Maestra – L.S. Hilton

Zaffre 2016 Reviewer: Lesley Vick Synopsis Where do you go when you’ve gone too far? By day, Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a London auction house. By night, she’s a hostess in one of the capital’s unsavoury bars. Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She’s …

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Bone by Bone – Sanjida Kay

Allen and Unwin – Corvus, 2016 Reviewer: Lesley Vick Synopsis Laura loves her daughter more than anything in the world. But nine-year-old Autumn is being bullied. Laura feels helpless. When Autumn fails to return home from school one day, Laura goes looking for her. She finds a crowd of older children taunting her little girl. …

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Limestone – Leigh Straw

Reviewer – Robyn Walton. Publisher: Kennedy & Boyd, Edinburgh, 2015. Synopsis ‘It’s all over now, Maggie. I will release you.’ Afraid, alone, and forsaken. A killer is stalking the historic West End streets of Fremantle preying upon the women of the port city. When a third lifeless body is found discarded in a dank alleyway …

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The Dry – Jane Harper

MACMILLAN 2016 Reviewer: Sue Turnbull Synopsis Luke Hadler turns a gun on his wife and child, then himself. The farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily. If one of their own broke under the strain, well … When Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk returns to Kiewarra for the funerals, he is …

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Through a Camel’s Eye – Dorothy Johnston

For Pity Sake Publishing Pty Ltd 2016 Reviewer: Ann Byrne   Synopsis “Still, he looked for hoof prints, glad there was nobody to laugh at him for doing so. He shaded his eyes and squinted at a dark object, half covered in sand, then began to walk towards it. He should have been wearing sunglasses …

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An Isolated Incident – Emily Maguire

Publisher:  Picador Copyright year:  2016 Reviewer:  Robyn Walton Synopsis When 25-year-old Bella Michaels is brutally murdered in the small town of Strathdee, the community is stunned and a media storm descends. Unwillingly thrust into the eye of that storm is Bella’s beloved older sister, Chris, a barmaid at the local pub, whose apparent easy going …

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The Chosen – Kristina Ohlsson

Reviewer  Phyllis King Simon & Schuster UK Ltd 2015 Synopsis On a cold winter’s day, a pre-school teacher is shot to death in front of parents and children at the Jewish Congregation in Stockholm. Just a few hours later two Jewish boys go missing on their way to tennis practice. A heavy snowstorm hits Stockholm …

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Ghost Girls – Cath Ferla

Reviewer Phyllis King Echo Publishing – A Division of Five Mile Press 2016 Synopsis Winter in Sydney. The city is brimming with foreign students. Sophie Sandilands takes a job teaching at an English language school. When one of her students leaps to her death it becomes clear that lurking within the psyche of this community …

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Melanie Casey – Missing

Publisher:  Pantera Press Copyright year:  2016 Reviewer:  Robyn Walton Synopsis Someone is targeting Adelaide’s homeless. Men are disappearing off the streets, and body parts are turning up in a local dump. Still haunted by her last run-in with a serial killer, Cass Lehman is trying hard to focus on the future. That’s not easy when …

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