Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Brownout Murders by Luke C. Jackson and Kelly Jackson, illustrated by Maya Graham

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Brownout Murders by Luke C. Jackson and Kelly ...:   Reviewed by Jeanne Melbourne, Australia, 1942. In a world at war, people struggle with ways to stay safe.   Australians have been warn...

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Italian Secret: A Novel by Tara Moss

 

Tara Moss is a Canadian-Australian author, documentary producer, journalist, and UNICEF national ambassador for child survival. Her Billie Walker character is another post-war woman similar to Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge of the Allison Montclair books, looking for her place in a world turned upside down.

The Italian Secret (Dutton, 2025) is her third book about Australia-based Billie, whose journalist career has ended because the newspapers want to hire returning soldiers. Billie reopened her late father's private investigation agency in Sydney and business is booming. A new operative who can easily mingle among the servants in upper class households has joined her staff. Sam, her trusted secretary and security guard, is still Billie’s mainstay as she gives the women of Sydney seeking desperately to leave abusive marriages the ammunition they need for a legal exit.

Billie is wrapping up another domestic case as the book opens. The violent and philandering husband in the case appears in Billie’s office to threaten her. Billie chases him off, knowing with the photographic evidence of his infidelity in hand, her client can easily obtain a dissolution of the marriage. Billie’s only worry is that an unsavory private investigator with ties to the Camorra seems to be on the husband’s payroll.

With a lull in the demands on the agency Billie settles down to sort her father’s old case files. In the bottom of one cabinet, near the back, she finds a bundle of faded letters to her father from someone named Francesca in Italy, an aging photograph of her father with a beautiful woman and a child, and a box with 500 pounds in old notes. (Equal now to $37,692.63 Australian dollars and $24,686.79 U.S. dollars.)

While she is mulling over her discovery and trying to broach the subject with her mother, her recent client dies suddenly, ostensibly of a quick-acting influenza virus but Billie fears poison of some kind. She urges Lieutenant Hank Cooper of the Sydney police to have an autopsy conducted, especially since her husband was the beneficiary of a large insurance policy.

Billie’s search for Francesca takes her to Naples, well off her usual beat, but complications from the recently ended domestic case follow her. The life aboard the luxury ocean liner was well researched and described without devolving into a data dump, as was the Naples setting, with its bombed-out buildings, the different neighborhoods, and the wide range of stores and bazaars. 

A good historical mystery with an original protagonist and interesting secondary characters. Fans of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher will want to look at this series.

 

 

·         Publisher: ‎Dutton

·         Publication date: ‎December 2, 2025

·         Language:‎ English

·         Print length: ‎368 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0593474759

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0593474754

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4p7t3Rz

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Sanctuary by Garry Disher

  

Garry Disher is one of my favorite contemporary authors. He has published dozens of widely translated books in a range of genres: crime thrillers, literary novels, short-story collections, YA/children’s novels, and writers’ handbooks. He writes a series about a professional thief named Wyatt, a procedural series with DI Hal Challis and DS Ellen Destry, and a third series about outback police officer Constable Paul Hirschhausen, all set in Disher’s native Australia. His one-off crime novels are works of art. Awards for his books include the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018; the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction in 2007, 2010, and 2021; the Crime Novel of the Year, Germany in 2020; and German Crime Fiction Award in 2002 and 2016.

See The Guardian’s interview with Disher here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/06/australian-crime-author-garry-disher-interview

Sanctuary (Viper, 2024) is his 60th book, the latest stand-alone crime novel. Grace was a minor character in one of the Challis and Destry stories and here she takes center stage. She’s a professional thief and con artist, trained from youth to recognize and extract highly portable valuables. She’s on the run, having almost been caught at a rare stamp convention in Brisbane. She ends up in Battendorf, a community that is not much more than a wide place in the road. Erin Mandel has advertised for help in her antiques store and with all of her knowledge of collectibles Grace seems to fit the bill. For awhile Grace begins to believe she can go straight and put down roots in this tiny town. She isn’t the only one with a history, however, and first Erin’s catches up with her, then the people chasing Grace find her.

Grace and Erin are wonderful characters, both trying to escape brutal pasts. The details of setting up and executing a scam are fascinating. As usual, Disher throws one curve ball after another, always when they are least expected. The ending is amorphous, leaving the opportunity for Grace to re-appear.

Sanctuary was named The Times Crime Book of the Month, a 2025 Steel Dagger Award finalist, and a finalist for the 2025 Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction.

Another great book from a master. Recommended.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Viper

·         Publication date: ‎August 15, 2024

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎352 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1805222627

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1805222620

  

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4323qIK 

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night. 

