Review: THE LOCKED ROOM, Elly Griffiths

• 
  this edition made available through my local library
  
• published by Quercus in Great Britain 2022
• ISBN 978-1-52940-966-6
• 361 pages
• #14 Ruth Galloway series
  

Synopsis (publisher)

Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson are on the hunt for a murderer when Covid rears its ugly head. But can they find the killer despite lockdown?

Ruth is in London clearing out her mother’s belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of the place? The only clue is written on the back of the photo: Dawn, 1963.

Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then Covid rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling. Happily, the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorsteps clapping for carers.

Nelson, meanwhile, is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links the deaths to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit the cottage where he finds Ruth chatting to her neighbour whom he remembers as a carer who was once tried for murdering her employer.

Only then her name wasn’t Zoe. It was Dawn. 

My Take

For me, reading a Ruth Galloway novel is like meeting up with an old friend. This one is set in 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Ruth's classes are cancelled and go onto Zoom, schools are closed. Just before this event a skeleton is found in Tombland and it raises the possibility that there may have been plague pits in Norwich near the Cathedral.

Nelson begins investigating cases of unexpected deaths among women who have been attending slimming groups.   

Ruth becomes friendly with Zoe who has moved in to the cottage next door to hers and then Zoe disappears.

Nelson's wife Michelle is away visiting her mother and he and Ruth take advantage of that fact.

I read with interest the way English society deal with Covid, the restrictions and lock downs put into place. This gave the story an extra relevance.

And then Cathbad is struck down with Covid.

My rating: 5.0

I've also read

• 4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES - Ruth Galloway #1
  
• 4.6, THE JANUS STONE - Ruth Galloway #2
• 4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END - Ruth Galloway #3
• 4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES - Ruth Galloway #4
• 4.8, DYING FALL- audio book - Ruth Galloway #5
• 4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #7
• 4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #6
• 4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE - Ruth Galloway #8
• 4.7, THE CHALK PIT - Ruth Galloway #9
• 4.4, THE VANISHING BOX
• 4.6, THE STRANGER DIARIES
• 4.5, SMOKE AND MIRRORS
• 4.4, THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS 
• 4.7, THE LANTERN MEN - Ruth Galloway #12
• 5.0, THE STONE CIRCLE, Elly Griffiths - Ruth Galloway #11 
• 4.8, THE DARK ANGEL, Elly Griffiths - Ruth Galloway #10

Review: PAST LYING, Val McDermid

• 
  this edition published by Sphere 2023
  
• ISBN 978-1-4087-2908-3
• 452 pages
• #7 in the Karen Pirie series

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.

Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

As Karen digs deeper, she uncovers a spiralling game of betrayal and revenge, where lies are indistinguishable from the truth and with more than one unexpected twist . . .

The Queen of Crime Val McDermid is at the top of her game in her most gripping and fiendishly clever case yet.

My Take

I really should read more by Val McDermid. As you can see from my list below I always enjoy her books. I don't think I have read any others featuring DCI Karen Pirie. I usually favour reading a series in order to pick up on character development etc. But in this case I don't think it makes much difference. McDermid has done a lovely job of filling in the bits from the past that I needed to know. 

The novel is set in Edinburgh in April 2020, the beginning of the Covid lockdown with all sorts of regulations and restrictions that placed limitations on "normal" life including where we could go, what we could do etc. In fact, so well is this setting described in the novel, I had to remind myself as I set the novel down for a breather that we are not now in isolation.

The plot twists and turns as DCI Pirie and her team attempt to work out the correlations between the unexplained disappearance of student in Edinburgh a year before and a manuscript donated to the National Archives which seems to describe what happened to her. About half way through the novel, as my mind played with what DCI Pirie had uncovered so far, I came up with a "what if" which in fact was close to the final resolution. Now, it is not often that happens, but it didn't prevent me from reading the rest of the book, nor did it remove the pleasure of finding out that I was "nearly right".

Somebody wiser than me remarked a year or two ago that just as World War One, and World War Two, and the assassination of JFK, have provided time markers for us where we say pre-war or post-war, so Covid 19 will provide a similar time marker for us. I really haven't read too many books that have done that so far, but here is one that reminds of the impact Covid 19 had on our daily lives. Here in Australia variants of Covid are still having an impact. For example, there are still thousands in hospital. There are still people in our communities who disappear for a week or two with it. We are raising a whole generation of young people whose schooling has been disrupted by Covid. So much is different to what it was 4 years ago.

My rating: 4.8

I've also read

• BENEATH THE BLEEDING
• 4.8, THE SKELETON ROAD
• 4.8, OUT OF BOUNDS
• 4.7, 1979
• 4.8, INSIDIOUS INTENT

Review: THE LAST REMAINS, Elly Griffiths

• 
  this edition first published by Quercus UK 2023
  
• supplied by my local library
• ISBN 978-1-52940-973-4
• 357 pages
• Ruth Galloway #15 

Synopsis (publisher) 

When builders renovating a café in King’s Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. Ruth is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with Nelson. However, she agrees to look at the case.

Ruth sees at once that the bones are modern. They are identified as the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and also on another course member – Ruth’s friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid.

As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the student group and the adults leading them. What was the link between the group and the King’s Lynn café where Emily’s bones were found?

Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. Was it guilt that led him to flee?

The trail leads Ruth and Nelson to the Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves which are as spooky as their name. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?

My Take

If you have missed the Ruth Galloway series, then you've missed a treat. The bad news is that this is #15. And I really think you get the most out of them by reading them in order. The characters generally have a shared history and certainly there are chronological developments.

However if you are new to the series, and determined to go on, then look to the back of the book where there is a Who's Who of the characters which will fill in some of the background for you, but not the events they've all shared.

