I have written the reviews below because I highly recommend the books I refer to. I distinguish these books from others I have enjoyed but, as I think we all know, the experience of reading someone else’s work is very subjective. Happy reading.
Truth is one of my favourite all time crime thrillers with a theme that digs deep into corruption at every level from the personal, to organisational, to political. Author Peter Temple (sadly no longer with us) found a way to use the genre and create conflict between old-fashioned values for living life and the bleakness of modern reality. Throughout the novel the reminder that truth is more a mournful ideal than something certain was a constant theme. Ironically, never has there been more truth in such a short summary of the book:
Over a few sweltering summer days, as the countryside burns and his superiors scheme and jostle, Inspector Stephen Villani finds all the certainties of is life are crumbling. Truth is a novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, love, murder, honour and deceit. And it is about truth.
All of the story is told in the 3rd person, from Villani’s point of view and it becomes quickly evident how well Temple built his protagonist: flawed, guilt-ridden, compromised, an adulterous husband, a father scarred by violence, a cop who must reckon with neighbours in high places, obstructive colleagues, all the while pitting his conscience against the need for self-preservation.
Temple’s writing style is richly textured and with dialogue, colloquialisms, police jargon and all the kind of fragments we overhear in bars and cars – they all arrive on the page. At a second homicide scene (unrelated to the first) a pathologist arrives.
Next was the forensic pathologist, Moxley, a balding ginger Scot. Villani raised a hand. ‘Doctor Death’, he said.
Moxley grounded his bag. ‘The head of homicide. Isn’t this early for someone so important?’
‘Never sleep. Three deceased here, two with no clothes on. May I request an extreme hurry-on?’
‘ASAP is always the aim,’ said Moxley.
‘Of course,’ said Villani. ‘Must be painful always to fall short.’
‘Well, it takes more than your nine or ten years of third-rate schooling to understand professional procedures.’
‘Yeah, but in Australia,’ said Villani. ‘Outranks a Glasgow PhD.’
‘Probably couldn’t find Glasgow on a map,’ said Moxley and left.
Villani watched him go. ‘When I kill him, I want three days start,’ he said. ‘Like Tony Mokbel.’
The book proved to be a winner and among his awards, Temple won the Miles Franklin – Australia’s most prestigious award for literary fiction and the first crime story to do so.
However, not all reaction was uniformly glowing. Some felt the darkness overwhelmed them through the way Temple presented a grim Melbourne inhabited by pervasive corruption and despair.
Thrillers, by their nature are not read for comfort and most don’t generally stay with me. And the profanity, whilst realistic, won’t appeal to all. But this story, and Temple’s predecessor, The Broken Shore, has stuck. Perhaps that’s because I’ve re-read and listened to the audio books several times, very unusual for me. Highly recommended.
From the outset of Phoenixville Rising you know you’re in for a treat. The book begins where it ends, just one of the interesting narrative devices Cadigan used to tell this remarkable story. Chapter one follows a piece of narrative that hooks the reader with the question, ‘what the hell has happened here’. One tiny sample from chapter let me know what I was in for. It is Sketch’s point of view, and in this case, a commentary about his best buddy, Boo.
“He was so skinny he was almost translucent. A road atlas of blue veins covered his body, which everyone made fun of when we all went swimming at the YMCA.”
Cadigan’s descriptive power peppers the story from beginning to end. I found myself in envy of his command of metaphoric phrase and to vividly show us the quality and strength of relationships that mirror the conflict and dilemmas in life. On the subject of conflict, my favourite scene was perhaps the most powerful in the book, a deep intrapersonal conflict Sketch wrestled with when faced with the dilemma of how to show his support for Boo and the consequences of that choice.
The novel is described as “a beautifully written love letter to the American industrial town”. I can’t argue with that but I’ll say it is much more. Phoenixville is a character in this literary fiction, revealing itself as a community in which residents struggle to find and hold jobs, provide for their families; where people struggle in the battle to find hope for the future and the forces that arise when those struggles coalesce.
