MYSTERIES in PARADISE: Aussie Author Challenge

Showing posts with label Aussie Author Challenge. Show all posts

10 September 2022

Review: LYING BESIDE YOU, Michael Robotham

this edition published in 2022 by Hachette Australia
ISBN 978-0-7336-4815-1
390 pages
#3 in the Cyrus Haven series

Synopsis (publisher)

TWO MISSING WOMEN. ONE WITNESS. SO MANY LIES . . . The brand-new thriller by the number-one bestselling and award-winning master of crime

Twenty years ago, Cyrus Haven's family was murdered. Only he and his brother survived. Cyrus because he hid. Elias because he was the killer.

Now Elias is being released from a secure psychiatric hospital and Cyrus, a forensic psychologist, must decide if he can forgive the man who destroyed his childhood.

As he prepares for the homecoming, Cyrus is called to a crime scene in Nottingham. A man is dead and his daughter Maya is missing. Then a second woman is abducted . . . The only witness is Evie Cormac, a troubled teenager with an incredible gift: she can tell when you are lying.

Both missing women have dark secrets that Cyrus must unravel to find them - and he and Evie know better than anybody how the past can come back to haunt you . . .

This breathtaking new thriller from the #1 bestselling author will keep you guessing until the very end.

My Take

Michael Robotham handles multiple plot strands with such ease. And even though this is the third in the series we get new insights into both Evie Cormac and Cyrus Haven and their relationship.

Cyrus is not sure whether he can handle his brother Elias coming out of psychiatric hospital and Evie is fearful about what it means for her life as a lodger in Cyrus's house. For despite the fact that Elias is medicated, he is still not normal.

Meanwhile Cyrus is continuing to work in his usual job, as a forensic psychologist, and Evie observes on the fringes of his work.

An excellent novel.

Readers will ask if they need to read the first two in this particular series - the answer: yes you do - before you read this one!

My rating: 5.0

About the author

Before becoming a novelist, Michael Robotham was a former feature writer and investigative reporter working in Britain, Australia and America, and with clinical and forensic psychologists as they helped police investigate complex, psychologically driven crimes. His debut thriller, The Suspect, introduced clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin and sold more than a million copies around the world. The first of a nine-book series, The Suspect is being adapted for the screen by World Productions (makers of Line of Duty and Bodyguard), starring Aidan Turner. Michael's standalone thriller The Secrets She Keeps was adapted for TV by Network 10 and the BBC. The second series is out now.

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 for WHEN SHE WAS GOOD. His latest Book, LYING BESIDE YOU, is the third book in his bestselling Cyrus Haven and Evie Cormac series.

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
5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS
5.0, THE SUSPECT #1 (audio)
4.8, LOST #2 (audio)
5.0, THE OTHER WIFE
4.8, GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL -Cyrus Haven #1
4.8, WHEN SHE WAS GOOD -Cyrus Haven #2
5.0, WHEN YOU ARE MINE

4 July 2022

Review: THE WATERHOLE, Lily Malone

this edition from Amazon on Kindle
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09K6C8DZF
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lily Malone Publishing (21 November 2021)
Print length ‏ : ‎ 322 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

Australian author Lily Malone debuts in a darker genre with this small-town mystery/suspense novel. Perfect for readers who love Jane Harper's The Dry.

When a backyard dare to discover the source of a fabled waterhole uncovers human bones, small town detective, Marley West, leaps at the chance to kickstart his stalled career. But it’s more than two decades since developers filled the Cowaramup creek. The woman who owned the land—the Ross family matriarch—has passed away. Relations between her sons, Jack and Bill, are colder than the case.

Then the Ross family learn Marley is the grandson of notorious police sergeant, Alan West, the corrupt cop who once ruled the town with an iron fist.
To solve the case, Marley must gain the trust of three people with no reason to trust each other and less reason to trust him: Bill, who left the love of his life to fight in Vietnam; charismatic Jack, who could always catch the eye of a pretty girl; and city school teacher, Annette, whose move to Cowaramup in 1966 would change the Ross brothers’ lives forever.
As he navigates a tangled web of lies and betrayals, jealousies and murder, Marley has to ask himself: are these bones better left buried?