For me, this series has become like catching up with old friends. So when Cathbad goes missing I thought the worst. Like many of us Cathbad survived a bout of Covid, although he spent time on a ventilator and his became a near-death experience. I like the way the author establishes relevant settings.

Another touch too - post Covid University students are looking for more "relevant" courses, and not everyone sees archaeology as relevant. So Ruth Galloway's department at the University of North Norfolk is under pressure to go with the times.

Of special relevance to me - when I was on my travels of the UK, nearly 50 years ago, I went to the main setting of this novel, Grime's Graves, and somewhere here I have piece of flint that I illegally souvenired there.

I loved this novel. I hope you do too.

My rating: 5.0

I've also read

• 4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES - Ruth Galloway #1
  
• 4.6, THE JANUS STONE - Ruth Galloway #2
• 4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END - Ruth Galloway #3
• 4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES - Ruth Galloway #4
• 4.8, DYING FALL- audio book - Ruth Galloway #5
• 4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #7
• 4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #6
• 4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE - Ruth Galloway #8
• 4.7, THE CHALK PIT - Ruth Galloway #9
• 4.4, THE VANISHING BOX
• 4.6, THE STRANGER DIARIES - Harbinder Kaur #1
  
• 4.5, SMOKE AND MIRRORS
• 4.4, THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS - Harbinder Kaur #2
  
• 4.7, THE LANTERN MEN - Ruth Galloway #12
• 5.0, THE STONE CIRCLE - Ruth Galloway #11 
• 4.8, THE DARK ANGEL - Ruth Galloway #10
• 4.7, THE NIGHT HAWKS - Ruth Galloway #13
  
• 5.0, THE LOCKED ROOM - Ruth Galloway #14
• 4.6, BLEEDING HEART YARD - Harbinder Kaur #3

Review: THE SHADOW MURDERS, Jussi Adler-Olsen

• 
  this large print edition published 2022 by Penguin Random House
  
• made available by my local library
  
• translated by William Frost
• Department Q #9
• 603 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

In the penultimate thriller in the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling Department Q series, Copenhagen's cold cases division must hunt for a nefarious serial killer who has slipped under the radar for decades.

On her 60th birthday, a woman commits suicide. When the case lands on Detective Carl Morck's desk, he can't imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen's cold cases division. It's a tragedy to be sure, but the cause of death seems to be clear. But his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is not in fact a suicide, but a murder related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.

At Marcus' behest, Carl and the Department Q gang-Rose, Assad, and Gordon-reluctantly begin to investigate. However, they quickly discover that Marcus is on to something: Every two years for the past three decades, there have been unusual, impeccably timed deaths with connections between them that cannot be ignored. As they dig deeper, it transpires that these "accidents" are in fact murders by a very cunning and violent serial killer.

Faced with their toughest case yet, made only more difficult with COVID-19 restrictions and the challenges of their own personal lives, the Department Q team must race to find the culprit before the next murder is committed, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the killer is far from finished. 

My Take

For much of this complex novel I struggled to see where it was going. At first it seemed to be a series of unconnected incidents: the pattern emerged about half way through. 

As always the very existence of Department Q is under scrutiny and threat, and Carl Morck is being threatened himself. There are those in the Police department who are determined to bring Morck down. 

The story is set in 2020, Covid resrictions are in place, and investigations and interviews are difficult. 

The reader is able to follow both sides of the investigation, both the Department Q side, and the continuing case which is destined to result in a murder on Boxing Day. 

The plot is clever and very Danish noir.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.8, KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES
4.5, REDEMPTION
4.5, BURIED
4.8, THE HANGING GIRL- #6

Review: 56 DAYS, Catherine Ryan Howard

• 
  This edition made available through my local library as an e-book on Libby
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Blackstone Publishing (August 17, 2021)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 312 pages 

Synopsis (Amazon)

No one even knew they were together. Now one of them is dead.

56 DAYS AGO

Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin and start dating the same week COVID-19 reaches Irish shores.

35 DAYS AGO

When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests they move in together. Ciara sees a unique opportunity for a relationship to flourish without the scrutiny of family and friends. Oliver sees a chance to hide who—and what—he really is.

TODAY

Detectives arrive at Oliver’s apartment to discover a decomposing body inside.

Can they determine what really happened, or has lockdown created an opportunity for someone to commit the perfect crime? 

My Take

I read somewhere recently that discerning readers will in the future require writers to identify their time frame as pre-pandemic or post-pandemic, but this is the first novel that I've read that uses the pandemic as a background.

Much of what happens in Dublin as Ireland goes into lockdown in the first wave of the pandemic will be familiar to you. It certainly coincides with what happened here in Australia as Covid-19 raced through our cities and the fingers of infection reached out to us. Australia closed its borders to keep us safe, we worked from home, schools closed, and we all hibernated.

There are some interesting features to this novel. Ciara and Oliver are the two main narrative voices, and while we are aware from early on that Oliver has a hidden past, Ciara's hidden past does not emerge until later on. The settings jump time frames, leaping from TODAY back into the past, and we sometimes see an event from at least two points of view.

Very well constructed.  And it raises some interesting questions, not the least the one of whether anybody really ever pays the full price for a mistake in their past.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

• 4.4, DISTRESS SIGNALS
  
• 4.7, THE LIAR'S GIRL
• 4.7, THE NOTHING MAN
• 4.4, REWIND 

Summary for 2021

Here is a summary of what I achieved through my reading challenges in 2021.

Covid-19 and the consequent lock downs here in South Australia made it a funny year, reading wise. I should point out that I really don't use the challenges to push myself so much as monitor what I am reading.

