My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: All her life Nigerian nurse Korede has been in the shadow of her beautiful, charismatic younger sister Ayoola. While Korede is a diligent and hard worker at a prestigious Lagos hospital, nurturing a secret love for one of the doctors, Ayoola gets…
Two debut novels get 2019 off to a crackling start
Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey: When acclaimed Brazilian author Beatriz Yagoda disappears (last seen sitting up a tree smoking a cigar) her American translator Emma Neufeld feels compelled to leave snowy Pittsburgh and dour live-in boyfriend to try and find her. And whilst Beatriz’s daughter Raquel, who has never…
Review: Flight Risk by Michael McGuire
I have a rule to never read a thriller that centres on airports, airplanes or terrorism whilst flying anywhere. Call it tempting fate. But luckily I was on terra firma, in this case sun-drenched Sydney, when I read Flight Risk the new novel by Australian journalist Michael McGuire. Not so long ago,…
2018, A Year of Books
What dictates the choice of book we choose to read each year? I regularly start out with a plan, even a detailed list, and in January 2018 it was to read as many works in translation as I could, mainly to enjoy authors I had never read before, as well…
Review: 2028 by Ken Saunders gives us a glimpse of the future of politics – and it’s ridiculously funny.
When Australian Prime Minister Adrian Fitzwilliams decides to throw a snap election he feels secure that another Liberal victory is a done deal. His Cabinet is functional if mediocre, the Greens are in receivership after losing a billion dollar defamation case, and the Labor opposition party has emerged from the…
Book Review: Inside The Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch
When Paddy Hirsch started out researching America’s first financial crisis, the Panic of 1792, he intended to write a history book, but as he delved deeper into the colourful but brutal world of the fledgling New York Stock Exchange it quickly morphed into a high octane murder mystery that is his…
Crime File: The Woman in the Window by A.J.Finn and Sign by Colin Dray
The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn. Agoraphobia has imprisoned child psychologist Anna Fox in her home in the more gentrified part of Harlem. Sustained by bulk-bought alcohol and a cornucopia of heavy-duty drugs she spends her time watching a cache of classic movies (think Hitchcock) and her…
Review: Leila Slimani’s Lullaby is part psychological thriller, part discerning social commentary
“The baby is dead.” It’s a confident author who opens with the end. Particularly an ending so shocking, so visceral, that it might repel the reader. But Lullaby by French-Moroccan writer Leila Slimani does the opposite. The description of the scene surrounding the baby’s death, is so devastatingly succinct, that…
Crime file: The Stakes by Ben Sanders
Is a guy who does bad things to bad people a bad guy? Does it make any difference if he’s carrying an NYPD detective’s badge? Ben Sanders’ new book, The Stakes, pitches veteran NYPD detective, Miles Keller, under internal investigation after a dodgy shooting, against taciturn, behatted hitman Bobby Deen,…
Looking back on the year in books
So many books. So little time. As another year comes to a close it’s time for a some literary accounting. Discounting January, when my focus was entirely on uni text books, I read 69 books in 2017, including four non-fiction and one play. I did not count books that I…