Karen Chisholm
Second from the reading pile from yesterday.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
An enforced day off yesterday with the power out for maintenance meant some reading catching up.
From the Blurb:
Police sergeant Harry Brent, working in Queenstown, New Zealand is accidentally shot by a hunter. While still on light duties he is posted to the Christchurch office to work on cold cases.
What does the difference between the shadows mean? Who is the body in the trench at Tekapo Military Camp? Harry’s eye for detail and his need to know set him on the path to answering these questions.
Karen Chisholm
A novella squeezed in amongst other things. Okay other things I should have been doing but still...
From the Blurb:
Sixteen-year old Heidi has always dreamed of being a society photographer for the rich and famous. Instead, her first film project plunges her into a world of subterfuge as she joins a courageous group of teenage protesters committed to saving orangutans in the wild.
Karen Chisholm
Another from the staggeringly varied #yeahnoir pile
From the Blurb:
It's Broadway in Reefton, the new, booming 1870s gold town.
Suspiciously, Gordon Trembath, a naive young police constable has been left in charge over Christmas and New Year. He is immediately faced with investigating a murder carried out by sly-groggers in the valley.
In the meantime, the town has been invaded by "a collection of scamps, card sharps, liars and chats who have come to town for the pickings available in the holiday season."
Karen Chisholm
From the was reading pile, this is fascinating.
From The Blurb:
Minnie Dean: the first – and only – woman to be hanged in New Zealand. Baby farmer and child murderer, or hardworking wife and mother, supporting her family by caring for unwanted children in a society that shunned her?
Karen Zelas explores the trials of Minnie Dean using a myriad of voices, including Dean’s own, from her childhood in Scotland to the gallows in Invercargill, 1895.
Karen Chisholm
Another from the past overdue for mention pile.
From the Blurb:
Martin Fallaway is dying. With no family to whom he can leave his surplus fortune, he holds a contest on his tropical island, where ten families compete to be the last team left in order to claim the prize of thirty million dollars.
Karen Chisholm
Another from the previously reading pile.
From the Blurb:
When Dean Bradley is brutally murdered for his new shoes, undertaker Ken Tamati does a lovely job on the corpse — but next morning, the body has vanished from the funeral parlour.
That day, a mysterious figure — witnesses give wildly conflicting descriptions — begins rescuing victims of assault all over Auckland and healing their horrific injuries with a dazzling light. They call him the Rainbow Man.
Karen Chisholm
And we're caught up for the moment - currently reading this one.
From the Blurb:
On Sundays peace was restored. He would lie down, dream and remember. He would enjoy. And later on the bell would ring. He would get up and walk downstairs. He would open the front door. And his life would come to an end . . .
Garda Inspector Michael McLoughlin is trying to enjoy his retirement – doing a bit of PI work on the side, meeting up with former colleagues, fixing up a grand old house in a genteel Dublin suburb near the sea.
Karen Chisholm
The follower of this blog will realise that I'm not prone to personal posts, but I need to apologise.
I'm very very behind with reviews, mentions, comments and generally things that those kind enough to send me review books would expect.
Karen Chisholm
From the piles of reading, sod all blogging I've been doing recently.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
From the wonderfulness that is the pile of New Zealand Crime fiction.
From the Blurb:
‘Cynthia can understand how Anahera feels just by looking at her body.’
Karen Chisholm
It's that time of the year where posting becomes erratic and reading consumes every spare moment. Sometimes life is hard ;)
From the Blurb:
“There was Polly’s tokotoko on the ground. Carved and polished, with its eel head, the snout inlaid with pāua. Alexia picked it up and cracked it across the cop’s shoulders. She raised it again and hit and hit. She would stop this.”
Karen Chisholm
Started this over the weekend - new crime fiction after a long break from Stella Duffy.
From the Blurb:
Life is good for Laurie and Martha. They have three great kids, a much-loved home in the countryside, and after years of struggle, Laura's career as an architect is taking off at last. Everything's perfect.
Except, it isn't.
