"A storyteller with talent to burn" - review of DEVIL'S KITCHEN

DEVIL'S KITCHEN by Candice Fox (Forge Books, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

This tight-knit, four-person unit has worked together to save countless lives and stop out of control fires before they cause major destruction.

They've also stolen millions from banks, jewelry stores, and art galleries. Under the cover of saving the city, they've used their knowledge and specialist equipment to become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast.

Andy Nearland is the newest member of the unit, and she's helping them prepare for their largest heist yet -- New York's largest private storage facility, an expensive treasure trove for the rich and famous. She's also an undercover operative, and keeping her true motives hidden proves more and more dangerous as the day of the heist approaches.

Candice Fox burst onto the Australian crime writing scene ten years ago with Hades, a darkly sparkling debut about a Sydney detective hunting a brutal killer, newly partnered with the enigmatic Eden Archer, who’s half of a spooky sister-brother duo of homicide cops raised by a master criminal. That debut won Fox the first of three Ned Kelly Awards, among many accolades the prolific Sydney author has earned. One of the modern Queens of Aussie Crime, Fox has written multiple series and standalones, teamed with James Patterson on New York Times bestsellers, and seen her terrific ‘Crimson Lake’ trilogy set in Far North Queensland turned into hit crime drama, Troppo, starring Thomas Jane and Nicole Chamoun.

Fox has storytelling talent to burn, and that’s again on show in Devil’s Kitchen, a page-whirring tale of a freelance undercover officer infiltrating a close-knit NYFD firehouse, and a group of ‘New York’s Bravest’ who among dragging people from burning buildings and performing other heroic acts in the face of raging infernos, have stolen millions from banks, jewellery stores, and art galleries. 

When Ben, one of the firefighters, suspects his comrades may be responsible for his girlfriend and her young son vanishing without a trace, he reaches out to the authorities, willing to give up himself and his crew in order to find them, and save their lives. If they’re still alive. Enter Andy (Andrea) Nearland, a badass undercover operative who works for various law enforcement agencies, and has the chameleon-like ability of Jarod in The Pretender to rapidly get up to speed with portraying someone new, even highly skilled people operating in fields that require years of training. Together and apart, Andy and Ben try to find out what’s happened to his girlfriend and her son, before the crew builds up to its biggest and most dangerous heist yet. Meanwhile an FBI Agent ghost from Andy’s past is keeping too-close tabs on her and the operation, potentially putting everyone at risk. 

Fox does a terrific job dropping readers straight into an incendiary storyline, even if the life-or-death prologue then leap back to learn ‘how did we get there’ setup isn’t really necessary to hook us, given her storytelling talents overall. Andy is a unique and fascinating crime fiction character, with action-thriller skills, plenty of smarts, and a mysterious past that goes beyond the usual tropes. As a good man who’s done bad things but is willing to sacrifice himself for others, Ben is also an intriguing viewpoint character. Fox switches readers between Andy and Ben, as they try to find out the truth, while trying to hide their own truths from Andy’s firefighter colleagues, and each other. 

I tore through Devil’s Kitchen in one sitting; it’s a ripsnorter of a read that still has plenty of meat on the bones in terms of character and quality writing. Fox will get your adrenalin going, but also make you think with the dilemmas and issues the characters’ face. She brings some depth and understanding to the actions of even the key antagonists and ‘villains’, along the way, and makes you care about many involved, despite their dark deeds. While barely ever taking her foot of the gas. 

A recommended read.

[This review was first written for Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Review: STRING THEORY

STRING THEORY by Bing Turkby (2023)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Dana Osborne just wants to hang out in her guitar store talking music with her assistant Brody, and her colourful customers. But when once-famous prog-rock band Cranial Bypass decide to put on a reunion gig in her small town of Rockingham West, things get unexpectedly hectic. Especially when the band's guitarist Apocalypse BusLane is found murdered at a rehearsal. 

