AustCrimeFiction - All Blogs

By Death Divided is the 14th book in the Thackeray and Ackroyd Series by Patricia Hall. 

"Rage overtook him like a foul fog, filling his mouth with bile and squeezing his chest like a vice, forcing breath from his lungs with a harsh rattle.  There was never any warning.  One moment he was calm and in control, and the next filled with this murderous madness, which he only half-remembered after it had abated."

About to pick this one up:

"October 27th, 6 hours before outbreak.

A plague that will cause the death of millions.  A plague that will destroy countries.  A plague that will plunge the world into a dark age.  A plague that will make nobody sick."

I've been looking forward to this book, very very very much looking forward to this book.  This is the first of three novels by crusading liberal journalist Stieg Larsson, who died shortly after the three novels were delivered to his Swedish publisher.  Alas he is not alive to see the level of interest and praise that THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is garnering.

This is the 5th book in the Philip Dryden series.  Philip is a big city newspaper journalist who has since moved to a very small town when his wife has a bad car accident and is comatosed for many years.  The books do that balance of the personal and the "mystery" really well and it doesn't hurt that Philip is a very engaging character.

Manhunt, The Vengeance of the Gods - Conspiracy and Murder in Ancient Egypt.

"Kel woke with a start and leapt to his bedroom window.  Judging by the sun's position, the morning was already far advanced.  He, a brilliant young man considered very gifted and destined for a fine career, was going to be punished for a heinous crime:  being monstrously and inexcusably late for work at the Interpreters' Secretariat".

Having now finished the big beautiful The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo, it's on to this book.

"Rumor^[sic], hearsay, folklore.  Whichever way it laid down to rest it came up for air, rumor^[sic] had it that a white feather indicated the visitation of an angel."

I've picked this book up after having it here for the longest time, because it's an upcoming discussion book on 4 Mystery Addicts
(link is external)

"A grey bird glided in and out of Harry's field of vision.  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.  Slow time.  Somebody had been talking about 'slow time' on TV yesterday.  This was slow time.  Like on Christmas Eve before Father Christmas came.  Or sitting in the electric chair before the current was turned on."

Well it's the lead story on The Age's website right now - doesn't mean something won't move it away later in the day, but for a short time... Crime Fiction makes headlines!

http://tinyurl.com/2tn948(link is external)

If you're quick:  http://www.theage.com.au

Amongst a fabulous other line-up for 2008 on ABC TV, this little gem:

Fan Mail will be officially launched on the 7th February with an online webcast - if you head off to:

http://www.pdmartin.com.au/news.asp?id=52(link is external)

For details of the webcast, where to login and the various times for times in Australia, North America (East and West coast) and UK / Ireland.

Back to the pile of unread Australian books that I keep hoarding away.  I must try harder to read the occasional book from this pile - it's threatening to topple and flatten a dog on any given day   The most recent I've grabbed from there starts off:

This book snuck it's way into the letterbox yesterday and made it straight to the top of the reading pile.  How could it not....  it opens:

This is my first book by this author - the writer of Silent Witness and New Tricks.  First para (avoiding the prologue):

I just found out that Sensitive New Age Spy (Geoff McGeachin's new book) has just been released by Bolinda Audio (this link will take you directly to the full set of three of his books in audio format)(link is external),   and then realised it had been a while since I had a wander around their site.

This year will be the first year of the Writers Festival at Federation Square, rather than our beloved (albeit somewhat crowded) Malthouse Theatre.

Organisers announced the dates yesterday - 22nd to 31st August, so we'd better start preparing holidays, comfy shoes and the whole box and dice.

I like reading dedications in books and imaging the story behind them.  Absolution has a ripper - To Jessie Ramsay, born 1904.  You can tell a Sheffield lass, You just cannot tell her much.

The book has two main sections, so I thought a little grab from each:

Anna, Glasgow 1984

White.

Nothing but white.

No sense.  No awareness. Only white.

Nothing.

Then breathing.

Rhythmic breathing.

Nothing more than the ebb and flow of life.

Blurbed as Five Hunters.  Thirteen hostages.  One reluctant hero, the first paragraph of POWER PLAY is:

"If you've never killed someone, you really can't imagine what it's like.  You don't want to know.  It leaves you with something hard and leaden in the pit of your stomach, something that never dissolves."

Recently, on his way back from Orlando, storms there held Adam up, which meant an unexpected overnight in LA, and a quick trip to Small World Books in Venice Beach - lucky me scored some great Bitter Lemon and SOHO Crime titles.  The first of these I read was Goat Song by Chantal Pelletier.  Opening paragraph:

This is actually the first Ed Loy book - I read the second, The Colour of Blood a while ago and really liked it - so I've been meaning to get to this first book for a while.