Someone is about to walk into their happy family and tear it apart.
Karen Chisholm
Diving into my New Zealand piles at the moment, this one became this weekend's reading for no particular reason.
From the Blurb:
He’s lost his wife, his job, and his mana. So what now? A PI? He really couldn’t get used to it. Traipsing around after unfaithful wives and little old ladies’ lost dogs? Was this the future for Carlos Wallace? And what of the beautiful matakite? Wasn’t it a sin to fall in love with your cousin?
Karen Chisholm
Read this one last week. Obviously behind with the mentions!
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
This over the weekend for a number of reasons. Firstly "ice". It was so mind-numbingly, life-threateningly hot here over the weekend I needed distraction. Then although set in Iceland, Nicol is a New Zealander and I'm back reading a lot of NZ fiction at the moment. Finally at 98 or so pages long it was a perfect filler between forays into the stinking horrible heat to try to keep livestock pointing in the right direction.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
From my weekend's reading, this thriller, first in a series based around US SEAL and a threat to the US mainland.
From the Blurb:
The fate of America lies in the hands of one team of US SEALs. The US mainland is under threat as never before. Osama bin Laden is dead, and the world can relax. Or can they? Remaining leaders of Al-Qaeda want revenge, and they want it against the USA. When good fortune smiles on them and the opportunity presents itself to use stolen weapons of mass destruction, it's Game On!
Karen Chisholm
It has been hot enough to cook outside - and I don't mean on a BBQ. It's deathly hot in these parts at the moment, so I am getting limited reading down, and not a lot of posting at all whilst we battle with the trials and tribulations of stinking heat and no water. I will catch up. It has to cool down again one day surely! Meanwhile something from the because I want to read it pile.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
I've been dipping into this collection now for a while, working my way through an amazing range of short stories, all set in Australia, written by local authors harking back to the style of Arthur Conan Doyle. As is always the way there's something for everyone in these.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Another from the over Christmas / New Year pile - this time a republished historical novel with heaps of interesting background to it.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Promised myself this would be my Boxing Day Test reading this year - which turned out to be the perfect choice, what with that awful wicket.
From the Blurb:
Say it's not so, but detective squads still put their faith in the whiteboard and texta, brainstorming difficult cases. Like this:
Karen Chisholm
I started this the other night and was enthralled from the start. For our first 2018 f2f bookclub gathering.
From the Blurb:
Heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Reckoning is the book where Magda Szubanski, one of Australia’s most beloved performers, tells her story.
Karen Chisholm
Took a little break over Christmas / New Year. Did some reading (not enough). Did some work around the farm (too much). Melted in the heat (a lot). Drank some ridiculously lovely wine (never enough). Ate chocolate (mind your own business about how much). Read a Stuart MacBride novel that featured Roberta Steel which made me happy.
From the Blurb:
From the No. 1 bestselling author of the Logan McRae series, comes a standalone spinoff featuring DS Roberta Steel
Karen Chisholm
I'm behind with everything and bloody hate coming up with Top howevermany's so I'm not pretending to try anymore. Instead, a list of books that just nailed it this year. In no particular order, or quantity, although I have had a go at combining them into geographical locations so you know - result.
Australia
Fiction
Too Easy, J.M. Green (review to come at Newtown Review of Books, but this is the second book in the Stella Hardy series and it's required reading).
Karen Chisholm
Having now officially completely lost control of Mt TBR I'm randomly picking things based on some criteria or another. So I started this one over the weekend. Not sorry.
From the Blurb:
What happens when a drug dealer is forced to turn detective?
Meet Bill Murdoch, the world's most reluctant private investigator.
Karen Chisholm
A two sitting read from 2017 Ngaio Marsh Award winner. There's something about this author's work ...
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
This has been sitting on the to be read pile for way too long.
From the Blurb:
Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side.
The hike through the rugged Giralang Ranges is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. At least that is what the corporate retreat website advertises.
Karen Chisholm
It's been busy in these parts but I have been getting a bit of reading done. Particularly pleased it was this one, straight from the very hard to put down camp.
