30 April 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013 - D is for a DEADLY CAMBODIAN CRIME SPREE


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will feature authors or books that I have read recently.

My choice for the letter D is INSPECTOR SINGH INVESTIGATES: A DEADLY CAMBODIAN CRIME SPREE by Shamini Flint


If you haven't yet met Inspector Singh then there is a treat in store for you.

Inspector Singh is in Cambodia - wishing he wasn't. He's been sent as an observer to the international war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, the latest effort by his superiors to ensure that he is anywhere except in Singapore.

But for the first time the fat Sikh inspector is on the verge of losing his appetite when a key member of the tribunal is murdered in cold blood. The authorities are determined to write off the incident as a random act of violence, but Singh thinks otherwise.

It isn't long before he finds himself caught up in one of the most terrible murder investigations he’s witnessed - the roots of which lie in the dark depths of the Cambodian killing fields. . .

My review is here

Check what others have chosen this week for the letter D.



29 April 2013

Review: BRYANT & MAY AND THE INVISIBLE CODE, Christopher Fowler - audio book

  • purchased from Audible.com
  • narrated by Tim Goodman
  • Bryant & May series #10
  • Length: 11 hours

Synopsis (Random House)

Christopher Fowler's detectives Bryant & May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit become embroiled in a fiendish case involving witchcraft, secret codes, hidden relics and, of course, bloody murder...

Two small children are playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later the woman is indeed found dead inside St Bride's Church - a building that no-one else has entered.

Unfortunately Bryant & May are refused the case. Instead, they are hired by their greatest enemy [Oscar Cassavian of the Foreign Office] to find out why his wife has suddenly started behaving strangely. She's become an embarrassment to him at government dinners, and he is convinced that someone is trying to drive her insane. She has even taken to covering the mirrors in her apartment, and believes herself to be the victim of witchcraft.

Then a society photographer is stabbed to death in a nearby park and suddenly a link emerges between the two cases. And so begins an investigation that will test the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit to their limits, setting Arthur Bryant off on a trail that leads to Bedlam and Bletchley Park, and into the world of madness, codes and the secret of London's strangest relic.

As the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit dig behind the city's facades to expose a world of private clubs, hidden passages and covert loyalties, they realise that the case might not just end in disaster - it might also get everyone killed.

My Take

I've been listening to this great audio book, driving the car, for about 2 months now, but today I couldn't wait any longer to hear the rest and listened to the last hour.

For those who haven't met the series before: London's Peculiar Crimes unit is always under threat of closure. Basically they deal with crimes no-one else likes and the principal detectives are the elderly Arthur Bryant and John May. Arthur certainly should have been retired twenty years ago but May has a great tolerance of his foibles.

What I like about these books is the complexity of the plots, the fact that there is almost always some historical detail that Arthur Bryant knows that relates to the murder being investigated. The appeal of the plots is related to the peculiarity of the crimes. Add to that the quirkiness of Arthur Bryant himself and the people he consults.

And running through it all, the author's sense of humour.

Tim Goodman does a wonderful job of the narration.

My rating: 4.5

I've already reviewed
THE VICTORIA VANISHES
4.6, TEN-SECOND STAIRCASE

Bryant and May
1. Full Dark House (2003)
2. The Water Room (2004)
3. Seventy-Seven Clocks (2005)
4. Ten Second Staircase (2006)
5. White Corridor (2007)
6. The Victoria Vanishes (2008)
7. Bryant and May on the Loose (2009)
8. Off the Rails (2010)
9. The Memory of Blood (2011)
10. The Invisible Code (2012)

Review: THE RICHMOND CONSPIRACY, Andrew Grimes

Synopsis (Text Publishing)

Victor Radcliffe, prominent Melbourne businessman, on the committee of the Carlton Football Club, lies murdered in a deserted warehouse—the bayonet wound suggests a trained killer, but Police Inspector James Maclaine, and his smart-taking sidekick Harry Devlin, are having trouble tracking down the killer.

Why do the members of Radcliffe's household seem strangely offhand about his murder? Was there a woman on the scene of the crime? As for the woman in Maclaine's life, his marriage is on the skids and he can't keep his nightmares away. The Praetorian Guard, a shadowy group of WW1 army veterans, keep showing up, as does the charming step-daughter of the deceased.

Set in the summer of the Bodyline cricket series The Richmond Conspiracy is a crime mystery about men who have returned after war and are refugees in their own land—old certainties have vanished, betrayal is in the air, and Maclaine has to determine exactly where justice lies.

My Take

Andrew Grimes is one of a growing batch of Australian authors setting their crime fiction post World War One , particularly in the 1930s.  [Kerry Greenwood, Geoff McGeachin, and Sulari Gentill]. And here is another one where the setting and story are a good match.

Set in 1933 where things are not going so well in Melbourne or indeed anywhere in Australia. Some returned soldiers have been unable to find either work or the excitement they experienced in the war and Australia has slipped into the economic depression. Fascist groups like the Praetorian Guard look with envy on what appears to be stability of places in Europe like Italy. The murder of Victor Radcliffe looks like soldier's work, even down to the Turkish bayonet still at the site. Victorian policeman James Maclaine soon discovers links to World War One legacies, hatreds and rivalries that still exist.

