Review: THE HIGHLAND DEAD, Morag Pringle

• 
  This edition read as an e-book on Kindle 
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CWKDWBG2
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Storm Publishing. Publication date ‏ : ‎ 21 June 2024
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 340 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1805083603
• Book 2 of 3 ‏ : ‎ A Rachel McKenzie Mystery 

Synopsis (AmazonAU)

The death of a school friend forces Rachel McKenzie to confront a remorseless killer in her Highland hometown…

Rachel is no stranger to the darkness in the hearts of men. When the body of a young woman is found, tragically killed in her own home, Rachel is devastated to discover she knew the victim. Gillian helped her when she was at her lowest; now Rachel vows to find her friend’s murderer.

When the killer strikes again, frighteningly close to home, Rachel sees a chilling pattern to his victims. As she races to decipher the clues, she unravels a twisted plan years in the making. And when a young girl is taken, Rachel knows it’s reaching its terrible conclusion. As the clock counts down, how far can she push herself to stop this ruthless killer in his tracks?

My Take

For me this title didn't quite live up to the promise of the first in the series THE LIAR'S BONES

Rachel McKenzie is a procurator fiscal in Inverness. She finds a link between the death of a former friend and other deaths of young women, and then calls in favours from contacts in the police force. I guess my main criticism of the plot is that the solution of the mystery comes out of a case that the reader does not hear about until half way through the story.

There is further development in the story of the murder of Rachel's mother years earlier, and it looks as if we might finally get the truth in the third book in the series.   

My rating: 4.4

I've already read

4.5, THE LIAR'S BONES - #1   

Review: THE LIAR'S BONES, Morag Pringle

• 
  This edition read on my Kindle (AmazonAU)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CY5BVT9Q
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Storm Publishing, Publication date ‏ : ‎ 20 May 2024
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 360 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1805083122
• Book 1 of 3 ‏ : ‎ A Rachel McKenzie Mystery

 Synopsis (AmazonAU)

A murder on an isolated Scottish island brings investigator Rachel McKenzie face-to-face with a terrible secret from the past…

Rachel McKenzie has trust issues. It’s only natural, being the daughter of a killer. When she hears about a woman drowned in suspicious circumstances on the windswept island where her estranged family lives, Rachel is driven to look deeper.

The tight-lipped local sergeant wants Rachel off his island and out of his investigation. But Rachel’s presence is stirring old ghosts and new, and when she makes the connection between the drowned woman and a decades-old murder, she’s stepped right into the sights of a killer who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets safe…

My Take

A promising start to a new series, with a likeable central sleuth, a procurator fiscal with an intriguing past, someone who is willing to go with their instincts, and all the elements you expect from an engaging Scottish mystery: isolation, a storm, and a body or two.

My rating: 4.5

About the Author
Although I have been writing for several years and have had nineteen medical romances and four historical novels published, I have always wanted to write crime. The Liar's Bones is the first. Chunks of my life have inevitably found their way into all my books: jobs - temporary and permanent, places I have visited and lived, stories in the press that have caught my interest people passed on the street or served in a bar. Ultimately however my stories are the product of my imagination.I currently live in Glasgow with my husband. Five interesting facts about me that not everyone knows (and that may have crept into my books): I went to school in South Africa and speak Afrikaans. I spent seven months in the frozen north of Canada where temperatures could plummet as low as -40c. My parents were native Gaelic speakers: my father was a nuclear scientist, my mother a midwife and Health Visitor, or a 'Green lady' as they were known in Glasgow. My mother and her parents and three siblings lived alone on an otherwise uninhabited island for four years. My first job was creating information boards for archaeological sites across Uist in the Outer Hebrides.  

Review: THE BASKETCASE, Tim Sullivan

• 
  This edition read on my Kindle
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0FNWV6DQ7
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Head of Zeus -- an Aries Book, Publication date ‏ : ‎ 4 December 2025
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 47 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1804545690  

Synopsis (AmazonAU)

Three go up. Two come down...

Detective George Cross receives a very bizarre call from a distressed family after their picnic was horribly interrupted. Just as they were about to tuck into their sandwiches, a human arm landed unceremoniously next to them. Soon, another limb followed.

As they looked up, they were horrified to see a decaying, disarticulating body perched at the top of a very tall tree.