From the Blurb:
When 25-year-old Bella Michaels is brutally murdered in the small town of Strathdee, the community is stunned and a media storm descends.
Karen Chisholm
I've jumped this up the queue because I needed a bit of a kickstart to get reading seriously again. It's working.
From the Blurb:
In 1999, a number of young women go missing in the Perth suburb of Claremont. One body is discovered. Others are never seen again. Snowy Lane (City of Light) is hired as a private investigator but neither he nor the cops can find the serial killer. Sixteen years later, another case brings Snowy to Broome, where he teams up with Dan Clement (Before It Breaks) and an incidental crime puts them back on the Claremont case.
Karen Chisholm
The usual suspects took a back seat as first-time crime writers Fiona Sussman, Finn Bell, and Michael Bennett swept the spoils at the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards in Christchurch on Saturday night.
The talented trio made history on several fronts at a special WORD Christchurch event hosted in Dame Ngaio’s hometown by Scorpio Books as part of nationwide NZ Bookshop Day celebrations.
Karen Chisholm
Another from New Zealand - this time set in a small town hiding lots of old secrets.
From the Blurb:
The body of missing tourist Bethany Haliwell is found in the small Coromandel town of Castle Bay, where nothing bad ever happens. News crews and journalists from all over the country descend on the small seaside town as old secrets are dragged up and gossip is taken as gospel.
Among them is Miller Hatcher, a journalist battling her own demons, who arrives intent on gaining a promotion by covering the grisly murder.
Karen Chisholm
One from the more recent piles because it intrigued, and now it's really compelling.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
I've not been getting much reading done for the last couple of weeks as I'm solo farming at the moment. Hopefully that will sort itself out in the next couple of days when my partner returns from an overseas work trip, and I'm taking to a relaxing chair for a few days :)
From the Blurb:
Everyone loves Summer Ryan. A model student and musical prodigy, she's a ray of light in the struggling small town of Grace, Alabama - especially compared to her troubled sister, Raine.
Karen Chisholm
There is no way in this world that a Rowland Sinclair book is going to lurk long on the reading piles around here - started this one last night. Want a Chrysler Airflow already.
From the Blurb:
Book 8 in the Rowland Sinclair Mystery Series.
Set against the glamorous backdrop of the 1930s in Australia and overseas, A Dangerous Language is the latest in the much loved, award winning Rowland Sinclair Mysteries.
Karen Chisholm
I'm blatantly cherry picking from the piles now.
From the Blurb:
Terrorism, politics and betrayals collide in this unputdownable, fast-paced thriller from a highly recognisable political insider.
Karen Chisholm
This is one of those books that has been needling away, wanting to be read.
Karen Chisholm
Picking a few random self-published books from the Ned Kelly submissions in 2017 leds me to the third Inspector West book from SA author, Peter Mulraney.
From the Blurb:
Murder. Arson. Revenge.
Detective Inspector West investigates the grisly deaths of two elderly priests: one in a suspicious fire; the other obviously murdered.
The inspector is not the only one hunting the priest killer.
Karen Chisholm
From the recent reading piles I've been catching up with - strong first book in what's intended as an ongoing series.
From the Blurb:
London, 1863: Women in Waterloo are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim.
The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigate.
Karen Chisholm
The bonus about being laid low by illness has definitely been the excellent books to read - this was one of them.
From the Blurb:
When eighteen-year-old Chloe Emery returns to her West London home she finds her mother missing, the house covered in blood. Everything points to murder, except for one thing: there’s no sign of the body.
Karen Chisholm
One from this year's Ned Kelly submission list, set around Warrnambool in Victoria.
From the Blurb:
After a medical mishap, Dr Vince Hanrahan crashes professionally and personally, is all but struck off, and the Medical Board kicks him all the way down the Princes Highway to be a rural GP. Supervised. On notice. He rents a dump, lives off takeaway, and plans to see out his time before regaining his rightful position on the specialist pedestal.
Karen Chisholm
This one has been sitting there on Mt TBR for a while now, just winking and asking to be read.