First of all I didn't read as many books as I had expected to. In the nick of time, yesterday I completed my 100th book for the year. I had originally set my sights on 120, and then in November, and as late as early December, I revised my aim down to 95, but read more than I had thought I would, and got to 100. To be honest that is my lowest total for some years. However, I have been keeping these totals since 1975, and since then I have read 4408 books, mostly but not exclusively crime fiction.

Of that 100 books, 56 were by British authors, 28 by Australian authors, 6 by American authors, so you can see where my reading preferences lie.

Over half the books I read were e-books, and one third of them were "new to me" authors. In some cases I went on to read #2 and #3 in a series.

I re-read 11 Agatha Christie titles, mainly Miss Marple and Poirot books. In 2022 I am going to re-read some stand-alone titles.  

Non-crime fiction, and translated titles didn't get much of a look in this year.

My local library remains my greatest source of books, either in paperback form or as e-books (Libby).

Recommendations for what to read come mainly from the reading groups that I belong to, so in a sense they are already pre-selected. I only occasionally browse book shelves either in a book shop or at the library.

I will probably use a similar system for "accounting for" what I read in the coming year, but may simplify it a bit. Below is the summary of my reading. You will find the books listed at https://paradise-mysteries.blogspot.com/p/2021-reading-challenges.html

• 2021 Good Reads Reading Challenge. I have set my challenge at 95. Currently: 100
  
• Good Reads A-Z of titles: Currently: 18
• Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Completed in 2014, titles read in 2021: 11
• USA Fiction Challenge So far 29/51, this year: 6
• 2021 Aussie Author Reading Challenge: aiming for 20: currently 28
• 2021 Australian Women Writers Challenge: aiming for 20. Currently 15
• British Books Challenge 2021 currently 56
• 2021 Ebook Reading Challenge currently 55
• New to me authors - a personal challenge currently 33
• Not crime fiction - a personal challenge currently 2
  
• Nordic reading challenge - a personal challenge, currently 1
• New Zealand reading challenge -again a personal challenge. currently 3
• Translated crime fiction - a personal challenge that will overlap with many of the other reading challenges that I have undertaken. currently 4
• Snagged through the Library currently: 56
• Audio books: currently: 2
• 2021 Historical Reading Challenge. Currently: 12

Review: SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, Craig Sisterson

aka The Pocket Essential Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film and TV of Australia and New Zealand Kindle Edition

• Format: Kindle Edition
• paperback available for pre-order but publication delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic
• File Size: 2334 KB
• Print Length: 256 pages
• Publisher: Oldcastle Books (23 April 2020)
• Sold by: Amazon Australia Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B08166XDLZ

Synopsis (Amazon)

Australian and New Zealand crime and thriller writing - collectively referred to as Southern Cross Crime - is booming globally, with antipodean authors regularly featuring on awards and bestseller lists, such as Eleanor Catton's Booker Prize winning The Luminaries and Jane Harper's big commercial hit, The Dry, winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award.

Hailing from two sparsely populated nations on the far edge of the former Empire - neighbours that are siblings in spirit, vastly different in landscape - Australian and New Zealand crime writers offer readers a blend of exotic and familiar, seasoned by distinctive senses of place, outlook, and humour, and roots that trace to the earliest days of our genre.

Southern Cross Crime is the first comprehensive guide to modern crime writing from "Down Under". From coastal cities to the outback, leading critic Craig Sisterson showcases key titles from over 250 storytellers, plus screen dramas ranging from Mystery Road to Top of the Lake. Fascinating insights are added through in-depth interviews with some of the prime suspects who paved the way or instigated the global boom, including Michael Robotham, Paul Cleave, Emma Viskic, Paul Thomas, Candice Fox, and Garry Disher.

My Take

This is an essential purchase for crime fiction readers especially in Australia and New Zealand, but also those world-wide who enjoy "antipodean noir".
It is an authoritative guide to what to read. Craig has focused on the 'modern era' choosing the establishment of the Australian Crime Writers Association and the inaugural Ned Kelly awards in 1996 as the starting point. He has attempted to survey "more than 300 Australian and New Zealand crime writers.... and endeavoured to be as inclusive and wide ranging as possible. You will find bestsellers, award winners, hidden gems, lesser known authors, and fresh voices."

My own reading of New Zealand crime fiction has slackened in recent years, so I began with paper and pen, making note of titles to hunt down. I found that I have more or less kept up with Australian crime fiction, but also that I have missed on quite a few gems, and there was confirmation that my reading of New Zealand crime fiction hasn't even been the tip of the iceberg. I now have a list that will keep me busy for many years.

This book is a wonderful achievement, not only giving readers tips on a wide variety of titles to look for, interviews with prominent achievers, but also, in the Appendix, arranged from most recent to first years, the Ned Kelly Award winners, the Ngaio Marsh Award winners,and the Davitt Award Winners.

My rating: 5.0

About the author
Craig Sisterson is a features writer and crime fiction expert from New Zealand who writes for newspapers and magazines in several countries. In recent years he's interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at festivals on three continents. He's been a judge of the McIlvanney Prize and Ned Kelly Awards, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and co-founder of Rotorua Noir.

Review: THE NIGHT HAWKS, Elly Griffiths

• 
  first published in Great Britain in 2021 by Quercus
  
• ISBN 978-1-78747-781-0
• 348 pages
• #13 in the Ruth Galloway series 

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Dr Ruth Galloway returns to the moody and beautiful landscape of North Norfolk to confront another killer. A devastating new case for our favourite forensic archaeologist in this acclaimed and bestselling crime series.