Mystery Fanfare: Return to Paradise: Season 1 coming to Britbox

Mystery Fanfare: Return to Paradise: Season 1 coming to Britbox: At last the U.S. is getting Return to Paradise , another  Death in Paradise spin-off. We've all been asking for it,  and it will finally...

Mystery Fanfare: Ned Kelly Awards Shortlists: Australian Crime Writers Association

Mystery Fanfare: Ned Kelly Awards Shortlists: Australian Crime Writ...: The Australian Crime Writers Association announced three new shortlists for the 2025 Ned Kelly Awards.  Best True Crime Nominees They’ll Ne...

The Rap Sheet: Finalizing the Neddies

 The Rap Sheet: Finalizing the Neddies

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Opal by Patricia Wolf

The third thriller with Detective Sergeant Lucas Walker of the Australian Federal Police by Patricia Wolf is due to be released at the end of September.

This adventure finds Walker with his half-sister Grace from Boston showing her the sights of the outback where Walker’s family lives and where he escapes at every opportunity. Their cousin Blair has been working in an opal mining operation even further inland. Blair wants to leave the job early and Walker volunteers to make the long drive to pick him up. He takes Grace with him, expecting to be gone no more than 48 hours at most. But a torrential downpour creates a massive flood, washing away crops, livestock, and bridges and closing roads. Walker, Grace, and Blair are stranded in a small town that suddenly turns violent.

A philandering couple is murdered in her bed and her jealous and brutal husband is the immediate suspect, then when he is ruled out Blair becomes the target of the investigating officer. A double murder is a great way to create doubt as to the motive since it is never clear who the intended victim was and Wolf maximizes the benefit of this plot device. The flooding means the killer can not have escaped and the fear among the townspeople becomes palpable.

As always the detail about rural Australia is fascinating. (I didn’t know there was a large inland sea within Australia at one time.) Plus the description of the mechanics of opal mining adds to the rich local color Wolf brings to this series. Apparently Australian opals are considered more valuable than others because of their high quality.

Walker’s single-mindedness about his work can be annoying. He brought his naïve city slicker sister with him to the rural outback and then more or less left her to the care of strangers while he investigated murders he had been told to stay away from. This intense focus seems to be typical, though I can see how it could backfire in some situations.

I have noticed how some books are fast reads and others require me to look at every single word in order not to miss anything. This series definitely falls into the latter category. The depth of detail cannot be skimmed and the text is dense with it.

A good entry in a really good series about the Australian outback. I am hoping this author is developing a strong following so that more books follow.

 

Aubrey's April 2023 review of the first book in the series, Outback, can be found here

 

·       Publisher: ‎Embla Books (September 30, 2024)

·       Language: ‎English

·       Paperback: ‎320 pages

·       ISBN-10: ‎1471416550

·       ISBN-13: ‎978-1471416552

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/47DEZm7

  

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night. 

Writer Beware: Facing Author Lawsuits, Shawline Publishing Re-Brands as New Found Books

 Writer Beware: Facing Author Lawsuits, Shawline Publishing Re-Brands as New Found Books

Jungle Red Writers: A Devil of a Dérive from Midge Raymond & John Yunker

Jungle Red Writers: A Devil of a Dérive from Midge Raymond & John Yunker:   HALLIE EPHRON: Today it's my pleasure to introduce you all to the writing team of Midge Raymond and John Yunker and DEVILS ISLAND,...

The Rap Sheet: Last of the Neddies

 The Rap Sheet: Last of the Neddies

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Black River by Mathew Spencer

Matthew Spencer is an Australian journalist who worked for The Australian for twenty years in multiple roles including running the Foreign News desk and serving as Opinion Editor. He has written for newspapers and magazines in Uganda and Kenya and been published in The Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald. His fiction debut Black River was published by Allen and Unwin in June 2022 and by Thomas & Mercer in July 2023.

Black River was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction in 2023, and it won the 2023 Danger Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. The Danger Awards recognize crime fiction books showcasing Australia in the setting, which Black River certainly does.

When another dead girl was found wrapped in black plastic at an exclusive boys’ school in the Sydney suburbs during the Christmas holidays, popular belief was that the Blue Moon Killer had claimed another victim. Rose Riley, the sergeant assigned to homicide chief Steve O’Neil as part of the task force trying to identify the serial killer responsible for two deaths already, was on the scene with the rest of the forensic team.

Also present was Adam Bowman, a general assignment reporter for a floundering newspaper, whose editor knew Bowman had attended the school and expected him to find a way around the blockades set up by the police to obtain exclusive photographs. Bowman did not disappoint and his stock with his employer shot up, much to the disgust of the crime beat reporter who was striking out in his attempts to get information.

Riley and Bowman cross paths on the school campus and they both try to take advantage of the other’s specialized knowledge to further their career goals.