My Take

The narrative skilfully shifts between several time frames which I found challenging at first, eventually managed to get it sorted. It begins with the discovery of some bones in an area being established as a new housing subdivision. We meet the police Constable Brigit Winger and Detective Marley West from Busselton Police Station as they travel to the site to view the bones. Marley takes one look and he knows they have a problem.

Eventually they work out that they have two skeletons, one probably much older than the other. The bodies lie where there was once a waterhole, covered in over 20 years before. Some of the story goes back almost 50 years.

The author has done an excellent job of creating characters, developing credible plot lines, and finally revealing the story on several levels. A very engrossing read.

My rating: 4.7

About the Author
Lily Malone might have been a painter, except her year-old son put a golf club through her canvas. So she wrote her first book instead. Lily is the author of the best-selling Australian rural romance series, The Chalk Hill Series, set in the great southern wine region of Western Australia. In 2018 she took the coveted No.1 place in the Amazon Australia Kindle store with her best-selling romance, The Vineyard in the Hills. When she isn't writing, Lily likes gardening, bushwalking, wine, and walking in gardens (sometimes with wine). She loves playing cards and fishing by boat or on the beach. She lives in the Margaret River region of Western Australia with her husband and two handsome sons who take after their father. Lily is a member of Australian and New Zealand Rural Fiction and Australian Fiction Authors. She loves to hear from readers and you can find her on Facebook, and on Twitter: @lily_lilymalone. To contact Lily, email lilymalone@mail.com or visit www.lilymalone.blog

13 March 2022

Review: THE STONING, Peter Papathanasiou

this edition published by Quercus 2021
made available by my local library
315 pages
ISBN 978-1-52941-698-5
#1 of a new series?

Synopsis (publisher)

A small town in outback Australia wakes to an appalling crime.

A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb’s northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and the local indigenous community, between immigrants and the townies.

Still mourning the recent death of his father, Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate. Within minutes of his arrival, it’s clear that Cobb is not the same place he left. Once it thrived, but now it’s a poor and derelict dusthole, with the local police chief it deserves. And as Manolis negotiates his new colleagues’ antagonism, and the simmering anger of a community destroyed by alcohol and drugs, the ghosts of his past begin to flicker to life.

Vivid, pacy and almost dangerously atmospheric, The Stoning is the first in a new series of outback noir featuring DS Manolis, himself an outsider, and a good man in a world gone to hell.

My Take

8 hours drive from the nearest big city (but which one?), Cobb is a town on the edge of nowhere. Like most small outback towns it is struggling to survive. The detention centre was meant to breathe new life into the town, and certainly it has brought money, extra people, but also a heap of problems. The detention centre is supposedly low security, with a nightly curfew, but in reality the asylum seekers who live there dare not visit the town. Life in the detention centre is little better than living in a jail; it has its own security guards, and the town police have no jurisdiction there.

When a local school teacher is found taped to a tree, stoned to death, a city detective is sent to investigate the case. He suspects he has been sent because he lived in Cobb as a child, his father lived in the previous immigration centre that had been there.

Detective Sergeant George Manolis certainly has his work cut out. The town's police station has 3 staff, supervised by Sergeant Bill Fyfe, and they cut corners where ever they can, and Fyfe is a drunk. Manolis will find that the standards usually enforced in the city do not exist, the services he would expect are not available, and the locals have little respect for the police.

This was a fascinating read that doesn't hesitate to point out the failings of Australia's asylum centre system, as well as tackling the decline that has beset many Australian small outback towns.

Papathanasiou commented: "First and foremost, I wanted to write a compelling crime novel inspired by the vast Australian outback. But I also wrote The Stoning to be more than a whodunit. The plight of asylum seekers in detention is under intense scrutiny worldwide, with many countries considering the hardline Australian model. I feel the voices of Australian writers exploring this subject matter through literature may be especially resonant at this time. As the child of migrants and grandchild of refugees, it is also a topic close to my heart."

