Now and into the future, this page will contain a regularly updated list of crime, mystery or thriller fiction reviews that have been published in full here on Crime Watch. Moving forward, many or most of the reviews will have been written specifically for Crime Watch, but some will continue to be full reprints (with permission) from particular print magazines who don't place their reviews online (e.g Latitude, NZLawyer, WildTomato).You will be able to quickly and easily access this page (which will be regularly updated) at any time by clicking on CRIME WATCH REVIEWS on the grey linkbar at the top of the blog. Enjoy!
Reviews list last updated Thursday 30 September 2010
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 8 March 2010
An absolutely ripping page-turner. Small-town reporter David Harwood’s rather low-key life is upended when his recently-depressed wife Jan vanishes from a popular theme park. As if that wasn't bad enough, when the police can’t find any evidence of Jan ever being at the park, the finger of suspicion begins to point David’s way. A body in a shallow grave increases the pressure, and David must dig into an unclear past to uncover the truth. READ MORE.
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Bates, David - BENEATH THE CHERRY TREE
An absolutely ripping page-turner. Small-town reporter David Harwood’s rather low-key life is upended when his recently-depressed wife Jan vanishes from a popular theme park. As if that wasn't bad enough, when the police can’t find any evidence of Jan ever being at the park, the finger of suspicion begins to point David’s way. A body in a shallow grave increases the pressure, and David must dig into an unclear past to uncover the truth. READ MORE.
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Bates, David - BENEATH THE CHERRY TREEReviewed by Craig Sisterson, 22 January 2010
Lawyers, judges, blackmail, betrayal, hidden romance; Tauranga lawyer David Bates’ debut novel has plenty of dramatic elements. Having practiced as a criminal barrister for more than 20 years, it’s unsurprising he chooses to set a large part of BENEATH THE CHERRY TREE amongst the client interviews and courtrooms of the legal world. But this is no Grisham-esque legal thriller; instead a book that explores family and friendship, forbidden love and falls from grace. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 2 October 2009
When rugby star Alex Solona, who began life on the tough streets of South Auckland, is murdered in the arms of beautiful socialite Mikky St Claire, it seems an open-and-shut case of a drug deal gone wrong. A view bolstered by Solona’s former friend and rugby teammate Kamal Fifita confessing to the crime. But as legal researcher Anna Markunas begins to research Fifita and Solona’s backgrounds, she begins to suspect something far more sinister. READ MORE.
Reviewed by Joanne Taylor, 19 September 2010
I eagerly awaited the second novel from Auckland writer Alix Bosco. SLAUGHTER FALLS continues the ability of the prime character, Anna Markunas, to end up in bizarre crime scenes. Eager to put her research skills to use in Queensland while there on holiday, Markunas attempts to track down the family of a fellow tour party member who died suddenly. As she gets closer to the truth, the dark world of Australia's corrupt underbelly looms... READ MORE.
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Brown, Sandra - FAT TUESDAY
Brown, Sandra - FAT TUESDAY Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 3 April 2009
Opens with the acquittal of the man NOPD detective Burke Basile blames for the shooting death of his partner, before following Basile’s increasingly wild attempts to seek revenge on powerful defence attorney Pinkie Duvall. Basile targets Duvall not only because of the acquittal, but because he suspects Duvall of being an underground drug kingpin and well-connected, protected crime lord. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 1 February 2010
Burdett's debut... introduces his unique hero, Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a fair-skinned Thai and a devout Buddhist who commutes daily between the sacred precepts of his religion and the profane delights the city has to offer. In BANGKOK EIGHT, Jitpleecheep's partner and 'soul brother' is killed when the pair come across an African-American marine sergeant locked inside a Mercedes with a maddened python and a swarm of cobras. Sworn to vengeance, Jitpleecheep, works his into the moneyed underbelly of Bangkok, where desire rules and the human body is as custom-designable as a raw hunk of jade READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Darise Ogden, 25 June 2010
Couple a fiery-haired heroine with a quest dogged with heinous deaths tied mysteriously to the Bard, and you’ve got a story that will keep you up at all hours ... In those lost years, when Shakespeare seems to have disappeared from the London scene, what was it that he was doing? Was he, perhaps, ensconced in a castle in the hinterlands of Scotland, watching from behind curtains as a woman with powers unnatural sought to wrest the crown from the young king of Scotland? READ MORE
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 May 2010
Edward Hunter is a happily married family man with a great life, but a very dark past; he’s the son of a notorious serial killer who’s been in prison for 20 years, and will never be coming out. The son of a man of blood. When tragedy strikes his family, Edward suddenly needs the help of the man he’s spent his entire life distancing himself from, and trying to prove he’s nothing like. But as things spiral out of control, Edward begins to hear his own dark inner voice. READ MORE.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 November 2008
Blue fingernails. Cleave begins his third novel with two simple, evocative words. Two words that bring Theo Tate to an exhumation; two words that send the world-weary private investigator on an unpredictable journey intersecting a present-day serial killer with well-kept suburbanite secrets, and Tate’s own troubled past. Tate is only present at the exhumation because his former police colleagues are too busy trying to catch the Christchurch Carver... READ MORE.
