Tag: Crime fiction

Book review: The Night in Question by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson

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The Night in Question is book 2 of young adult series, The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson.

That underneath all her cattiness, the bragging she would do about stupid Hollywood events she wormed her way into, her obsession with being an actress, she had a decent heart.

While snooping around the castle where the school dance is being held, Alice Ogilvie stumbles across one of her classmates, Rebecca Kennedy, lying in a pool of blood with another, Helen Park, standing over her holding a bloody knife. The clumsy coppers think it’s an open and shut case, but Alice and her friend Iris believe there’s more to the incident that first impressions.

“This is so Agatha Christie: a secret passage, a hidden staircase, sneaking around in the dark with a storm raging outside. A shiver of pleasure runs through me.”

The ghost of Agatha Christie is sprinkled through The Night in Question as the story unfolds from the perspectives of misfit friends and polar opposites, Iris and Alice. Using their expert mystery solving skills learnt mainly from reading Christie novels, they realise the incident may be connected to events that took place in the castle in the 1940s. They set out to solve the puzzle and save Helen Park.

“They’re a little flashy. I think I remember my parents kind of joking about them at some point, like they can buy whatever they want, but the one thing they can’t is respect.”

YA can be just as brutal as adult fiction and The Night in Question does not shy away from topics such as domestic violence, class, corruption, betrayal, mental illness, and of course teenage friendship and family dramas. The Night in Question is a well plotted, fast paced, entertaining YA read.

Book review: Cutters End by Margaret Hickey

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Debut outback noir set in South Australian, Cutters End, by author and playwright Margaret Hickey is a dual time line police procedural mystery.

DI Mark Ariti is recalled from long service leave to reinvestigate a cold case in the remote country town of Cutters End. He is aided by the cheerful and detail oriented local Senior Constable Jagdeep Kaur. Ariti is from the area himself and soon discovers a personal connection to two of the witnesses – an old girlfriend and her best friend from school, who share a long buried secret.

Ingrid laughed. ‘Haven’t done much hitching, have you, Mark? And it would be different for a man. For a woman, there’s always the pressure to entertain, be funny, make them feel like they’re pleased to have picked you up.’

The investigation revolves around a death on New Year’s Eve in 1989, in the scrub off the Stuart Highway 300km south of Cutters End. The incident was initially believed to be due to a car accident. The man who died was something of a local hero due to having saved a girl and her mother from drowning in floodwaters. The girl grew up to be a celebrity and used her influence to initiate a relook at the case, claiming the original investigation was botched.

Ariti’s digging unearths the disappearance of a number of women in the same area around the same time, and soon there are multiple deaths to investigate.

Two hours into the trip, driving in the police lease car on the highway heading east, Mark clipped a roo on his side window. The grey body ramming his car gave a sickening thud and for a split second he thought he’d hit a women wearing a beige suit. The roo jumped wildly into the middle of the road and he braked, heart pumping. Natalie Merchant crooned. The roo stood, stunned, before lurching into a nearby paddock. 

While Ariti investigates, he is also trying to coparent and repair his relationship with his wife following indiscretions by both of them. Revisiting his past gives him pause for much contemplation about life and more broadly, about purpose in work, and ageing.

The outback has a reputation for quirky eccentric characters and Hickey milks the trope in Cutters End. In typical police procedural and cold case style there is a slow build up in Cutter End, as well as plenty of twists, layers and a climatic conclusion.

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

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Jodi Picoult is a fascinating author. She’s prolific, and a master of the moral dilemma. Unafraid to tackle any issue in popular fiction her stories have shone a light on racism, abortion rights, gun control, and gay rights. She has also penned several issues of the Wonder Woman comic book series. Picoult is highly popular but has received little critical acclaim, and has even been the subject of book bans in Florida.

My father taught me that beekeeping is both a burden and a privilege. You don’t bother the bees unless they need your help, and you help them when they need it. It’s a feudal relationship: protection in return for a percentage of the fruits of their labors.

