Done Deal is the first book (obtainable online from Lulu(link is external)) by Melbourne author Tony Berry.

"The woman pulled a slim manila folder from a black leather briefcase.  She dropped it on to the cafe table with a bold flourish.  It was a deliberate, attention-seeking action, confronting and demanding.  Bromo Perkins lifted his head from his newspaper and glared at her."

Okay well more accurately I should say just finished - The Death Chamber by Sarah Rayne - I should have included a note about this book a week ago as I've been reading it for a while. 

"Georgina read the letter a second time - and then a third - because it was so extraordinary there was a strong possibility she had misunderstood it.  The heading was impressive.  In ornate lettering, it announced itself as being, 'The Caradoc Society for the pursuit of knowledge of psychic phenomena and the paranormal.  Founded 1917."

This book will be released tomorrow (2nd June), so starting to read today:

"The Crypt nightclub on Oxford Street was a crimson cube of blistered concrete and weeping gutters, diagonally across the road from the Supreme Court.  Its metal awning hung like a half-closed eyelid above the pavement, where at 10.59pm on New Year's Eve a queue of emaciated clubbers was already forming in the sheep race between the barristers and the wall."

Well Eurovision is over for another year - time to put away the Serbian cookbooks, dust off the Russian ones and start saving up for the caviar for next year's party.  Now I can get back to concentrating on some reading - well once the slight hangover has gone away at least.  I have actually been reading this book for a few days, just haven't had a chance to post anything on it yet.  I have got to say with each book I love Dr Siri more and more.  Sure the books have a healthy dose of woo woo, but Dr Siri is a Sharman in his native land and culture.  And Mr Geung is a very strong character i

For 20 years, Brian 'Frosty' Westlake has been the best mate, understudy, rigger and heir apparent to Australia's 'biggest export since wool', the TV naturalist Mick Lamington. Mick's worth a fortune, especially in the US, where the network and millions of viewers can't get enough of his laidback, larrikin joking around with the world's deadliest creatures.

Robin is a local author, well known for her many true crime books, but The Curse of the Golden Yo-Yo is her first crime non-fiction book - flagged as "A Cornelia Finnigan Mystery".  And it's really nice to see a dedication thanking the local Sisters in Crime chapter - they really are an impressive bunch of people that chapter.

At the front of this book it mentions that Judith Cutler has written over twenty novels, including two crime series set in the murkier depths of Birmingham.  There are also standalones set in the countryside.  Cold Pursuit has a really interesting central character - Chief Superintendent Fran Harman, about to retire, called back to duty when resourcing problems arise.  I can't think of another book I've read with an older female CS character, so it will be interesting.

"'Chief Superintendent Harman!  Ms Harman!'

A Greater Evil (Evil is Done in the US) is the 8th Trish Maguire book by Natasha Cooper. 

"The clay was dead between his fingers.  Cold and sticky as always, but unco-operative too. It smelled of decay.  He wasn't a fool:  he knew it was his mind and not the stuff itself that was the problem."

In the last few months the universe has been playing with my head. 

It all started with

Still Waters by Nigel McCrery.  An odd book no doubt about it, but rather engaging, some outlandish plot elements alongside some sobering all too realistic elements.

then came:

Still Waters by Camilla Noli.  Not my cup of tea at all.

but today arrived:

Stuart MacBride is one of my all time favourite authors.  I love his books, I read his blog.  I'm not so sure about his cabbage problem.  I like my husband's beard better!

Flesh House is the 4th book from him:

"No, you listen to me:  if my six year old son isn't back here in ten minutes I'm going to come round there and rip you a new arsehole, are we clear?"  Ian McLaughlin slapped a hand over the mouthpiece and shouted at his wife to turn that bloody racket down.  Then he went back to the idiot on the other end of the phone:  "Where the hell's Jamie?"

I'm really pleased to be reading this first book from a new to crime author.  So far it's very clever / funny.

Having read his first book way late (which I loved) I've now started on the second in a new series featuring local (to Melbourne) detective Rubens McCauley.

"To get what you want, you need to know what you want."  My mother first told me this when I was a young boy.  Think hard about what you want, she said, for knowing what you want is more difficult than actually getting it."

Crime Writers of Canada have announced the shortlist for the 2008 Arthur Ellis Awards for the best in Canadian crime writing and I guess you're wondering why we're announcing it on AustCrime - well Susan Parisi made the list.

What Burns Within is the first novel in a series of police procedurals set in Vancouver from Sandra Ruttan, Canadian Author, blogger of repute(link is external) and contributor to many of the lists and sites that I belong to.  Having been an avid reader of her posts, getting a copy of her book for review makes for interesting reading.  I'm about half way through at the moment, so more when I've finished the book.  It will be released in the North American market in May, but it is due to be available in Aust

This is the second book in a police procedural series set in Mongolia, which is unusual enough to start off with.

"They are out on the steppe, miles from home.  Miles from anywhere.

