Jack Heath Archives

Book review: Kill Your Boss by Jack Heath

November 14, 20252 min read

Kill Your Boss by Jack Heath is the third in the ‘Kill your….’ series featuring DS Kiara Lui. I jokingly tried to guess what the next one would be in my review of Kill Your Husbands… one of my guesses was ‘colleagues’.

I was close but no banana. Though many will relate to this as I’m fairly sure most of us have had a horrendous boss at some point in their life. In a letter by Heath (in the review copy I received) he talks about unlikeable characters and it has to be said the victim here—Neville—is certainly that. In fact I love that no one (other than the victim’s parents) even pretends to have a good word to say about the victim… so the suspects are many!

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Book review: Kill Your Husbands by Jack Heath

November 28, 20233 min read

Kill Your Husbands by Jack Heath is very cleverly written because in the present the police are interviewing the survivors politely, using their title and surname, but in the past (well, very recent past… last weekend) they all use first names. So for a long time we don’t know who’s dead and who’s not.

Weirdly it didn’t occur to me until I started the book that it was a follow-up to Kill Your Brother, which I enjoyed when it was released in 2021. It’s not exactly a sequel as such, rather it features two of the same characters, cop (here recently promoted to detective) Kiara Lui and her girlfriend Elise (held capture in the first book). Their relationship is on rocky ground here, well so thinks Kiara as Elise is acting strangely and keeping secrets from her.

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Book review: Headcase by Jack Heath

November 30, 20223 min read

Headcase by Jack Heath is the fourth in the series featuring cannibalistic problem solver Timothy Blake. Annoyingly my review of this book’s predecessor, published in 2020, mentions it ending with a bit of a twist. Alas I shared no spoilers and as I was super keen to read this, I was too impatient to go back and skim Hideout to jog my memory.

It didn’t actually matter however. I’m assuming perhaps that the love of Blake’s life, FBI agent Reese Thistle found out about his flesh-eating predilections and the pair broke up, as here he’s pining for her while working with new partner Zara on a covert CIA operation in the US.

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Book review: Kill Your Brother by Jack Heath

November 30, 20213 min read

I was a bit nervous going into Kill Your Brother by Jack Heath as we’re told the premise: it’s a bit of a kill or be killed kinda scenario and I had flashbacks to Eeny Meeny by MJ Arlidge, a novel in which couples or pairs are captured and have to do just that.

But Heath goes further here. Thankfully it isn’t just a gladiator-style fight to the death, but far more complex – both in terms of our characters and the depth of their backstories and personalities as well as the events unfolding in the present.

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Book review: Hideout by Jack Heath

November 29, 20203 min read

I blame our lack of daylight saving but I’ve been waking early which was my excuse for starting Jack Heath’s latest release Hideout at 5am in the bath accompanied by diet coke (my caffeine of choice) and brownies (the… ahem, breakfast of champions).

As is my habit, before starting a new book in a series I re-read my review of its predecessor. And in my review of the second in the Timothy Blake series, Hunter, I commented that we were left with a cliff-hanger. Annoyingly I don’t include spoilers in my posts which meant I had to get out of the bath and get my copy of Hunter off the shelf to re-read the ending. (Surely risking my neck on wet slippery tiles.)

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Book review: Hunter by Jack Heath

March 5, 20192 min read

Canberra-based author Jack Heath released Hangman last year – his first adult novel. I enjoyed it and commented at the time on lead character Timothy Blake’s status as an anti-hero… as we learn there about his less-than-palatable predilections. (Which I still won’t mention here as they come as quite a shock in the first novel and there may be newcomers reading this….)

But he describes himself thus…

A bad guy who does bad things for bad reasons. I’m not religious, but the word damned seems to cover it. p 26

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Book review: Hangman by Jack Heath

December 20, 20174 min read

It seems kinda unusual to read a book about the FBI by an Australian author, though I’m not sure why. Canberra-based Jack Heath is best known for his young adult novels, though the blurb I read on the publisher’s site indicates Heath has had a myriad of careers and experiences.

In a note to readers, Heath talks about his interest in capital punishment – in those on death row and those employed to be there in the final moments… and its impact. I’m opposed to the death penalty (the good ol’ eye for an eye is so bloody subjective) but didn’t feel as if I was drawn into any ethical debate here and think Heath probably needed to go down a different route if that was his intention. That’s just an ‘aside’ however, but I hadn’t realised that was his inspiration until I read the author’s notes at the end of the book. For me, this is very much a character-driven book (my favourite kind) but with a few ethical twists thrown in when it comes to our anti-hero and lead character.

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