"The night of my mother's funeral, Linda Dawson cried on my shoulder, put her tongue in my mouth and asked me to find her husband.  Now she was lying dead on her living-room floor, and the howl of a police siren echoed through the surrounding hills."

Paranormal crime fiction, which should be interesting for me at least.  First paragraph:

"She didn't feel quite right about the red dress; it wasn't a red dress kind of day.  The blue one was nice.  She'd tried on the blue one twice already, but the more she thought about it, te more she knew it had to be green.  Yes, green would be best for today."

In an article today on The Sydney Morning Herald's(link is external) site it's been announced that Sandra Harvey has died after a short battle with cancer.  She was 49 years old.

Just a short snippet from the article:

"Harvey, a former  Sydney Morning Herald  and AAP journalist, wrote a number of acclaimed non-fiction books about notorious Australian crimes.

Not having quite finished with my current run of "darks" - Dark Flight, by Lin Anderson.  This is my second book from this Edinburgh based author.

Little more than a first paragraph this time, to give you a general feel for how the book opens

"'You can go outside, but stay in the garden.  Do you hear me, Stephen?'  His mum's voice was shrill, like a witch's.

The Great Victorian Summer Read(link is external) is a great blog which I've been following.  The last couple of entries on the blog are from Adrian Hyland (he of Diamond Dove - a great Australian crime fiction novel if ever there was one).  As well as Adrian there have been contributions from a lot of other authors who will ring bells.  Wander over and have a look, in particular Adrian is talking

The Carnival is on a roll and I'm scrambling to catch up.  For Number 8, we stop over at Detectives Beyond Borders for Peter's take on all things criminally attractive in his parts.  I can highly recommend a wander over that way - you'll be astounded at what the rest of us haven't yet read!

Bit of a palate cleanser before returning to my current "Dark" theme, first paragraph:

"Last night I'd felt a chill in the air, but today would be another hot one.  I'd opened all the windows, and a little fan was humming away on the desk.  The stink of sweat mingled with the smell of food from the bowling alley in the basement.  The odour of hamburgers and chips came wafting up to my office on the fourth floor.  I thought I'd read in the paper that the place had gone bust last winter, but now the smell of fast food was spreading through the building."

Labelled as "a deeply unnerving literary thriller from acclaimed New Zealand writer Neil Corss - one of the scriptwriters on Spooks - that tantalises and then shocks the reader, as it delves into a troubled mind and untangles the complex relationships that surround an unusual family".

First paragraph:

"It was only a dead ape.  Patrick had seen dozens, one way or another.  He'd seen them die naturally, of old age and disease - and heard the war-shrieks as they murdered each other.  He'd watched them cannibalize their young".

I seem to have been drawn to the dark side - finished The Darkness Within (which I'll write up soon) and started The Darkness Inside by John Rickards.  First paragraph (chapter one not the prologue):

First Paragraph (of Chapter 1 / not the prologue):

"Another rain squall splashed across the windshield, as hard and thick as guilt, and yet again Emily wondered what in the hell she was doing out here on a night like this."

This is a debut book, probably more Gothic Horror than any other "category" I can think of - more to come in a full review.

I've just picked up this first book from Canadian born / Australian residing first-time author - Susan Parisi.  The first paragraph:

First paragraph:

I started off doing this one by one - got the first one documented and since then have been absymal in keeping up - so without further ado - the ENTIRE list:

Carnival of the Criminal Minds is still rolling along, even though I've been very remiss in mentioning that the most recent stop is over at the BookBitch's blog:

http://bookbitch.blogspot.com/

Swan on over for another great entry.

Not Crime Fiction, but the release of David Hicks over the Christmas break prompted me to move this book up the unread pile.  We purchased it after seeing a session at MWF in which Leigh Sales participated - her discussion of the book intrigued us considerably.  If you're interested at all in the background of the treatment and case against David Hicks this is an excellently written book.  It provides a narrative form of non-fiction which makes it extremely readable whilst providing great insight into the events leading up to his arrest as well as, what can possibly ever hope to be gleaned,

Adam has posted a few reviews tonight including two for books that he's EXTREMELY enthusiastic about.

Brasyl by Ian McDonald
 

and

Overnight the Guardian have published a story on Terry Pratchett's health that's ... well ... in Terry's own words "An Embuggerance".  A rare form of ealy onset Alzheimer's but Mr Pratchett is careful to point out - he's not dead yet.

But an Embuggerance is absolutely right. 

http://materialwitness.typepad.com/material_witness/2007/12/carnival-of-...

The carnival has swanned over to the UK this time round with a great combination of Christmas and Crime (now there's a subject for a blog - "Christmas is a Crime - discuss")

Early Christmas present for me - Redback by Lindy Cameron:

Blurb from the book:  On an otherwise tranquil Pacific Island resort, ex-army Commander Bryn Gideon and the crack Australian Redback Retrieval Team stage a high-level rescue bid to recover hostages captured by Rebels.  Thousands of miles away, American journalist Scott Dreher is researching computer wargames, and finds a pirated copy that reveals shady arms dealings and disturbing hints of connections between government agencies and known terrorists.

