Crime Fiction Pick of the Month December 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 December 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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Happy New Year 2014

Review: THE RAVEN'S EYE, Barry Maitland

• published 2013
• ISBN 978-1-74331-350-3
• 377 pages
• #12 in the Bork & Kolla series
• borrowed from local library

Synopsis (author site)

First published : 2013 Allen & Unwin, Australia; 2013 St Martin’s Press / Minotaur

A woman dies in her sleep in a houseboat on the Thames; the apparent cause of death, an unflued gas heater. It all seems straightforward, but DI Kathy Kolla isn't convinced.

Unfortunately both Kathy and DCI Brock are up against an aggressive new Commander who seems to have a different agenda, opposing their investigation in favour of emerging technologies over the traditional policing methods. Coppers like Brock and Kolla who have reservations are being squeezed out.

To make matters worse, there's a new Task Force moving in on their patch, and a brutal killer, Butcher Jack Bragg, to be tracked down and caught. It's one of Brock and Kolla's bloodiest investigations yet.
In this heart-thumping new novel Brock and Kolla are under pressure; it's a clash between the menacing ever-present eye of computer surveillance versus the explosive threat of a man with a meat cleaver and a grudge.

The Raven's Eye is published in Australia by Allen and Unwin, http://www.allenandunwin.com, and in the USA by St Martin's Press / Minotaur, http://us.macmillan.com/minotaur.aspx.

My Take

If I wasn't convinced of it before, this title firmly sets Barry Maitland in my mind as an Australian crime fiction author up there with the best. His writing is quietly assured, and although there are elements of the plot that strain the bounds of credibility, Maitland is very persuasive. Poor Kathy Kolla seems to be in the firing line in more ways than one in THE RAVEN'S EYE, and both she and David Brock are very plausible and likeable characters.

If you share my tastes, then you'll enjoy this thriller written by an Australian author but set mainly in London.If you haven't yet met this pair of sleuths then you have a manageable series of 12 titles to tackle. And you know what I will say: read them in order! Although to be honest there is not much overlap from title to title so you can read them as stand alones.

My rating: 4.7

Check out my other reviews:
BRIGHT AIR
DARK MIRROR
4.8, CHELSEA MANSIONS

The series list from Fantastic Fiction
Brock And Kolla
1. The Marx Sisters (1994)
2. The Malcontenta (1995)
3. All My Enemies (1996)
4. The Chalon Heads (1999)
5. Silvermeadow (2000)
6. Babel (2002)
7. The Verge Practice (2003)
8. No Trace (2006)
9. Spider Trap (2006)
10. Dark Mirror (2009)
11. Chelsea Mansions (2011)
12. Raven's Eye (2013)

Review: NO PLACE LIKE HOME, Caroline Overington

• format: Amazon (Kindle)
• File Size: 434 KB
• Print Length: 203 pages
• Publisher: Random House Australia (September 25, 2013)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00DBOF5FW

Synopsis (Amazon)

From bestselling author and award-winning journalist Caroline Overington comes another thought-provoking and heart-rending story, that reaches from the heart of Bondi to a small village in Tanzania.

Shortly after 9.30 in the morning, a young man walks into Surf City, Bondi's newest shopping complex. He's wearing a dark grey hoodie - and a bomb around his neck.

Just a few minutes later he is locked in a shop on the upper floor. And trapped with him are four innocent bystanders.

For police chaplain Paul Doherty, called to the scene by Senior Sergeant Boehm, it's a story that will end as tragically as it began. For this is clearly no ordinary siege. The boy, known as Ali Khan, seems as frightened as his hostages and has yet to utter a single word.

The seconds tick by for the five in the shop: Mitchell, the talented schoolboy; Mouse, the shop assistant; Kimmi, the nail-bar technician; and Roger Callaghan, the real estate agent whose reason for being in Bondi that day is far from innocent.

And of course there's Ali Khan. Is he the embodiment of evil, as the villagers in his Tanzanian birthplace believe? Or just an innocent boy, betrayed at every turn, who just wants a place to call home?

My Take

The story takes readers through the background of all the people who are locked in the shop with Tanzaniaan refugee Ali Khan. The narrator is former Catholic priest, police chaplain Paul Doherty, who contacts each of the people locked in the shop after the event for trauma counselling.We benefit from the research he has done about each of these people.

Part of what each reader must ask herself is how you would react in this situation. The shopping centre is in lock down with the voice of Senior Sergeant Boehm booming instructions over a loud speaker system. And yet Ali Khan is showing no sign of understanding.

The book also broaches issues with which Australians are familiar, or are we? Do we really know how refugees are treated under the Australian border protection systems? What are the detention centres housing refugees and asylum seekers really like? Why was Ali Khan, a genuine refugee who has an Australian passport, in Baxter and Villawood for four years?  This is a book that will make you think.

And Paul Doherty has his own problems too, his own crisis of faith, which perhaps does not make him the best narrator.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME is written as a thriller, and, true to form, we do not find out what happened in the last minutes of the siege until the very end.

