this story feel authentic. But the main thing that sets this book apart from less ambitious novels is the Old Testament feeling to the prose. Violent and poetic, this is a standout book about the lengths to which a person may go to protect their loved ones.
Reviewed by Pierre Sutcliffe.
With a Vengeance
Riley Sager
Riley Sager returns with his highly anticipated new murder mystery, With a Vengeance, simmering with secrecy, betrayal and retribution.
Anna Matheson wants revenge on the people who killed her family. Her father, head of the Union Atlantic Railroad, was framed for murder. Her brother was tragically killed and her mother committed suicide shortly afterwards. Six people are to blame for ruining her life – Judd Dodge, who designed her father’s trains; Herb Pulaski, who built the engines from Judd’s designs; Sal Lawrence, Anna’s father’s secretary; Edith Gerhardt, Anna’s German nurse; Kenneth Wentworth, the new owner of the Union Atlantic following Anna’s father’s death; and Lt. Col. Jack Lapsford, a military man with the bloodiest hands of them all.
The plan? Invite all six of the people who were once so closely entwined with and trusted by Anna’s family on her father’s train, the Philadelphia Phoenix, running express from Philadelphia to Chicago, and get their confessions, ready for the waiting FBI agents to arrest them at the end of the journey. But someone wants the truth to stay dead and body after body is found murdered on the train. Soon Anna’s quest for justice becomes a story of survival.
Different from Sager’s past eerie and twisting thrillers, With a Vengeance is a classic whodunit that calls upon the spirit of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express like a Ouija board. The sense of claustrophobia Sager builds is overwhelming, as the characters are trapped together on the train for 13 hours and drop like flies. Set in 1950s America, With a Vengeance is a stylish and riveting historical mystery that will appeal to readers who prefer an enticing story that still leaves them able to sleep comfortably at night.
Reviewed by Aurelia Orr.
Also recommended are:
Never Flinch
Stephen King
When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to 'kill thirteen innocents and one guilty' in 'an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man', Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realises that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help.
Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women's rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate's message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate's bodyguard – a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness.
Murder at Mount Fuji
Shizuko Natsuki, translated by Robert B. Rohmer
When American student Jane Prescott is invited to spend the holidays with her classmate Chiyo, she jumps at the chance to see in the new year at a luxurious mansion at the foot of Mount Fuji. Chiyo belongs to one of Japan's wealthiest families, the heiress to a pharmaceutical empire headed up by Yohei 'Grandpa' Wada.
With the whole Wada family gathered and snow falling outside, the festivities are in full swing. That is, until Chiyo bursts into the room – covered in blood, holding a knife, and screaming that she has stabbed her grandfather to death.
Stunned, the family closes ranks to protect one of its own – but Jane alone has more questions than answers. Could her sweet, timid friend really be capable of such violence? Did any other member of the Wada clan stand to gain everything with the patriarch's death? And if so, could the real murderer still be in their midst?
The Ones We Love
Anna Snoekstra
Since the weekend of the party – the one 22-year-old Liv can’t remember – she’s been locked out of her bedroom by a padlock. Her parents are behaving oddly, and her best friend won’t respond to her texts.
The guilt is getting to her father, and her mother will do whatever she has to do to take care of her kids. Youngest son Casper was away that weekend, but he knows something isn’t right so decides to find out what no one will tell him.
Every family has its secrets, but what do the Jansen family have to hide?
Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie
James Lee Burke
At the beginning of the twentieth century, as America grapples with forces of human and natural violence more powerful than humanity has ever seen, Bessie Holland yearns for the love that she has never known. She finds a soulmate and mentor in a brilliant but tormented suffragette English teacher, who inspires Bessie to fight the forces of evil that permeate her world.
Watching the vast Texas countryside being destroyed by an oil company and a menacing figure with a violent past, Bessie is prepared to defend her home and her family. But when she accidentally kills an unarmed man to defend her father, she must flee to New York. There, her older brother introduces her to boys who will grow into gangsters, but as children admire and respect Bessie's spirit and fortitude as she is cast into a gangland that yearns for justice and mercy.