This week there's been quite a flurry of discussion around - from "The Death of the Book" to somewhat less excited analysis of the future for electronic book readers, triggered mostly, by Amazon's release of their device, called, for some incomprehensible reason the Kindle.

Mary Saums has picked up the Carnival of the Criminal Minds across at Femmes Fatales this week.   In typical grand style, Mary points us to the fabulous and fantastic that has crossed her crime fiction path recently.  Wander over and follow the Carnival - it's proving to be a fantastic way of keeping up with the goings on.

A quick glance at Katherine's website shows that Panic has been renamed The Darkest Hour - and there's a bit more info on the book, so we've updated our listings here.

Yesterday we spent a very happy hour or so in the company of a lot of other people in the beautiful old Baptist Church in Collins Street in Melbourne, listening to Shane Maloney and Ian Rankin chat.

The session was organised by local bookstore Readers Feast, as part of their new Crime and Justice Festival - which Ian Rankin is the International Patron for.  This sounds like a fascinating and very exciting idea for a festival - combing crime fiction and issues of social justice.

The R.D. Wingfield version of Frost that is (not the cold white stuff on the ground), I recently started to "flick read" HARD FROST for an upcoming discussion one of my two favourite online reading groups - 4MA (4_Mystery_Addicts).

Sigh

SIIIIGGGHHHHH

Sigh

On holidays this week (or at least himself is, although having your head stuck in a fire prevention system making sure it's all working for a week might not be some people's idea of a holiday....) but one of the bonuses is that over the weekend I read EXIT MUSIC.

There's something profoundly, fundamentally, deep down inside satisfying about a convergence of events that indicate a change of season.  First there's the baby Kookaburra's sort of wobbling their way up and down the branches of the big ghost gum at the end of the house; then you realise that the King Parrots are calling each other from the trees on either side of the garden - and you get a sneaking suspicion that some of those King Parrots look younger than others - so the babies have hatched.  The apple trees flower and leaf, the Yucca re-emerges from the ground and the self-sown tomato s

Last night's First Tuesday Bookclub on the ABC discussed On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler - keep an eye on their website:  http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/ because you'll be able to watch the espisode online as soon as it's posted.

Next month they are looking at Ruth Rendell's Not In the Flesh.

Over the weekend I felt like a brief break from review books and my gaze was drawn to UNDER THE SNOW by Kerstin Ekman.   I confess to having struggled to get started with BLACKWATER - probably one of her more well known books for reasons I'm not too sure about.  I've started BLACKWATER and put it down a few times, but UNDER THE SNOW didn't present me with that challenge (not that I've given up on BLACKWATER - I think I just need to concentrate more).

Peter Ralph has a new book out with Melbourne Books - The CEO.  Labelled as a Business Thriller, it was reviewed recently on Boomerang Books.

I've added details on Kathryn Fox's third novel, Skin and Bone, which has just been published.  This book is not part of the Anya Chrichton series, but features Kate Farrer, the detective from Malicious Intent.

Fox, on her website has said that Anya will be back in the next book, but that she also has lots of plot ideas for other lead characters, some of whom appeared in Malicious Intent.

We've sort of been busy for the last few days - the day job can sometimes be such an imposition on the fun and games that you'd prefer to be doing.   Things are a bit quiet on the reading front as well, although I've started Dorothy Johnston's Eden and my current position on it can be summed up thus:  Wow.

Very sad news from The Age today - Steve J Spears died yesterday - 16th October.  He was 56 years old.  Amongst an enormous body of other work, Steve wrote 3 crime fiction books in the Stella Pentangeli and Investigator Ng series.  Arty, elaborate, and totally unrealistic, they are 3 light-hearted, funny and highly entertaining.

Peter Corris has another Cliff Hardy outing Appeal Denied.  Out and about as of June this year (I'm behind as usual) and available via Allen & Unwin's website (for overseas interest). 

All I can say is I'm ignorning the ominous rumblings: 

"Dirty dealings, corrupt cops, computer geeks and a final showdown at an exclusive Sydney beach - is this Cliff Hardy's last adventure?"

and looking forward to another outing with our own resident Lone Dingo, Hard Case,  PI - Cliff Hardy.

Barbara has now posted a "schedule" for the Carnival at:  http://crimecarnival.wordpress.com/when-is-it-happening/

Next up will be The Western Banker by Joe Barrett.

The author is a litigation specialist in the City of London dealing with International Trade, financing and shipping.  Currently he is on a sabbatical planning his PhD on the World Trade Organisation.  His next novel is to be based on the exploitation of the environmental agenda by big business.

The blurb from "The Western Banker" is: