Books to Look For

Every now and again I check Australian online sites for what they are listing in crime fiction and I've found a couple I haven't yet got hold of.

Over at Angus and Robertson Australia, they list the Top 5 Bestsellers for Crime Fiction. Not sure what the time frame for this list is, perhaps the last week ??

The books listed are

TRIPTYCH by Karin Slaughter. When I reviewed TRIPTYCH in 2006 I gave it 4.6

THE HARD WAY by Lee Child. My review of THE HARD WAY was also favourable with a rating of 4.7

BREAK NO BONES by Kathy Reichs. I wasn't as impressed with BREAK NO BONES, but perhaps I was feeling a bit over-Reiched. I gave it 4.3

END IN TEARS by Ruth Rendell
This one didn't make it to being a published review but here is what I said in my database:
In the early hours of the morning George Marshalson is waiting anxiously for his young daughter to come home. His discovery of her body at dawn not far from the house is the beginning of a new case for Reg Wexford and the Kingsmarkham CID team. Neither Reg nor his assistant Mike Burden are getting any younger and both are a bit old-fashioned in their attitudes and their policing methods. In this, the 20th book in the Wexford series that began in 1964, award winning author Ruth Rendell introduces the new face of policing in Britain in the persons of the latest additions to the team, Bal and Hannah. And again Rendell gives this book a contemporary setting by weaving into it a theme that has been of world-wide community concern. The Wexford family interest continues too when daughter Sylvia becomes pregnant by her ex-husband.
My rating: 4.8

THE POWER OF THE DOG by Don Winslow
I read a blurb about this one but it didn't grab me.

Over at Dymocks Australia, it is not so easy to find a similar list but the author of the month has been Alexander McCall-Smith with the book THE GOOD HUSBAND OF ZEBRA DRIVE listed.
I loved this one and gave it 5.0. My database entry:
#8 in the No. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY series. After I read the previous title in this series, I thought perhaps it was coming to an end; that McCall Smith had no more to tell, could do no more with the material. How wrong I was! With THE GOOD HUSBAND OF ZEBRA DRIVE the series swings upward to another peak. Maters come to a point between that traditionally built lady Precious Ramotswe and her secretary Mma Makutsi when the latter takes the afternoon off to do some shopping when she is supposed to be minding the office. Mma Makutsi decides to resign and to look for a new job. Meanwhile, when Mma Makutsi was absent, Precious Ramotswe’s husband, Mr. J L. B. Matekoni interviewed a client, and he tells his wife he would like to follow that case through, carrying out the investigation himself. A cousin working in the administration of the public hospital in Mochudi comes to see Precious Ramotswe about some unexplained deaths at the hospital, so once again the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency has its hands full. There is something about reading these stories that is rather like meeting up with old friends. But don’t underestimate McCall Smith as a writer. The characters are gently but so graphically drawn, with touches of humour, and situations you can imagine witnessing. And McCall Smith makes use of an urban legend that I’m sure you’ll recognise. There’s no sex, no violence, rarely any blood and gore in these novels. And yet there is murder, mystery and crime, just enough to challenge the reader’s little grey cells.

Dymocks are highlighting THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson which I have heard good things about but still haven't read. (and they've cut $6 off the price of the trade paperback too)
From their site:
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone in her own family - the deeply dysfunctional Vanger clan. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired to investigate, but when he links Harriet's disappearance to a string of gruesome murders from forty years ago, he needs a competent assistant and he gets one: computer hacker Lisbeth Salander - a tattooed, truculent, angry girl who rides a motorbike like a Hell's Angel and handles makeshift weapons with the skill born of remorseless rage.This unlikely pair form a fragile bond as they delve into the sinister past of this island-bound, tightly-knit family. But the Vangers are a secretive lot and Mikael and Lisbeth are about to find out just how far they're prepared to go to protect themselves and each other