While I really dislike the current trend of serial killer crime fiction, the serial killer aspect was secondary to the details of the criminal investigation and to the journalistic angles. The dual points of view give simultaneous insight into the police work and into the operations of a traditional newsroom. The choice of the sergeant instead of the lead detective as protagonist is original, just as the selection of a second-string reporter instead of the star crime beat writer is.

As usual, I had to look up the occasional Australian vernacular or catchphrase. And the multiple references to the summer weather over Christmas holidays was disorienting. The Australian landscape is a key part of the book’s context. 

Kirkus (May 1, 2023) liked this edgy, somber piece of crime fiction with a surprise ending, calling it “An engaging police procedural with a little something extra.” The second book in the series is scheduled for publication in August 2024 in Australia and in June 2025 in the U.S.

·         Publisher: ‎Thomas & Mercer (July 1, 2023)

·         Language: English

·         Paperback: ‎303 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1662510063

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1662510069

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3yrEHRZ

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: I Could Pee on This; Dracula; Rabbit-Proof Fence

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: I Could Pee on This; Dracula; Rabbit-P...:   Reported by Rita I Could Pee on This: and Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano is a collection of short poems written from the ...

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Dirt Town (Dirt Creek) by Hayley Scrivenor

Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor (Pan Macmillan, 2022) received the 2022 New Blood Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association earlier this month. The book was published in the U. S. under the name Dirt Creek. “Dirt Town” is what the children of Durton call their tiny impoverished town in rural Australia. While their village slowly loses economic viability, the residents grimly hold on, wondering how much longer they can survive there. The town is thrown into an overwhelming panic when 12-year-old Esther Bianchi does not come home from school one late November afternoon. Her family, neighbors, and best friend are questioned by the local police constable, then the citizens turn out to look for her. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels of the Australian Federal Police arrives during the evening to take charge of the search and investigation, which reveals more than just a missing child.

The story has multiple POVs: Sarah, Esther’s best friend Ronnie, one of their classmates named Lewis, Esther’s mother Constance, and a nebulous “We” that seems to be the collective consciousness of the children of the village. It takes place mostly at the end of November and beginning of December 2001, with a brief flashback here and there. Sarah and Ronnie are the primary narrators. Sarah is recovering from a failed romance; she replays key scenes from the relationship in her mind as she tries to focus on the task at hand. Ronnie is self-absorbed as children are and unaware of the larger world preoccupying the adults around her.

The writing is impressive. Sarah Michaels is a great character and I hope to see her again. The misery of an Australian summer is clear; everyone in Durton is suffering from the heat. The mindset of the children is captured exactly as I remember it. They see what is happening around them but they do not always understand it, and they tend to think they are more important to their world than they actually are.

The story goes beyond the disappearance of a child and addresses its impact on the town. This is the second book I have read this year that recognizes a major event like this leaves an indelible imprint on the people and the town where it occurred.

An intriguing debut but the changes in narrator and time are not always easy to follow. The “We” persona in particular is not successful from my perspective, although the author provides essential plot detail through it. I know breaks in time lines and more than one POV are the fashion in crime fiction but it disrupts the flow of the story for the reader.

Hayley Scrivenor is a former Director of Wollongong Writers Festival. She has a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Wollongong on the south coast of Australia. An earlier version of Dirt Creek was shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize and won The Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award. In 2023, it won a Lambda Literary Award and General Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. Starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Flatiron Books (August 2, 2022)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎336 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1250834759

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1250834751 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Outback by Patricia Wolf

Patricia Wolf is a journalist, a regular contributor to The Guardian, the Financial Times, The Independent, The Telegraph, and other newspapers. She grew up in a mining town called Mount Isa in far north-west Queensland and left Australia after university to travel. She now lives in Berlin, Germany, but she calls the outback home. Her debut novel introduces DI Lucas Walker of the organized crime unit of the Australian Federal Police in Canberra.

In Outback (Embla Book, 2022) Walker is on compassionate leave to visit his dying grandmother in his home town of Caloodie in remote Queensland. His grandmother raised him and her approaching death is hitting him hard. He’s grateful for the distraction when his supervisor calls and asks him to help the local police in their search for a pair of tourists from Germany who have disappeared. Rita Guerra and Berndt Meyer were backpacking through Asia and Australia, taking short-term jobs as they went. The owner of a tiny ranch near Caloodie reported them missing when they did not show up to work as scheduled.

Careful not to step on sensitive toes, Walker represents himself to the town constable as a liaison for the Foreign Service and the families in Germany. They both know that tourists often underestimate the heat in central Australia during the summer and the distances between towns. They assume the two had car trouble and begin tracing their driving routes. When that doesn’t pan out, Walker begins searching for them in earnest.