Despite being warned by the Police to keep her nose out of things after the last time she helped crack a case, suddenly Constable Wade McNeish is back, asking her to help out. Dana's quiet life is about to have the volume turned up to eleven, as Wade asks her to find out what happened -- by joining the band!

STRING THEORY is the 2nd in the Guitar Store Mysteries, and the first I've read. Which I think might have been a bit of a mistake. This worked, in that it was fun, a bit silly, and a bit of giggle in places, although it did take me a while to figure out who was who and how it all fitted together. Maybe the first book, DEAD MAN'S AXE will fill in those gaps when I get to it on "MtTBR that can be seen from the moon....".

Set, unsurprisingly, in and around Dana Osborne's guitar store, where she would be happy just hanging out, talking music with an eclectic range of customers, and her assistant Brody, Osborne has a habit (it seems) of getting involved in murders. In the first book it was a local music teacher, in this one it's star of once famous prog-rock band, Cranial Bypass, Apocalypse BusLane (yes I know but to be fair, it's prog rock so let us never forget Marillion and Fish ...).

Anyway Cranial Bypass are in Rockingham West for a reunion gig when BusLane is murdered at a rehearsal. On the one hand Osborne's warned to stay out of things, on the other hand Constable Wade McNeish is asking for her help (and it's probably here that I sort of wished I'd known the backstory), but anyway, long story short, the pathway to finding out what happens is Dana Osborne on the inside - a member of Cranial Bypass (she's one seriously good guitarist - did I mention that).

It's one of those slightly hectic, try not to concentrate on too many of the convenient plot points, roll with the punches, have a bit of a laugh styles of crime fiction that's good for the soul sometimes. Good enough that the first novel is sitting in the wish list subsection of the ridiculously large MtTBR list now.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

Guest Review: RETURN TO BLOOD by Michael Bennett

RETURN TO BLOOD by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster, Jan 2025 paperback)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

After the perils of a case that landed much too close to home, Hana Westerman turned in her badge and abandoned her career as a detective in the Auckland CIB. Hoping that civilian life will offer her the opportunity to rest and recalibrate, she returns to her hometown of Tātā Bay, where she moves back in with her beloved father, Eru. Yet the memories of the past are everywhere, and as she goes for her daily run on the beach, Hana passes a local monument to Grace, a high school classmate who was murdered more than twenty years ago and hidden in the dunes overlooking the sea. A Māori man with a previous record was convicted of the crime, although Eru never believed he was guilty.

When her daughter finds another young woman’s skeleton in the sands, Hana soon finds herself awkwardly involved. Investigators suspect that this is Kiri Thomas, a young Māori woman who disappeared four years earlier, after battling years of drug addiction. Hana and her daughter Addison are increasingly captivated by the story behind this unsolved crime, but without the official police force behind her, Hana must risk compromising her own peace and relationships if justice is to be served.

Following on from the excellent first novel in this series, BETTER THE BLOOD, RETURN TO BLOOD is centred, once again, around Hana Westerman. Only now she has turned in her police badge, abandoning a career as a detective in the Auckland CIB, she's returned to her hometown of Tātā Bay to do some running repairs. On her own psyche which is battered and bruised, on her relationships with extended family which are fractious and strained, and to spend time with her beloved father, Eru. Not that everything about Tātā Bay is a happy memory, there's a monument to her high school classmate that she runs past daily, a Māori man in jail for that murder, despite Eru's misgivings about the conviction.

All of which ends up interwoven with a more current case when Westerman's daughter Addison finds a skeleton in the sand dunes. There's something about the backstory of this victim - a young Māori woman who had led a difficult life - that pulls Westerman and Addison into this investigation, despite neither of them having an official capacity, or even any direct connection with the victim.

Michael Bennett's style in these novels (the third, CARVED IN BLOOD due out mid 2025) is a combination of investigation of crime, interwoven with cultural and community implications. In all cases, Māori sensibility, community and interactions are forefront, often with clear illustration of how incompatible, cack-handed and unnecessary colonial methods are in communities looking for tradition, culture and resilience.

