"Exquisite modern take on a classic mystery" - review of THE GOOD NAZI

THE GOOD NAZI by Samir Machado de Machado, translated by Rahul Bery (Pushkin Vertigo, 2026)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

1933. A body has been found on a luxury airship en route from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro. Police Detective Bruno Brückner, travelling on board, is immediately asked to investigate - and soon discovers that the murdered man was not the proud Nazi he claimed to be. What's more, he was carrying a stash of banned 'degenerate' material. 

As Brückner interviews his fellow passengers - a wealthy baroness, an antisemitic doctor, a debonair Englishman - he realizes that each of them has something to hide. Uncovering the truth will reveal a story of secret identities, forbidden love and revenge, where nothing is as it appears.

For those fancying something fresh and atypical, while a little lighter, perhaps try this fun mystery from Brazilian writer, translator and graphic designer Samir Machado de Machado, which won him the Jabuti Prize for Best Entertainment Novel (among Brazil’s most important book awards), for a second time.

Thanks to translator Rahul Bery and the fine folks at Pushkin Vertigo,  The Good Nazi is now available for English-speaking readers, who’ll discover an enjoyable tale with echoes of Agatha Christie or Dame Ngaio Marsh, while still its own unique thing.

Rather than Poirot, Marple, or Inspector Alleyn, our sleuth here is German police detective Bruno Brückner, who’s travelling on a trans-Atlantic zeppelin flight to Rio de Janeiro in 1933. Far faster, and pricier, than a seagoing voyage, it sees Brückner rubbing shoulders with an unusual grouping. Alongside some Brazilian passengers and the forty-member crew who coax the giant airship across the ocean from continent to continent, Brückner is joined by wealthy German Baroness Fridegunde van Hattem, who chases summer back and forth; Dr Karl Kass Voegler, who’s set to speak at a eugenics conference on the dangers of racial mixing; and debonair Englishman William Hay. 

They’re joined in Recife by another German, Otto Klein, for the final legs of the journey. But Klein doesn’t make it to Rio alive, dying overnight, after a dinner where the European quintet discuss classic art, how rising Nazism would fix what ailed Germany, and racial purity. Brückner is asked to investigate, and as he interviews the crew and passengers he uncovers a stash of banned ‘degenerate’ material, and a startling tale of fake identities, queer love, and revenge, where little is what it seems.

de Machado crafts an exquisite modern take on a classic mystery, with a unique historical setting that soaks readers in at-times disturbing pre-war viewpoints, while speckling his tale with several delightful surprises, right up until he absolutely sticks the landing of this aeronautical whodunnit.

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.

"Dares to go where many others won't" - review of THE TRUTH ABOUT RUBY COOPER

THE TRUTH ABOUT RUBY COOPER by Liz Nugent (Penguin, March 2026)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

'If my sister hadn’t been beautiful, none of it would have happened.'

Ruby Cooper and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in their close-knit church community in Boston. But when Ruby is sixteen, she is involved in an incident that causes her family’s world to implode. Across decades, the fallout leaves a wake of destruction behind Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston.

Not that Ruby wants to think about the past. But it can’t stay a secret forever.? 

Let’s start with understatement: Liz Nugent certainly knows how to spin a compelling yarn. Not just compelling with a capital C, but in all caps. 

The bestselling Irish author has a masterful touch for hooking readers with intense, high-stakes situations then leading us through an emotional minefield alongside pretty hard-to-like protagonists. 

There’s a bravery throughout her oeuvre; she dares to go where many others don’t, via characters studies of some rather horrendous people. A wife-beater (Unravelling Oliver), a wealthy judge and his wife covering up a horrible crime (Lying in Wait), a trio of brothers taking sibling rivalry to toxic, deadly levels (Our Little Cruelties) – Nugent’s thrillers are atypical, and her characters often the worst in the room, or many rooms, yet bizarrely engaging.

In her sixth novel in twelve years, The Truth About Ruby Cooper, Nugent immerses readers in the family-shattering aftermath of a life-altering incident between Ruby, the sixteen year-old daughter of a popular Boston pastor, and Milo, her older sister Erin’s boyfriend, one afternoon when the pair are alone together in the Cooper family home. 

Accusations, he-said/she-said, DNA evidence, lawyers and courtrooms, traumatising cross-examination. A community in shock. Lives never the same. Ruby and her mother flee to Ireland. Erin and her father stay in Boston. Can time, or distance, really heal?