Not only do we have that story, but Cadigan gives us another plot: one set in the 1860s where young Rebecca Wilton, daughter of the foundry owner, falls in love with a factory worker. How on earth does he bring these stories together? Well, watch out for the black diamond necklace. The telling of this concurrent story was Cadigan’s additional narrative device. Initially, and despite the skill he used to accurately reflect the language of the period, I’ll admit to doubting whether this would ‘work’. On reflection, I believe this was due to becoming immersed in the alternative plot when the break came. But the author pulls this off well, despite the challenges involved.
In a way, I left my comfort zone reading this book but I was rewarded big time. You cannot fail to finish Phoenixville Rising and in doing so, not be moved by the story and the way it is told. I look forward to his next project.
From its opening, Shatter grips the reader with the voice of a disturbed psychopath. Professor Joseph O’Loughlin, living with Parkinson’s, is dragged into the case of a woman who leaps to her death from a bridge—naked except for red Jimmy Choo shoes and clutching a mobile phone. His attempt to talk her down fails, leaving her sixteen-year-old daughter, Darcy, desperate to prove her mother didn’t commit suicide. Terrified of heights and devoted to her child, she would never have jumped.
The police write it off as a suicide, but Joe trusts his instincts. He calls on retired DI Vincent Ruiz—once his pursuer, now his ally. Ruiz brings grit, humour, and a much-needed counterweight to Joe’s intense psychological probing. Robotham nails his character in a single line: “He was like a big dark vague piece of furniture, smelling of tobacco and wet tweed.” Their uneasy friendship adds texture to the investigation and reminds us this is not a police procedural but a psychological thriller.
Joe’s insights into human behaviour propel the story, yet his private life reveals his own blind spots. At home he’s the plumber with leaking taps—aware his marriage isn’t right but unwilling to confront it. That contrast gives the novel depth: even a man who can read others so well struggles to understand himself.
Robotham’s prose is vivid and razor-sharp, with descriptions that linger. A Somerset pub scene captures the setting perfectly: “I go to the bar, where half a dozen flushed and lumpy regulars fill the stools…. I nod. They nod back. This passes as a long conversation in this part of Somerset.” Lines like these show why his writing stands above the genre—layered, evocative, and darkly funny.
Shatter (the third in the O’Loughlin series) is a taut, chilling thriller that explores fractured minds with both intelligence and power. It demonstrates why Robotham is at the top of his game, blending strong characterisation with psychological depth. For anyone who appreciates crime fiction that digs beneath the surface, this is essential reading. Highly recommended
Up there with the best psychological thrillers.
What’s worse than running over your neighbor’s dog? If you read The Devil’s Wire by Deborah Rogers, you’ll find out! There are surprises aplenty in this rollicking read and you might at the end, look carefully at what you really know about those closest to you. Are they who they really seem?
There’s a small cast of characters in this book but they’re all beautifully drawn by Rogers. Blunt South African antagonist, Lenise Jameson, is a bit of a favourite of mine. She provides endless suffering for protagonist Jennifer, seemingly for the careless killing of her dog who’d somehow gotten on to the road on a dark night at the very time Jennifer was concerned about not having an accident. Jennifer had been trying to rescue a loose mandarin from under foot.
But empathy for the life situation of both women is not difficult. Guilt ridden Jennifer’s relationship with needy husband Hank, is at best, running aground, and at worst, revealing a nightmare. Their only child, 12 year old McKenzie, has hateful rages towards her mother, largely it seems, due to Jennifer’s ignorance of what has been going on in the family home. Rogers is clever in showing us Jennifer’s psychology throughout e.g. sentences that paint a picture of a frantic and unsettled mind.
Meanwhile, Lenise with an adult son who does her no credit, is bereaved by the loss of her beloved pooch and soon finds herself on hard times. Early in the story Lenise is set up by an immoral rival to be fired from her real estate job. But her inability to sustain any meaningful relationship with a human being is not only down to a clumsy penchant for unsolicited advice.