DS George Cross is an exceptional detective but it doesn't take a genius to work out what needs answering first:

How on earth did it get up there?

Discover why everyone loves George Cross in this puzzling short story that can be read as a standalone mystery within the bestselling series. 

My Take

A quick reminder of how good these stories are.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.5, THE DENTIST- #1

4.6, THE CYCLIST - #2

4.6, THE PATIENT - #3

4.6, THE POLITICIAN -#4

4.5, THE MONK - #5

4.7, THE TEACHER - #6 

4.6, THE BOOKSELLER - #7

Review: THE CURFEW, T. M. Logan

• 
  this title read as an e-book on Libby through my local library
  
• Publisher: Bonnier Books UK, Release 17 March 2022 
• ISBN     9781838776718 

Synopsis (Overdrive)

Your son said he was home. WHY DID HE LIE?

The utterly gripping up-all-night thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mother, The Dream Home and The Holiday

The curfew
Andy and Laura are good parents. They tell their son Connor that he can go out with friends to celebrate completing his exams, but he must be home by midnight.

The lie
When Connor misses his curfew, it sets off a series of events that will change the lives of five families forever. 

The truth?
Because five teenagers went into the woods that night, but only four came out. And telling the truth might mean losing everything...

WHAT WOULD YOU DO? 

My Take

This is the second novel I have read by this author, but it won't be the last. 

The story kept me involved (and guessing) right to the very end. It truly was heart in the mouth stuff, and I found myself taking sides! 

My rating: 4.8

I have read

4.5, THE HOLIDAY   

About the author

T.M. Logan is a Sunday Times bestseller whose thrillers have sold more than 1 million copies in the UK and are published in 18 countries around the world. The Holiday was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and will soon be a major TV drama. Formerly a national newspaper journalist, he now writes full time and lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children. Follow him on Twitter @TMLoganAuthor

Review: THE IMPOSSIBLE THING, Belinda Bauer

• 
  this edition read as an e-book on BorrowBox through my local library
  
• Published: 9 June 2026, Penguin
• ISBN: 9781804997888
• Pages: 416 
• Awards
  2026 Barry Award for Best Novel (nominee)
  2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (longlist) 

Synopsis (Penguin)

What could be so important that even a child will risk her life for it?

On a summer’s evening in 1926, six-year-old Celie Shepherd is hungry and desperate and not where a six-year-old should be. Instead she is dangling from a cliff, far above the sea, reaching out to pocket an impossibly beautiful thing.

This bold theft will change the course of Celie’s life, and the lives of others.

One hundred years later, a house is ransacked. The only thing missing: a dusty case containing that same impossible thing.

What could conceivably be so important that it is stolen again and again (and perhaps yet again . . . )?

So begins this extraordinary mystery from award-winning Belinda Bauer.

A taut, wonderfully imagined novel brimming with skulduggery at every turn, The Impossible Thing is a blazing testament to Belinda Bauer’s status as one of our greatest living crime writers.  

My Take

This novel combines the historical with crime. The historic theme is one that most readers would not be familiar with: the trade in bird's eggs in the 20th century, now outlawed in the 21st.  The fact that some eggs were so highly prized because of their size and their colour and because they were so difficult to get to. 

 In 1926, a young girl named Celie finds an "impossible" rare scarlet/red guillemot egg on the Yorkshire cliffs. A century later, Patrick Fort (the neurodivergent protagonist returning from Bauer's previous novel Rubbernecker) and his friend Nick set out to track down the historical red egg after Nick's home is ransacked and the artifact is stolen.

An intriguing and entertaining read. 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

5.0, BLACKLANDS
4.8, THE SHUT EYE
4.8, SNAP  

Review: THE DIVORCE, Freida McFadden

• 
  this edition supplied by my local library
  
• published by Poisoned Pen Press 2026
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1464280184
• 354 pages

1.  Synopsis (publisher)

What is a happily ever after really worth?

Naomi was living the quintessential love story.

Boy meets girl. They fall in love, get married, buy a dream house, start a family...

Then-he kicks her out, hires the city's best divorce lawyers, drains their accounts, and takes up with a 20-something.

It's a brutal end to the story. Naomi should accept defeat: move into a dingy apartment, get back into the workforce, and piece together the shattered remains of her life.