Although in essence this is a police procedural, in reality we see little of the workings of the Russell Street station where Maclaine and Devlin are located. But there is plenty of human interest and the tale moves at a good pace, the historical setting feels authentic, and the plot resolves nicely. A good start from a new author. A series is promised so here is a chance to get in at the beginning.

My rating: 4.4

About the author.


Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: the Letter D


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing.
We already have a strong core of weekly contributors but you can join at any time.


Last week we featured the letter C


This week's letter is the letter D

Here are the rules

The page telling bloggers which letter to focus on will appear on each Monday together with a Mr Linky.

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years.

Thanks for participating.

28 April 2013

Review: THE HIGHLAND WITCH (aka CORRAG), Susan Fletcher - audio book

  • published 2010
  • audio version published 2011 by Blackstone Audio
  • narrator Rosalyn Landor
  • Length approx 13 hours on 11 CDs
Synopsis (Audible.com)

Glencoe, 1692. Accused of witchcraft and condemned for her part in the recent massacre of the MacDonald clan, Corrag awaits her execution. Seeking information that will undermine the Protestant King William, Irish propagandist Charles Leslie question her on the events of that fateful night. As she tells her story, Leslie questions his own beliefs and purpose - and a friendship develops between them that alters both their lives.

Fantastic Fiction
In 1692, brilliant, captivating Corrag-accused witch, orphaned herbalist, and unforgettable heroine-is imprisoned in the Scottish highlands, suspected of witchcraft and murder. As she awaits her death she tells her story to Charles Leslie, an Irish propagandist who seeks information she may have condemning the Protestant King William. Hers is a story of passion, courage, love, and the magic of the natural world. By telling it, she transforms both their lives. 

My Take

I should probably point out that this is not really crime fiction, but part of my scheme to widen my horizons a little. Although it does focus on a 300 year old mystery - who was responsible for the Glencoe Massacre? It is centred on a period of British history with which I am pretty familiar - the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary and the abdication of KIng James II and VII and the "earming pan baby", the trigger for subsequent Jacobite uprisings, eventually leading to the times of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

In prison awaiting her death by burning, Corrag painstakingly takes Irish propagandist Charles Leslie through the background to the Glencoe Massacre in 1692. Leslie is hoping she will provide him with evidence that the massacre was in fact engineered by the "Orange King" and that this will somehow give more fuel to a successful Jacobite Rising.

As with all good historically set novels, this challenges what the readers thought they knew about Glencoe and it is no longer possible to see it as an inter-clan warfare. The novel brings the main characters to life.

This is wonderfully narrated by Rosalyn Landor, who magically transforms her voice so that you eventually recognise the main characters without a problem. 

My rating: 4.8

Read another review

27 April 2013

A big number coming up

Sometime in the next day or two I think the big counter on the top right will show

 500,000

If it happens to be your visit that triggers that number do let me know in a comment.

26 April 2013

Forgotten Book: DEATH MASK, Ellis Peters

My plan this year for my contributions to Friday's Forgotten Books hosted by Pattinase is to feature books I read 20 years ago - in 1993- from the records I have in my "little green book", which I started in 1975. In 1993 I read 111 books and was pretty well addicted to crime fiction by then.

This time 20 years ago I had just finished DEATH MASK by Ellis Peters.

Synopsis

Of course we all know Ellis Peters because of her Brother Cadfael novels and for the fact that historical crime fiction is acknowledged in the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Fiction Award. Ellis Peters was one of the nom de plumes used by Edith Pargeter.

Fantastic Fiction tells me DEATH MASK was a stand alone novel published in 1959.

When archaeologist Bruce Almond is killed on a dig in Greece, his son Crispin returns to Somerset and a mother he barely knows. Convinced his father's death was no accident, Crispin believes even his mother is not free from suspicion, so he baits a clever trap to lure the murderer out of hiding.

Martin Edwards has a nice article about Ellis Peters here.


25 April 2013

Anzac Day Australia 2013

98 years today since the landing at Gallipoli (25 April 1915) and we observed the day by attending the Walkerville RSL Dawn Service and then the ANZAC Day march through Adelaide.

Other tributes to check


24 April 2013

Review: MANLY MURDERS: A MOTHER WITHOUT A CHILD, Gunilla Haglundh

Synopsis (Amazon)

When Martin Stream, successful Australian business icon is murdered one morning on a Manly ferry on his way to work, local detective inspectors Georgia Show and Stephen French step in to solve the case. Martin, married with three adult children has a business empire spanning the globe. The police think they are close to a solution and probably suspects – when there is a second murder at the ghostly Quarantine Station in Manly. This time it’s a well dressed European woman – is there a connection?

A Mother Without A Child, the first in the Manly Murder series by Gunilla Haglundh has been compared to the English series Midsomer Murders. You will be taken on a wild ride from the Italian mafia to unsavoury business deals to the Manly Quarantine’s history through to the final solutions for the murders. All is definitely not what it seems.