Her biggest flaw, one she is blind to, is her obsession about McKenzie, the daughter she wanted and never had. The more she wants that type of love and affection, the more she acts to prevent it.
Jennifer and Lenise, so different in their own way, become an unholy and dangerous alliance. They drive a carefully crafted and twisting plot that will have you on edge wondering how they get out of a horrible mess of their own creation. When you take the characters, the plot and the liberally infused shades of dark humor, you’ll likely be wondering when you’ll be treated to more of the fine writing craft of Deborah Rogers.
Fiona Sussman’s The Last Time We Spoke is that rare crime novel that chooses compassion over spectacle. Beginning with a shattering home invasion in rural New Zealand, it traces the intertwined fates of Carla Reid and Ben Toroa with a steady, empathetic gaze, asking not merely how violence happens, but what can grow in the sad and lonely aftermath of it hitting so close to home.
Sussman’s prose is exact without ever feeling clinical; her images and cadences pull you forward even as the subject matter asks you to pause and breathe.
Alternating points of view give equal moral weight to victim and offender, and the scenes in and around prison feel real, lending credibility to the characters’ change. Similes and metaphors land with the precision of a seasoned short-story writer. It’s a book that keeps finding pressure points you didn’t know you had, then releasing them in ways that feel more truthful than structured.
The theme of restorative justice sang, and the focus remains on story, never a sermon. She hits enough emotional chords with such precision that, together with her apt demonstration of similes and metaphors, she shows she could deliver a masterclass in literary writing. All the characters are exceptionally well drawn and maintain dignity in a brilliantly told story that deserved to win the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Crime Writing Award – even though I was a competitor that year!
Sussman writes toward reconciliation without denying the brutality of crime. Even readers who avoid “crime fiction” will find a humane, literary meditation on grief, culpability, and the fragile work of repair. I finished grateful for a story brave enough to believe that accountability and mercy can coexist. In my career in NZ criminal courts, that combination of accountability and mercy was always desired but seldom achieved.
It’s a long time since I read Richard North Patterson (Exile, Silent Witness) so I looked forward to Trial where the author returned to the legal-thriller stage after nearly a decade. He has placed this story very much in the arena of American current affairs— race, voting rights, and justice and opens the story with a powerful inciting incident. Malcolm Hill, a young Black voter rights worker in rural Georgia, is pulled over by a white sheriff’s deputy. It’s a traffic stop that spirals out of control, resulting in the deputy’s death. Malcolm claims it was an accident. Prosecutors see something else and look to build a case with what is a tried and tested legal thriller trope – tunnel vision. And as we know, tropes are built on truth.
Key characters in the story include Allie Hill, Malcolm’s mother and prominent activist; Chase Bancroft Brevard, a white congressman who discovers Malcolm is his son; and Jabari Ford, the Black lawyer who leads Malcolm’s defence.
This cast sets up a gift box of conflict: personal, intrapersonal, political and legal — all brought to a climax with Patterson’s experience in courtroom procedure.
Unlike some reviewers, I enjoyed (perhaps with the benefit of physical distance) the fact that Trial tackled the issues mentioned above, including public outrage over policing and how the media shape public perception. I didn’t feel like I was on the end of a sermon because these contentious issues were integral to the story being told. But it did feel like a thriller that wanted to do more than entertain.
More importantly, there was real emotional weight in the relationships: Allie’s struggle, Chase’s political dilemmas and familial revelations, and Malcolm’s plight, all combined to deliver a moral core to sit alongside the high stakes that were at risk.
Patterson’s legal background showed in strong courtroom scenes so that when we got to the trial itself, the legal tension through cross examination and argument all added to the novel’s strengths.
For readers who enjoy legal thrillers anchored in present-day issues, and who enjoy when entertainment is merged with a sense of ethical urgency, Trial is a great read.