Debbish

Book review: Judgement Prey by John Sandford

Sunday, October 1, 2023 Permalink

I was very excited to see Judgement Prey by John Sandford pop up for review that I let it leap-frog over a heap of other books. And I’m even blessing it with a review on my much-esteemed website 😉 rather than just on Goodreads even though I only had an electronic copy. Because I freakin’ loved this book. I’m almost tempted to give it 4.5 stars except I was a smidge disappointed by the actual ‘who’ part of the whodunnit. It wasn’t left-field but let’s just say we weren’t given some of the clues we needed earlier and I do prefer an even playing field when it comes to the big reveal / finger-pointing thing.

Book review: Lioness by Emily Perkins

Tuesday, September 26, 2023 Permalink

Lioness by Emily Perkins is a beautifully written book. I’ve bookmarked a lot of pages featuring phrasing or passages that leapt out at me – as being eloquent, or perhaps relatable for me personally. Which is interesting, as though I could relate to some elements of this and its lead characters (who are similar in age to me), I really did not connect with them in the way I expected. In fact, I did not like them at all. Therese our narrator seems surprisingly enamoured by her neighbour Claire and I confess I did not see the allure.

Book review: For Reasons of their Own by Chris Stuart

Wednesday, September 20, 2023 Permalink

I met New Zealand author Chris Stuart at the Theakston Crime Writing Festival. We were introduced by crime fiction guru (and big promotor of antipodean crime fiction) Craig Sisterson (pic of we three below).

Chris, he told me, had won New Zealand’s Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel for her debut, For Reasons of their Own in 2021. We hung out while at the festival and she handed me a copy of her second book, The Glasgow Smile. Very weirdly we had similar backgrounds, as we’d both worked in international aid and development overseas and – at different times – worked with the same Australian project management company in the Pacific. Small world. We also both seemed to be wearing bright clothing, so we stood out in the dull England drizzle.

Book review: Lie by the Pool by Susan Walter

Sunday, September 17, 2023 Permalink

Book cover - Lie by the Pool by Susan Walter

I’d had Lie by the Pool by Susan Walter awaiting me on my iPad for a while before getting to it. I’m not sure why I requested it, but something about it leapt out and I’ve seen other Aussie bookbloggers or bookstagrammers reading it too. In some ways it’s a proverbial sleeper. We come into the story part-way through. Bree has lost everything – her husband and house – and is living out of her car. When we meet her she’s sneaking into the poolhouse of a large house in Beverley Hills. It’s obvious that it’s familiar to her for some reason but that’s all we know. And that’s all we do know until Walter very cleverly starts pulling together multiple threads.

Book review: Reinventing Emily Brown by Jodi Gibson

Thursday, September 14, 2023 Permalink

I’m not traditionally a reader of feel-good books. Most I read are those written by writing and blogging friends whose words I enjoy and who I know will always deliver on their promise. Reinventing Emily Brown is the third book I’ve read by Jodi Gibson and I’ve enjoyed them all. It’s perfect for lovers of Virgin River (and the like) as it offers that perfect balance of joy and happiness with personal angst and life-not-going-how-you-expect.

Here, I felt I could fairly confidently guess where the book was going and how it would end, but I very happily coasted along because sometimes that predictability is comforting and exactly what you need.

Book review: The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty

Saturday, September 9, 2023 Permalink

The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty is the seventh in the Sean Duffy series. McKinty has been busy with some excellent standalones so the last time we met Duffy was in the spectacularly named Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly, released in 2017.

I was thinking there’d be a very long gap between books, but on further investigation (ie. looking at Goodreads) I noticed that this book was in fact originally released in 2018 and I missed it at the time. Unfortunately in my review of book six, I cagily comment on changes being afoot for Duffy though don’t offer any spoilers. It meant I started this with absolutely no idea what had happened in the previous outing. I soon discovered however that he’s moving to Scotland with his girlfriend and their three year old daughter and transitioning to a part-time role with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

Book review: A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty

Monday, September 4, 2023 Permalink

A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty is a difficult book to describe. Ostensibly it’s a slow burning thriller – about a woman who goes on the run, slowly sharing with us the ‘why’. What elevated it for me was the (almost) syncopated way in which Doughty doles out details, as well as her beautiful writing. Sentences and phrases leapt out at me. It’s also most definitely not the book I was expecting it to be, and it unfolds in a way that’s weirdly unsettling.

Book review: Anatomy of a Killer by Romy Hausmann

Sunday, August 27, 2023 Permalink

This is the second book I’ve read by Romy Hausmann (her first Dear Child, was also translated by Jamie Bulloch) and I’ve enjoyed both. I’m conscious though, some might grapple with the subject matter Hausmann tends to tackle – involving complex family relationships with child-centric themes.

Here we meet 24yr old Ann, home one night for dinner with her father when the police come knocking to accuse him of being a serial child murderer – responsible for nine deaths over a spate of a dozen years.

Book review: A Taste of Blood by Lynda LaPlante

Thursday, August 24, 2023 Permalink

Book cover - A Taste of Bloody by Lynda LaPlante

I think I’ve mentioned in my last couple of reviews of this young Jane Tennison series, that we must almost be at a point where we first met DCI Jane Tennison in the Prime Suspect series. Here it felt were getting closer as A Taste of Blood features an ‘early’ mobile phone… albeit one that acted more like a pager; and Jane and her colleagues get briefed on this FABULOUS new forensic tool – DNA!

I discovered my posits were correct (as they always are of course! 🙄 ) as I saw the author herself mentioned on Twitter that there will be ONE more in this series!