The Night Hawks, a group of metal detectorists, are searching for buried treasure when they find a body on the beach in North Norfolk. At first Nelson thinks that the dead man might be an asylum seeker but he turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, recently released from prison. Ruth is more interested in the treasure, a hoard of Bronze Age weapons. Nelson at first thinks that Taylor's death is accidental drowning, but a second death suggests murder.

Nelson is called to an apparent murder-suicide of a couple at the isolated Black Dog Farm. Local legend talks of the Black Shuck, a spectral hound that appears to people before they die. Nelson ignores this, even when the owner's suicide note includes the line, 'He's buried in the garden.' Ruth excavates and finds the body of a giant dog.

All roads lead back to this farm in the middle of nowhere, but the place spells serious danger for anyone who goes near. Ruth doesn't scare easily. Not until she finds herself at Black Dog Farm ...

My Take

Another episode in this captivating series. It is set about a year later than the previous title. Ruth has left Cambridge and returned as Head of the Department of Archaeology at her old university. She has more or less picked up where she was about 3 years before. 

When two bodies are found, one a recent corpse on the beach, and the other a long dead skeleton in a burial mound, Ruth begins excavations. Dead bodies abound in this story, and Nelson seeks Ruth's advice on a number of aspects.

Among other things, I enjoy the ongoing relationships in these books, as well as the fact that they often combine North Norfolk legend/history with a crime fiction plot. The relationships mean that you get the best out of the stories if you read the books in order. There are characters who appear in several of the books. In the back of this title there is a Who's Who listing 8 of the characters who appear in the series.

The books are generally set in current time - there's mention for example of the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic, and the next title in the series, THE LOCKED ROOM, is set during lock-down. 

My rating: 4.6 

I've also read

• 4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES - Ruth Galloway #1
  
• 4.6, THE JANUS STONE - Ruth Galloway #2
• 4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END - Ruth Galloway #3
• 4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES - Ruth Galloway #4
• 4.8, DYING FALL- audio book - Ruth Galloway #5
• 4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #7
• 4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #6
• 4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE - Ruth Galloway #8
• 4.7, THE CHALK PIT - Ruth Galloway #9
• 4.4, THE VANISHING BOX
• 4.6, THE STRANGER DIARIES
• 4.5, SMOKE AND MIRRORS
• 4.4, THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS 
• 4.7, THE LANTERN MEN - Ruth Galloway #12

I have worked out that I have missed reading 2 in the series, and will take steps to remedy that:

10. The Dark Angel (2018)
11. The Stone Circle (2019)

Review: WHEN SHE WAS GOOD, Michael Robotham

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 651 KB
• Print Length: 380 pages
• Publisher: Sphere (July 28, 2020)
• Publication Date: July 28, 2020
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B07ZLTMRC6
• Read an excerpt
• #2 in the Cyrus Haven series 
• Interview with the author

Synopsis (Amazon)

She has secrets.

Six years ago, Evie Cormac was found hiding in a secret room in the aftermath of a brutal murder. But nobody has ever discovered her real name or where she came from, because everybody who tries ends up dead.

He needs answers.

Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven believes the truth will set Evie free. Ignoring her warnings, he begins to dig into her past, only to disturb a hornet's nest of corrupt and powerful people, who have been waiting to find Evie - the final witness to their crimes. Unbeknownst to him, Cyrus is leading them straight to Evie. The truth will not set her free. It will get them killed.

From internationally bestselling, award-winning author Michael Robotham, this is the second explosive novel featuring the gifted criminal psychologist Cyrus Haven, introduced in GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL.

My Take

You really need to read the first in this series (GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL) before reading this one.
Cyrus Haven is convinced that if he can work out who Evie Cormac really is, then they can work out who it was that treated her so badly. He teams with Sacha Hopewell, the ex-police woman who discovered where Evie was hiding 6 years before.

The novel is set in 2020, in a world where Covid-19 does not exist, mainly because it was written and dispatched to the printers before the virus hit us. (Chapter 1 where Cyrus tracks Sacha down is set in May 2020). Cyrus believes there were things not put in the police reports 6 years before that will help him give Evie her real name, although it is obvious that Evie knows who she is. He thinks these are details Sacha can help him with. Initially Sacha is reluctant to get involved, but inevitably she does.

Robotham uses mainly the two voices: Cyrus and Evie to progress the novel and the search for the truth. Evie has turned into a feisty character and is living in a correctional centre, ostensibly to protect her, but outside there are people who are trying to work out where she is, and eventually one of them does.

A good read.

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 (audio)
4.8, LOST #2 (audio)
5.0, THE OTHER WIFE
4.8, GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL  

Awards
The Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger (won) LIFE OR DEATH 2015 (shortlisted) SAY YOU'RE SORRY 2013.
The Australian Book Industry Association ABIA General Fiction Award 2018 for THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS
The Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel (won 2005 and 2008) LOST and SHATTER.
The Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Novel (shortlisted) 2016 LIFE OR DEATH (shortlisted) 2019 GOOD GIRL BAD GIRL)
The Crime Writer's Association Steel Dagger (shortlisted) THE NIGHT FERRY and SHATTER. 

GOOD GIRL BAD GIRL has been shortlisted for the UK Gold Dagger.
The winners of the 2020 Daggers will be announced at an awards ceremony, due to take place on 22 October.

Review: LOCKDOWN, Peter May

• Written 2005
  
  
• Published 2020 by riverrun 
• ISBN 978-1-52941-169-0
• 398 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

Written over fifteen years ago, this prescient, suspenseful thriller is set against a backdrop of a capital city in quarantine, and explores human experience in the grip of a killer virus.

"They said that twenty-five percent of the population would catch the flu. Between seventy and eight percent of them would die. He had been directly exposed to it, and the odds weren't good."