From the Blurb:
Welcome to the Misfit Mob…
It’s where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can’t get rid of, but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it’s his job to find out which museum it’s been stolen from.
Karen Chisholm
Just in time for f2f bookclub reading.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
Bittersweet reading. On the one hand I've sort of been hoarding it a little, knowing that this will be the last ever Inspector Anders book, but on the other hand I've been keen to read it.
From the Blurb:
Inspector Anders of the Rome Police became a hero when he closed down an anarchist group years ago. But in the action he lost a leg - and his nerve. Since then, he's made his moral compromises. Now, battle-weary, he'll do one last job.
Karen Chisholm
In the days after the Awards Ceremony it's wonderful to watch the congratulations for much deserved winners rolling in.
Karen Chisholm
Fell over the first in the series via the Ned Kelly listings in recent years - particularly pleased to see a 2nd novel in the series now out.
From the Blurb:
Karen Chisholm
From last week's reading pile.
From the Blurb:
When a body is found buried near the desolate forest road of Kellers Way, Detective Melanie Carter must identify the victim if she is to have any chance of finding the killer. That's no easy task with fragmentary evidence from a crime committed years earlier and a conspiracy of silence from anyone who might have information.
Karen Chisholm
From the weekend's pile - really liked the earlier one in this series.
From the Blurb:
Wisecracking social worker Stella Hardy returns, and this time she’s battling outlaw bikie gangs, corrupt cops, and a powerful hunger for pani puri.
On a stormy Halloween night, Stella gets a call from her best friend, Detective Phuong Nguyen. Phuong has a problem. Or rather her lover, Bruce Copeland, does.
Karen Chisholm
There’s fresh blood aplenty in the local crime writing ranks and the usual suspects were nowhere to be found as the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists were named on Monday.
Karen Chisholm
The Australian Crime Writers Association today announced the shortlists for the 2017 Ned Kelly Awards for the best in Australian crime writing.
Karen Chisholm
Second from this weekend's reading pile.
From the Blurb:
A fast-paced international thriller by top Melbourne author of fiction and non-fiction, Roland Perry. This is a sequel to Perry’s first book titled The Honourable Assassin (2015) in a new series of thrillers that incorporate actual events, criminal organisations and key figures in the underworld of Asia as they play out globally, involving international law enforcement and intelligence operations.
Karen Chisholm
Started this one last night.
From the Blurb:
Neve Ayres has always been so careful. Since her mother’s death when Neve was seven, she’s learned to look after herself and to keep her cards close. But now her deliberately constructed world has collapsed: her partner’s left her when she was eight months pregnant. And so, alone with her newborn son, she’s retreated to her cliff-top holiday house in coastal Flinders.
There, another child comes into her life.
Karen Chisholm
Really enjoyed the first of this series, Through a Camel's Eye.
Bobby lay curled like a seahorse, like a puppy… red marks round his throat… facing Swan Island.
The local senior constable, Chris Blackie and his deputy Anthea Merritt, expect the murder investigation to be handled by Geelong-based detectives from the Criminal Investigation Unit. But they’re blind-sided by the interest personnel from the secret military training base on Swan Island take in the case, strongly suspecting that the Detective Inspector may be taking direction from them.
Karen Chisholm
A slight change of setting - moving to Tokyo and a book by an American Professor of Literature and author resident in Tokyo.
From the Blurb:
Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. He’s lost his girlfriend and still dreams of his time studying in America, but with a stable job, his own office and a half-empty apartment, he’s settled in.
Karen Chisholm
I did some housekeeping over the weekend. The sort where you sweep all the books off the pile to be read and pluck out one that you really want to read. I did restack the pile again and promise I'm doing some catching up with badly overdue review books. But it was nice to get some tidying up done :)
From the Blurb:
Deaf since early childhood, Caleb Zelic is used to meeting life head-on. Now, he’s struggling just to get through the day. His best mate is dead, his ex-wife, Kat, is avoiding him, and nightmares haunt his waking hours.