Apart from liking the title of Mad Honey, it’s a cleverly written, easy to read suspenseful story packed with subplots and surprise twists. Mad Honey is a collaboration with Jennifer Finley Boylan.

Sometimes, making the world a better place just involves creating space for the people who are already in it.

Olivia McAfee fled her outwardly perfect life with her son after her cardiothoracic surgeon partner’s violence put them at risk. They moved to live back in a small town where Olivia grew up, taking over the family home she inherited and her father’s beekeeping business. Olivia’s son, Asher goes to the local school and life is peaceful until Asher is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Lily. Suddenly Olivia finds herself having to defend her son’s freedom, whilst managing a niggling worry that he could be like his father.

I think there is a reason they call it falling in love. It’s the moment, at the top of the roller coaster, when your heart hangs in your throat. It’s the time between when you jump from the cliff and when you hit the ocean. It’s the realization that there’s no ground beneath your feet when you miss a step on the ladder, when the branch of the tree breaks, when you roll over and run out of mattress.

Here’s what they do not tell you about falling in love: there’s not always a soft landing beneath you.

Mad Honey has great character development and is written in first person between the points of view of Olivia and Lily. It is a story about the impacts of family violence, gender, the fluidity of nature, and the importance of acceptance. And it includes lots of information about bees – I enjoyed learning about beekeeping.

Book review: Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado

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The English translation of Spanish crime thriller Red Queen by Juan Gómes-Jurado is a fast paced gripping read with an unconventional lead. Antonia Scott is a personally challenged reclusive genius – think Sherlock Holmes/Lisbeth Salander.

Scott was the lead advisor in the shadow crime fighting ‘Red Queen’ unit due to her talents at reconstructing crimes and solving difficult murders. She left when an incident left her husband in a coma, for which she blamed herself.

A sign from the universe outside, meaning whatever Antonia wishes it to mean. Which is why the universe sends them to us, so that we can do what we want with them.

Disgraced detective Jon Gutierrez is given an opportunity for a reprieve – if he can convince Scott to return to work on a bizarre murder case involving the son of a wealthy family.

Jon is still suspended without pay, but the charges against him have been dropped for the moment. And the video showing him planting the junk in the pimp’s car has disappeared as if by magic from the TV and newspapers

The Red Queen is a race against time slightly gruesome thriller with a couple of eccentric lead characters.

Book review: The Maid by Nita Prose

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The hotel maid is invisible. They enter your room while you are out and when you return the room is spotless and the bed is made. You never think about how it happened. The Maid, part cozy crime, part dark comedic thriller is Canadian Nita Prose’s debut, due for film release this year starring Florence Pugh.

There’s nothing quite like a perfectly stocked maid’s trolley…The crisp little packages of delicately wrapped soaps that smell of orange blossom, the tiny Crabtree and Evelyn shampoo bottles, the squat tissue boxes…And last but not least, the cleaning kit, which includes a feather duster, lemon furniture polish, lightly scented antiseptic garbage bags, as well as an impressive array of spray bottles of solvents and disinfectants, all lined up and ready to combat any stain, be it coffee rings, vomit — or even blood.

Molly doesn’t have much in the world, but she is proud of her job at the Regency Grand Hotel and gets great pleasure from returning occupied hotel rooms to ‘a state of perfection’. Molly also has some limitations. She struggles with understanding social cues and navigating human relationships, which make her vulnerable to exploitation. Her grandmother who she was closest to and who helped her to navigate the world died recently, and she is treated as an outcast by her coworkers.

The longer you live, the more you learn. People are a mystery that can never be solved.

One afternoon she goes to clean the penthouse suite and finds its wealthy guest, Mr Black dead in his bed. Black has been murdered and Molly soon finds herself a key suspect.

One thing I’ve learned in my business is that you can hide dirt for a while, but at some point, it all comes to the surface.

The Maid has had a mixed reception, I suspect because some readers found they could not identify/sympathise with the main character. I found Molly to be endearing and delightful, and the story was a charming, quirky, fun light read, about a socially awkward working class young woman finding resilience in adversity. Molly has been crafted as a unique character and the story has many layers and twists.