A CITY IN QUARANTINE

London, the epicenter of a global pandemic, is a city in lockdown. Violence and civil disorder simmer. Martial law has been imposed. No-one is safe from the deadly virus that has already claimed thousands of victims. Health and emergency services are overwhelmed.

A MURDERED CHILD

At a building site for a temporary hospital, construction workers find a bag containing the rendered bones of a murdered child. A remorseless killer has been unleashed on the city; his mission is to take all measures necessary to prevent the bones from being identified.

A POWERFUL CONSPIRACY

D.I. Jack MacNeil, counting down the hours on his final day with the Met, is sent to investigate. His career is in ruins, his marriage over and his own family touched by the virus. Sinister forces are tracking his every move, prepared to kill again to conceal the truth. Which will stop him first - the virus or the killers?

My take

After what we have all been through in 2020, and are still undergoing, this novel set in a global pandemic of bird flu is one that most of us can approach with some understanding. Self-isolation, public panic, and permits restricting us to our homes and local areas all ring bells. But this pandemic, admittedly not Covid-19 in origin, didn't just happen. Someone, something, caused it. And the world is waiting for a vaccine.

Jack MacNeil has decided that there has to be life outside his work, and so he has resigned, and now has only about 24 hours left to his working career. The bones in the bag will very likely be his last case and he is determined to solve it. When coincidences indicate that someone is tracking his every move, even protecting him against attack and robbery, he has to ask why.

At times the scenarios strained credibility but the characters and plot threads felt real enough. And with what we know of the "China virus", we might even ask some cynical questions about what has been happening in our world.

My rating: 4.8

I've also read
THE RUNNER
VIRTUALLY DEAD
FREEZE FRAME
4.7, THE BLACKHOUSE
5.0, THE LEWIS MAN
4.5, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE
5.0, ENTRY ISLAND
4.9, COFFIN ROAD

review: DAY'S END, Garry Disher

• 
  This edition published by Text Publishing 2022
• ISBN 978192245887
• 383 pages
  
• #4 in the Paul Hirschhausen series

Synopsis (publisher) 

Hirsch’s rural beat is wide. Daybreak to day’s end, dirt roads and dust. Every problem that besets small towns and isolated properties, from unlicensed driving to arson. In the time of the virus, Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened and social divisions cracking wide open. His own tolerance under strain; people getting close to the edge.

Today he’s driving an international visitor around: Janne Van Sant, whose backpacker son went missing while the borders were closed. They’re checking out his last photo site, his last employer. A feeling that the stories don’t quite add up.

Then a call comes in: a roadside fire. Nothing much—a suitcase soaked in diesel and set alight. But two noteworthy facts emerge. Janne knows more than Hirsch about forensic evidence. And the body in the suitcase is not her son’s.

My Take

Set in Tiverton, a small outback town in wheat and sheep country in South Australia, and set during the ongoing Covid pandemic, the story presents the seamy undercurrent of rural life. Hirsch's work is never done. One thing leads to another and from small fragments big issues grow.

But Hirsch plugs on, following threads with almost unbelievable consequences. Hirsch represents what rural policing is all about.

An excellent read.

My rating: 4.7

About the author
Garry Disher has published over fifty titles across multiple genres. With a growing international reputation for his best-selling crime novels, he has won four German and three Australian awards for best crime novel of the year, and been longlisted twice for a British CWA Dagger award. In 2018 he received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award. 

I've also read
4.7, WYATT
4.8, WHISPERING DEATH
4.7, BLOOD MOON
4.2, THE HEAT
4.5, SIGNAL LOSS
4.7, HER
4.9, UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS
4.7, KILL SHOT
5.0, BITTER WASH ROAD - Hirsch #1 - aka HELL TO PAY
5.0, PEACE- Hirsch #2
5.0, CONSOLATION - Hirsch #3

Review: TRACED, Catherine Jinks

• 
   Text Publishing Company Australia 2023
  
• ISBN 9-781922-790125
• 341 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

Jane is a contact tracer. She has to call a lot of people and some of them don’t want to talk. Various reasons – tax or immigration issues, infidelity. Domestic abuse.

Jane knows all about that. She and her daughter Tara have spent years in hiding from Tara’s manipulative and terrifying ex. Now, as Jane talks to a close contact, she realises the woman on the phone is scared of the same man – and he’s close. Too close.

Suddenly the past comes slamming back into the present as Jane realises she and Tara can’t keep running forever.

One day, they’re going to be found.

My Take

Jane is a Covid-19 contact tracer, one of those trying to prevent the virus becoming endemic in Australia. So far her work has preserved her anonymity, but then she comes across a victim of domestic violence who gives Jane enough clues as to the identity of her perpetrator, and to her horror, Jane knows him!

A very engrossing read.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

• 4.5, SHELTER
• 4.3, THE ATTACK
  

Review: OUTBACK, Patricia Wolf

• 
  This edition made available by my local library as an e-book on Libby
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Embla Books (November 8, 2022) 
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 292 pages 
• DS Walker Thriller Book 1

Synopsis (Amazon)

TWO MISSING BACKPACKERS. ONE VAST OUTBACK.

DS Lucas Walker is on leave in his hometown, Caloodie, taking care of his dying grandmother. When two young German backpackers, Berndt and Rita, vanish from the area, he finds himself unofficially on the case.

But why all the interest from the Federal Police when they have probably just ditched the heat and dust of the outback for the coast? Working in the organised crime unit has opened Walker's eyes to the growing drug trade in Australia's remote interior - and he becomes convinced there is more at play.

As the number of days since the couple's disappearance climbs, Walker is joined by Rita's older sister. A detective herself with Berlin CID, she has flown to Australia - desperate to find her sister.

Their search becomes ever more urgent as temperatures soar. Even if Walker does find the young couple, will it be too late?