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Cross, Neil - CAPTURED
Cross, Neil - CAPTUREDReviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 May 2010
Cross's latest novel Captured contains several of the ingredients that earned him deserved acclaim (including a Booker longlisting) for his previous books: seemingly ordinary but flawed characters thrust into emotionally harrowing situations; menace lurking beneath bleak settings; crisp and spare prose; situations quickly spiralling horrendously out of control; and occasional literary flourishes. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
The award-winning April Fool marks the return of one of Deverell’s most beloved characters; Arthur Beauchamp, a Denny Crane-esque legal legend now retired to a hobby farm on one of British Columbia’s Gulf Islands. Beauchamp’s quiet life is upturned when his environmental activist wife decides to protest logging by living in a tree, at the same time as a roguish ex-client is accused of a heinous rape and murder. READ MORE.
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Ferraris, Zoe - CITY OF VEILS
Reviewed by Sarah Gumbley, 11 June 2010
The scorching sands of Saudi Arabia provide a fascinating backdrop in the recently released, fast-paced thriller, City of Veils. The unputdownable tale of a seemingly unsolvable murder, is set in that country well known for enforcing its brand of ultra-conservative Islam, where women, hidden beneath full-length veils, remain anonymous and unimportant. READ MORE.
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Flint, Shamini - A BALI CONSPIRACY MOST FOUL
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 April 2010
Inspector Singh is back, but this time on secondment to Bali. A bomb has exploded and Singh has been sent to help with anti-terrorism efforts. But there’s a slight problem: he know squat about hunting terrorists. He’s much better suited to solving murder! So when a body is discovered in the wreckage, killed by a bullet before the bomb went off, Singh should be the one to find the answers – especially with the help of a wily Australian copper by his side. But simple murders are never as simple as they seem. READ MORE.
Flint, Shamini - THE SINGAPORE SCHOOL OF VILLAINY
Reviewed by Sarah Gumbley, 8 June 2010
The loveable Sikh, Inspector Singh is back once again. The third novel in Flint’s addictive series lives up to the promise showed in the earlier two, following murders, set first in Bali and then in Malaysia. This time Flint not only sets her novel in her home of Singapore, but also bases the plot around a group of lawyers working in an international law firm. READ MORE.
Ferraris, Zoe - CITY OF VEILS Reviewed by Sarah Gumbley, 11 June 2010
The scorching sands of Saudi Arabia provide a fascinating backdrop in the recently released, fast-paced thriller, City of Veils. The unputdownable tale of a seemingly unsolvable murder, is set in that country well known for enforcing its brand of ultra-conservative Islam, where women, hidden beneath full-length veils, remain anonymous and unimportant. READ MORE.
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Flint, Shamini - A BALI CONSPIRACY MOST FOULReviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 April 2010
Inspector Singh is back, but this time on secondment to Bali. A bomb has exploded and Singh has been sent to help with anti-terrorism efforts. But there’s a slight problem: he know squat about hunting terrorists. He’s much better suited to solving murder! So when a body is discovered in the wreckage, killed by a bullet before the bomb went off, Singh should be the one to find the answers – especially with the help of a wily Australian copper by his side. But simple murders are never as simple as they seem. READ MORE.
