Crime reviews
I Shot the Devil by Ruth McIver
Ruth McIver’s manuscript of I Shot the Devil won Australia’s Richell Prize for Emerging Writers a few years ago, and on reading the published book, you can see why: this America-set crime novel is ri…
The Orchard Murders by Robert Gott
For our Crime Book of the Month we return to 1944 and gloomy, wartime Melbourne in Robert Gott’s The Orchard Murders, the fourth instalment in his Holiday Murders series. I’ve long been a fan of Gott…
The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry
I like to review Australian crime books, partly because it’s always good to boost local writing – it’s something that Readings has championed since the beginning – but also because it feels like auth…
Nancy Business by R.W.R. McDonald
Four months after 12-year-old Tippy Chan, her uncle Pike and his boyfriend Devon started The Nancys – an investigative team that solved the brutal murder of Tippy’s teacher – a new case blows up, qui…
Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz
This stunning debut is one of the best books I’ve read this year (so far). Melbourne-based author Jacqueline Bublitz has crafted a haunting story about grief, limbo, transition and friendship that’s …
The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek by Kate Holden
There is a type of true crime book that surpasses others in the genre due to its literary merit and unique approach to the subject. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garde…
The Chase by Candice Fox
At a prison in Nevada, the annual friendly baseball game between the officers and the minimum-security inmates is due to take place. A bus load of family members is coming to cheer on the guards, as …
The Long, Long Afternoon by Inga Vesper
In a picture-perfect house in 1959, model housewife Joyce Haney goes to the mall for some shopping, returns home, and then vanishes, leaving behind nothing except a bloodstain on the kitchen floor, a…
The Spiral by Iain Ryan
I could tell you that Iain Ryan’s The Spiral is an immersive, captivating crime book, but that wouldn’t be enough to explain it. I could say it’s a twisted, psychological fever dream, but that’s not …
Shore Leave by David Whish-Wilson
Frank Swann is not cut out for any kind of crime legwork anymore. He’s tired, he’s sick all the time, and nobody can figure out what it is that’s wrong with him. All he knows is he can’t get halfway …
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