The cast of characters revolving around Westerman, her daughter and her friend, the elders in their Māori community, relatives and long-term friends, as well as her ex-husband, and his new family are an interesting bunch, as is the way this sort of blended and extended family works. There's tensions between everyone, and there is a lot of understanding and acceptance along the way. Westerman's position in the sandwich generation is also clear - her father potentially failing, her daughter still finding her way, there's something universal about that depiction of the generation caught as the carer between kids and parents, each with very different requirements. It's a particularly interesting portrayal in someone who so patently doesn't have their own act together in so many ways, creating an interesting triangle of need between the three age groups.

There's a well known adage about second novel syndrome, and there are a few glimpses of that in RETURN TO BLOOD. It's a bit inclined to wander at points, higher on emotion and the personal, than perhaps the crime and the criminal. Aspects of the case plot were a bit predictable, feeling a little padded to allow for the personal issues being addressed. This might be an issue for readers who are on the lookout for plot dense, action focused crime fiction. For those who are prepared to take their crime with their personal, to have a look at the development of a character who arrived on the scene with a massive thump in the first novel, RETURN TO BLOOD will have them awaiting the third book very eagerly indeed.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"An atypical amateur sleuth" - review of HELL'S BELLS

HELL'S BELLS by Jill Johnson (Black & White, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Eustacia Rose's life is beginning to return to normal: she is back teaching at UCL and her relationship with Matilde is blossoming. But when a man is found dead with a needle in his neck, that fragile peace begins to crumble. Eustacia finds a painting of herself with a syringe next to her neck and discovers that there are other people who seem to know more about the killing than they are letting on.

The threat around Eustacia only increases as a PhD student begins to stalk and harass her to gain access to her poisonous plant collection. After Eustacia continually refuses, he contacts a lab that is illegally selling synthetic plant toxins but turns up dead shortly after. As the body count rises, Eustacia has no choice but to investigate the deaths in earnest.

But murders aren't the only thing on her mind as interactions with a new detective cause tensions with Matilde that Eustacia has no idea how to resolve. What's more, run-ins with a mysterious white-haired women are making her recall long-buried memories. Eustacia must solve the mysteries of her past and this case if she wants to escape from this toxic situation unscathed.

Eustacia Rose is not your typical amateur sleuth. When we first met her in Devil’s Breath (published as The Woman in the Garden in the United States), she’s prickly, awkward, a disgraced professor of botanical toxicology hiding away from the world while tending a rooftop garden full of poisonous plants and regularly spying on the comings and goings of her attractive neighbour. A gloriously eccentric loner who’s as much a mystery herself as the crimes she gets caught up in. While her captivating first outing was a BBC Between the Covers pick and dual Ngaio Marsh Awards finalist, it did feel like Eustacia Rose’s story deserved to bloom for more than one season.

So it’s great to see her back in Hell’s Bells, the second mystery from Brighton UK-based Māori storyteller Jill Johnson. This time Professor Rose has returned to teaching at University College London, only for a sudden death that looks like a possible poisoning and a stalker-ish PhD student with eyes on Eustacia’s poisonous plant collection to upturn the life she tries to keep well in order.

When the student also turns up dead, Eustacia feels compelled to investigate.

Johnson, who used to run a leading UK comics store (and later studied for a degree in horticulture), has crafted a wonderfully unusual heroine. Blunt yet unintentionally hilarious at times, fearful yet brave, Eustacia and her relationships with others, often botanically categorised, deliver a fresh feel to the intriguing mystery storylines. A very good read that cements Eustacia Rose as one of the more interesting series characters to appear on the crime and thriller scene in recent times.

This is a growing series (a third, Belladonna, will be published in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand later in 2025) that will delight classic mystery fans, and those who love quirky, eccentric detectives..