This deeply atmospheric thriller is the gripping opening of a new crime series for fans of Cara Hunter and Chris Whitaker.

My Take

This made for interesting reading. It hits a topic, the disappearance and murder of backpackers, that has been raised in a number of novels, and also in true crime reporting. There are several narrators but the story is told largely in the third person, with glimpses of the thoughts of individual characters.

The coincidence of the young missing backpackers being German, and the fact that the author lives in Germany is an interesting one. I liked the character of the policewoman from Berlin who comes searching for her sister. It would be good to see her work with Lucas Walker in future novels. 

I was reminded also of the international tourist (a Belgian) who comes looking for her missing son in Garry Disher's DAY'S END, who just happens to be a forensic expert. 

The original interest of the Federal Police and the Department of Foreign Affairs in the disappearance of these two backpackers, just days after they have gone missing, is never really explained. (Or if it was, I missed it)

It is interesting also that the accounts by a number of crime fiction authors, including Chris Hammer, and Garry Disher, support the view of what Patricia Wolf is saying about Outback towns.

My Rating: 4.5

About the author

Patricia Wolf has been a journalist for more than 15 years, a regular contributor to titles including The Guardian, the Financial Times, The Independent and The Telegraph, among others. She grew up in outback Australia, in a mining town called Mount Isa in far north-west Queensland – eagle eyed readers will have spotted a small reference to it in her first book, OUTBACK. Patricia loves the rugged beauty, indigo sky and wide horizons of the outback, but left Australia after university to travel the world and became a journalist. She lives in Berlin, Germany, but the outback always calls her home. In 2019, just before the covid pandemic locked us all in, Patricia spent two months in northwest Queensland, taking a four-week road trip. As she drove and spent nights and days surrounded by the beauty and rugged harshness of the outback, DI Lucas Walker and his stories came to be.

Review: HOME BEFORE NIGHT, J. P. Pomare

• 
  This edition published by hatchette Australia 2023
• ISBN 978-0-7336-4954-7
  
• 191 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

Mother's intuition or a deadly guilty conscience? A woman races against time to find her son in this tense and twisty thriller by the Top Ten bestselling author of THE WRONG WOMAN.

As the third wave of the virus hits, all inhabitants of Melbourne are given until 8 pm to get to their homes. Wherever they are when the curfew begins, they must live for four weeks and stay within five kilometres of. When Lou's son, Samuel, doesn't arrive home by nightfall, she begins to panic.

He doesn't answer his phone. He doesn't message. His social media channels are inactive. Lou is out of her mind with worry, but she can't go to the police, because she has secrets of her own. Secrets that Samuel just can't find out about. Lou must find her son herself and bring him home.

Includes an exclusive extract of the next J. P. Pomare thriller, Seventeen Years Later, publishing in 2024.

My Take

This is the second novel that I've read set in Covid-19 in Australia (TRACED, Catherine Jinks). Few overseas readers will realise how Draconian the measures were that were taken here in the name of "keeping us safe."

When Samuel doesn't get home by the time lockdown hits, his mother worries about where he is. Citizens can't just come and go as they like. The police are keeping a look out for law breakers, and there are heavy financial penalties.

When Samuel finally gets in touch to say he is staying at his girlfriend's his mother thinks that there are things that just don't add up. Thinking back over his recent behaviour she worries that he has found out something she has kept from him all of his life. The reader already knows what that secret is, but there is something that is far worse.

But the way this comes to light makes you wonder if Lou really thought she could get away with it.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

• 4.6, IN THE CLEARING
• 4.8, CALL ME EVIE
• 4.8, TELL ME LIES 
• 4.7, THE WRONG WOMAN

Review: THE WAY IT IS NOW, Garry Disher

• 
  This edition provided by my local library as an e-book on Libby
  
• Published by Text Publishing 2 August 2022
• ISBN 9781922458704
• 416pp  

Synopsis

Twenty years ago Charlie Deravin’s mother went missing near the family beach shack—believed murdered; body never found. His father has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since.

Now Charlie’s back living in the shack in Menlo Beach, on disciplinary leave from his job with the police sex-crimes unit, and permanent leave from his marriage. After two decades worrying away at the mystery of his mother’s disappearance, he’s run out of leads.

Then the skeletal remains of two people are found in the excavation of a new building site—and the past comes crashing in on Charlie.

The Way It Is Now is the enthralling new novel from Garry Disher, one of Australia’s most loved and celebrated crime writers.

My Take

Set near on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, in 2020, just as Covid 19 is making itself felt in Australia and on Australians travelling overseas.

Twenty years ago Charlie's mother had disappeared on the same day that Charlie, a police constable, had been in a search party looking for a young boy who had run away from a school camp. Neither of them had been found.  Now, Charlie, still in the police force, has been suspended from assaulting a senior officer. He has nothing to do but to take good look at his mother's disappearance. He thinks the investigation wasn't very thorough, more focussed on acquitting his father who had been a senior police officer at the time. Charlie's older brother believes their father was to blame and he and Charlie do not see each other much. His father has re-married and is now retired and he and his wife are off on an overseas cruise. Charlie decides to contact people from the community who were around 20 years ago, and he begins to find things that just don't add up.

 You will notice that I am re-reading this novel as I am talking about Garry Disher's contribution to Australia crime fiction with my U3A Award Winning Crime Fiction reading group.