Rita Guerra’s older sister Barbara is a Detective Sergeant in the Berlin State Criminal Police Office or Landeskriminalamt (LKA). She telephones Walker a few times and recognizes the platitudes she herself has used in talking to worried families. After a few days she flies to Australia to help with the search, which becomes unexpectedly complicated when Walker learns a major drug dealer is hiding in the region.

This is an outstanding read with a strong setting. The often-used theme of the illicit drug trade gets a fresh spin here. Walker and Guerra are rounded characters and the supporting cast are also realistic. The local innkeepers and the naïve tourists are especially good. Wolfe conveys the beauty and the danger of Queensland clearly and convincingly. The next book in the series is scheduled for publication in May 2023 and I am looking forward to it. Recommended.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3BaN1qJ

 

·         Publisher: ‎Embla Books (November 8, 2022)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Paperback: ‎320 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1471411702

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1471411700

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 7/21/2022

 In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 7/21/2022

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth

Sally Hepworth is a writer who lives in Melbourne, Australia. The Family Next Door (St. Martins Press, 2018) is a domestic thriller, her fourth novel and her first book set in Melbourne. Unlike most of the books I read that are set in Australia, this one could actually have taken place in almost any Westernized country.

Pleasant Court is a cul-de-sac of red brick houses in a highly desirable neighborhood near the beach, where children play safely in the street while their mothers visit. When Isabelle moved in, the neighbors thought it was odd that a single woman would want to live in such a family-oriented area. No one new had moved in since Essie’s mother had bought a house there to be closer to Essie and her family. Essie had a bad bout of post-natal depression after her first child and spent some time in hospital to recover. Her mother and her husband are always watching her for fear of another breakdown. Fortunately Essie and her husband Ben don’t mind having her mother around; she fits easily into their family and she is a doting grandmother.

Isabelle tells Essie that she works for a nonprofit that looks for missing children and supports their families during the search. Essie is intrigued by Isabelle and increasingly spends time with her to the point that her family notices. Her mother especially does not like this new friendship.

It’s hard to say much more without giving away plot points, although I can say this is one of the least violent books I have read in months. No murders, although I kept waiting for at least one. Crimes are definitely committed, just not the ones I usually read about. Almost exactly halfway through, a major reveal turned the story on its end and from there it’s one surprise after another. A leisurely, almost meandering, build-up to the plot twist and then a tsunami of action. 

This book was not at all what I expected. Fascinating and highly credible. Recommended for crime fiction readers who need a break from bloodletting and for fans of domestic thrillers.

Starred review from Library Journal.

 

·         ASIN: ‎ B074ZNVPWH

·         Publisher: ‎ St. Martin's Press; Reissue edition (March 6, 2018)

·         Publication date: ‎ March 6, 2018

·         Language: ‎ English

·         File size: ‎ 4366 KB 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2022

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Under The Cold Bright Lights by Gary Disher

Garry Disher is one of my favorite contemporary authors. He has published over 50 widely translated books in a range of genres: crime thrillers, literary novels, short-story collections, YA/children’s novels, and writers’ handbooks. His awards include the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018; the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction in 2007, 2010, and 2021; the Crime Novel of the Year, Germany in 2020; and German Crime Fiction Award in 2002 and 2016.

In Under the Cold Bright Lights (Soho Crime, 2019), Alan Auhl is a retired Homicide detective in Melbourne, living in a large three-story house inherited from his parents. His daughter lives there, his estranged wife comes and goes, and he rents rooms to students and women transitioning out of shelters and abusive domestic situations.

The Homicide department has called him back to work in a newly formed Cold Case unit, where his younger colleagues make ageist jokes. He ignores them and plods placidly along, using 30 years of experience to review cases with a fresh eye and closing one here and there. A case thought closed re-opens suddenly with the discovery of a long-dead body who turns out to be the expected perpetrator of a murder. Instead, apparently both Mary Peart and Robert Shirlow were killed at the same time, and his body hidden to make it seem he was Mary’s killer. In the meantime, the daughters of a man whose cause of death was never established make their annual call to Auhl to ask him once again to try to find their father’s killer. His supervisor calls him in to tell him that a doctor who Auhl believed killed his first two wives is now claiming that his third wife is trying to kill him. And at home, his current tenant escaping from domestic abuse is fighting her wealthier husband who wants permanent custody of their daughter.

Tightly plotted and propulsive police procedural with a twist. Auhl takes all four cases to logical if surprising solutions. In at least one of them, a really surprising solution. A stand-alone unfortunately, as Auhl could easily grow on me.

Starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Soho Crime; First Edition, First Printing (July 2, 2019)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 312 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1641290579

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1641290579

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.