[This review was first written for Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Review: THE HITCHHIKER by Gabriel Bergmoser

THE HITCHHIKER by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins, 2024)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Ahead he could see only the stretch of unending road, on either side brown-scorched plains of dirt and scrub, above it all a soaring blue sky and blinding sun. Desolation that looked, to him, a hell of a lot like freedom. He wasn’t playing by anyone’s rules anymore.

Have you ever done something bad? The question was like a clawed hand seizing his guts. It had taken everything he’d had not to whimper, to cower away and beg. But as he’d deflected, he’d told himself to stay calm. To be in control. He had to be in control here.

She’d made a mistake. Wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last. Ever since she’d left, all she’d found was more trouble. More fights. More secrets. More scars. Now here she was, still alive but a long way from anywhere, and with options dwindling fast.

Fans of the Bee Gees might find themselves with psychological issues post reading or listening to THE HITCHHIKER. I'm not sure I'll hear the particular track that's on high rotation in the car at the centre of much of the action here without a slight twitch ever again to be honest.

A master of psychological suspense Bergmoser's gone all out with THE HITCHHIKER, creating a central character who starts off reasonably benign, rapidly being revealed as the sort of sick, depraved, just flat out creepy, awful bloke that you kind of know is probably out there, but could really live without knowing much about.

Based around three characters, the story starts out with the focus on "The Driver - Paul". Introducing "The Hitchhiker - Jesse" ramps up the creep, with something obviously not right about both these men, although who is the worst takes a tiny while to sort out. When it is clear, the question then becomes just how "not right" you can possibly get, with a psychological game being played that rapidly becomes overtly violent and shocking. Enter "The Fugitive - Maggie" who will be familiar to readers of other of Bergmoser's books. Everyone here may or may not be who they say they are, their reason for being on the road, in the middle of nowhere may or may not be as they claim, and their intentions, well, nothing's as straightforward as you'd hope with any of them.

This story is creepy, dark, confrontational and disconcerting to say the least. Actually that's not strong enough - this is hard to read. What starts out as the story of a man seemingly escaping the trauma of a broken marriage, driving into the outback as a way of challenging himself, doing the unexpected, gets more unexpected when he picks up a nervy, taciturn young hitchhiker who is obviously escaping something. Then there's the explosion when the fugitive arrives on the scene.

The shapeshifting, and reassessment of these characters starts out slow and steady, a search for enlightenment and testing of boundaries, or simply an escape, the reader is forced into a close up, uncomfortable relationship with them all as motivations and reactions get more and more out there. An exploration of weird, with a dose of Stockholm Syndrome thrown in, there's also the idea of like recognising like, which is very disconcerting.

Needless to say this is not a book for fans of cosy mysteries. It also might be a bit of a surprise for those who love noir, and psychological thrillers, because this gets pretty sick at points, and frankly, downright terrifying. There tension is intense, the creepy intense, the characterisations intense, the intent of everyone intense, and the desire to keep reading equally as intense. 

Which might make readers, including this one, worry about themselves ever so slightly. I mean you'll have a lot of time to consider those sorts of questions, what with the being kept awake, with the lights on, and the twitch that you're going to inevitably develop whenever you see an interaction between people that seems, I don't know, a bit off maybe.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"A slick read with plenty of substance" - review of 17 YEARS LATER

17 YEARS LATER by JP Pomare (Hachette, Aug 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

The violent slaughter of the wealthy Primrose family while they slept shocked the nation of New Zealand and scarred the small idyllic rural town of Cambridge forever.

All of the evidence pointed to their young live-in chef, Bill Ruatara, who was swiftly charged with murder and brought to justice. The brutal crime is now infamous, and Bill a figure of contempt who deserves to rot in jail for life.

Seventeen years later, prison psychologist TK Phillips is fighting for an appeal. He is convinced Bill did not receive a fair trial. When celebrity true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott takes a sudden interest, it's not long before she uncovers new evidence that could set fire to the prosecution's case.

As TK and Sloane dig deeper into the past, they become tangled in a complex web of danger and deceit. With Bill's innocence far from assured and their own lives at stake, will they risk everything to unearth the truth, or leave it buried for good?