My rating: 4.6

Another review to read: https://damppebbles.com/tag/quercus/

About the author
Peter Papathanasiou was born in northern Greece in 1974 and adopted as a baby to an Australian family. His debut book, a memoir, was published in 2019 as "Son of Mine" by Salt Publishing (UK) and "Little One" by Allen & Unwin (Australia). His debut novel, a work of crime fiction, was published in 2021 as "The Stoning" by MacLehose Press (UK) and Transit Lounge (Australia), and in 2022 by Polar Verlag (Germany). Peter's writing has otherwise been published by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, The Guardian UK, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Good Weekend, ABC and SBS. He holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from City, University of London; a Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Sciences from The Australian National University (ANU); and a Bachelor of Laws from ANU specialising in criminal law.

12 March 2022

Review: SLAUGHTER PARK, Barry Maitland

This edition made available through Libby by my local library
First published: October 2016 Text Publishing, Australia
Slaughter Park is the third and final book of the Belltree Trilogy.
Length: 368pp
ISBN: 9781925498905

Synopsis (author website)

Harry Belltree’s obsessive pursuit of justice has cost him everything – his job in homicide, his marriage and his newborn child. He has nothing left to lose, or so he thinks. Then his estranged wife disappears, leaving their baby daughter behind. The police think she has murdered a man. Harry thinks she’s in danger.

When severed limbs are found dangling from the branches of trees in a suburban park, Harry’s former colleagues are pulled off Jenny’s case. It’s up to Harry to track his missing wife down on his own.

And to lay bare, at last, the extraordinary conspiracy that led to his parents’ murder.

Slaughter Park is the third and final book of the Belltree Trilogy.

My Take

SLAUGHTER PARK takes up where ASH ISLAND left off.

Harry's wife has regained her sight and given birth to a baby daughter and when he visits her in hospital Jenny tells him he must go, leave them. She is frightened that the forces that have been following them will continue to pursue them and destroy them all. Harry takes Jenny at her word and he disappears and she hears nothing of him.

However when Jenny disappears nearly a year later, her sister uses the journalist Kelly Pool to find him and he comes back to Sydney to find her. Bodies have turned up in Slater Park, nicknamed Slaughter Park by the media, and the police are looking for Jenny, believing she has murdered a man.

Once again this is a novel about police corruption, political corruption, the domination of one family, and the death, years before, of Harry's parents. The threads that began with CRUCIFIXION CREEK are eventually resolved, some of them in a surprising twist.

I recommend the series to you.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

BRIGHT AIR
mini reviews

4.7, DARK MIRROR - #10
4.8, CHELSEA MANSIONS - #11
4.7, THE RAVEN'S EYE - #12
4.7, CRUCIFIXION CREEK

4.6, CRUCIFIXION CREEK
5.0, THE PROMISED LAND

4.6, ASH ISLAND

21 December 2020

Review: THE GIRL IN KELLERS WAY, Megan Goldin

format: e -book available through Libby
ISBN-10 : 0143785443
ISBN-13 : 978-0143785446
Published 2017, Penguin e-books
274 pages

Synopsis (Sisters in Crime)

When Laura West was murdered, Julie gained everything – her husband, her child, her house. Now, Julie West lives the good life. She is mother to 3yr old Alice and married to Matt, a charismatic professor of psychology. Yet Julie is stifled, by the memory of Laura, by the demands of being a trophy wife, and by constantly trying to wrest her husband’s attention from the young women who flock to his lectures. Julie’s escape is in running, and one morning in the forest on Kellers Way, she is forced to dive out of the way of a crashing vehicle. Then the dying driver gives her a chilling warning…

Things get busy for Detective Mel Carter when her partner goes on holidays. Just two weeks apart there’s a fatal road crash and then the discovery of human remains, both on Kellers Way. Mel discovers that the murder of Laura West is not a closed case and that the trail of clues is not as clear as she had thought. Is the obvious suspect really the murderer? Or has an innocent person been condemned?

My Take

Although Megan Goldin lives in Melbourne this psychological thriller is set in small-town North (?) Carolina. The basic theme is how much our memories can be manipulated either by drugs or verbal means. That is what Julie's husband Professor Matt West does his research in and what he lectures in. In Julie's world whole days pass when she is "not well" and she remembers almost nothing. There are times when she hardly remembers Matt's first wife Laura, and other times when she wonders if she had a hand in her death.