This novel set in Sydney’s northern beaches is guaranteed to keep you guessing, while at the same time revealing much of beachside Manly’s history.

My Take

This is an ambitious novel from an experienced Australian female writer, but her first fiction title. It is a police procedural with a penetrating sense of place, partly because of the author's strategy of giving descriptive background whenever the main characters visit a new location. The setting is reinforced by an authenticity of language that particularly shows in the construction of dialogue. She also has a strong sense of just how tedious and meticulous detective work can be, but at the same time how the solution can be found quite accidentally.

Apart from the main plot of the two murders there are a couple of strong sub-plots centred around the detective inspectors investigating the murders. I liked the two main detectives, both of whom I found very plausible. Georgia Show in particular reminded me of Helene Tursten's Detective Inspector Irene Huss. The author successfully brings all plots together by the end of the novel, but didn't quite seem to know when to stop writing. The final chapter gives us an update on each of the main characters in the book which I didn't really think we needed.

The blurb on the novel calls it Australia's answer to Midsomer Murders, but I don't think it is quite that yet. Certainly Gunilla Haglundh has a fertile imagination, has created some strong investigative characters who presumably we will see in future novels, and so with her help there is every possibility Manly will become Australia's Midsomer. Definitely an author to follow, although the book could do with critical editing.

My rating: 3.7

The second book in the series, A LIFE SAVER'S SECRET, will be launched in May 2013.

23 April 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013 - C is for COLD GRAVE by Kathryn Fox


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will feature authors or books that I have read recently.

My choice for the letter C is COLD GRAVE by Australian author Kathryn Fox, #6 in very successful her Dr Anya Crichton series.

This is a novel to make all those thinking of going on a cruise think twice.
It is loosely based on the case of Diana Brimble, an Australian tourist who died from a drugs overdose.
My review is here

Check what others have chosen this week for the letter C.



22 April 2013

Review: THE CARRIER, Sophie Hannah

  • Published by Hodder & Stoughton 2013
  • ISBN 978-0-340-98072-9
  • 419 pages
  • Source: my local library
Synopsis (Amazon)

When her plane is delayed overnight, Gaby Struthers finds herself forced to share a hotel room with a stranger: a terrified young woman named Lauren Cookson - but why is she scared of Gaby in particular? Lauren won't explain.

Instead, she blurts out something about an innocent man going to prison for a murder he didn't commit, and Gaby soon suspects that Lauren's presence on her flight can't be a coincidence. Because the murder victim is Francine Breary, the wife of the only man Gaby has ever truly loved.

Tim Breary has confessed, and even provided the police with evidence. The only thing he hasn't given them is a motive. He claims to have no idea why he murdered his wife . . .

My Take

What kept me reading THE CARRIER is that I wanted to find out who murdered Francine Breary but the path to resolution was a bit long and tortuous.

I haven't read anything by Sophie Hannah before and I thought that perhaps my struggle to understand parts of the novel, particularly the dynamics of the police investigating team, must be because it was part of a series.
But Fantastic Fiction lists THE CARRIER as a stand-alone, not part of the Spilling CID series. But there are obviously connections between this novel and that series. And Sophie Hannah, on her website, lists it as her "eighth psychological crime novel to feature Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer".

Tim Breary who claims to have murdered his bed-ridden and paralysed wife Francine by smothering her with a pillow refuses to give any motive for her murder. In the absence of an identified motive, Simon Waterhouse wonders if this means that the murder was a collective action by those living in the house. There are number of references to Agatha Christie's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.

Gaby Struthers is travelling in Germany when she meets Lauren Cookson who had been employed as Francine's carer. Gaby's entanglement with Tim Breary took place many years earlier, before the stroke that left Francine paralysed. Until she meets Lauren, Gaby has no idea that Tim has been arrested for murder and that he is in gaol. She can't believe that Tim is a murderer.

The main story is told from a number of points of view including a series of letters written to Francine by various characters and "posted" under the immobile Francine's mattress. 

Other reviews of this book talk about the complexity of the plot, the exploration of psychological relationships between Tim and Francine and their other friends, and the way that Sophie Hannah makes the reader wait until the very end for the plot resolution. I certainly have to agree with most of them on these points but my problem is that I never really liked any of the characters, not even the police investigators. This tended to make reading the book, chosen by my face-to-face reading group, more a chore than a pleasure. And yet it is a book that has left me thinking.

My rating: 4.4

Read another review:

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: the Letter C


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing.
We already have a strong core of weekly contributors but you can join at any time.


Last week we featured the letter B

This week's letter is the letter C

Here are the rules

The page telling bloggers which letter to focus on will appear on each Monday together with a Mr Linky.

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years.

Thanks for participating.

19 April 2013

Forgotten book: A MURDER OF QUALITY, John Le Carre

My plan this year for my contributions to Friday's Forgotten Books hosted by Pattinase is to feature books I read 20 years ago - in 1993- from the records I have in my "little green book", which I started in 1975. In 1993 I read 111 books and was pretty well addicted to crime fiction by then.


