Crime reviews
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 …
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
In the seventeenth century, the East India Trading Company has a tight grip on the world. Those who sail as merchants rule absolutely, and everyone who works for them is ruthless, amoral, and evil. S…
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
My first attempt at this review was basically an essay about why Elizabeth - the octogenarian founder of the Thursday Murder Club, and a woman who I am certain spent a least a few years of her life a…
Electric Blue by Paul F. Verhoeven
Sometimes it’s pretty easy to categorise a crime book. I’ll say ‘procedural’, or ‘psychological thriller’, and while every book is original, you’ll have an idea of what to expect. Then you get a book…
The Girl in the Mirror by Rose Carlyle
Summer and Iris are identical twins – asymmetrically, so when Iris looks at her sister, she sees her own reflection. But where Summer has succeeded – handsome husband, loving friends, immense wealth …
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