Guilt and shame, anger and blame. 

How do you come back from the worst thing you’ve ever experienced? Nugent doesn’t spare readers, delivering haymaker reveals early that other authors may save til a finale; before diving deeper. How far will a poisonous act flow – over years and decades, through relationships and generations? 

Nugent has a rare ability to pack a novel’s worth of drama into the first half or third of a book, without it feeling overstuffed, then delivering even more unforgettable moments the rest of the way. She delves into deeply personal matters, while touching on wider themes of justice, addiction, and family. Smooth writing, layered and nuanced storytelling that hums with authenticity. 

The Truth About Ruby Cooper isn’t an easy read, but it is a brilliant one..

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.

"An engrossing ride" - review of THE SHARK

THE SHARK by Emma Styles (Sphere, March 2026)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

At the height of Australian summer, a serial killer dubbed The Shark stalks a beachside suburb, targeting young female swimmers whose bodies are later found on the shoreline.

Disempowered and angry at the failures of the police to protect them, two young women are hell-bent on revenge. Raych has lost someone and will go to any length to discover what happened to her, while Carmen suspects her own disturbing connection to the killer.

Together they form an uneasy alliance and, in a moment that changes the trajectory of their lives, Carmen and Raych abduct and imprison the prime suspect. Do they think they can save the day, or are there intentions darker? Can they trust one another's agenda? And when another young woman goes missing, what stops them from going to the police?

Almost four years ago, British-Australian author Emma Styles burst onto the crime (writing) scene with the fresh and fantastic [book:No Country for Girls|165812428], a riveting tale of two young women thrust together in Western Australia, at the wheel of a dead man’s twin-cab ute with a bag of stolen gold bars under the seat, with little idea where they were heading, or how they’d survive.

That helter-skelter thriller saw Styles hand-picked, alongside Māori storyteller [author:Michael  Bennett|17854263], by modern-day Queen of Crime Val McDermid as one of the most exciting new voices in global crime fiction, getting featured on the ‘New Blood’ panel at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, UK. No Country for Girls went on to be shortlisted for several awards, and win the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

What next? Second-time around Styles returns to Western Australia, where she grew up, with another duo of troubled young women who find themselves in deadly circumstances. 

The Shark is a serial killer thriller, with a difference. A hot Australian summer. A year ago, self-confessed ‘gutless wonder’ Raych’s best friend Piper vanished, taking with her Raych’s hopes for ‘more than friends’. Unlike some other young women who’ve gone missing, Piper’s body hasn’t been found, but Raych is sure she was taken by the same local serial killer that has been terrorising Perth’s coastal suburbs. The police have a suspect, but don’t seem to be getting anywhere. 

Meanwhile, high schooler Carmen wonders about a disturbing connection to the killer. Raych and Carmen met on the psych ward, but now they’re out, and end up forming an unlikely (and untrusting) alliance. They both desperately need answers, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

A man cable-tied to a chair. An abandoned garage. A bag of tools. 

But what if they’ve got the wrong man? 

Alternating between Raych and Carmen’s unreliable narratives, Styles takes readers on an engrossing ride where the real villains are unclear, all building to a harrowing finale. 

The Shark is a strong sophomore effort from a rising star in the crime thriller genre. 

This review was first written for publication in the New Zealand Listener magazine

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: BLACK VELVET AND VENGEANCE

BLACK VELVET & VENGEANCE by Deborah Challinor (HarperCollins, 2026)

Reviewed by Alyson Baker

Late 1872. When twenty-five-year-old Sydney undertaker Tatiana Crowe travels to Auckland to embalm the body of Evan Hunter's father events go horribly wrong, leaving Tatty stricken.

Back at home, Tatty has some enormous decisions to make, but finds herself facing challenges both personal and professional. When bodies start to go missing, seemingly snatched from the funeral train en route to the cemetery, it looks like someone is targeting Tatty's business and everything she holds dear.

Who has a vendetta against Tatty, and why? With the aid of the family she has made for herself among the misfits of Sydney she must fend off extortion demands, an irate grieving mother, Darlinghurst Gaol tittle-tattlers and the threat of ruin.

This book is the third in Deborah Challinor’s Tatty Crowe Series, set in the second half of the nineteenth century in Sydney. Tatty Crowe is a woman, an undertaker, a good friend, and a fearsome enemy. As with previous instalments, the reader learns a lot about the funeral business (in this case more than they would probably prefer!), and about loyalty, the difficult decisions women must often make, and about learning to trust others.