The reader sees the world mainly from Julie's point of view but there are many inconsistencies and glimmers of something else. Matt is insistent she takes her medication to keep on an even keel, but when she doesn't Julie feels that she wakes up clear-headed and in control.

This is a book that will get your book group talking - particularly about the ending. The author has provided questions and an "interview" to help you along.

My rating: 4.6

About the author

Megan Goldin is the author of THE ESCAPE ROOM, a 2019 thriller that Lee Child called "one of my favorite books of the year" and Harlan Coben called "thrilling and unforgettable". Megan's latest novel THE NIGHT SWIM was released in August 2020. Before becoming a novelist, Megan worked as a reporter covering the Middle East and Asia for the Reuters news agency, the Associate Press and the ABC as well as other news outlets.

2 December 2018

Review: THE HONOURABLE THIEF, Meaghan Wilson Anastasios

this edition published by Pan Macmillan Australia 2018
ISBN 978-1-76055-262-6
440 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

'Achilles? Because...?'
'Obsession of mine. Half man, half god - and his own worst enemy.
My kind of man.' He laughed.

Istanbul, Turkey 1955

Benedict Hitchens, once a world-renowned archaeologist, is now a discredited - but still rather charming - shell of his former self.

Once full of optimism and adventure, his determination to prove that Achilles was a real historical figure led him to his greatest love, Karina, on the island of Crete and to his greatest downfall, following the disappearance of an enigmatic stranger, Eris.

He has one last chance to restore his reputation, solve the mystery of Eris and prove his Achilles theory. But it is full of risk, and possibly fatal consequences...

In her breakout novel, Meaghan Wilson Anastasios weaves an action-packed tale of honour, passion, heroes and thieves across an epic backdrop of history.

My Take

The structure of this novel turns it into demanding reading. It chops backwards and forwards across multiple time frames, designed to show the reader how Benedict Hitchens is brought low, but in actual fact disrupting the flow of the story. The time frames bring with them a number of plot strands with issues that did not always resolve.

The final chapters of the novel read like an episode from an Indiana Jones movie and for me did not sit comfortably with the Benedict Hitchens I met in the first part of the novel. And then the final element of where Achilles' shield ends up is just pure foolishness.

My rating: 3.5

About the author
Meaghan Wilson Anastasios spent her formative years in Melbourne before travelling and working as an archaeologist in the Mediterranean and Middle East. She holds a PhD in art history and cultural economics, has been a lecturer at the University of Melbourne and was a fine art auctioneer. Meaghan now uses her expertise to write and research for film and TV. She lives in inner-city Melbourne with her husband and their two children. The Water Diviner was her first novel, which she co-wrote with her husband Andrew. The Honourable Thief is her first solo novel.

27 February 2018

Review: THE WRITING BOOK, Kate Grenville

I have two editions of this book on hand.

The book was first published in 1990 and the 3rd impression, 1991, is subtitled: A Workbook for Fiction Writers. ISBN 0-04-442124-9, 192 pages

The other edition I have from the library is published in 2010, subtitled A Practical Guide for Fiction Writers. ISBN 978-1-74237-388-1, 220 pages.

Both are published by Allen & Unwin Australia.
They are essentially the same book.

Synopsis (Amazon)

The Writing Book doesn't just talk about how to write fiction; it takes you, step-by-step, through the process of doing it.

Each chapter concentrates on one aspect of writing: getting started, bringing characters to life, writing convincing dialogue, revising and writer's block, etc.

Exercises in each chapter are carefully structured so that each one builds on the one before. Examples from contemporary Australian writing demonstrate how different writers tackle the technical aspects of their art.

By working your way through this book, you'll gradually craft a piece of fiction, and develop confidence in your own fictional voice.

If you'd like to write, but you're not sure how to start, The Writing Book will show you how. If you're already writing, The Writing Book will give you practical ideas for new energy and direction.

My take

I heard this book referred to by a couple of people at a recent writing workshop that I attended. One said that he was working his way through the exercises.

The author writes "this is a practical workbook, a resource for a writer to work through, with an emphasis on exercises and examples."

Grenville encourages the budding writer to begin with what they already have and build from there.

