Category Archives: Book Review

The Easter Make Believers by Finn Bell – 2017

Posted on November 4, 2017 by alysonebaker

A hostage crisis in the small Otago town of Lawrence in the South Island goes horribly wrong.  A woman is shot, her children traumatised, four guys are fatally shot by police snipers, and another is killed by an explosion that … Continue reading →

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Obsession by Elspeth Sandys – 2017

Posted on October 20, 2017 by alysonebaker

Why do people become obsessed with places, things or other people?  What has evolved in us that enables us to continue to desire unrequited relationships, when to do so brings great suffering to ourselves?  And what hyperactive flourish of male … Continue reading →

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The Only Secret Left to Keep by Katherine Hayton – 2017

Posted on October 12, 2017 by alysonebaker

This is the third – and hopefully not last – in the fabulous Detective Ngaire Blakes series.  And, as with The three deaths of Magdalene Lynton, Blakes is on a cold case.  A skeleton is discovered by an idiot looting houses … Continue reading →

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Tell Me a Lie by CJ Carver – 2017

Posted on October 10, 2017 by alysonebaker

After reading Carver’s Spare me the truth, I was really looking forward to the second in her Dan Forrester series.  And for brilliant plotting and a full on adrenalin read, Tell me a lie didn’t disappoint.  There is one coincidence … Continue reading →

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Jarulan by the River by Lily Woodhouse – 2017

Posted on September 27, 2017 by alysonebaker

Jarulan is a crumbling mansion on a sprawling property in rural New South Wales, and Jarulan is a sprawling saga sporadically following the Jarulan residents from before the First World War to the present.  Much of the physical character of … Continue reading →

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The Suicide Club by Sarah Quigley – 2017

Posted on September 11, 2017 by alysonebaker

Three young people, one mistakenly named, two self-named, have all experienced childhood trauma.  As a result they feel abandoned, are haunted by horrific memories, or experience hyper-sensitivity due to early injuries.  All three are extremely gifted: either with beauty, with … Continue reading →

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The Sound of Her Voice by Nathan Blackwell – 2017

Posted on September 9, 2017 by alysonebaker

Matt Buchanan has worked on a series of horrific crimes spanning decades in an Auckland where it is always raining, and years on he is still haunted by his earliest case, the still unsolved disappearance of a school girl, Samantha.  … Continue reading →

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Aukati by Michalia Arathimos – 2017

Posted on September 8, 2017 by alysonebaker

What I loved about this book was its uncompromising life-like messiness; things don’t go as planned, there are long periods in the doldrums, sex is sometimes not that great, something happens and suddenly one of the characters finds himself in … Continue reading →

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Tess by Kirsten McDougall – 2017

Posted on September 4, 2017 by alysonebaker

A middle-aged man with a rifle in his car decides to pick up a young woman on the highway.  He is just wanting to help; she is about the same age as his estranged daughter.  The young woman sees accepting … Continue reading →

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The Scene of the Crime by Steve Braunias – 2015

Posted on September 2, 2017 by alysonebaker

WELCOME TO THE NGAIO MARSH AWARDS BLOG TOUR 2017 There is an inevitable melange of fiction and reality that arises from piecing together ‘what happened’ in a crime: “a trial is always going to take on the literary form of … Continue reading →

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