Scribe Australia 2016 Review by Kerry James. Synopsis Sydney, 1946. Eleven-year-old Frances and her best friend, Nancy, are growing up in the doglegged streets of Newtown and into a world they do not understand. It is the aftermath of World War II, and thousands of damaged soldiers have returned to their homes, bearing the psychological
Text Publishing 2016 Reviewed by Kerry James Synopsis On the night Leo Stone returns—notionally from the dead, in reality from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—Cass Tuplin gets a call from Gary Kellett. A call about an actual dead person: Gary’s daughter, killed in a car crash. Gary’s adamant it wasn’t an accident. Cass agrees
Penguin Random House 2017 Reveiwer: Sue Turnbull Synopsis A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its
Avon 2017 Reviewer: Celia Jelbart Synopsis On a remote Highland mountain, the body of Elaine Buxton is burning. All that will be left to identify the respected lawyer are her teeth and a fragment of clothing. In the concealed back room of a house in Edinburgh, the real Elaine Buxton screams into the darkness Detective
Manilla Allen and Unwin English translation: Ruth Ahmedzai Reviewer: Lesley Vick Synopsis For now she is the hunter, but soon she will become the hunted. Criminal psychologist Lena Peters is asked to consult on a spate of gruesome murders that the Berlin police are struggling to solve. Young women, abducted tortured and mutilated. This is
HarperCollins 2017 Reviewer : Lesley Vick Synopsis Since her husband walked out, Louise has made her son her world, supporting them both with her part-time job. But all that changes when she meets David. Young, successful and charming – Louise cannot believe a man like him would look at her twice, let alone be
Corvus 2016 Reviewer: Lesley Vick Synopsis It’s been ten years since Nicolette Farrell left her rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared without trace. Then a letter from her father arrives – ‘I need to talk to you. That girl. I saw that girl’. Has her father’s dementia worsened, or has he really
Simon & Schuster 2017 Reviewed by Sandra Nicholson Synopsis: Arabella Lane, senior executive at a children’s publisher, is found dead in the Thames on a frosty winter’s morning after the office Christmas party. No one is sure whether she jumped or was pushed. The one person who may know the truth is the newest employee
Harper Collins 2017 Reviewer: Celia Jelbart Synopsis Eighteen-year-old Chloe Emery returns to her West London home one day to find the house covered in blood and Kate, her mother, gone. There may not be a body, but everything else points to murder. Maeve Kerrigan is young, ambitious and determined to prove she’s up to her
Harper Collins 2017 Reviewer: Kerry James Synopsis In the winter of 1912 on the wild West Coast of Tasmania, Wolfftown’s most notorious heiress and murderess, Sasha Torte, tells the tale of her own spectacular downfall. Forsaken by her parents and raised by criminals and reprobates, Sasha becomes a world-famous pastry chef at the tender age