Black Velvet & Vengeance includes bodies stolen and held for ransom, women abused, and people killed – these crimes being a springboard for character depiction and social commentary. Tatty is no stranger to weighing up justice and culpability, having previously “murdered a husband, killed a second man in self-defence, and hunted down and terminated the activities of several Sydney baby farmers”. Her busy life continues in this novel, the plot kicked off by Evan Hunter, a character from the previous novel in the series, luring Tatty to Auckland to embalm his father.

Her trip to Auckland, a “town of around only twelve thousand”, is made with her colleague Hannah. It is a frantic trip, with Tatty resorting to cannabis to get her across the stormy Tasman Sea. Tatty’s use of cannabis is just one of the mentions of the routine use of drugs at the time – cannabis, opium (laudanum), and cocaine – for nausea, pain (including during childbirth), and in baby tonics!

Auckland proves worse than the voyage over: Hunter executes his appalling plan to get his claws on her successful Sydney business. His mother Viola reveals herself to be just as nasty as her son. And my goodness, embalming a body that’s been dead a week! When they return to Sydney from such an eventful and horrible trip, Tatty is not sure how much to report back to the others at Crowe Funerals. Especially whether to tell Henry, groom at the business and devoted to Tatty: “She loved Henry but sometimes he could be a tiny bit … bossy.”

Needless to say, Tatty’s Auckland problems don’t stay on their side of the Tasman – and soon she’s losing bodies she should be burying and finding others she shockingly recognises. She navigates the turmoil in her usual straight talking (“No, she was a bitch”), no-nonsense style. But she does find herself getting moody, emotional, and becoming prone to mental wandering – her life is getting even more complicated.

Much of Black Velvet & Vengeance is about “all the different forms that motherhood could take”, and the dangers, social views, and confusion of childbearing. At the time there was a terribly high rate of death in childbirth and of infant mortality – Tatty knows this from running a funeral business. There are the genetic fears of bearing a child of a ‘bad’ person, especially if through rape. And the social dangers of having children in non-traditional situations: “people liked to draw their own conclusions, and the more sensational the better.”

In some circles childbirth was seen as brutish and to be kept hidden: “Most women didn’t even go out in public once they were showing.” Tatty’s cook and second mother, Maggie, talks to her about how parents don’t live on if their daughters die childless. She also advises Robert, Hannah’s lover, that fornicators getting trapped for eternity in the second circle of hell. Hannah’s mother Edith responds: “I wouldn’t worry about the second circle, I’ve heard it’s just a bit windy.”

Tatty is dealing with all these concerns while trying to protect her business and those she loves. As well as Tatty, Black Velvet & Vengeance is chock-a-block with great characters, some of whom are from other series by the author, all “women with their chequered histories”. Maggie is a character whose arc in the story the reader gets to see more clearly than the other characters do. And Viola Hunter, although an evil woman, becomes a stark tragic figure as she descends into dishevelled madness.

There are amusing bits in the book despite these serious topics – such as Tatty becoming delightfully easily distracted: “She felt like a tropical tiger she’d seen as a child at the zoo in Regent’s Park in London, stuck in its little cage, endlessly circling. Not that her body was as lithe as a tiger’s – small as she was, she still felt like a hippopotamus. There had been one of those at the zoo too.”

The historical details are fascinating – almost as good as the novel are the Author’s Notes at the end, where Challinor details some of her research. Black Velvet & Vengeance can be read as a standalone, although reading the series adds to the enjoyment of following Tatty’s exploits. Of which I’m sure there will be more!

Alyson Baker is a crime-loving former librarian in Nelson. This review first appeared on her blog, which you can check out here. 

"Stands out in a sea of psychological thrillers" - review of SUCH A PERFECT FAMILY

SUCH A PERFECT FAMILY by Nalini Singh (Berkley, 2026)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Love at first sight, a whirlwind Vegas wedding, a fairy-tale romance. For seventy-nine days, Tavish Advani has been the happiest man in the world—until his new life turns to ash, his wealthy in-laws’ house going up in a fiery explosion. His badly injured wife lies in a coma, her family all but annihilated.