Except, why should she?

Instead, Naomi fixates on her husband's new girlfriend. What begins as cynical curiosity soon twists into obsession-and then into something far darker. As Naomi uncovers secrets she never imagined, she realizes her own life may be in danger.

But if it keeps her perfect family intact, isn't it worth it?

In The Divorce, #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a razor-sharp, subversive thriller where love curdles into vengeance, and survival becomes the most dangerous game of all. 

My Take

I never cease to be amazed at this author's ability to suck the reader in.  And here is a story with a number of twists. 

It comes as a shock that not every narrator in this story is reliable but it is very hard to decide who you should trust and who not?

As always an excellent read.

For those with books clubs, there are some questions at the end to challenge you. And here is one from me: who is the narrator in The Prologue? 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.5, THE TENANT

4.5, DO NOT DISTURB 

4.5, WANT TO KNOW A SECRET?

4.7, DEAR DEBBIE 

4.6, THE HOUSEMAID 

4.6, NEVER LIE 

4.6, THE BOYFRIEND 

4.5, DEAD MED 

Review: TELL ME SOMETHING TRUE, Michael Robotham

• 
  this edition published by Letterwing (Hachette Australia 2026)
  
• ISBN 978-0-7336-5289-9
• 421 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

The astonishing, emotional epic from Michael Robotham: a mystery, a coming-of-age tale and a love story wrapped into one, set against the simmering tensions of a small Australian town.

'Do you think this town will ever forgive me?' I ask.
'Not in a million years.'

Small towns are quick to anger and slow to forgive, but Arlo Hackett doesn't expect mercy when he emerges from a twelve-year prison sentence and makes his way back to Yulara, a waypoint on Australia's Great Southern Road. The last time Arlo was home, his brother Luke was charged with a terrible crime and Arlo was found guilty by association. 

His return to the former goldrush town is like cracking open a time capsule full of hatred and violence, along with memories of the people he loved - the ones he couldn't save.

Yulara wants Arlo gone, or worse, but every insult and humiliation pushes him to confront what really happened all those years ago.

The truth will shock you, surprise you, and break your heart. 

My Take

At last, the book from Michael's "bottom drawer"; the one set in Australia that friends and followers have been hoping to see one day. And it is a story that will stay with you as you rethink some of the plot lines. For me it was about inaction, prejudice, taking the easy way out, and the sort of miscarriage of justice that we all know exists and we hope never to see.

The characters are strongly drawn, the setting strongly Australian country town. Thank you Michael for a great read. 

My rating: 5.0 

About the author

Michael is the only Australian to twice win the UK's prestigious Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel, for Life Or Death and Good Girl, Bad Girl as well as the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for When She Was Good. Lying Beside You was shortlisted for the Australian Crime Writers Association's Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2023. Storm Child, his fourth novel in the globally bestselling Cyrus Haven and Evie Cormac series, was a No. 1 national bestseller in Australia. It was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. The White Crow, published in 2025, is the second book in his Philomena McCarthy series, following on from the internationally bestselling When You Are Mine.

Arlo's story, at the centre of Michael Robotham's 20th novel, Tell Me Something True, has held a special place in his heart since he first dreamt of becoming a writer. Four decades later, he's ready to share it with readers for the first time.

Michael lives in Sydney. 

I've also read

BOMBPROOF

SHATTER #3

SHATTER (audio)

BLEED FOR ME #4

5.0, THE WRECKAGE #5

4.8, SAY YOU'RE SORRY #6

5.0, WATCHING YOU #7

4.8, IF I TELL YOU... I'LL HAVE TO KILL YOU (edit)

5.0, LIFE OR DEATH Shortlisted for the 2015 CWA Gold Dagger

4.8, CLOSE YOUR EYES #8

5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS

5.0, THE SUSPECT #1 (audio)

4.8, LOST #2 (audio)

5.0, THE OTHER WIFE #9

4.8, GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL -Cyrus Haven #1

4.8, WHEN SHE WAS GOOD -Cyrus Haven #2

5.0, WHEN YOU ARE MINE - Philomena #1

5.0, LYING BESIDE YOU - Cyrus Haven #3

5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS

5.0, STORM CHILD - Cyrus Haven #4

5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS

5.0, WHITE CROW - Philomena #2