Book review: The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

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Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series are great for cozy crime aficionados who enjoy a good laugh. And I do love stories about seniors who not only don’t let age get in the way of a good time, but use it to their advantage to get the upper hand. The Bullet That Missed is book 3, following The Thursday Murder Club and The Man Who Died Twice.

If murder were easy, none of us would survive Christmas.

Pensioners and amauteur detectives, Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim take an interest in the case of television reporter Bethany Waites who’s car went over a cliff into the sea ten years earlier while she was investigating a tax fraud operation. Her body was never found, presumed consumed by creatures of the deep. The gang from Coopers Chase Retirement Village start to ingratiate themselves with people surrounding Bethany’s disappearance. Then their main suspect has a fatal incident with a pair of knitting needles.

Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been receiving mysterious and threatening text messages that lead to her being kidnapped by a man who calls himself Viking. Viking threatens to kill Joyce unless Elizabeth kills a former KGB chief called Viktor. He gives her two weeks.

Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.

Will Elizabeth commit a murder, and can the Thursday Murder Club solve two murder cases?

People drift in and out of your life, and, when you are younger, you know you will see them again. But now every old friend is a miracle.

The Bullet that Missed is a witty whodunit full of twists and red herrings and delightful characters interspersed with some of the very real challenges of ageing such as how Elizabeth battles with her husbands advancing dementia, the importance of friendship, and love in later life.

It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?” says Viktor. “It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.

Book review: Silver by Chris Hammer

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When a book has a sequel, you can’t really just read one in the series…

Silver follows on from Chris Hammer’s Scrublands with protagonist Martin Scarsden. In Silver we pick up a few months later. Martin is in a relationship with Mandalay, the beautiful single mum who ran the bookshop in Riversend. Mandalay inherited a fortune, including a house in the town that Martin grew up in – Port Silver. Martin hasn’t returned to Port Silver since he left to become a journalist, and to escape his traumatic childhood.

For a moment Martin sees the two towns superimposed: the tough working-class community of his youth and the gentrified retirement village it is becoming. Some fairy godmother has visited in his absence, sprinkling the silver pixie dust of family trusts, self-managed superfunds and negative gearing, but sprinkling it unevenly.

Mandalay moves to Port Silver with her son while Martin is in Sydney finishing writing a book about his experience in Riversend. The day Martin arrives at Mandalay’s rental in Port Silver, he finds a man murdered on the entryway floor. The dead guy is an old friend of his from school, and he and Mandalay become suspects. Martin needs to solve the case to save Mandalay from suspicion.

Love ’em, look after ’em, support ’em. Set ’em straight when they need it. But don’t think you can change them. They’re who they always were. Simple as that.

As with the Hammer’s first novel, Silver has many interwoven and complex plots and themes (cults, real estate speculation, greed, corruption, drugs, class divides) and a caste of interesting three dimensional characters to keep the reader engaged. In Silver, the main character Martin also has some unresolved history to deal with, so there is plenty of high stakes emotion and drama.

Book Review: Scrublands By Chris Hammer

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Australian noir, Scrublands by Chris Hammer has one of the most compellingly visual openings of a crime fiction novel that I have read. A hot dry country town, a gathering Sunday congregation, and a murderous priest.

Byron Swift has changed into his robes, crucifix glinting as its catches the sun, and he’s carrying a gun, a high-powered hunting rifle with a scope. It makes no sense to Landers; he’s still confused as Swift raises the gun to his shoulder and calmly shoots Horrie Grosvenor from a distance of no more than fives metres.

Journalist Martin Scarsden visits Riversend a year after a mass killing. He’s been tasked with writing a human interest story on how the town is going in the aftermath of its young priest gunning down five men outside his church one Sunday. Scarsden had been a roaming journalist reporting on conflict zones until an incident in Gaza left him with PTSD. The assignment to Riversend is a chance to help him get out of the office and find his feet again.

Riversend is hot, dry and depressing. A dying town hiding a lot more than a murderous priest. Why did the priest who was popular with the local youth, police, and many of the locals murder all those men?