This is a typical Disher stand-alone with sub-plots to keep the mind alert, and a range of interesting characters, including Charlie Deravin himself. The setting of a coastal surfing town is strong and gives the novel a substantial Australian flavour.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

4.7, WYATT

4.8, WHISPERING DEATH

4.7, BLOOD MOON

4.2, THE HEAT

4.5, SIGNAL LOSS

4.7, HER

4.9, UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS

4.7, KILL SHOT

5.0, BITTER WASH ROAD - Hirsch #1 - aka HELL TO PAY

5.0, PEACE- Hirsch #2

5.0, CONSOLATION - Hirsch #3

4.7, DAY'S END- Hirsch #4

4.8, THE WAY IT IS NOW

4.8, SANCTUARY

Review: GIVE UNTO OTHERS, Donna Leon

• 
   this edition large print from Gale at Thorndike Press, published 2022
  
•  ISBN-13 978-1-4328-9727-7
• 452 pages
• Brunetti series, Book 13

Synopsis (publisher)

What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It’s a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face and ultimately answer in Give Unto Others, Donna Leon’s splendid 31st installment of her acclaimed Venetian crime series.

Brunetti is approached for a favor by Elisabetta Foscarini, a woman he knows casually, but her mother was good to Brunetti’s mother, so he feels obliged to at least look into the matter privately, and not as official police business. Foscarini’s son-in-law, Enrico Fenzo, has alarmed his wife (her daughter) by confessing their family might be in danger because of something he’s involved with. Since Fenzo is an accountant, Brunetti logically suspects the cause of danger is related to the finances of a client. Yet his clients seem benign: an optician, a restaurateur, a charity established by his father-in-law. However, when his friend’s daughter’s place of work is vandalized, Brunetti asks his own favors—that his colleagues Claudia Griffoni, Lorenzo Vianello, and Signorina Elettra Zorzi assist his private investigation, which soon enough turns official as they uncover the dark and Janus-faced nature of a venerable Italian institution.

Exploring the wobbly line between the criminal and non-criminal, revealing previously untold elements of Brunetti’s past, Give Unto Others shows that the price of reciprocity can be steep. 

My Take

I've named Donna Leon as one of the international award winning crime fiction authors for my U3A Crime Fiction readers group to look for. This is the 18th one that I have written about on this blog (since 2008).

The story is set in 2020, and Venice is bearing the impact of Covid 19: businesses have closed, there are no tourist boats, and many people are still wearing masks. There is actually little crime although gangs of kids are ransacking closed shops. Brunetti and others have time on their hands.

So when he is approached by someone he barely remembers from his childhood he decides to launch an unofficial investigation. But the longer this goes on, the more people are involved and the more complex everything becomes. 

One of Italy's big problems in 2020 is the collapse of investment schemes and many people are investigating alternative things to do with their money. Funds are flowing out of the Mafia and others into money laundering schemes. This is the background this book is set against. 

My rating:: 4.6 

I've also read

• ABOUT FACE
• THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS
• THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
• 4.4, A QUESTION OF BELIEF
• 4.5, BEASTLY THINGS
• 4.4, QUIETLY IN THEIR SLEEP
• 3.9, THE JEWELS OF PARADISE
• 4.8, DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
• 4.5, DRAWING CONCLUSIONS, Donna Leon - abridged audio version
• 4.6, DEATH IN A STRANGE COUNTRY
• 4.7, BY ITS COVER
• 4.5, THE GOLDEN GOOSE
• 4.8, THE WATERS OF ETERNAL YOUTH
• 4.5, FALLING IN LOVE
• 4.8, EARTHLY REMAINS
• 4.6, TRANSIENT DESIRES - #30
• 4.7, SO SHALL YOU REAP - #32 

Review: DEAD FALL LAKE, S. R. White

• 
  this edition supplied by my local library,
  
• published  by Headline Publishing 2026
• ISBN 978-1-03-542666-9
• 261 pages
• #5 in the Dana Russo series 

Synopsis (publisher)

Deep in the Australian wilderness, a famed sinkhole renowned as a stunning freediving spot attracts people from all over the world. But there’s a dark, puzzling mystery when a local sports hero – and the glamorous face of a high-adrenaline video channel – is found dead far beneath the surface.

Despite diving the sinkhole hundreds of times, his lifeless body is discovered dressed in normal clothes, handcuffed to a supply line. With no witnesses – and evidence submerged 30 metres underwater – how can Detective Dana Russo unravel such a shocking case?

My Take

The historical setting is Covid in 2020 in remote Australia (perhaps Western Victoria). The detectives have had to come from Carlton and the pandemic means that there are all sorts of restrictions related to social contact and mask wearing is mandatory. While I have read a number of novels written during the pandemic, not so many are set in the period. (Here are some I've read)

In addition the two female detectives are both "damaged" in some way and bring their own limitations to the investigation. The sinkhole has been used in the past in colonial Australia as a place of execution and makes the death of a free diver even more macabre or ironic. The sinkhole has vertical sides and very clear filtered water. 

I found the investigation quite technical and slow reading at times. I hadn't really managed to pick the murderer - perhaps not enough clues for me?

My rating: 4.6 

I've also read

4.6, HERMIT  - #1

Review: THE BONE CODE, Kathy Reichs

• 
  this edition published by Simon & Schuster Australia 2021
  
• ISBN 9-781760-858582
• 351 pages
• #20 in the Temperance Brennan series

Synopsis (Publisher)

NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author KATHY REICHS returns with her next edge-of-your seat thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A storm has hit South Carolina, dredging up crimes of the past.

On the way to Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan receives a call from the Charleston coroner. During the storm, a medical waste container has washed up on the beach. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Chillingly, Tempe recognizes many details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec fifteen years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she flies to Montreal to gather evidence and convince her boss Pierre LaManch to reopen the cold case. She also seeks the advice—and comfort—of her longtime beau Andrew Ryan.

Meanwhile, a storm of a different type gathers force in South Carolina. The citizens of Charleston are struck by a bacterium that, at its worst, can eat human flesh. Thousands panic and test themselves for a rare genetic mutation that may have rendered them vulnerable.