This time 20 years ago I had just finished John Le Carre's A MURDER OF QUALITY.

Published in 1962, this is #2 in the George Smiley series. It is the title that precedes THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. I can see from my records that I followed up A MURDER OF QUALITY with #1, CALL FOR THE DEAD. I remember reading THE SPY... with an English class so this may well have been my inspiration to read the earlier two novels.

[Fantastic Fiction lists an omnibus, THE INCONGRUOUS SPY,  in 1961 as Le Carre's first publication. This actually contained the two novels CALL FOR THE DEAD and A MURDER OF QUALITY ]

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and so by the time I was reading these the setting was already in a world that has passed. However I remember crossing through Checkpoint Charlie in 1975 when the Wall was truly in effect. The contrast between West and East Berlin was incredible.
The first film made of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD was made in 1965 starring Richard Burton.

But, as you'll see from the synopsis below, A MURDER OF QUALITY was not about spies and espionage.

The novel was adapted for television by Thames Television in 1991. It starred Denholm Elliott as George Smiley and featured a screenplay adapted from the novel by John le Carré himself. It also starred Glenda Jackson, Joss Ackland, Diane Fletcher, David Threlfall and Christian Bale.

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

George Smiley was simply doing a favor for Miss Ailsa Brimley, and old friend and editor of a small newspaper. Miss Brimley had received a letter from a worried reader: "I'm not mad. And I know my husband is trying to kill me." But the letter had arrived too late: it's scribe, the wife of an assistant master at the distinguished Carne School, was already dead.

So George Smiley went to Carne to listen, ask questions, and think. And to uncover, layer by layer, the complex network of skeletons and hatreds that comprised that little English institution. 

18 April 2013

Review: SPEAKING FROM AMONG THE BONES, Alan Bradley

  • this edition published by Delacorte Press (2013?)
  • ISBN 978-0-385-34403-6
  • 375 pages
  • #5 in the Flavia de Luce series
Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Eleven-year-old amateur detective and ardent chemist Flavia de Luce is used to digging up clues, whether they're found among the potions in her laboratory or between the pages of her insufferable sisters' diaries. What she is not accustomed to is digging up bodies.

Upon the five-hundredth anniversary of St. Tancred's death, the English hamlet of Bishop's Lacey is busily preparing to open its patron saint's tomb. Nobody is more excited to peek inside the crypt than Flavia, yet what she finds will halt the proceedings dead in their tracks: the body of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist, his face grotesquely and inexplicably masked.

Who held a vendetta against Mr. Collicutt, and why would they hide him in such a sacred resting place? The irrepressible Flavia decides to find out. And what she unearths will prove there's never such thing as an open-and-shut case.

My Take

Another enjoyable tale featuring young detective Flavia de Luce.
You really must read these in order. They are delightful cosies. The characters of Flavia, her father, her two sisters and the members of the household blossom from book to book. In SPEAKING FROM AMONG THE BONES Flavia's bicycle Gladys takes on a life of her own.

The stories take on an aura of plausibility and you accept the wackiness of Flavia's detection skills without question. I thought as I read this one that young adult readers might enjoy the stories too.

Although Alan Bradley is a Canadian writer, the setting is firmly England in the early 1950s. The family home, Buckshaw, is under threat of sale, with Colonel de Luce having to pay exorbitant death duties after the presumed death of his wife Harriet, Flavia's mother, who disappeared while climbing in the Himalayas when Flavia was small.

We are promised #6 in the series in 2014, THE DEAD IN THEIR VAULTED ARCHES, an event to look forward to.

My Rating: 4.7

Check Flavia's website.

Other reviews
4.8, THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE
4.5, THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG
4.5, A RED HERRING WITHOUT MUSTARD
4.7, I AM HALF-SICK OF SHADOWS

16 April 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet - B is for BLACK WATTLE CREEK


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will feature authors or books that I have read recently.


And my contribution for the letter B is BLACKWATTLE CREEK by Australian author Geoffrey McGeachin.

This is #2 in McGeachin's Charlie Berlin series and every bit as good as the first.

It is set in 1957, 10 years after THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL Charlie Berlin appears to be well established in the Victoria Police and working as a plain clothes detective out of Russell St. in Melbourne.
The Olympics have been successfully held in Melbourne in 1956 and Australia is still reeling from the after effects, including having to accommodate Hungarian political refugees. The Australian government has agreed to allow British atomic scientists to carry out tests Maralinga near Woomera and the first were held just before the Olympics.

The rest of my review is here

See what others have chosen this week for the letter B.

15 April 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: the Letter B


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing

Last week we featured the letter A

This week's letter is the letter B

Here are the rules

The page telling bloggers which letter to focus on will appear on each Monday together with a Mr Linky.

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years.

Thanks for participating.

14 April 2013

Review: THE AFFAIR, Bunty Avieson

  • published by Pan Macmillan Australia 2002
  • ISBN 0-7329-1142-7
  • 272 pages
  • source: Salvation Army Op Shop
Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

In the opulent rooms of a Sydney specialist, Nina and James Wilde are waiting to learn whether the hereditary condition that killed James' father will threaten not only James, but also their much-loved son, Luke.