He looks up at the hotel; there is no sign of life. What must it be to live in this town? To be young and live in this town? Every day, the same stifling heat, the same inescapable familiarity, the same will-sapping predictability.

The stories Scarsden hears from the caste of cagey and eccentric locals don’t marry up the public narrative first reported about the incident. There is Mandalay, the beautiful single mum who runs the bookshop, the local copper and hero, Robbie, who killed the priest to end his killing spree, the wily old dero, Snouch who loiters in the shuttered up Wine Saloon, and Codger the old man living alone (and mostly naked) in the remote scrublands.

As Scarsden begins to unpack the story, and wrestle with his own demons, another tragedy strikes and masses of media descent on the town, throwing Scarsden into the spotlight. His reasons for finding out what really happened suddenly become very personal – his reputation depends on it.

Who knows what dark thoughts and obsessions can take hold in the small hours of the morning, when the mind chases itself down dark passageways and perspective is lost?

Scrublands has many complex, interwoven plot lines that make the reader think and keep them guessing, and Hammer’s attention to detail in building the world of Riversend is absorbing. Published in 2018, Scrublands won the 2019 CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel. It is a compelling read and has recently been made into a series showing on STAN.

Book review: The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow & Liz Lawson

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The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson is a fun twisty young adult mystery.

Alice Ogilvie is a financially privileged A-lister but her upbringing is largely outsourced. She has been ostracised by the popular group at school after disappearing when her best friend stole her basketball star boyfriend. Now she refuses to talk about it and just needs to stay out of trouble.

Three hours back at school and I’m already in trouble? Good lord, I’ve barely had time to pee.

Iris Adams lives in a working class area with her single mum who works hard to provide for her daughter. Iris is asked by the school to become Alice’s tutor. The two are an unlikely pair, but soon become friends as they bond trying to solve a mystery – the disappearance of Alice’s best friend Brooke.

Well,” I say, “I once saw a show about a guy who bludgeoned his mother to death in the kitchen and then cooked a full meal of pot roast and mashed potatoes, so anything is possible.”
“Iris,” Alice says wearily. “You seem like such a nice person and her your brain is full of horrible things.

As the title suggests, the book pays homage to Agatha Christie. Alice is a big fan and is inspired by what she’s learnt from the mystery writers novels, using the strategies in her own search to solve the mystery of her missing friend.

We are probably this far from donning trench coats, smoking Lucky Strikes, and slinking furtively around town, taking notes in a little black book.
Which doesn’t actually sound all that bad, truth be told.

When Brooke’s body turns up and her boyfriend is arrested, the girls decide they need to find the real truth and fix the miscarriage of justice. They are aided by the hard drinking, smoking, disheveled female lawyer representing the boyfriend who also used to be Iris’s babysitter.

An English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections. Also known as the bestselling author of all time. Also, one bad bitch.

I really enjoyed the characters, the teenage dramas, the red herrings and the Christie references. Something in this one for young and old.

Book review: Devil House by John Darnielle

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Devil House by John Darnielle is about a true-crime writer who takes his craft to the next level. Gage Chandler buys an abandoned property in small town Milpitas, California. He moves in to write his next book – about a supposed occult double murder that happened in the building two decades prior when it was a pornographic book and video shop.

The future feels dramatic when you think you see a little of it cresting the horizon, the more so if the present feels routine.

After he moves in, Chandler starts recreating the crime scene, interviewing locals and scouring eBay for artifacts from the time of the murders. He interrogates rumours about what happened, searching for scraps of facts to sew together into a narrative.

But few things, at any rate, are more powerful than expectations. Blunt force, maybe. Firepower, certainly. Sword and steel. But even those have their limits. The imagination has none.

The world building is vivid in this story as the lives of disenfranchised small town teenagers are unpacked with a shifting broken narrative and Chandler grapples with the moral dilemma of writing about other people’s suffering.

There is, among the public, a perennial urge to believe the worst about the generation that will eventually replace them.

Devil House is gothic horror meets true-crime and almost fantasy…go there if you dare…bwahahaha!