Humour Archives

Book review: The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done by Clare Stephens

October 18, 20253 min read

The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done by Clare Stephens is a little outside of my crime fiction/thriller genre and I’m unsure if I requested the review copy but I’ve received so few (print / real) books lately I was keen to turn the pages of something tangible during my evening baths. And this, by the former Mama Mia editor-in-chief is certainly well-written, offering an insightful commentary on the online world today. Stephens knows that world and is well-placed to reflect on it… warts-n-all. In fact it means we get to go behind the scenes of the world of clickbait headlines and regurgitated stories featuring the royal family or B list celebrities.

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Book review: No One Would Do What The Lamberts Have Done by Sophie Hannah

June 23, 20253 min read

No One Would Do What The Lamberts Have Done by Sophie Hannah is a hard book to review. Firstly it’s a book within a book. A cop purportedly finds a box containing a manuscript. It was out of order he tells his boss, but he puts it together and discovers it’s about a recent tragedy in the community. One the cop and his boss thought was resolved. However, the manuscript raises a number of questions.

At its most simple, it’s about two neighbouring families – the Lamberts and the Gaveys. Not even warring families, though we learn the daughters didn’t get along. It kicks off with a police officer knocking on the door of the Lamberts following an accusation that the Lamberts’s dog – Champ – has bitten the Gavey’s daughter (Tess).

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Book review: What a Way to Go by Bella Mackie

October 5, 20243 min read

I received What a Way to Go by Bella Mackie as a temporary ebook so I wasn’t going to review it here but it was so quirky that I decided it deserved a spot on this site (such valuable real estate that it is! 😉 ). Ostensibly it’s a murder mystery but the person charged with solving the whodunnit is in fact the victim – in the afterlife.. well actually a ‘processing centre’, a realm between life and afterlife. The unlikeable Anthony (skewered at his own 60th birthday party) is forced to live a monotonous daily existence in the processing centre until he’s able to remember how he died – to move into the afterlife.

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Book review: Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

March 17, 20242 min read

I love it when a book takes me by surprise. One minute I’m opening it, expecting something that will entertain me for a few hours, and the next I find I don’t want to put it down and am seriously invested in the plot as if the whole thing is unfolding in front of me in real life. Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera was that kind of book. We’re not necessarily meant to like the prickly Lucy Chase – who most assumed killed her best friend five years earlier. Yet, she’s incredibly disarming and I was most certainly on her side… particularly when those who should give her the benefit of the doubt, aren’t.

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Book review: Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

October 25, 20233 min read

Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson is a sequel to the equally lengthily-named Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (EIMFHKS) – a book I absolutely loved. In fact I’ve really enjoyed all of Stevenson’s books but the narration in EIMFHKS was outstanding. Written conversationally and very VERY cleverly in first person – sometimes second – the narrative is delivered via the droll, witty, exceedingly forthright writer-turned accidental detective (turned novelist) Ernest Cunningham.

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Book review: Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich

November 7, 20222 min read

Going Rogue (Rise and Shine Twenty-Nine) by Janet Evanovich is the latest book in the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series. Like JD Robb’s In Death series and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone ABC series these are comfort reads for me. I know what to expect. I can feel confident that’s what I’ll get and it’s almost always the case.

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Book review: The Guncle by Steven Rowley

June 7, 20222 min read

I ADORED Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley giving it a rare 4.5 stars. It was astoundingly clever and such a delight. Rowley wrote with humour and sensitivity and – though not a dog / animal lover – I was completely enchanted by Ted the human and Lily the dachshund. (And, sadly… the octopus that ‘consumed’ her.)

I leapt at the chance to read The Guncle. The blurb had me wondering if it’d be like RWR McDonald’s wonderful ‘The Nancys’ series… featuring Uncle Pike and his partner Devon… albeit without the whodunnit.

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Book review: Here Goes Nothing by Steve Tolz

May 8, 20224 min read

I don’t read much satire. I like humorous books, but usually tend to gravitate to those written in first person by someone who’s self-deprecating or where the narrative voice is snarky or sarcastic. Here Goes Nothing by Steve Tolz was a different kind of read for me. If pressed I’d describe the humour as ‘arch’ rather than funny, though note others have found it hilarious.

In fact… I’m not sure I enjoyed it. (As such.) But I must concede it’s good nonetheless. (And yes, I do think it’s possible to know/think a book is good without liking it.) It’s exceedingly clever and confronting. In terms of social commentary it reminded me of some of my recent reads by Inga Simpson, Sarah Foster and Mitch Albom.

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