Shockingly, Tempe eventually discovers that not only are the victims in both grisly murder cases related, but that the murders and the disease outbreak also have a common cause…​​

My Take

It is some time since I have read one of this series. THE BONE CODE is set in 2020, acknowledging the presence of the Covid-19 pandemic. However it is not the pandemic that plays a role in this novel but a virus that is killing dogs. Is it possible it can also infect their human owners?

In South Carolina the two bodies washed up in a shipping container remind Tempe of an unsolved cold case in Quebec fifteen years earlier. In a secondary mystery she is trying to track down why the photo of a death mask many decades old looks so familiar.

Tempe calls in a number of favours to help her solve her problems, and eventually tracks down the reason for the similarity between the two sets of bodies separated, in discovery, by 15 years.

I did feel at a distinct disadvantage from having read so few of this series. For me, the book worked relatively well as a stand-alone.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

CROSS BONES - #8
4.1, MORTAL REMAINS  -#13 AKA SPIDER BONES

Review: TODAY A WOMAN WENT MAD IN THE SUPERMARKET, Hilma Wolitzer

• 
  Bloomsbury Publishing 2021
  
• ISBN 978-1-63557-762-4
• 179 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)
The uncannily relevant, deliciously clear-eyed collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning “American literary treasure” (Boston Globe), ripe for rediscovery―with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout.

From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer―now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game―has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who “raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height.” (Washington Post) These collected short stories―most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present―are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today.

In the title story, a bystander tries to soothe a woman who seems to have cracked under the pressures of her life. And in several linked stories throughout, the relationship between the narrator and her husband unfolds in telling and often hilarious vignettes. Of their time and yet timeless, Wolitzer’s stories zero in on the domestic sphere with wit, candor, grace, and an acutely observant eye. Brilliantly capturing the tensions and contradictions of daily life, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is full of heart and insight, providing a lens into a world that was often unseen at the time, and often overlooked now―reintroducing a beloved writer to be embraced by a whole new generation of readers. 

My Take

The majority, but not all, of these collected short stories are related to a "loosely autobiographical couple", Paulie and Howard. I began reading them, expecting, for some reason, them to be humerous, but in reality they are not. For readers of this blog, I should point out, nor are they crime fiction. They spring rather from the ordinary events of life, of things that have happened, or nearly happened to us.

Events capture the characters, entrap them, and then sometimes there is humour and quirkiness, as they struggle to release themselves.

These stories were written and published over a period of five decades, and in themselves reflect what was important in American society in that time.

For me the most memorable is the last, the author writing in and about the year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The stories:
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket,1966
Waiting for Daddy,1971
Photographs,1976
Mrs X,1969
Sundays,1974
Nights,1974
Overtime,1974
The Sex Maniac,1970
Trophies,1975
Bodies,1979
Mother,1978
Love,1971
The Great Escape, 2020

My rating: 4.6

About the author

Hilma Wolitzer is a recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. She has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, New York University, Columbia University, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her first published story appeared when she was thirty-six, and her first novel eight years later. Her many stories and novels have drawn critical praise for illuminating the dark interiors of the American home. She lives in New York City.

What I read in April and May 2020

Like many people I have spent the isolation time of the Covid-19 virus catching up with my reading.
There are lots of good crime fiction reads around, and even when access to the library was restricted, I had some good reads from books already on my shelves or already on my Kindle.

April 2020
My pick of the month for April was
PEACE by Australian author Garry Disher along with
SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME by Craig Sisterson.

1. 5.0, PEACE, Garry Disher  - Australian author & setting
2. 4.7, RIGHT BEHIND YOU, Rachel Abbott  
3. 4.5, THE PORTRAIT OF MOLLY DEAN, Katherine Kovacic - Australian author & setting
4. 4.8, THE GOOD TURN, Dervla McTiernan - Australian author
5. 4.5, BOXED, Richard Anderson - Australian author & setting 
6. 4.6, IN THE CLEARING, J. P. Pomare - Australian author & setting
7. 4.3, THE BEEKEEPER, Stewart Giles
8. 4.3, RETRIBUTION, Richard Anderson - Australian author & setting 
9. 5.0, SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, Craig Sisterson - Australian and New Zealand crime fiction
10. 4.5, THE SHIFTING LANDSCAPE, Katherine Kovacic - Australian author & setting 
11. 4.4, TRUE WEST, David Whish-Wilson -  Australian author & setting,
12. 4.8, WHAT LIES BETWEEN US, John Marrs 

May 2020
The good reads continued, with my pick going to MEMORY MAN by David Baldacci
 ( audio book was THE REMORSEFUL DAY by Colin Dexter, the last book in the Morse series)

1. 4.1, GREY MASK, Patricia Wentworth
2. 4.3, ELLY, Maike Wetzel
3. 4.4, THE CASE IS CLOSED, Patricia Wentworth  
4. 4.6, PAINTING IN THE SHADOWS, Katherine Kovacic
5. 4.5, LONESOME ROAD, Patricia Wentworth 
6. 4.4, THE GREAT DIVIDE, L. J. M. Owen - Australian author & setting
7. 5.0, THE REMORSEFUL DAY, Colin Dexter - audio book 
8. 4.4, THE APARTMENT, K.L. Slater
9. 4.8, MEMORY MAN, David Baldacci  
10. 4.4, DEATH IN OSLO, Anne Holt  - translated from Norwegian
11. 4.4, LYCKE, Mikaela Bley - translated from Norwegian
12. 4.4, HERCULE POIROT AND THE GREENSHORE FOLLY, Agatha Christie

See what others have read in these two months.