This is just the beginning of Nina's torment.

She has a secret. Memories of another time and a passionate love that should never have happened but is still just as capable of destroying everything that is most important to her. It had started so innocently. But doesn't everyone say that? 

My Take

First of all, let me point out that I don't think that THE AFFAIR is really crime fiction, although Avieson's first novel APARTMENT 255, joint winner of the Ned Kelly Award for first fiction in 2002, was. And that is basically why I picked THE AFFAIR up from the Salvo's shelves earlier this week.

However there are mystery elements that are sustained well throughout the novel and quite a twist (actually a double twist) at the end that makes it a satisfying read.

One of the main threads of the novel is based on the call that Lloyds of London made on its Australian "names" in 1991 when it declared major losses in the years after 1988. You might like to do a little research reading here. Lloyds made a call for funds on its Australian "names" which threatened to bankrupt a number of family firms, including, in the novel, Wilde wines.

But the primary threads of the novel relate to Nina Wilde's affair, and that is why I say it isn't really crime fiction.
However I note the following
  • 2003 - shortlisted for Ned Kelly Crime Writing Awards - Best Novel for The Affair
  • 2004 - shortlisted for Ned Kelly Crime Writing Awards - Best Novel for The Wrong Door

My rating: 4.2

Read another review @ The Blurb

About the author

Carolyn "Bunty" Avieson (born 1962) is an Australian journalist, feature writer, novelist and academic. She was editor of the mass-circulation magazines Woman's Day and New Idea; has published three novels, a novella and travel memoir; and been translated into Japanese, German and Thai. more.

12 April 2013

Review: MURDER WITH THE LOT, Sue Williams

  • Published by Text Publishing Melbourne 2013
  • ISBN 9-781922-07987
  • 294 pages
  • source: review copy
Synopsis (Publisher)

A smart, sassy self-appointed private investigator, Cass Tuplin is unforgettable and the town of Rusty Bore will never be the same…

Cass Tuplin’s takeaway isn’t the last shop left in Rusty Bore. There’s also Vern’s General Store. But it’s true the town’s not exactly overflowing with residents, and a stranger in Cass’s shop is quite an event. Especially one like Clarence: suspicious, bleeding, looking for a burger with the lot and somewhere quiet to stay. Cass knows just the place. Then she finds out more about Clarence and wants him out of town, but it turns out that’s not as easy as it sounds.

And then she finds the body.

It sounds like a job for the local police. Except that the local police is Cass’s son Dean, who has his doubts about Cass. And there’s no way he’s expending police resources on his mother’s fantasy crimes, not anymore.So it looks like Cass is going to have to find the killer on her own.

My Take
    Vern's general store and my place constitute the CBD of Rusty Bore, along with a row of three galvanised-steel silos. It's a town endowed with a royal flush of used-to-haves since the school, the pub and even the op shop closed down.
Sue Williams' writing displays a quirky sardonic tone that she manages to sustain throughout the novel. It shows in the town names - Rusty Bore, Hustle, and Muddy Soak - and in the characters who populate her novel, particularly in her central character Cass Tuplin.

Leading Senior Constable Dean Tuplin is the sole policeman of Hustle and he is convinced that his mother is on the verge of dementia. She has a history of reporting deaths, well she's raised a false alarm once before, and so when she reports a body that then disappears he is not particularly surprised. He blames his brother Brad who lives with his mother for not keeping her under better control. After that Dean doesn't take anything that Cass says seriously, even when her car is stolen, and her takeaway fish and chippery is burnt down. But something very serious is happening in the background and Cass can see that no-one is going to help her get to the bottom of it - she'll have to get proof herself.

MURDER WITH THE LOT is a farcical romp around the edges of living in Australia's Mallee country, a rural setting with drought and heat and a declining population, with a murder or two thrown in, and a hefty dose of corruption among those who should know better.

In style the book reminds me of Lisa Lutz and Kathy Lette, so if they are on the list of authors you like you might like to give this Aussie author a try.

My rating: 4.0

See Bernadette's review

11 April 2013

Review: 4.50 FROM PADDINGTON, Agatha Christie

  • aka WHAT MRS MCGILLICUDDY SAW, MURDER SHE SAID
  • first published 1957
  • This edition published by the Hamlyn group 1969
  • 189 pages
  • Source: my private collection
  • #50 in the titles I have read for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge
  • #9/14 in the Miss Marple series
Synopsis (Christie site)

“A man strangled a woman! In a train. I saw it.” Elspeth McGillicuddy was not a woman usually given to hallucinations. But when she witnesses a woman being strangled on a train, no-one believes her. With no other witnesses and no corpse, she turns to the one person who can help, but how can Miss Marple solve a murder that appears not to have happened?

4.50 from Paddington (1957) is one of Christie’s most celebrated novels. It was here she introduced Miss Marple’s great-nephew, David, to assist her in the investigation. This was also the only time Christie would introduce a female ‘sidekick’ for Miss Marple; Lucy Eyelesbarrow, the young girl who infiltrates the Crackenthorpe family. Critics lauded the appearance of Lucy though this would be the only time she appeared in a Marple novel.

