Crime
When We Fall by Aoife Clifford
As she walks along the beach with her mother, discouraged barrister Alex Tillerson wishes she wasn’t back in her childhood town of Merritt. Alex is going through a painful divorce, her mother’s health is deteriorating due to younger onset dementia…
The Cane by Maryrose Cuskelly
The northern Queensland town of Quala is reeling: one of its own is missing. Young Janet McClymont walked through the cane fields early one evening to go babysit her neighbours’ kids, but never arrived. Her bag was found, and nothing…
Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland
Leading Senior Constable Jesse Redpath thinks she has the lie of the land about right in the Northern Territory town of Kulara by now. After replacing the useless-to-actively harmful last cop in town, she’s more open to what’s important so…
The Shadow House by Anna Downes
When Alex drives up to her new house with her teenage son Ollie and new baby Cara in tow, she feels a surge of relief – and panic. She’s running away from Sydney, from what she’s left behind, and the…
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 riveting from start to end.
Erin…
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’s books, and was…
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 authors here are doing much more interesting…
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, quite literally, right nearby. Riverstone, Tippy’s…
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 by far the most literary of this month’s crime…
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 Garden of Good and…
Browse our reviews by category
