Review: NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE, Paul Gitsham

• 
  this version an e-book on Libby through my local library
  
• Publisher, HarperCollins Publishers, 21 July 2018
• ISBN 9780008389154 
• #2 in series DCI Warren Jones

Synopsis (Overdrive)

DCI Warren Jones has a bad feeling when the body of a young woman turns up in Beaconsfield Woods. She's been raped and strangled but the murderer has been careful to leave no DNA evidence. 

There are, of course, suspects – boyfriend, father – to check out but, worryingly, it looks more and more like a stranger murder. 

Warren's worst fears are confirmed when another young woman is killed in the same way. The MO fits that of Richard Cameron who served twelve years for rape. But Cameron never killed his victims and he has a cast-iron alibi. 

Then personal tragedy intervenes and Warren is off the case. But the pressure is mounting and another woman goes missing. Warren is back but will the break he desperately needs come before there's another victim?

My Take

I enjoyed reading this novel although I "solved" the mystery about half way through. However there were a number of quite distracting red herrings. Sadly my library does not have any more of this series either in print or e-book. I guess that is to be expected as they are not recently published. 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.5, THE LAST STRAW - #1 

Review: THE LAST STRAW, Paul Gitsham

• 
  This edition read on Libby (Overdrive) through my local library
  
• Published by Harper Collins 2014
• DCI Collins #1  

Synopsis (Overdrive)

When Professor Alan Tunbridge is discovered in his office with his throat slashed, the suspects start queuing up. The brilliant but unpleasant microbiologist had a genius for making enemies.

 For Warren Jones, newly appointed Detective Chief Inspector to the Middlesbury force, a high-profile murder is the ideal opportunity. He's determined to run a thorough and professional investigation but political pressure to resolve the case quickly and tensions in the office and at home make life anything but easy. 

Everything seems to point to one vengeful man but the financial potential of the professor's pioneering research takes the inquiry in an intriguing and, for Jones and his team, dangerous direction. 

My Take

This title was published 12 years ago, the first in a series, and the author is now well established.

The central character is a newly appointed Detective Chief Inspector, trying to establish himself with a new team. The victim is a high profile professor at the local university. Early investigation reveals that he was extremely unpopular, but who would want to kill him? Which of his actions was the final straw?

This does have the signs of a "first book".  However the characters are well drawn and attractive. One of the drawbacks was the amount of technical/scientific information for the reader to absorb.

But I do intend to read the next in the series. 

My rating: 4.5

About the author
Paul Gitsham started his career as a biologist, working in such exotic locales as Manchester and Toronto. After stints as the world's most over-qualified receptionist and a spell making sure that international terrorists and other ne'er do wells hadn't opened a Junior Savings Account at a major UK bank (a job even less exciting than being a receptionist) he retrained as a Science Teacher. He now spends his time passing on his bad habits and sloppy lab-skills to the next generation of enquiring minds.

Paul has always wanted to be a writer and his final report on leaving primary school predicted he'd be the next Roald Dahl! For the sake of balance it should be pointed out that it also said "he'll never get anywhere in life if his handwriting doesn't improve". Twenty five years later and his handwriting is worse than ever but millions of children around the world love him.*  

Review: RURAL DREAMS, Margaret Hickey

• 
  This edition read as an e-book on Libby through my local library
  
• Published: 7 January 2025
• ISBN: 9781761351105
• Imprint: Penguin eBooks
• Pages: 240  

Synopsis (publisher)

From award-winning crime writer Margaret Hickey comes a collection of captivating short stories celebrating the Australian countryside.

Margaret Hickey’s Rural Dreams takes a look at life outside the big smoke, featuring the kind of characters you might expect in the country – as well as some you might not.

A football coach ponders obsession . . . a mouse plague dictates school yard politics . . . a failed playwright asks ‘who gets the farm?’ . . . and a young woman returns to her fire-ravaged town.

People we know. People we grew up with. Some of them might even be us . . .

Funny, heartbreaking and true, Rural Dreams highlights the richness of life on the land and showcases the beauty of lives lived outside city walls.