It is late afternoon, early spring.  The immense sky is clear, just a few wisps of cloud against the rich blue.  Everything - even the snow tipped mountains that surround them - is dwarfed by comparison."

It's been a busy long weekend around here so I've been a bit remiss in keeping up - I've nearly finished this book.

"It's eleven o'clock in the morning, late September, and outside it's raining so hard that cows are floating down rivers and birds are resting on their bloated bodies."

Having finished Still Waters by Camilla Noli last night I'm off for a palate freshner in this collection of Short Stories by Peter Corris.  A great little collection in which Cliff takes the punches, doles out the retribution, untangles divorce affairs, tracks down tree poisoners and finds the killer of a local Glebe identity.  Eleven stories in all - mid morning beers, crooked cops, and Sydney.  Excellent so far.

The Fourth Man by K. O. Dahl(link is external) - Faber and Faber (2008), Paperback, 320 pages
tags: Crime, MtTBR [Our New Books - LibraryThing(link is external)]

The Price of Darkness is the 8th in Graham Hurley's DI Joe Faraday series.

Adam's been reading again and he just finished this book (which impressed him).  This full review is on his own blog:

http://blogs.sakienvirotech.com/random

According to the attached press release Simone van der Vlugt is a major bestseller of psychological thrillers in her native Holland where The Reunion has sold over 200,000 copies.  Her three novels have sold over one million copies combined.

"I stand at the entrance to the beach, my hands in the pocket of my jacket, and look out to sea.  It's 6 May and way too cold for this time of year.  Apart from a solitary beachcomber, the beach is deserted.  The sea is the colour of lead.  Snarling and foaming, it swallows up more and more sand."

I've been wading around in the heavy side for a few books this month, so when this new book headed my way recently I thought it seemed like a perfect Autumn afternoon read - and it's funny.  Heavy handed with the main joke maybe, but funny nonetheless.

I think I'm going to like this book.  I started it last night and 100 pages longer was mildly annoyed I couldn't stay awake for another 100.

Another one of those books that have been sitting here, patiently waiting for me to catch up - this is by NZ born author Stella Duffy.

"I would sit in your mother's kitchen and watch the sun come up.  The kitchen is blue.  I remember when your dad painted it.  He is dead now.  They both are.  You killed them.  Like you killed me.  Like you killed everyone in your past.  You do not know your mother and you do not know your father and you do not know me.  Because that would mean them all knowing who you were.  But I remember."

Flagged as 'The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories" by The Times - The Passenger by Chris Petit is the next up on Mt TBR.

One of the bonuses of no power is that you can get some serious reading done.  Doesn't mean you can write up any reviews so I'll have to catch up with a couple of those soon.

I love Cliff Hardy.  I really like these books as well - they are probably the closest we have to current day "Pulp" style books - quick, short little vignettes that tell the tale and entertain hugely.  Open File is one of two new Cliff Hardy's I've got to read at the moment (spoilt rotten I am).  Dodging the prologue that fills in why Cliff is re-visiting a case from the late 1980's.

It has to be said.  I'm over the "over the top" villain.

This thought has been meandering around in my brain for the last few months.  Triggered undoubtedly by the range of books I've been reading recently. 

Personally I find nothing particularly sinister or clever or enlightening in the idea that, in order to be a perpetrator of a crime, that person must be overtly "evil", glaringly sinister, lurking around in dark alleys and behind trees, slathering, mumbling, muttering, barking mad, horrible, scary beyond all belief, "weird".

Well the TV show might be banned, but in Victoria you can buy the book without any problems at all.  I'm not at all sure what that says about the average juror or what it could be implying about book readers, but that's probably a discussion for another day.

"The bloodiest underworld war in the history of Australian crime began with both a bang and a whimper in a tiny park in the western suburb of Gladstone Park, near Melbourne Airport."

This is out now - a book that a lot of people have been talking about.

"Soviet Union
Ukraine
Village of Chervoy

25 January 1933

Since Maria had decided to die her cat would have to fend for itself.  She'd already cared for it far beyond the point where keeping a pet made any sense.  Rats and mice had long since been trapped and eaten by the villagers.  Domestic animals had disappeared shortly after that."

This is one of the books that himself bought back from LA for me.  Mind you, he read it first - for some reason this is the book that he picked to read waiting in the airport and finished in the days after he got home (once the flu had subsided and he could mind you!)  And I can see why he sat down and read it - I managed over 100 pages last night and really only gave up when I couldn't keep my eyes open for another minute.

I've had this book in Mt TBR for quite a while now, quietly hoarding it, having picked it up at an MWF a couple of years ago when Stephen Booth was one of the guests.  Reading it now for a discussion on the online list Murder & Mayhem.

"Soon there will be a killing.  It might happen in the next few hours  We could synchronize watches and count down the minutes.  What a chance to record the ticking away of a life, to follow it through to that last, perfect moment, when existence becomes nothing, when the spirit parts with the physical."

"Sydney March 1944

The dead woman's face is starkly pale, especially in contrast to the rest of her body, stained a deep mahogany brown after nearly ten years soaking in a formalin bath."