Flint, Shamini - THE SINGAPORE SCHOOL OF VILLAINYReviewed by Sarah Gumbley, 8 June 2010
The loveable Sikh, Inspector Singh is back once again. The third novel in Flint’s addictive series lives up to the promise showed in the earlier two, following murders, set first in Bali and then in Malaysia. This time Flint not only sets her novel in her home of Singapore, but also bases the plot around a group of lawyers working in an international law firm. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 4 September 2009
Chloe Davis is a contract archaeologist who has returned to her family-owned farm to excavate, before the farm is subdivided for lifestyle blocks, the ruins of a religious community that burned to the ground in the 1880s, killing several people. Already under time and budget pressure, Chloe and her team soon encounter local resistance, ranging from bar fights to sabotage and vandalism. Is someone worried that uncovering the past could upset the present? READ MORE.
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Gee, Maurice - ACCESS ROAD
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 February 2010
Widely considered ‘New Zealand’s greatest living author’, Nelson-based Maurice Gee has penned dozens of beloved tales, ranging from children’s to adult, fantasy to realism. The near-octogenarian’s latest (and reportedly, perhaps last) adult novel, Access Road, may be slim in size (200 pages), but it’s still a very good read, packed with trademark Gee themes, style, and moments. READ MORE.
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Gee, Maurice - ACCESS ROADReviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 February 2010
Widely considered ‘New Zealand’s greatest living author’, Nelson-based Maurice Gee has penned dozens of beloved tales, ranging from children’s to adult, fantasy to realism. The near-octogenarian’s latest (and reportedly, perhaps last) adult novel, Access Road, may be slim in size (200 pages), but it’s still a very good read, packed with trademark Gee themes, style, and moments. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 6 April 2010
In BLACK ICE, her third in a series featuring city detective Jill Jackson, Giarratano picks at the scab of Sydney’s murky drugs underbelly; a world where everyone from glamorous A-Listers to addicted streetkids to and vicious gangs, all collide. Working undercover and living in a run down flat and making unlikely friends Jill sees first hand what devastation the illegal drugs scene can wreak. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 2 October 2009
Blood Bond continues the story of two branches of the Chatfield family (one based in England, the other in New Zealand) who appear to be the only survivors in the aftermath of a fatal global pandemic. Blood Bond begins with some of the New Zealand branch having rescued several British family members from the repressive medieval-style regime established by Nigel, a tyrannical patriarch, at Haver Hall near Kent. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 5 February 2010
A moonlit Indian ruin where "thieves of time" ravage sacred ground in the name of profit. A noted anthropologist vanishes while on the verge of making a startling, history-altering discovery. Then at an ancient burial site, amid stolen goods and desecrated bones, two corpses are discovered, shot by bullets fitting the gun of the missing scientist... modern mysteries buried in despoiled ancient places. Navajo Tribal Policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee must plunge into the past to unearth an astonishing truth and a cold-hearted killer. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 10 July 2009
Paxton and Stirling find themselves knee-deep in another murder mystery after a pizza delivery boy stumbles across a body at a house in the Auckland suburbs. Stirling, stumped by the grisly but seemingly motiveless crime, visits Paxton, hoping for ‘unofficial’ help. When another bashed and stabbed body is found ... the case quickly takes a more sinister twist, especially when it becomes apparent a game-playing serial killer is targeting unfaithful women. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 3 April 2009
A fall and a phone call destroy Caitlin’s reverie, and she takes the flight across Cook Strait to return ‘home’. Playing caretaker at her comatose mother’s horse farm, helped by rugged neighbour Dom and multi-pierced teenage groom Kasey, Caitlin scratches beneath the surface of high-tech horse trailers and well-fed thoroughbreds to discover looming financial ruin, and a shot at a million-dollar breeding contract someone is willing to do anything for. Even kill. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 20 August 2010
Simon Kernick, whose earlier novel Relentless was the best-selling thriller in the UK in 2007, is more of the ‘smack you in the face, grab you by the throat, and not let go ’til the end’ type of author. THE LAST 10 SECONDS is a fast and riveting read, centred on undercover cop Sean Egan, a brutally violent serial killer called the Night Creeper, and troubled DI Tina Boyd of Camden’s Murder Investigation Team. READ MORE.