Tavish thought he left the sins of his Los Angeles life behind, but it’s not so easy to leave behind an investigation into the deaths of several high-profile women—all of whom he professed to love. Tragedy and death follow him no matter where he goes . . . but this time, he knows he’s innocent.

Desperately trying to clear his name as the authorities zero in, he begins his own investigation into the fire—and learns that his wife’s picture-perfect family may have been nothing but a meticulously constructed mirage. The truth is much darker than anything Tavish could’ve imagined ...

Driving back to the Prasad family home overlooking Lake Tarawera on New Zealand’s spectacular volcanic plateau, with wedding cake samples on the passenger seat, financial whiz Tavish Advani is feeling hopeful. He sees a bright future ahead with his beloved, Diya, and he’s hoping those pesky LAPD questions about dead past lovers are fading in the rearview. But when he arrives at his fiancée’s family home, he finds smoke, fire, chaos. Later, Diya lies in a coma in the local hospital’s ICU. There are charred bodies in the Rotorua morgue. Who could have done this?

Why was Diya mumbling ‘Ani’ as she lay bleeding out from stab wounds in Tavish’s arms?

Auckland storyteller Nalini Singh is renowned as a global Queen of Paranormal Romance, with a long string of New York Times bestsellers packed with archangels, changelings, and psychics. But in recent years she’s also dived into the murky waters of human-focused mysteries and thrillers. 

On that front, Such a Perfect Family may be her best yet, a twisting tale taking readers from Rotorua to the south Pacific islands of Fiji as Tavish tries to uncover anything about ‘Ani’, and more importantly to find some way to point to someone other than himself as the culprit, before the New Zealand Police and a story-chasing media lock in on his own chequered past. Meanwhile, in California, LAPD Detective Callum Baxter continues to investigate the deaths of Tavish’s past lovers.

Interspersing Tavish’s dubiously reliable narration with Baxter’s case notes – two determined, even obsessed, men at odds – Singh masterfully ratchets the tension, blending psychological thriller and murder mystery elements into a very good read likely to keep readers guessing right to its strong finish.

Further enhanced by insights into the pressures of immigrant life, along with Singh giving us taste of her own Fijian-Indian heritage, Such a Perfect Family offers something a little different in a growing ocean of domestic noir and psychological thrillers. A page-whirring read, well worth a look..

This review was first published in a February issue of the New Zealand Listener magazine

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 GAMBLER

THE GAMBLER by JP Pomare (Hachette, 2026)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

PI Vince Reid is visiting an old friend when he's offered a case he can't refuse: Why did a respected local woman open fire at a political rally, killing a promising young university graduate? It's easy money, he's told. A sure thing.

But as Reid delves further into the case, the stakes are higher than he imagined. There are invisible players pulling the strings. Will he walk away a winner or pay for the ultimate gamble with his life?

Any new novel from JP Pomare needs to be approached with caution. You're going to have to make sure that you've cleared your calendar, stacked up the pre-made meals, and maybe set some alarms to remind you of the animal medication schedules and feeding rounds, because I can just about guarantee that the "well I don't know what's going on here" is rapidly going to suck you in and hang onto you until the final page.

He's a deceptive writer, this man. Setting up a story in THE GAMBLER that started out almost gently, creating a few doubts that the planning mentioned above would be required (luckily I've been here before), it's a slow builder. Private Investigator, Vince Reid, is visiting an old friend when he's offered a case he can't refuse, and his friend can't do. Maybe therein lies the reason for the gentle deceptive start, Reid also thinks this one is going to be a bit of a doddle - find out why a young woman was shot at a political rally. Why she was targeted by a seemingly respectable older local woman who drove into that rally and fired, seemingly directly, at a young woman she didn't know or have any connection to whatsoever. The gunwoman herself was killed almost immediately afterwards by a young man who did actually have a connection to the victim, but he's elusive, hard to track down, hard to understand, increasingly hard to explain who or exactly what he is to do with the whole thing. It's as Reid tries to understand his part in the main that the connections get even more murky, and the layers in this deceptively chilling tale of manipulation, control, money, power and cruelty start to emerge. 

From small towns, to online communities, the Amish and working class families who just want to know what the hell happened, Reid starts out on an investigation that seems like it would be easy money, only to find it's anything but. In fact, it gets more and more dangerous as it gets more and more complicated, and it gets less and less clear who he can trust, and just how high the stakes are.