A good read by an Australian author to look for.
My rating: 4.5

I have also read 4.4, SISTERS OF MERCY

Merry Christmas all

Review: A WICKED DESIGN, Brian Kavanagh

• Published by Vivid Publishing 2013
  
• ISBN 978-1-925086-06-5
• #5 in the Belinda Lawrence series
• 190 pages
• source: complementary copy from the author

Synopsis (Vivid Publishing)

Belinda Lawrence returns to her home town of Melbourne, to discover a murder that's close to her heart.

A murder which leads to the seat of political power, Parliament House.

The various threads of deceit and intrigue are gradually unravelled and, with Hazel Whitby at her side, Belinda is confronted by warring political factions.

The mystery deepens with the discovery of a priceless historical item, of value to both political powers, and which places Belinda's life in jeopardy.

The gregarious Major;
An enigmatic university Professor;
Two colourful antique sellers;
Eccentric retired music-hall entertainers;
And Belinda's partner, Mark Sallinger...
...all immersed in the scheming and covert encounters besieging Belinda as she solves her most challenging mystery.
Book Five in the Belinda Lawrence mystery series.

My Take

I think the author's decision to base this novel in his, and Belinda Lawrence's, home town of Melbourne is a very successful one, as is his basing one of the plot lines on a piece of Melbourne's colourful history. It also considers the ever present Republican debate, a very real Australian political divide.

A WICKED DESIGN is a well constructed cozy with a heroine who has grown in stature with every outing in this series. Belinda Lawrence and her antique dealer friend Hazel Whitby are very realistically drawn, as is Belinda's fiance Mark Sallinger.

I have also reviewed
CAPABLE OF MURDER
THE EMBROIDERED CORPSE
4.2, BLOODY HAM
4.3, A CANTERBURY CRIME

I think each one has seen Brian's writing become more assured.
All the books are available in print and as e-books.

My rating: 4.3

About the author

Brian Kavanagh (b. 1935) is an accredited life member of the Australian Film Editors Guild & a member of the Australian Society of Authors. He has many years experience in the Australian Film Industry in areas of production, direction, editing and writing.

His editing credits include THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH, ODD ANGRY SHOT, THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, LONG WEEKEND, SEX IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD and the recent comedy, DAGS.

He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Screen Editors Guild and is an accredited member. An Australian Film Institute award for Best Editing for FROG DREAMING (USA title THE QUEST).

His website 

Review: FULL DARK HOUSE, Christopher Fowler - audio book

• available from Audible
• unabridged version
  
• narrator: Tim Goodman
• #1 in the Bryant & May series
• length: 13 hrs, 24 mins 

Synopsis (Audible)


In Full Dark House, Christopher Fowler tells the story of both the first and last case of an unlikely pair of crime fighters - and how along the way they changed the face of detection.

A present-day bombing rips through London and claims the life of 80-year-old detective Arthur Bryant. For his partner John May, it means the end of a partnership that lasted over half a century and an eerie echo back to the Blitz of World War II when they first met. Desperately searching for clues to the killer’s identity, May finds his old friend’s notes of their very first case and becomes convinced that the past has returned ... with a killing vengeance.

 It begins when a dancer in a risqué new production of Orpheus in Hell is found without her feet. Suddenly, the young detectives are plunged in a bizarre gothic mystery that will push them to their limits - and beyond. For in a city shaken by war, a faceless killer is stalking London’s theaters, creating his own kind of sinister drama. And it will take Arthur Bryant’s unorthodox techniques and John May’s dogged police work to catch a criminal whose ability to escape detection seems almost supernatural - a murderer who even decades later seems to have claimed the life of one of them ... and is ready to claim the other.

Filled with startling twists, unforgettable characters, and a mystery that will keep you guessing, Full Dark House is a witty, heartbreaking, and all-too-human thriller about the hunt for an inhuman killer.

My take

World War II served  Arthur Bryant and John May very well. It meant that when they were barely out of their teens these two became the principal investigators of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. It is the crimes that are peculiar but one could be forgiven for thinking that Arthur Bryant in particular is a little peculiar. As Bryant ruffles feathers with the gaucheness of youth some of the victims of the crimes wonder if the police force might not have more senior investigators available.

The narrative flits effortlessly between the events during the Blitz and the current day when John May tries to work out whose nerve Bryant touched that resulted in his apparent death from a suitcase bomb when he was researching their first case for his memoirs.

I have enjoyed all that I have read from this series, the narrator in the audio books, Tim Goodman, has become for me the voice of Arthur Bryant. Christopher Fowler uses quite quirky historical settings and this case the main action is set in a West End theatre. The production is Offenbach's Orpheus,  designed to be a morale booster in bombed London. A succession of deaths threaten the closure of the theatre, while the Peculiar Crimes Unit faces imminent disbanding as the death toll mounts.

An excellent read. My rating: 4.7


I have also reviewed:
THE VICTORIA VANISHES
4.6, TEN-SECOND STAIRCASE
4.5, BRYANT & MAY AND THE INVISIBLE CODE

Bryant and May (series list from Fantastic Fiction)
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)
11. Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart (2014)
Bryant & May's Mystery Tour (2011)