Talk about the neighbours from hell! This novel explores how utterly helpless the law and the community are when a Bad Egg inherits a house in a quiet, gentrified London street and proceeds to rip it apart. Everyone in the street loses their sense of safety, security and serenity. Throw in the nasty, unspoken element […]
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
Imagine your child was kidnapped and to secure his/her release, you had to kidnap another child. Could you do it? This quite delicious thriller drags some extremely ugly ethical dilemmas into the light, and probes the largely unexamined places in our souls where the darker side of parental love lies. McKinty is a master manipulator, […]
Good Girl Bad Girl by Michael Robotham
A decent but mildly disappointing read from Michael Robotham. Jodie, a teenage ice skater and apparent “good” girl, has been found dead in a park while another girl, Evie, a so called “bad” girl, languishes in a secure psychiatric facility. Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven, a new character from Robotham, assists police with their investigations into […]
Six Minutes by Petronella McGovern
Such a pleasure to be able to recommend a thriller set in the Australian Capital Territory. Of course this is about a missing child; the most nail biting thrillers usually are. Lexie Parker and her three year old daughter Bella attend a regular playgroup in a small village outside Canberra (fun fact; the village, named […]
Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
“I want you to polish that bumper bar so hard your titts wobble.” ”While you’re down there…..” The first comment was made to me by my boss, the owner of a trucking business, in 1994, when I was 22 years old and supplemented my income as a pizza chef by cleaning trucks. The second comment […]
Eight Lives by Susan Hurley
Awesome Australian scientific thriller. David Tran came to Australia from Vietnam as a child refugee and has grown into a brilliant scientist. The immunology drug he invented could be enormously successful but first it needs to be tested on humans. What David does next leaves everyone reeling, battling with guilt and unanswered questions. Every character […]
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
A rollicking read that slowly morphs into a beautiful novel of surprising depth, City of Girls left me in floods of tears at the end. Which was embarrassing, as I was in the IKEA cafe. It’s kind of like watching a Disney movie; you know your emotions are being manipulated but you just can’t help going along with […]
Cape May by Chip Cheek
Book Review Haiku; Like The Great Gatsby/ But with explicit sex scenes/ Unforgettable.