“For Melbourne-based indigenous storyteller JP Pomare (Ngā Puhi) is one of the most exciting voices to emerge from the ‘antipodean noir’ crime wave in recent years, crafting a string of intriguing standalone thrillers that combine page-whirring narratives with nuanced characters and the kind of elevated writing you can point to in defence of genre whenever the tired old ‘literary fiction vs popular fiction’ arguments and misperceptions start rearing their ugly hear once more.

In 17 Years Later, prison psychologist Te Kuru (TK) Phillips once believed that young Māori chef Bill Kareama, convicted of the slaughter of wealthy English immigrants the Primrose family in their stately home outside the small town of Cambridge, New Zealand, had been wrongfully convicted.

Bill was a defendant who’d become a pariah, found guilty of horrendous violence that ‘shocked the nation’, only for questions to later creep in. Was the prosecution as solid as it seemed? Had the justice system delivered injustice? For years TK was a fierce campaigner for Bill, noting gaps in the prosecution case and leaps made by the jury in the rush to hold someone responsible for the slaughter of the Primrose family, that he hoped may lead to a successful appeal, or retrial.

Then, TK walked away. Why?

Australian true crime podcaster Sloane Abbott is riding high and hungover after her investigations into domestic violence earned her a major award, upstaging traditional media. When her assistant Tara suggests looking into Bill’s case, Sloane is intrigued by the fact Bill has spent 17 years in prison, never acknowledging his guilt, even though he likely would have been paroled by now if he had. She initially declines to look into it, until a grain of truth among her regular dose of online hate makes Sloane realise her career’s been built on victims her audience – ‘female, white, twenty to fifty’ – most identify with. So she decides to swerve into something new: race, class, and a potentially innocent indigenous man. Except Bill, the family’s live-in chef, has never talked to any journalists.

Sloane is going to need TK’s help.

Pomare unfurls his tale through multiple timeframes and tripartite narratives – Sloane, Bill, and TK – luring readers in with many questions and keeping the tension high throughout. Why did TK walk away from the case? Did Bill really do it, or was he railroaded by a biased system? Is Sloane interested in truth and justice, or just a good story to engage her listeners and pump up her profile?

17 Years Later is a slick read with plenty of substance, where the truth is slippery; a fast-flowing tale that never feels ‘thin’. Pomare, who won a Ngaio Marsh Award for his outstanding debut Call Me Evie, and has seen later thrillers become #1 Audible bestsellers, shortlisted for awards, and adapted for the screen (Disney+ series The Clearing), has a great touch for character and tension. In 2021, Pomare spoke with Māori and Pasifika online magazine E-Tangata about crime fiction being a perfect vehicle for social commentary, and 17 Years Later is further evidence.

It’s a page-whirring thriller that goes beyond its central hook of ‘did Bill do it’ – is he the victim of a miscarriage of justice or a manipulative killer? – to explore societal biases, flaws or blind-spots in our criminal justice system, and the ethics of true crime podcasting.

A stay-up-all-night read with plenty to say..

[This review was first written for Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Review: THE CRYPTIC CLUE

THE CRYPTIC CLUE by Amanda Hampson (Penguin, 2024)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Welcome back to Zig Zag Lane in the heart of Sydney's rag-trade district, where our intrepid tea ladies, Hazel, Betty and Irene, have their work cut out. Solving a murder, kidnapping and arson case, and outwitting an arch criminal, earned them the respect of a local police officer. Now he needs their assistance to help solve a plot that threatens national security.

As if that's not enough, Irene gets a coded message directing her to the spoils of a bank robbery, which sends the tea ladies on a treasure hunt with an unexpected outcome.

There's also trouble brewing within the walls of Empire Fashionwear, where an interloper threatens not just Hazel's job but the very role of tea lady. It's up to Hazel to convince her friends to abandon their trolleys and take action to save their livelihoods - before it's too late.