My Take

This book consists of 18 short stories, of varying lengths, many with shared themes, nearly all connected in some way to Australian life, many related to how the country has a pull for those born there.

Short stories often tell you a little more about what an author thinks about.
These told me that, perhaps unexpectedly, Margaret Hickey and I have had some similar experiences: growing up in a country town where you had to go to the city for further education; the pull of the local team on a Saturday morning, in my case tennis at the end of a long train journey; the travel overseas where enough is enough and all you want to do is be "home". 

The ones that struck me the most were 

• Saturday Morning 
• Fowler's Bay
• The Precipice
• Mind Your Language 
• The Wanderer 

The one where we see the crime fiction writer emerge is The Precipice. That has stuck with me. 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read 

4.7, CUTTER'S END - Mark Ariti #1

4.6, STONE TOWN - Mark Ariti #2

4.5, BROKEN BAY - Mark Ariti #3 

4.8, CREEPER

4.6, AN ILL WIND 

Review: THE GIRLS IN THE GLEN, Lynne McEwan

• 
  This book read as an e-book on Libby through my local library
  
• ISBN: 9798217263943
• Published May 18, 2023 by Canelo
• Pages 352
• #3 in the DI Shona Oliver series 

 Synopsis (publisher)

If the dead could speak, what secrets would they tell?

With her daughter on an archaeological dig, the only bodies DI Shona Oliver expects to find are long-dead. But when a corpse from the 1980s is unearthed, Shona quickly realises that it may be one of the missing “Girls in the Glen”, victim of a notorious serial killer.

Shona’s superiors want her to stop looking to the past, and focus on a fresher crime scene. The attempted shooting of a local politician who likes to stoke controversy.

As Shona finds herself pulled between crimes past and present, she soon realises that the secrets buried on Beild Moss are reaching into the present day.

But when even her own officers are keeping things from her, who can she trust? Especially when more lives may be at stake

My Take

This story brings together a number of themes: the Border reivers and the Debatable Lands between England and Scotland; the resentment of locals to those they consider "outsiders"; archaeology, as well as unsolved cold-case crimes. In addition there are the personal matters involving Shona's husband Rob under investigation for financial mismanagement, her relationship with her daughter Becca, a rather prickly teenager, as well as local political issues. 

All makes for an engrossing many faceted tale. 

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.7, IN DARK WATER - #1 

4.6. DEAD MAN DEEP - #2

Review: JUST LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS, Claire Douglas

• 
  This edition supplied as an e-book through Libby by my local library
  
• Published: 20th October 2020
• ISBN: 9781405943383
• 400 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

The story of how jealousy, lies and betrayal can build a family before destroying it, from Sunday Times bestseller Claire Douglas

CARER/COMPANION WANTED FOR ELDERLY LADY * YOUNG FEMALE PREFERRED * COMPETITIVE SALARY * *ROOM AND BOARD INCLUDED *

Una Richardson is devastated after the death of her mother. Hoping for a fresh start, she responds to an advertisement and steps into the rich, comforting world of elderly Mrs Elspeth McKenzie. But Elspeth's home is not as safe as it seems. Kathryn, her cold and bitter daughter, resents Una's presence. More disturbing is the evidence suggesting two girls lived here before. What happened to them? Why will the McKenzies not talk about them? As the walls close in around her, Una fears she'll end up just like the other girls. 

My Take

This is the story of 3 girls who have worked as a companion to Mrs Elspeth McKenzie. Elspeth is old, a bit frail, but mainly pining for her daughter who disappeared 30 years before. Her second daughter Kathryn is adopted and feels she may be overlooked in her mother's will. She sees all of the companions as gold-diggers. Her mother chooses them because of their resemblance to her lost daughter Viola.

In Part One, we see much of the narration through the point of view first of all of Una, and then finally Kathryn. The house is called The Cuckoo's Nest, which seems to have unfortunate connotations particularly in Kathryn's case. From various people Una learns about the two girls who preceded her, Mathilde and Jemima, to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance.