4.50 from Paddington was published in America under the title, What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!  MGM adapted the novel into the film, Murder She Said in 1962.  Starring Margaret Rutherford, a friend of the Christie family, it is loved by fans the world over.  In 1988 it was adapted by the BBC in a more faithful adaptation starring Joan Hickson.  In 2004 it was filmed with Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple.

In all the American editions of this book the train time given is 4.54 rather than 4.50.  The original title was going to be 4.54 from Paddington but at the last minute the UK publishers changed it to 4.50 from Paddington. It was too late for Dodd Mead to make these changes as the manuscript had already gone to press.

My Take


There are some interesting aspects of the setting of this novel that place it quite firmly in the mid to late 1950s. The oldest son in the Crackenthorpe family was killed in the war and there is some speculation that he might have had a son who would now be 15 or 16 years old. The house in which most of the action takes place, Rutherford Hall, has seen better days: the grounds are very neglected and there used to be a lot more staff to run it.

There are a number of references to Miss Marple being frail and elderly but it doesn't stop her from undertaking quite extraordinary train journeys to establish a timeline for the murder that her friend Elspeth McGillicuddy witnessed. There are also quite a number of references to both Miss Marple and Mrs McGillicuddy carrying out a "duty" in tracking down the facts and culprit in the murder. There's a sense that they have old fashioned values that the younger generation don't share, although we are offered some hope in the "boys" who sleuth the grounds of Rutherford Hall enthusiastically. There's a sense too of the loss that the war caused - the death of the elder son, the poverty that followed the war, the physical/architectural structures damaged and never repaired, the disillusionment, marriages that never took place etc.

There's romance in the air too in this novel, a bit unusual for Miss Marple, but there are times when she appears to be playing the matchmaker.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. By comparison with modern day books it is quite short but you'd be wrong if you thought the brevity came at the expense of character development and setting. There are plenty of red herrings - I'd forgotten the solution and it came as a surprise.

My rating: 4.4

I've included this as a contribution to this week's Forgotten Books (Pattinase).
See what others have chosen.

9 April 2013

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013: A is for Ann Cleeves, DEAD WATER


Following a pattern established in 2012, my contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet in 2013 will feature authors or books that I have read recently.


And my contribution for the letter A is a book I have only just finished and reviewed, DEAD WATER by Ann Cleeves. I guess the A is actually featuring Ann herself rather than the book.


Some readers will remember that Ann is the author of the Shetland Quartet, four novels that centred around Jimmy Perez. Each novel is set in a season, and the series enedd with a terrible blow for Jimmy that left the readers gasping. But Jimmy is back as you'll see from my review.

Ann Cleeves has grown in stature in the crime fiction world in the last few years with many people drawn to her writing through the successful TV series VERA, featuring that very scruffy detective Vera Stanhope whom I've always thought was a bit like a female version of Reginald Hill's Andy Dalziel.

Check what others have chosen for the letter A.

8 April 2013

Review: DEAD WATER, Ann Cleeves


  • First published by Macmillan 2013
  • ISBN 978-0-230-70617-2
  • 387 pages
  • #5 in the Shetland series
  • Source: my local library
Synopsis (Amazon)

When the body of journalist Jerry Markham is found outside the house of the Fiscal down at the Marina, young Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation. Since the death of his fiancée, Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out the loop, but his interest in this new case is stirred and he decides to help the inquiry. It emerges that Markham was chasing a story. One that must have been - for someone - significant enough to warrant his death…

From the author's site

That initial quartet of novels ... ended with a shocking change in the life of detective Jimmy Perez. Now Ann has launched the first of a new quartet, with Dead Water. This is a time of change for the islands: they have done well from the oil boom, but what will the new era of renewable energy bring? Can Jimmy Perez make a new beginning in his own life? And can he find the murderer of journalist Jerry Markham?

My Take

Fans of Ann Cleeves' Shetland series will be pleased to welcome the return of Jimmy Perez. We did wonder if we would ever see him again.

Jimmy has not yet officially returned to work when the body of Jerry Markham, local boy made good, is discovered dead in the Procurator Fiscal's youl. Although a new young investigator from the Inverness Serious Crime Squad is sent to take charge of the case and theoretically Jimmy is not connected to the team. But he is drawn in, asking questions of the locals even before he realises that he has returned to work. And he and Willow Reeves, heading up her first murder investigation, make a good team, even though neither trusts the other completely.

This novel has everything we love in a murder mystery - a good plot, some local colour, well described settings, some interesting characters. An excellent read that flows like silk and I took note of the words "Ann has launched the first of a new quartet" so we have another 3 titles to look forward to. Hopefully including Willow Reeves.

If you haven't read any Anne Cleeves novels, you could start with this one, and then I'm sure you'll look for the earlier quartet that begins with RAVEN BLACK. Ann now has 26 novels to her credit, including the Vera Stanhope series, so you have plenty to look forward to.

