Building work on the outskirts of Reykajavik (Iceland) uncovers a body possibly buried alive during World War Two. Erlendur and his team are called in to investigate and try to uncover the truth while a team of archaeologists slowly and painstaking exhume the skeleton. Those who still live in the area tell of a young pregnant woman who disappeared in the war, but is it her? An elderly dying man talks of the green woman who was crooked. At the same time Erlendur is re-living his past - his… Continue

1851 is the setting for this first title in the Railway Detective series: the year of the Great Exhibition, and the building of the Crystal Palace. The Detective Department of Scotland Yard is only 9 years old. A train on the Great Western Railway is held up at Leighton Buzzard, its driver seriously hurt, the train robbed of the consignment of gold coins that it is carrying, and finally derailed. The investigator is Inspector Robert Colbeck, a considerate, well-spoken, well… Continue

It is 3 years since Peter Diamond's wife was killed and he is being stalked by a woman who wants to become better acquainted. ACC Georgina Dalley's friend's daughter has gone missing . A woman's body is discovered hanging from a public playground swing, at first sight a suicide, but then it seems she may already have been dead when hung there. The discovery of a second body seems to signal that they have a "hangman" on the loose. Very very readable.

Julie Armstrong has been for a 'night out with the girls' and arrives home, barely sober, to find her son Luke in the bath, apparently drowned, scented water and flowers floating on the surface. Whatever happened, her daughter Laura has slept through it all. Inspector Vera Stanhope of the Northumbrian police, is the investigating officer. Soon there is a second body, this time young student teacher Lily Marsh. She too is found lying in a pool of water strewn with flowers but this time in an… Continue

Gloria Stanford is found dead in her apartment. She has cheated on the Deaf Man and he has taken his revenge. But he is not finished with the 87th precinct. He has a daring plan to make the precinct, and especially detective Steve Carella, look very stupid. Carella begins getting cryptic notes, some of them Shakespearian quotations, some anagrams, and some palindromes. They are delivered to the station by a succession of druggies and down-and-outers and point to an event happening within the… Continue

The first in the Irene Huss series. Originally titled in Swedish "The Broken Tang Horse". The Vicious Crimes Unit that Irene Huss is part of are investigating the death of a wealthy businessman who fell over 20 metres from the balcony of this apartment to the footpath below just as his wife and son arrived home and were getting out of their car. The business man, Richard von Knecht, has recently celebrated his 60th birthday, and he and his wife Sylvia their 30th wedding anniversary. The… Continue

#4 in the Gemma Lincoln series. Superintendent of Police at Manly, Bryson Finn and his sister-in-law Bettina are killed by an unknown gunman when she opens the front door of her house. His 9 year old son Donny, also shot, saw the killer and may die. Gemma Lincoln, private investigator, becomes involved when she helps her friend DS Angie McDonald. The investigation affects a third friend Senior Constable Jaki Hunter, a ballistics expert, in a number of ways. Work has been a bit slow for Gemma…

Continue

Tonight my face 2 face group here in Adelaide have participated in a photoshoot which is part of the launch of the June selection for the South Australian Big Book Club. The novel for June is Michael Robotham's THE NIGHT FERRY. Tonight 6 of our group were photographed in a local cafe with the book and we will be featured in the Adelaide Advertiser this Saturday. Great fun, and the book is very much worth reading too - see my mini-review on this page.

This is a fascinating book even if you only look at it from the point of view of how it fits in with Robotham's other 2 books. His first was THE SUSPECT where the central character was psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin. In a sense the second book, LOST (also published as THE DROWNING MAN) was a sequel to SUSPECT, with the same two main characters, Vincent Ruiz and psychologist Joe O'Loughlin. Whereas SUSPECT focussed on O'Loughlin's predicament, LOST focusses on Ruiz.

Now in THE NIGHT…

Continue

Remarkably good for a debut novel. Robert Fate's own rich background of experience comes through. Baby Shark is "seventeen going on thirty" in her father's words. At a time when other girls her age are buying clothes and having their nails and hair done, Kristin van Dijk, aka Baby Shark, is pursuing killers and wreaking revenge. At seventeen Kristin sees her father killed in a Texas pool room by some bikies, and is then raped and beaten herself. She survives with incredible injuries, and is… Continue

Bloodlines, Jan Burke

By a Spider's Thread, Laura Lippman

Calling Out For You!, Karin Fossum

Case Histories, Kate Atkinson

Dance for the Dead, Thomas Perry

Dissolution, C.J. Sansom

Don't Look Back, Karin Fossum

Entombed, Linda Fairstein

Lifeless, Mark Billingham

Missing, Karin Alvtegen

No Trace, Barry Maitland

One Last Breath, Stephen Booth

OUT, Natsuo Kirino

Scaredy Cat, Mark Billingham

Secret Smile, Nicci French

Shadow Woman, Thomas… Continue

Adelaide Writer's Week occurs every 2 years as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts

In 2006 the contingent of 25 international and 42 Australian writers provided a wonderful balance between the established figures and the newly emerging writers. Writers' Week has a solid committed core of supporters with audience numbers steadily increasing to an estimated 107,225 attendances.

The events are mainly free and are held in open tents in a meeting place between a memorial… Continue

http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/oz_mystery_readers/ is a group I created just over 4 years ago, to fill what I perceived as a gap in the online discussion world. We share opinions and information about crime/mystery fiction available in Australia in paperback (at least that is the theory). We welcome members from all over the globe and we hold at least one book discussion each month.

Some of the features are ones that…

Continue