And then Una is gone and in Part Two she is succeeded by Willow, and the search for what happened to Una is on. The police become more seriously involved and the identity of who "dealt" with Una becomes clear.

An enthralling mystery. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.6, THE COUPLE AT NO. 9

Review: THE LONG GAME, Simon Rowell

• 
  this edition an e-book from Libby via my local library
  
• 320 pages
• published by Text Publishing 3 August 2021
• ISBN: 9781922330710
• author website
  

Synopsis (Text Publishing)

A summer of relentless heat. A local surfer named Ray Carlson is found dead in a house not far from Portsea back beach. There’s a kitchen knife deep in his chest, and blood everywhere.

Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer is scarcely back from extended leave, and still wrestling with her demons, but she is assigned the case—alongside her new service dog, Harry, whose instincts help her in unexpected ways.

There’s an obvious suspect for the murder, and Zoe makes an arrest. But it’s all too neat, and none of Zoe’s colleagues believes her theory that the whole thing is a stitch-up.

Except now someone is trying to hunt Zoe down.

Superbly plotted, and vividly set in the beachside suburbs and hilly retreats around Melbourne, The Long Game is a mystery about a tough and clever investigator who won’t give up.

My take

An intriguing read from a new-to-me Australian author. 

We know that Zoe Mayer, Victoria Police, has come back from extended leave after being involved in a traumatic incident. Via flashbacks we eventually learn what happened then, something that put Zoe on the front page of every newspaper in Australia, if not the world.

Zoe is meant to be easing herself back into work, but when you investigate violent murders, that isn't really possible. It is Zoe who sees the similarities between the Ray Carlson case and earlier cases, but her colleagues take a lot of persuading, even those who work closest to her.

But then the person whom she identifies as the link between the cases, turns, and Zoe herself is in danger.

My rating: 4.5

About the author
Simon Rowell has worked on outback oil rigs, managed nightclubs, been a tour guide and run marketing campaigns. His first book, THE ECHO OF OTHERS, was longlisted for the Ned Kelly Awards for Best First Crime in 2018. He lives with his wife, Karen, in rural Victoria on a farm full of rescued animals.

Review: DYING ON THE VINE, Aaron Elkins

• 
  this edition published by Berkley Prime Crime 2012
  
• ISBN 978-0-425-24788-4
• 294 pages
• #17 in Gideon Oliver series

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Now, the celebrated Skeleton Detective is visiting friends at a vineyard in Tuscany when murder leaves a bitter aftertaste...

It was the unwavering custom of Pietro Cubbiddu, patriarch of Tuscany's Villa Antica wine empire, to take a solitary month-long sabbatical at the end of the early grape harvest, leaving the winery in the trusted hands of his three sons. His wife, Nola, would drive him to an isolated mountain cabin in the Apennines and return for him a month later, bringing him back to his family and business.

So it went for almost a decade - until the year came when neither of them returned. Months later, a hiker in the Apennines stumbles on their skeletal remains. The carabinieri investigate and release their findings: they are dealing with a murder-suicide. The evidence makes it clear that Pietro Cubbiddu shot and killed his wife and then himself. The likely motive: his discovery that Nola had been having an affair.

Not long afterwards, Gideon Oliver and his wife, Julie, are in Tuscany visiting their friends, the Cubbiddu offspring. The renowned Skeleton Detective is asked to reexamine the bones. When he does, he reluctantly concludes that the carabinieri, competent though they may be, have gotten almost everything wrong. Whatever it was that happened in the mountains, a murder-suicide it was not.

Soon Gideon finds himself in a morass of family antipathies, conflicts, and mistrust, to say nothing of the local carabinieri's resentment. And when yet another Cubbiddu relation meets an unlikely end, it becomes bone-chillingly clear that the killer is far from finished...