My rating: 5.0

Other reviews on this blog

RED BONES
TELLING TALES (Vera Stanhope)
WHITE NIGHTS
5.0, BLUE LIGHTNING
4.3, MURDER IN PARADISE
4.8, SILENT VOICES, (Vera Stanhope)
5.0, THE GLASS ROOM (Vera Stanhope) 

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2013 - Letter A


The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme was is an annual event on this blog. This is its 4th outing

This week's letter is the letter A

Here are the rules

The page telling bloggers which letter to focus on will appear on each Monday together with a Mr Linky.
 
By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years.

Thanks for participating.

4 April 2013

Review: BLACK SKIES, Arnaldur Indridason

  • First published in Icelandic in 2009
  • This edition published in English by Harvill Secker 2012
  • translated into English by Victoria Cribb
  • ISBN 978-1-846-55581-7
  • 330 pages
  • source: my local library
Synopsis (Amazon)

A man is making a crude leather mask with slits for eyes and mouth, and an iron spike fixed in the middle of the forehead. It is a 'death mask', once used by Icelandic farmers to slaughter calves. He has revenge in mind.

Meanwhile, with Detective Erlendur absent, his baseball-loving colleague Sigurdur Óli is in the spotlight. A school reunion has left Sigurdur Óli dissatisfied with life in the police force. Iceland is enjoying an economic boom and young tycoons are busy partying with the international jet set. In contrast, Sigurdur Óli's relationship is on the rocks and soon even his position in the CID is compromised: when he agrees to visit a couple of blackmailers as a favour to a friend he walks in just as a woman is beaten unconscious. When she dies, Sigurdur Óli has a murder investigation on his hands.

The evidence leads to debt collectors, extortionists, swinging parties. But when a chance link connects these enquiries to the activities of a group of young bankers, Sigurdur Óli finds himself investigating the very elite he had envied. Moving from the villas of Reykjavík's banking elite to a sordid basement flat, Black Skies is a superb story of greed, pride and murder from one of Europe's most successful crime writers.

My Take

In retrospect, what strikes you about Indridason's books is how well crafted they are. The stories build layer on layer. They also demonstrate how small the Icelandic community actually is - although the residents don't necessarily know each other directly, they do belong to overlapping groups. Just as Iceland is a microcosm of the world's DNA, so it presents a laboratory of crime.

For the second title in a row Indridason's grumpy detective Erlendur has gone missing. (See OUTRAGE). This leaves his team to their own devices a bit, and Sigurdur Óli is not a team man at the best. A school reunion leads to him investigating a blackmailing case for an old school friend, his mother persuades him to look into the daily pilfering of an elderly friend's newspapers, and when a tramp comes looking for Erlendur he decides to follow up himself.

Sigurdur Óli is a very human detective who quite often makes mistakes and at least twice in BLACK SKIES he realises that he has woven events together in the wrong way and leapt to the wrong conclusions. Nor does he reveal to the rest of the team what he is up when he really does need help. He always seems to keep back little bits of information that he should be sharing. On the other hand he is what I think of as a fractal investigator, seeing small leads as worth investigating and that is partly what makes this book such a good read, as he goes off in directions the reader has not contemplated.

Having said that, I think I ready now for Erlendur to return, or to at least find out what has happened to him. His absence is a device that the author can surely sustain only for a couple of novels. In OUTRAGE it gave readers the opportunity to become better acquainted with Elinborg, and in BLACK SKIES with Sigurdur Óli. Of course, one of the advantages of this ploy is that a reader new to Indridason does not have to worry about not having read the earlier novels in the series.

There is a strong sense of setting in BLACK SKIES, not just the Icelandic setting, with characters known by single names, but also an explanation of the events that eventually lead to the global financial crisis and the collapse of the Icelandic economy. Like many contemporary crime fiction authors Indridason has embedded strong social comment in the novel.

My rating: 4.9

Other reviews to check
Other titles I have reviewed:
ARCTIC CHILL
5.0, HYPOTHERMIA
4.5, OPERATION NAPOLEON
4.6, OUTRAGE

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Blog Carnival for March

The monthly Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Blog Carnival continues in 2013.

The March Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Blog Carnival contains an excellent number of items, with real variety including reviews, news items, and web pages to check.


The April Carnival is now open for contributions and contributions from all bloggers are very welcome..

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Participants
1. Notes on THE CLOCKS @ Christie in a Year
2. Reading Christie - blog discovery
3. Review: DEAD MAN'S FOLLY - Kerrie (MiP)
4. Dewi Evans - The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
5. The ABC Murders- Carol's Notebook
6. Notes on N or M @ Christie in a Year
7. Review - Cat Among the Pigeons - Margaret @ BooksPlease
8. Notes on DEATH COMES AS AN END @ Christie in a Year
9. SAD CYPRESS - Clothes in Books
10. Notes on LORD EDGWARE DIES @ Christie in a Year
11. Review: MURDER AT HAZELMOOR, @ Only Detect
12. Review: THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY - TracyK
13. Ryan @ Wordsmithonia - Murder in the Mews
14. Review:The thirteen problems
15. Notes on MURDER AT THE VICARAGE @ Christie in a Year
16. Review:Hallowe'en Party
17. Waiting for Poirot
18. Agatha Christie 404
19. Agatha Christie page on FaceBook
20. Plan your Christie Week
21. Berezovsky, Agatha Christie and a short history of poison
22. Review: Cathy Cook's The Agatha Christie Miscellany

2 April 2013

Best new-to-me crime fiction authors: a meme: January to March 2013

It's easy to join this meme.