If you are looking for a DIY at home course on writing, a challenge in concentration on honing your skills, then this may well be it. It is interestingly constructed, full of things to try, and may even result in a finished piece: a short story, a novella, or a novel.

For me it just clarified that I am a reader, not a writer.

My rating: 5.0

About the author
Kate Grenville (kategrenville.com) was born in Sydney, Australia. She's published eight books of fiction, including the multiple prize-winners 'The Secret River', 'The Lieutenant', 'The Idea of Perfection', and 'Lilian's Story'. She's also published three books about the writing process that are classic texts for Creative Writing classes, and a memoir about the research and writing of 'The Secret River'.

Grenville writes about Australia, but her themes are universal: love, violence, and survival. Her characters are often inspired by real historical characters: her own nineteenth century convict ancestor, an early Australian settler; a bag-lady on the streets of 1950s Sydney who quotes Shakespeare for a living; a soldier in the Sydney of 1788 who shares an extraordinary friendship of tenderness and respect with a young Aboriginal girl.

Grenville's international prizes include the Orange Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and a shortlisting for the Man Booker Prize. Her books have been published all over the world and translated into many languages, and two have been made into feature films. .

I have also read 4.8, THE SECRET RIVER

14 October 2017

Review: LOST, Michael Robotham - audio book

format: available from Audible.com
Narrated by: Ray Lonnen
Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Series: Joseph O'Loughlin, Book 2
Unabridged Audiobook
Release Date:01-17-07
Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks
previously read in 2005 and reviewed (mini-review) here.
Also released as THE DROWNING MAN

Synopsis (Audible)

Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz is lucky to be alive. A bullet in the leg, another through the hand, he is discovered clinging to a buoy in the River Thames, losing blood and consciousness fast. It takes six days for him to come out of his coma, and when he does, his nightmare is only just beginning. Because Vincent has no recollection of what happened, and nobody believes him.

From Robotham's website
ON A COLD LONDON NIGHT, HOMICIDE DETECTIVE VINCENT RUIZ IS FISHED OUT OF THE THAMES

with a bullet in his leg and an even bigger hole in his memory. He has no recollection of the shooting or how he finished in the river. The only clue is a photograph found in his pocket of Mickey Carlyle, a seven-year-old girl who went missing three years earlier. A man was convicted of her murder.

But what if the police got it wrong? Ruiz's only hope of unravelling the puzzle is to retrace his steps and re-create the night of the shooting. Under investigation by his colleagues and accused of faking amnesia, he turns to Joe O'Loughlin, a clinical psychologist, who he hopes can unlock his memories. Step by step, they piece together a story of grief, vengeance, and the search for redemption.

My Take

To be quite honest, in the decade since I first read this book, I've forgotten most of the plot. I do remember that it wasn't quite clear at that stage that Robotham was writing a series - in fact, I am not sure that he himself knew that he was. The main character of the first book THE SUSPECT was Professor Joe O'Loughlin. Vincent Ruiz was the nasty policeman who arrested Joe on suspicion of murder. And then Ruiz became the central character of LOST and O'Loughlin plays a sort of back up role.

The central theme of the plot in LOST is what Ruiz was doing the night he was shot and nearly drowned in the Thames. He has amnesia, but his memory gradually comes back. Quite clearly other people were shot that night, and might possibly even be dead. Ruiz appears to have been working on his own, and he eventually loses his job as a policeman despite his excellent record.

This book won Michael Robotham the 2005 Ned Kelly Award for best mystery by an Australian author.

I'm listening to audio versions of this series and I'm looking forward to starting THE NIGHT FERRY, which features Detective Constable Alisha Barber, who was Ruiz's offsider in the Met. Check details here.

My rating: 4.8

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
5.0, THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS
5.0, THE SUSPECT #1

15 December 2013

Read Australian authors - join a challenge or two

It will probably come as no surprise to blog followers that over 25% of the titles that I have read this year have been by Australian authors.
Many of the titles listed below are set in Australia too.
And most of them are crime fiction.

I actually joined two challenges:

2013 Aussie Author Challenge

Australian Women Writers Challenge

2014 Aussie Author Challenge at Booklover Book Reviews

In reading nearly 40 Australian titles this year I really had no trouble in meeting the challenges.
I'll certainly be continuing both challenges in 2014.