My take

The plot of this novel is very similar to the only other book I have read in this series (OLD BONES), in that the setting is linked to a conference on forensic anthropology that the Skeleton Detective is attending and giving several sessions at. The aim of the seminars is to teach detectives to "read skeletons". One of the attendees suggests that he is able to access some skeletons recently found. Gideon Oliver finds that he disagrees with almost everything the pathologists have come up with. The have concluded a murder/suicide. His interpretation is that they have the order of the deaths wrong, and that both people have been murdered. The other similar plot line is that Gideon Oliver has some connection with the dead person.

Some parts of the investigation held very interesting information, but in other parts the plot got just a little  bit too cute, and I thought the final chapter was not very satisfactory at all, and had the feeling of being written far too hastily. 

My rating: 4.4

I've also read 4.6, OLD BONES

Review: DOOM CREEK, Alan Carter

• 
  Publisher : Fremantle Press (March 1, 2021)
  
• Language : English
• Paperback : 304 pages
• ISBN-10 : 1925816818
• ISBN-13 : 978-1925816815
  
• #2 in the Nick Chester series

Synopsis (Amazon)

Sergeant Nick Chester has dodged the Geordie gangsters he once feared and is out of hiding and looking forward to the quiet life. But gold fever is creating ill feeling between prospectors, and a new threat lurks in the form of trigger-happy Americans preparing for doomsday by building a bolthole in the valley. As tensions simmer, Nick finds himself up against an evil that knows no borders and no depths.

Sequel to MARLBOROUGH MAN

My take

Set in New Zealand, in what should be an idyllic back water, the plot proves that not even New Zealand is safe from the underworld and those who use money to get what they want. Several plot strands intertwine to prevent Nick Chester from focussing just on local issues and local policing. 

I think it helps to have read the first in this series, which I had.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read 4.6, MARLBOROUGH MAN

Review: THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR, Rose Carlyle

• 
  this edition e-book (Libby) through my local library
  
• Publisher : William Morrow & Company (20 October 2020)
  
• Language: : English
• Hardcover : 304 pages
• ISBN-10 : 0063030144
• ISBN-13 : 978-0063030145
• author website

Synopsis (Amazon)

Twin sisters Iris and Summer are startlingly alike, but beyond what the eye can see lies a darkness that sets them apart. Cynical and insecure, Iris has long been envious of Summer's seemingly never-ending good fortune.

When Summer calls Iris to Thailand to help her sail the family yacht to the Seychelles, Iris has secret hopes for what might happen on the journey. But after a disturbing incident in the middle of the Indian Ocean, everything changes.

Now Iris has the chance to step into the golden life she's always envied-and get one step closer to the hundred-million-dollar inheritance left by her manipulative father. All Iris would need to do is ensure she's the first of his seven children to fulfill the strange conditions of his will.

But Iris soon discovers that her twin was keeping more than one secret, and Iris's life lurches between glamorous dream and paranoid nightmare. In a family in which the winner takes all, whom can she trust? And how far will she go to get the life she's always dreamed about?

My Take

The narrator at first is Iris, second-born of "mirror" twins. Summer, the older twin, is perfect. Iris has always been conscious of being the less beautiful, the less perfect, although most people, including their younger brother, find it difficult to tell which is which.

Both women are recently married, but Iris's marriage has recently collapsed. Summer and her husband are in Thailand with her infant stepson and call for Iris to come to them because of an emergency with the little boy. 

Much of the plot becomes predictable once Summer and Iris begin sailing the family yacht from Thailand to the Seychelles. In the long run there is only one of them on the boat when it arrives. 

From that point on there are several plot twists. The last, in the final few pages, sent me back re-reading the final few chapters to check if there were any indications about where the plot was heading.

This book just kept me reading, mainly because I wanted to know how the plot worked out.

My rating: 4.4

About the author

Rose Carlyle is a law professor who has written intermittently throughout her life and who began writing fiction in 2016. She was awarded first class honours in her creative writing Masters at the University of Auckland and was granted a prestigious mentorship under which she developed and completed this manuscript. She spends her spare time in far-flung places and currently lives in New Zealand. The Girl in the Mirror is her debut novel.