For somebody who claims to prefer the darker end of the Crime Fiction spectrum, I've been thoroughly enjoying some cosies recently. Although I did originally try to "read" this one via the audio book, but that didn't work, so I switched to the printed form and found myself happily enjoying the 2nd of The Tea Ladies series - THE CRYPTIC CLUE.

Anybody who hasn't picked up the first book - THE TEA LADIES - would find no problems in catching up with the main characters in this series - Hazel, Betty and Irene, although their backgrounds are more thoroughly explained in the earlier novel. They are all, unsurprisingly, tea ladies, working in Sydney's rag-trade district, with a sideline in solving crimes that happen right in front of their eyes. The complication this time around is that they are also confronting a threat to their livelihoods with the sneaking encroachment of automatic tea making machines!

In this outing, they find themselves forming a union, helping solve a threat to national security, and traipsing around the bush in search of the proceeds of crime, all while getting very close to part of the team building this new, controversial building, known as The Sydney Opera House.

Bit on then, as always. Even though this story starts out with a holiday, it progresses quickly, as men start behaving oddly, and then there's the toaster that's not coming back from the dead.

Part of what works for this reader is the sly, dry sense of humour that this series is imbued with. And the idea that these are women for whom life has been complicated, but that doesn't mean they are going quietly into the good night. Despite a propensity to drink shandies and enough tea to flood the aforementioned Opera House, these are women readers are invited to connect with, like and admire. There's also a bit of depth to the stories, and as unlikely as the plots sound, it all works in the end, and credulity only gets stretched ever so slightly.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"Soaks readers in its rural Northland setting" - review of BETTER LEFT DEAD

BETTER LEFT DEAD by Catherine Lea (Bateman, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

DI Nyree Bradshaw and her team have their work cut out for them once again. Local woman Lizzy Bean has been found dead, garrotted with a piece of wire. Lizzy's property, a 1970s beach house overlooking a pristine Northland bay, is overflowing with rubbish. Inside, the house is even worse.

As Nyree and her team delve into the case, clues begin to reveal an intricate web of connections involving a local crime syndicate, a kidnapped woman, and a group of ex-foster children haunted by the past.

Meanwhile, Nyree's own past is catching up with her. Forever racked by guilt that she has failed her son who is currently in prison for murder, Nyree might finally get a chance to redeem herself in his eyes . . . but it comes at a steep cost.

For This second instalment in experienced Kiwi crime and thriller author Catherine Lea’s police procedural series starring tough, middle-aged investigator DI Nyree Bradshaw of the Far North CIB shows a storyteller really hitting her stride. After several mystery and thrillers featuring northern hemisphere settings and heroes, including a trilogy starring US socialite-turned-sleuth Elizabeth McClaine, former tech businesswoman Lea ‘came home’ with DI Bradshaw in The Water’s Dead.

This time Bradshaw and her team are faced with the puzzling murder of local hoarder Lizzy Bean, who is brutally garrotted in her own home, that’s overflowing with junk of all kinds. Making for tricky forensics at the scene. A second murder further complicates matters. Does a list of names of former foster kids have anything to do with the killings? Or had some locals who’d had issues with Lizzy Bean and her lifestyle choices play a part? Meanwhile many of the police in the region are instead focused on the missing daughter of a local councillor, and Bradshaw must also deal with the fallout of some life-changing news dropped on her by son Tony, who is in prison for murder.

Lea does a great job soaking readers in the rural and smalltown Northland setting, including the poverty and problems – drugs, gangs, mental health, greed – lurking beneath the picturesque region’s tourist-enticing landscapes. Nyree Bradshaw is an intriguing series star, a little different to the norm even in a sea of police procedurals and smalltown noir that’s out there.

Overall, Better Left Dead is a very good, gritty read where Lea makes readers care about the people in the story – beyond the main characters, too - as much as finding the killer. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for a heroine, wider cast, and setting that deserves an ongoing series.

[This review was first written for Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.