Simon Kernick, whose earlier novel Relentless was the best-selling thriller in the UK in 2007, is more of the ‘smack you in the face, grab you by the throat, and not let go ’til the end’ type of author. THE LAST 10 SECONDS is a fast and riveting read, centred on undercover cop Sean Egan, a brutally violent serial killer called the Night Creeper, and troubled DI Tina Boyd of Camden’s Murder Investigation Team. READ MORE.
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Mantell, Laurie - A MURDER OR THREE
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 10 April 2010
In a way, A MURDER OR THREE would probably most appeal to those who love such 'traditional' detective stories, with interesting characters and puzzle-type whodunnit plots (rather than some of the modern procedural or whydunnit styles) - but brought forward from the war and post-war years of Poirot and Alleyn into the 1970s-1980s - a Midsomers Murders or Inspector Morse type of feel and style perhaps. READ MORE.
Mantell, Laurie - A MURDER OR THREEReviewed by Craig Sisterson, 10 April 2010
In a way, A MURDER OR THREE would probably most appeal to those who love such 'traditional' detective stories, with interesting characters and puzzle-type whodunnit plots (rather than some of the modern procedural or whydunnit styles) - but brought forward from the war and post-war years of Poirot and Alleyn into the 1970s-1980s - a Midsomers Murders or Inspector Morse type of feel and style perhaps. READ MORE.
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Malane, Donna - SURRENDERReviewed by Craig Sisterson, 28 September 2010
WHEN A policeman arrives at missing persons expert Diane Rowe’s house and informs her that a body found in Cuba Street that morning was someone she knew and was interested in, personally rather than professionally, she is stunned – like anyone would be. But... the news doesn’t make her particularly sad. For the body belongs to ‘Snow’, a recidivist low-life Diane suspects brutally murdered her troubled younger sister Niki a year before. READ MORE
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Reviewed by Sarah Gumbley, 7 September 2010
Britain’s Chief Superintendent, Inspector Roderick Alleyn and his wife, Troy, an artist, both receive invitations from Montague Reece to stay at his new home, a lavish island retreat, on Lake Waihoe, New Zealand. Reece invites them with a request for each. It is hoped that during the stay, Troy will paint a portrait of the world-famous opera singer, Isabella Sommita, who will also be at the lodge. Alleyn, he requests, may help them solve a mystery of a photographer who has been harassing Isabella recently, taunting her with his unflattering images published in all the newspapers. READ MORE.
Reviewing by Sarah Gumbley, 12 September 2010
Peregrine Jay is a theatre director and owner of London’s famed Dolphin Theatre. He decides that for his latest production he will put on Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth. Jay successfully auditions a collection of great actors for the parts, even including theatre great, Sir Dougal Macdougal as Macbeth himself. He’s also got the brilliant Margaret Mannering as Lady Macbeth, and child prodigy William Smith as the son of MacDuff. Dress rehearsals all run well, and soon enough, they’re all ready for their opening night. READ MORE
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McIlvanney, Liam - ALL THE COLOURS OF THE TOWN
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McIlvanney, Liam - ALL THE COLOURS OF THE TOWNReviewed by Sarah Gumbley, 6 July 2010
In Belfast, it’s hard to ignore history. The locals try, believe me. Or at least when it comes to discussing it with visitors. But it’s there. The bullet holes in the walls, or the murals painted on them don’t just hint at the Troubles, they shout it. What’s a little harder to see, and so is all too easily forgotten, is Scotland’s experience with it all. It’s not quite so obvious, so recent or raw. But it’s there. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 7 April 2010
After a team of American scientists at Wilkes Ice Station discover what seems to be a spaceship in a four-million-year-old cavern below the ice, two of the divers disappear while checking out the craft. Lt. Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield and his highly trained team of Marines respond to the scientists' distress signal... three days later, one of the scientists has killed another, six more members of the Wilkes team have disappeared in the ice cave and eight French scientists from a nearby station are for some reason at the US base. READ MORE.
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Richardson, Paddy - HUNTING BLIND
Reviewed by Joanne Taylor, 8 March 2010
Paddy Richardson left me wanting more of her books after her first thriller was released in 2008. With the release of HUNTING BLIND this author is establishing herself as an accomplished thriller writer. A young girl goes missing at a school picnic leaving a family to fall apart with grief. Seventeen years later her older sister Stephanie is now a practising psychiatrist whose work with a new patient reveals a very similar story to her own. READ MORE.