Here is my list for 2013 - although I think I may even read a couple more by the end of the year.

2 May 2013

Review: IN HER BLOOD, Annie Hauxwell

Published by the Penguin Group Australia 2012
ISBN 978-1-921901-17-1
261 pages
Read an extract
Available on Amazon (Kindle too)

Synopsis (Penguin Australia)

Everyone is hooked on something.

It's not that easy to kick the money habit. After the world meltdown forces London's bankers to go cold turkey, people look elsewhere for a quick quid: the old fashioned East End.

So when investigator Catherine Berlin gets an anonymous tip-off about a local loan shark, the case seems straightforward – until her informant is found floating in the Limehouse Basin.

In another part of town, a notorious doctor is murdered in his surgery, and his entire stock of pharmaceutical heroin stolen. An unorthodox copper is assigned to the case, and Berlin finds herself a reluctant collaborator in a murder investigation.

Now Berlin has seven days to find out who killed her informant, why the police are hounding her and, most urgently of all, where to find a new – and legal – supply of the drug she can't survive without.

My Take

I love coming across new voices in Australian crime fiction and Annie Hauxwell's first novel was well worth the read.

Set in contemporary London it took me into a world I hadn't visited before and set up some connections I hadn't thought about before: an agency that investigates financial irregularities and outsources information to London police; a fraud investigator with a drug addiction; a very nasty loan shark with connections to regular finance; a doctor who dispenses heroin under legitimate licence; an anti-drugs campaigner who provides addiction counselling.

At the centre of it all is Catherine Berlin, an unusual protagonist in a number of ways.

The case conference with the Murder and Serious Crime Squad was perfunctory. The men at the table regarded Berlin with indifference. She was just a civilian investigator with a regulatory agency. At fifty-five her lean frame was tending to look wasted. Her hair, once blonde, was now a dirty melange of grey, streaked with tarnished gold.

Annie Hauxwell has a real flair for description and her characters truly come alive.

The other thing she does well is suspense and I found myself almost holding my breath as the book drew to its close and the final threads came together.

My rating: 4.7

About the author

Annie Hauxwell was born in London and emigrated with her family to Australia when she was a teenager. She abandoned the law to work as an investigator for a private firm, and after working as a screenwriter she turned her hand to novels. She now lives in Castlemaine, Victoria, and travels to London frequently.

#2 in the Catherine Berlin series: A BITTER TASTE coming soon

Other reviews to check

6 December 2012

2012 Aussie Author Challenge - 20 books read

I have just completed my 20th Australian crime fiction read for the year.
I still think I should be reading even more, and may get through a couple more by the end of the year, but here is my list so far.

I am happy to report that good crime fiction is alive and well here in Oz.

Many thanks to Book Lover Reviews who hosted the 2012 Aussie Author Challenge.

18 August 2011

2011 Aussie Author Challenge completed

Aussie Author Challenge 12/12- completed

You'd probably expect that a challenge to read 12 Australian crime fiction books in a calendar year would not be much of a challenge for me.
But somehow finding the time to include Australian authors in my reading, although I have many books lined up both on my shelves and on my Kindle, can be difficult.

So yesterday BEREFT by Chris Womersley was my 12th title in the challenge which is being hosted at Book Lover Reviews.

It won't of course be the last Australian crime fiction title I'll read this year and I will keep listing them on my Reading Challenges Update

I'm was aiming for True Blue: 12 books - completed

17 August 2011

Review: BEREFT, Chris Womersley

Published by Scribe 2010
ISBN 978-1-921640-60-5
264 pages
Source: my local library

Publisher's Blurb

It is 1919. The Great War has ended, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging through Australia. Schools are closed, state borders are guarded by armed men, and train travel is severely restricted. There are rumours it is the end of the world.

In the NSW town of Flint, Quinn Walker returns to the home he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of an unspeakable crime. Aware that his father and uncle would surely hang him, Quinn hides in the hills surrounding Flint. There, he meets a mysterious young girl called Sadie Fox, who encourages him to seek justice — and seems to know more about the crime than she should.

A searing gothic novel of love, longing, and revenge, BEREFT is about the suffering endured by those who go to war and those who are forever left behind.