The Pyjama Girl was an unknown woman, found dumped by a road near Albury in 1934.  She had been brutally murdered.  Who she was, and who killed her, become Australia's great unsolved crime for decades.  The body was preserved in formalin, her image circulated around the world.

Just noticed on the Pulp Fiction Press(link is external) website this announcement:

Announcing Café la Femme

Hungry for new mysteries? Craving comedy?

Tansy Rayner Roberts, best known as a fantasy writer, has written us a honey of a crime novel – Café la Femme.  

The prologue for this book is valid as it's headed "Three Portraits of Lily"

"
"Are you sure you're going to be all right now?"

"I'll be fine, Grandma."

"I hate to go off and leave you."

Lily rolls her eyes.  "Grandma, I'm seventeen years old, I can take care of myself for two days."

"

Adam has just posted a review of this book over on his blog.

/dev/random - The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross
(link is external)

Follow the link to read the review in full - he likes these books :)

Text have recently released SHOOTING STAR - originally published in 1999 and re-reading it is absolutely no chore whatsoever.

"The house was in a street running off Ballarat Road.  Doomed weatherboard dwellings with rusting roofs and mangy little patches of lawn faced each other across a pocked tarmac strip.  At the end of the street, by the feeble light of a streetlamp, two boys were kicking a football to each other, uttering feral cries as they lost sight of it against the almost-dark sky."

After having read Eden recently, I've realised that this is one of Dorothy Johston's books I've not yet read.  So let's fix that now

Having just finished Head Shot (yes I know - slow, very very slow), I'm pleased to see some reviews / discussion popping up about Jarad Henry's second book - Blood Sunset.  Follow this link for a review that's shown up at Boomerang Books. 

By the author of The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy (which you really want to get just for the title!) The Affair of the Mutilated Mink.

Now for those that think I've finally gone barking mad as this doesn't sound like my normal fare, this is a fabulous, tongue in cheek yoicks tally ho and away style which is frightfully funny (donchaknow) - well it is to me at least.  And they are very entertaining books into the bargain.  Of course it's all just ever so slightly over the top (and I have to say, one of the nicest  dust jacket designs I've seen in a while.)

We're in the middle of the early Autumn heatwave from hell.  So I could be doing all sorts of jobs around the place.  But I'm not.  I'm reading instead.

Dodging some historical information as a lead in and a prologue to take this opening paragraph from Chapter One.

"Drumlanrig Castle, Scotland
18th April - 11.58am

As the car drew up, a shaft of light appeared through a break in the brooding sky.  The castle's sandstone walls glowed under its gentle touch, an unexpected shock of pink against the ancient greens of the surrounding hills and woodlands."

Interesting to see that Penguin's latest newsletter has come out with a mention for And Hope to Die by J M Calder which was reviewed here a while ago now.

For more from Penguin wander off to Penguin Most Wanted(link is external)

While you're on the Penguin site - check out the rest of the upcoming / new titles including:

I'm about 200 pages into this so I'm running late as usual:

"When the man opened his eyes, it was so dark that at first he thought they were still closed.  So he tried again, but nothing changed.  It was dark - a hot black stifling darkness that seemd to suck the breath out of him.  He sensed movement, heard the whine of tires ^[sic]on pavement, but he had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there."

Wellllll technically I'm a bit behind with the "paperwork" so I'm already about a third of the way through this, and it's really very good.  Very sad to note that the translation was done by Bernard Scudder - what a great service that man has provided to readers of Icelandic crime fiction. He'll be greatly missed.

Don't panic.

It's not an earthquake

It's just me doing happy dances.

Pulp Fiction Press(link is external) have made the following announcement

Okay, well I'm a bit biased, spending a large part of my life surrounded by Open Source Software, newish technology and new ways of delivering services, but you have no idea what a nice feeling it was to see a note from Eoin Hennigan in my email box this morning (Thunderbird email client incidentally).  Following that email to his site what gave me a real sense of pleasure was to see that you can get Eoin's book as a free download OR you can order a copy via Lulu.

1. You are now the author of 3 series novels.  What do you see as the likely reader's for your books. 

1.  Given you have a large audience in YA and children's books how do you craft a mystery for a YA audience / what do you think you need to consider in doing that?

SOHO Crime's latest newsletter has been announced - and the first book is Diamond Dove (Moonlight Downs).  Follow the link below for some stunning review snippets:

http://www.sohopress.com/crimenewsletter.html

1.  Your first book, Vodka Doesn't Freeze, was obviously hugely influenced by your day to day job experience.  Will you be doing something similar with the second book?

1.  Your latest book "Unkind Cut" is labelled a culinary murder mystery.  What influenced you to write books in that famous cozy / culinary type of style?

1. Your books have an Australian central character, but they are set in the US. What were the reasons behind that, and what complications does that bring to the writing process.

Just picked this book from Scribe up:

"If she had known she would be dead in another five minutes, maybe she wouldn't have swatted her son so hard."