What an impossible novel to attempt to categorise. Lemon is a literary mystery in every sense; beautifully composed but oddly obscure. In a disorienting story told from three perspectives, we observe the effects of a violent murder on the victim’s family and the two plausible suspects in the years that follow the crime. It’s a…
There’s a murder, of course there is. And it’s not a straightforward one – a celebrity chef has seemingly killed her kitchen / personal assistant in a fit of jealous rage. The circumstances make no sense to seasoned Inspector Chen. He’s been sidelined into a make-work role, with no responsibility but a superficial sheen suitable…
A dead body found in a sleepy creek in rural Oklahoma – at first glance, this is a city-slicker fisherman, sneaking some fly-time out of season, who’s slipped on the rocks. But tribal policeman Bill Maytubby and country deputy Hannah Bond aren’t so easily fooled. The fish in dead man’s keep-net are all wrong for…
Next week sees the publication of the latest Bond and Maytubby investigation, Butcher Pen Road by Kris Lackey. We can’t wait to read the latest addition to this superb series, set in rural Oklahoma, and featuring First Nations investigator Bill Maytubby and county deputy Hannah Bond. But in case you’ve not been introduced to these…
The opening episode of the Killing Sisters trilogy introduces a cast of unique characters – three women who’ve made murder their business, and a world-weary warrior who’s had his fill of killing. Their paths cross in brutal, sometimes sensual encounters as we meet the underworld manipulators who support them, their victims who may not be…
The seven short stories in this anthology almost defy classification. Their plots might hinge on a sudden moment of criminal madness – theft, murder, rape – but each of these self-contained stories is about something far more subtle, the brutalisation of the soul, perhaps; the subjugation of the self. The author was a police officer…
The Redemption Of Charm is one knockout of a thriller and a most satisfying conclusion to the Killing Sisters trilogy. In it, all the intrigue, betrayals, and double-crosses that commenced in A Last Act Of Charity are peeled away through JJ’s relentless search for answers to the questions haunting him since he discovered he was…
Japanese noir can be an acquired taste. It’s often stranger than the Scandi stuff: written in stylish prose that contrasts shattering acts of violence and fleeting images of bewildering beauty. It can be subtle to the point of obscurity yet explicit to extremes. This is not a genre for those who flinch easily, and unfamiliar…
The Killing Sisters trilogy of compelling crime-thrillers is once again complete! The titles were unavailable for a short while, but now all three books are back on the shelves at Amazon in paperback and ebook editions. Mixing calculating killers and pitch-black wit, the story starts in A Last Act Of Charity. We meet jaded assassin and…
You might think that there’s nothing new to say about the assassination of JFK. Surely the subject has been done to death already? Think again. Three Bullets breathes new life into the greatest controversy of 20th century American politics by approaching it from an entirely new angle. The result is a radically refreshed story –…
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