Crime reviews
The Safe Place by Anna Downes
Emily is a receptionist and an aspiring actress in London when her life falls abruptly apart. Fired from her job, dropped by her agent and kicked out of her disgusting flat all at once, she’s at her …
He Started It by Samantha Downing
To say a book has a twist is sometimes a spoiler: you’ll find yourself living in a constant state of suspense, waiting for when it’ll happen. I don’t think saying that He Started It has twists is any…
A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs
Okay, full disclosure: there are some Very Famous Authors I’ve never read, and Kathy Reichs is one of them. I haven’t even watched a full episode of Bones, the TV show based on her Temperance Brennan…
The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan
The Rúin, the novel which introduced us to Cormac Reilly, an Irish detective transferred to Galway and handed a cold case which leads him to unexpected places, was my stand out crime novel of 2018. T…
The Better Liar by Tanen Jones
Leslie is alone, in Las Vegas, there to collect her sister Robin. It’s been years since she’s seen Robin, but in order to get the inheritance her father promised her, both of them need to be there to…
True West by David Whish-Wilson
If you want to get truly knocked about by a book, True West is what you want in front of you. Set in Western Australia in 1988, this is the visceral tale of Lee Southern, a young man driving south, a…
Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke
Ranger Darren Mathews is finally on something of a good thing after a hell of a bad time. He’s on a team investigating the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, his previously failing marriage is tentatively b…
The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre and Stephanie Smee (trans.)
This striking little oddity comes with a hefty dose of French fame – it won the European Crime Fiction Prize, the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and has been made into a film starring one of th…
The Devil’s Grip by Neal Drinnan
It was said that Darcy Wettenhall was the world’s foremost expert on the subject of Corriedale sheep. Stanbury, the stud that he owned and ran with his elderly cousin Janet and his son Guy, had earne…
Lapse by Sarah Thornton
Deep in the middle of both winter and the AFL season, there are few things more readable than ex-corporate lawyer Sarah Thornton’s Lapse. When Clementine Jones leaves her old, untenable life in Sydne…