Just write a post about the best new-to-you crime fiction authors (or all) you've read in the period of January to March 2013, put a link to this meme in your post, and even use the logo if you like.
The books don't necessarily need to be newly published.

After writing your post, then come back to this post and add your link to Mr Linky below. (if Mr Linky does not appear - leave your URL in a comment and I will add to Mr Linky when it comes back up, or I'll add the link to the post)
Visit the links posted by other participants in the meme to discover even more books to read.

This meme will run again at the end of  June 2013.
 



What I read in March 2013

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2013

March was a pretty solid reading month with a lot of Australian authors, particularly a number of debut crime fiction titles.

My pick of the month is actually the book I most recently completed reading THE ROBBERS by Paul Anderson
This is a debut crime fiction title by an Australian author who has already published a number of true crime titles.

WATCHING THE DARK by Peter Robinson was an impressive contender.
  1. 5.0, THE ROBBERS, Paul Anderson (30 March) - Aussie author
  2. 3.8, JENNIFER SHOT - THE FIRST SHOT, Patricia Kristensen (28 March) - Aussie author
  3. 3.6, MURDER ON DISPLAY, Reece Pocock (25 March) - Aussie author
  4. 3.9, COORPAROO BLUES & THE IRISH FANDANGO, G.S. Manson (24 March) - Aussie author
  5. 4.7, WATCHING THE DARK, Peter Robinson (22 March)
  6. 4.3, THE CORPSE WITH THE SILVER TONGUE, Cathy Ace (14 March) - kindle
  7. 4.7, I AM HALF-SICK OF SHADOWS, Alan Bradley (11 March) - library book
  8. 4.4. AGENT 6, Tom Rob Smith (10 March) - library book
  9. 4.3, TRIAL BY FIRE, Frances Fyfield (10 March) - audio, library book
  10. 4.3, TAMAM SHUD, Kerry Greenwood (8 March) - Aussie author
  11. 4.1, DEAD MAN'S FOLLY, Agatha Christie (4 March) - library book
  12. 4.5, TURN OF MIND, Alice LaPlante - (1 March) -  library book
Check what others have selected as their Pick of the Month for March.

1 April 2013

Review: SO MUCH BLOOD, Simon Brett - audio book

  • Book originally published 1976
  • #2 in the Charles Paris series
  • this audio version published 2011
  • narrated by the author, Simon Brett
  • Length  6 hrs 10 mins
  • source: my local library
Synopsis (Audible)

Charles Paris returns again, in a fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival, with another nubile girl to provoke him, his accommodating wife to console him and a gory murder to challenge him.

Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground with Charles flitting between a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a ‘mixed-media’ satire, a late-night revue and his own one-man show on Thomas Hood. Then a fading pop star is murdered, there’s a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace and someone makes a suicide leap from the top of the Rock….

My Take

There is something special about an audio book when the narrator is actually the author, especially when it is really well done as SO MUCH BLOOD is.

This title comes early in the Charles Paris series (which by the way has a new title, the first for 16 years, published this year.) Charles isn't quite the dipsomaniac he becomes in later books, and his marriage still clings to some vestiges of life. All the books in the series are connected to Charles' life as a barely successful actor.

Although there is one gory murder, SO MUCH BLOOD is really a cozy. Charles Paris is rather easily led and makes some basic mistakes in his judgment of those around him. He follows some red herrings, and so for that matter did I. A lovely enjoyable read.

My rating: 4.3

I've written about the Charles Paris series before in connection with Friday's Forgotten Books:
CAST IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE
Who killed Marius Steen, the theatrical tycoon with a fortune to leave his young mistress Jacqui? And who killed Bill Sweet, the shady blackmailer with a supply of compromising photographs? Charles Paris, a middle-aged actor who keeps going on booze and women, takes to detection in Cast, In Order of Disappearance, by assuming a variety of roles, among them that of a Scotland Yard Detective-Sergeant, and the results are both comic and dramatic. As the mythical McWhirter of the Yard, he actually precipitates the crime; as one of the blackmailer's victims, he finds himself in bed with the blackmailer's wife; as a small-part player in a horror film (The Zombie Walks), he gets shot at by a murderer. And he arrives at the solution by way of the petrol crisis and an abortive attack of the German measles. It's a light-hearted frolic that is, at the same time, a beautifully ingenious puzzle, and it fizzes with fun and wit.

Simon Brett is also the author of the Fethering series.
I've also reviewed the following titles from that series.

BLOOD AT THE BOOKIES
THE POISONING IN THE PUB - this review also includes some mini-reviews of 6 other Fethering titles.
4.4, THE SHOOTING IN THE SHOP

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month March 2013

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2013


Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for March 2013, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.



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