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Richardson, Paddy - HUNTING BLINDReviewed by Joanne Taylor, 8 March 2010
Paddy Richardson left me wanting more of her books after her first thriller was released in 2008. With the release of HUNTING BLIND this author is establishing herself as an accomplished thriller writer. A young girl goes missing at a school picnic leaving a family to fall apart with grief. Seventeen years later her older sister Stephanie is now a practising psychiatrist whose work with a new patient reveals a very similar story to her own. READ MORE.
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Reviewing by Craig Sisterson, 20 August 2010
Journalist turned celebrity ‘autobiography’ ghostwriter turned crime writer Robotham brings back his Parkinson’s-afflicted protagonist, psychologist Joe O’Loughlin... Struggling with the break-up of his marriage, O’Loughlin finds himself on a perilous journey trying to help his teenage daughter’s best friend Sienna Hegarty, after she turns up late one night, frozen in shock and covered in blood – the blood of her authoritarian father, a retired policeman, who is found in Sienna’s room with his throat slashed and skull caved in. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 4 August 2010
A MAN dazedly regains consciousness only to find himself handcuffed, feeling like “he’s been bathed in something corrosive”, and with his head adhered to the carpet by his own clotted blood. So starts this debut crime thriller from North Shore engineering student and nascent author Ben Sanders, an adroit barely-20-something being touted as “a major new talent” with a “sophisticated and edgy” writing style. READ MORE.
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The horrific ritual murder of a boy in the grounds of an old monastery brings back memories of two similar deaths in the mid-1970s, and of a mysterious cult who once dwelt in the island’s interior... .As Nikos, the police chief who has been persuaded back to his home island for the final years of his career, begins his investigation, two Brits arrive on the island: the bestselling crime writer Kitty Carson, on a break from the pressures of work and her strained marriage, and Jason an aspiring writer with a secret of his own. READ MORE.
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Stevens, David - WHITE FOR DANGERReviewed by Craig Sisterson, 30 April 2010
Renowned writer and adventurer Logan Adams is roped into tagging along with his brother-in-law's Antarctica expedition - his brother-in-law was the sole survivor of a previous mission, and he's determined to go back and find the two men left behind, men he believes are still alive and were taken to a hidden city on the frozen continent. Stevens writes very much in the Bagley/McLean style, with plenty of interesting action, right from early on, and intrigue throughout. READ MORE.
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Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 10 September 2009
Fans of high quality international crime fiction won’t be disappointed by this local fare. Symon wastes no time, immediately stunning readers with an opening-pages haymaker, as during the prologue an intruder forces a stay-at-home mother to submit to her own death, in order to save her baby daughter. Who knew the farming town of Mataura could harbour such evil? Soon after, sole-charge rural cop Sam Shephard finds herself co-ordinating the search for the missing mother, her ex-lover’s wife. READ MORE.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 14 November 2008
Dunedin writer Vanda Symon’s follow-up to her excellent debut Overkill (Penguin, 2007) finds heroine Sam Shephard having moved to Dunedin from Mataura; bridges burnt. Undertaking detective training, Shepherd’s on the bottom rung of the ladder, battling her grudge-holding boss for any involvement. The Ringmaster opens with a murder in the Botanic Gardens, before switching to stroppy Sam’s first-person narration. READ MORE
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson, 19 September 2010
Dunedin crime writer Vanda Symon brings back her feisty local heroine Sam Shephard for a third instalment in what has become an excellent detective series. In CONTAINMENT, the junior detective investigates a bizarre death - what seems a routine diving accident before forensics reveal the man didn't die from drowning and his body was stuffed in the wetsuit afterwards - that might be linked to the grounding of a container ship on the Aramoana coast. READ MORE.
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Hi Craig. Not sure if you are interested in new Australian thriller authors, but this one has been getting some great reviews in the NZ as well as Aussie press. The author is L.A. Larkin and the thriller is The Genesis Flaw. Here is a link to a piece in the 10 Aug NZ Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10665021
ReplyDeleteThanks Pat - I actually have a review copy of that book - I'll bump it up the TBR pile now, thanks to your recommendation.
ReplyDelete