The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware

Harvill Secker London 2016 Review by Lesley Vick Synopsis This was meant to be the perfect trip. The Northern Lights. A luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship. A chance for travel journalist Lo Blacklock to recover from a traumatic breakdown. Except things don’t go as planned. Woken in the night by screams, Lo …

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Under the Harrow – Flynn Berry

Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2016 Review by Lesley Vick Synopsis When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel’s familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been …

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Dangerous to Know – Anne Buist

Text Publishing. 2016. Reviewer: Kerry James Synopsis Natalie King is back: back from a stay on the psych ward. Her reluctance to live a quiet life has contributed to a severe depressive episode, and now it’s time for a retreat to the country. A borrowed house on the Great Ocean Road; a low-key research job …

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The Satanic Mechanic – Sally Andrew

Text Publishing 2016 Reviewer: Kerry James Synopsis Tannie Maria writes the Love Advice and Recipe Column for the Klein Karoo Gazette: words of wisdom for the lovelorn, along with a recipe for something delicious that may help. But Maria’s own problems resist her attempts to self-medicate, even with an amazing peanut-butter coffee chocolate cake. Her …

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Beyond the Truth – Anne Holt

Allen and Urwin – Corvus 2016 Reviewer: Anne Buist Synopsis Shortly before Christmas, Hanne Wilhelmsen is called to investigate a mass killing. Four people are found shot dead at the luxury home of the wealthy Stahlberg family: shipping merchants and notorious for family disputes and lawsuits. Three of the dead are members of the family, …

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Girl Waits With Gun & Lady Cop Makes Trouble – Amy Stewart

Publisher: Scribe 2015 & 2016 Reviewer: Robyn Walton Synopsis In Girl Waits with Gun Constance Kopp doesn’t quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. …

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The Few – Nadia Dalbuono

Publisher: Scribe 2014 Reviewer: Robyn Walton Synopsis Detective Leone Scamarcio, the son of a former leading mafioso, has turned his back on the family business, and has joined the Rome police force. He may be one of the last honest men in Italy. But when Scamarcio is handed a file of extremely compromising photographs of …

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Death on Paradise Island – B.M. Allsopp

2016 Publisher: Coconut Press Reviewer: Kerry James Synopsis: A girl’s body is found snagged on the coral reef at Fiji’s high-end Paradise Island resort, after festivities for a new marine reserve. Detective Joe Horseman, his rugby career wrecked by a shattered knee, no sooner lands at Suva airport after a year in the U.S. than …

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Look what you made me do – Meagan Norris

2016 Echo Publishing Reviewer: Anne Buist Overview:   Megan Norris is a journalist who has written a number of true crime books, including one on the father in the dam story – the Robert Farquharson murders of his three sons, though from his wife Cindy Gambino’s perspective rather than the view Helen Garner took in …

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Tania Chandler – Please Don’t Leave Me Here

Scribe 2015 Review by Suzanne Bozorth- Baines   Synopsis Is Brigitte a loving wife and mother, or a cold-blooded killer? Nobody knows why she was in the east of the city so early on the morning she was left for dead by a hit-and-run driver. It was the Friday before Christmas 1994 — the same …

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