THE GAMBLER is the second novel in the PI Vince Reid series, the first being THE WRONG WOMAN. Both these novels are set in the US, in small towns dealing with what seems unimaginable, and turns out to be anything but. As is also often the way with his novels, victims are complicated, motivations are messy, and outcomes are always beset by edge cases and questions unanswered. Reid is a perfect character around which to centre such a complicated world, as is his friend and mentor - both of whom are either hiding, dodging or dealing with a lot of personal stuff. 

Clever and fascinating, utterly unputdownable, THE GAMBLER is standalone in story, but readers would benefit from reading the first novel simply because Reid is a character in whose company time is not wasted.

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 regular 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 New Zealanders and Australians on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"A pleasing brain-teaser" - review of THE KILLER QUESTION

THE KILLER QUESTION by Janice Hallett (Viper Books, January 2026)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Mal and Sue Eastwood were once the kindly landlords of a local village pub, The Case is Altered. They ran a weekly pub quiz and were well liked by their customers and colleagues alike, always happy to lend a helping hand. But now The Case stands empty, its windows boarded up. What could have happened to Mal and Sue?

Did The Case close because it was failing? Was it because of the body pulled from the nearby river? Or perhaps it had something to do with the quiz? It had always been a quiet affair, five teams of locals battling it out for a small prize pot. Until one day a mysterious new team of outsiders arrived, and started winning every round...

Former journo and British government speechwriter Janice Hallett burst onto the crime (writing) scene during the pandemic with The Appeal, a modern take on classic ‘puzzle-style’ murder mysteries, with an epistolary twist. Told in epistolary style, via letters, emails, and messages, readers were invited to solve the mystery alongside two lawyers looking for ‘the real killer’ among many case documents.

She’s continued the ‘found documents’ format through a string of bestsellers, and now in her fifth novel The Killer Question, it is WhatsApp messages and group texts, transcripts of police recordings, and emails pitching a true crime doco to Netflix that contain the clues, suspects, and red herrings. 

Along with sheets from a weekly quiz night at ‘The Case is Altered’, a local village pub down a quiet country lane run by former coppers Mal and Sue Eastwood. But who killed the man in the orange puffy jacket whose body emerged from the nearby river, after he was thrown out of a quiz night by Mal as a notorious quiz cheat? And who are the Shadow Knights, the mysterious team of seemingly elite quizzers who turn up out of nowhere and start winning every week, upsetting some locals?

With The Killer Question, Hallett crafts another pleasing brain-teaser. While there may be some wee pacing wobbles, and at times the conceit threatens to overwhelm our connection to characters, Hallett deftly brings her mystery all together very cleverly at the end.

This review was first published in a January issue of the New Zealand Listener magazine

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.

"Immerses readers in harsh Arctic landscapes" - review of A GIFT BEFORE DYING

A GIFT BEFORE DYING by Malcolm Kempt (Baskerville, 2026)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Sergeant Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and endless winter nights.

His bleak existence takes a sinister turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl whom he had sworn to protect. Her death dredges up demons he thought he'd buried along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between himself and his estranged daughter.

Against fierce backlash, Cole's overriding desire to redeem just one aspect of his otherwise failed life becomes an obsession - and he's willing to break every rule in his unyielding pursuit of justice and the smallest shred of redemption.

Newfoundland author Malcolm Kempt immerses readers in the harshness of Arctic landscapes, and the lives lived among them, in his terrific debut A Gift Before Dying. Sergeant Elderick Cole is enduring a frigid exile in Cape Dorset, a tiny hamlet perched among the vast, rugged expanses of Nunavut, after botching a high-profile murder investigation on mainland Canada. 

His tough, haunted existence becomes even tougher after he discovers the hanged body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl that he knew. Seemingly just another suicide in a bitter, desolate place; Cole thinks something more my be going on, though is he just fooling himself, or trying to atone for past mistakes, professional and personal?

Meanwhile, Pitseolala’s adolescent brother Maliktu, often bullied due to his appearance, believes he’s being visited by her ghost. Can the damaged duo find a killer, if one even exists? 

Kempt, who reportedly worked as a criminal lawyer in the remote Arctic for seventeen years, dealing with violent crime in a violent place, draws readers in with his vivid, authentic storytelling. 

He marches in to places others my avoid, from bloodstained circle of life to the trauma and weight carried by those whose careers accept violence and death as commonplace. Very good.. 

This review was first published in the New Zealand Listener magazine

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.