My Take

Returning to his home town after the Great War Quinn Walker is determined to clear his name of the murder/rape of his younger sister 10 years before. He finds that the man he knows was guilty is now the local policeman, that his father has vowed to kill him if he returns, and his mother is dying from bubonic plague. In fact his mother believes that he is dead, having been killed in the war.

BEREFT draws a harsh landscape and I found it difficult reading. Despite the original murder and the fact that two more take place within the novel's time frame, I found it difficult to accept the novel as crime fiction, mainly because I think Womersley was trying to write something else. My reservations are shared by Bernadette but not by the glowing reviews that Womersley quotes on his site.

Womersley's style is carefully crafted, demanding the reader's full attention, and providing some arresting imagery.

On the day twelve-year-old Sarah Walker was murdered in 1909, a storm bullied its way across the western plains of New South Wales and unleashed itself on the fly-speck town of Flint. Sarah's murder became the warm, still heart of several days of of frantic activity in which almost every one of the town's two hundred or so residents had a tale of chaos or loss. Trees cowered and snapped in the winds; horses bolted ..... Dead cows, swollen tight, bobbled about in the floodwater for days. And old Mrs Mabel Crink lost her sight, which partly accounted for the name by which the maelstrom became known: the Blinder.

In the novel Womersley describes the impact that losing its men folk to the Great War had on the small town of Flint, as well as the impact of the war on those who returned. In many ways, although avenging his sister's death is what keeps Quinn going and cold blooded murder does happen, crime and justice take a back seat.

My rating: 4.4

Awards and listings:
Winner ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year
Winner of Indie Award for Best Novel
Shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year
Shortlisted for 2011 Miles Franklin Award
Shortlisted for ASL Gold Medal for Literature
Shortlisted for Ned Kelly Award for Fiction

Chris Womersley won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First novel in 2008 with THE LOW ROAD

5 August 2010

Looking for Australian crime fiction?

Having finished reading and reviewing yet another excellent Australian crime fiction title yesterday, I thought I just reiterate for you the list of Australian novels I have read so far this year. (only 11 so far, but there will be more by year's end)

5.0, BLEED FOR ME, Michael Robotham
5.0, TRUTH, Peter Temple
4.6, THE OLD SCHOOL, P.M. Newton
4.6, BLOOD BORN, Kathryn Fox
4.6, THE KILLING HANDS, PD Martin
4.6, TAKE OUT, Felicity Young
4.5, DEEP WATER, Peter Corris
4.3, SMOKE & MIRRORS, Kel Robertson
4.3, FORBIDDEN FRUIT, Kerry Greenwood
4.3, CONSEQUENCES OF SIN, Clare Langley-Hawthorne
4.2, BLOODY HAM, Brian Kavanagh

12 April 2010

Aussie Author Challenge Update #7 - challenge completed

2010 Aussie Author Challenge Completed

This one is being run by Book Lover Book Reviews.
I've signed up for the FAIR DINKUM challenge which requires me to read 8 titles by at least 5 different Aussie authors.

In 2009 I read 20 books by Aussie authors so expected to be able to do this easily but perhaps not so quickly.
Mine has that extra little challenge of being all crime fiction titles.

I have now completed the challenge, but of course will still continue to read and review Australian crime fiction titles during the remainder of the year. I may even do an occasional update to keep track of all my Australian author reading.

TRUTH, Peter Temple
BLOOD BORN, Kathryn Fox
CONSEQUENCES OF SIN, Clare Langley-Hawthorne (some might dispute Clare is Australian)
THE KILLING HANDS, PD Martin
TAKE OUT, Felicity Young
FORBIDDEN FRUIT, Kerry Greenwood
DEEP WATER, Peter Corris
BLEED FOR ME, Michael Robotham

11 April 2010

Aussie Author Challenge Update #6

Aussie Author Challenge

This one is being run by Book Lover Book Reviews.
I've signed up for the FAIR DINKUM challenge which requires me to read 8 titles by at least 5 different Aussie authors.

In 2009 I read 20 books by Aussie authors so I should be able to do this easily, although of course mine will have that extra little challenge of being all crime fiction titles.