Latest Books to Read

Ever since Evie Howland’s father died, she has kept her heart closed and put all her emotions into books and writing. She has never had the misfortune of experiencing writer’s block but, with the deadline for her 16^th novel in a hugely successful crime fiction series looming, Evie is seriously stuck. She’s also trying to muster up enthusiasm towards her wedding to billionaire, Daniel, who seems to show little interest in Evie’s success or struggles with writing.

Dime Sheppard’s debut fiction novel is an unusual crime/romcom/action-thriller told from an unusual angle. Has Evie created an alternative universe where her own fictional characters have come to life and are interacting with her?

NYPD detective Carolyn Harding is volatile and abrasive. Her colleague, Detective Jay Ryan, with his chiselled jawline and heated blue eyes, are her lead detectives who come to life from the pages of her books. And when a familiar homicide appears in the city papers, it seems as if other, darker characters from previous novels might have crossed the fiction-frontier too. 

Guns. Bombs. Murderers. Evie is in a lot of real-life trouble.

In a nutshell, Crime Writer is about a writer and her character development process but there’s also a love story entwined with a crime/thriller story. It’s not your typical crime novel but it’s refreshing and fun. 

A great read over a long, lazy weekend. 

World-renowned forensic pathologist Dr Kay Scarpetta returns to Virginia as the chief medical examiner. She and her husband Benton Wesley, now a forensic psychologist with the U.S. Secret Service, have relocated to Old Town Alexandria where she’s headquartered five miles from the Pentagon in a post-pandemic world that’s seen Black Lives Matter, the removal of confederate monuments and the 6^th January riot in Washington, DC.

Lucy, Dr Scarpetta’s niece, is also grieving the loss of her partner Janet and spends her time talking to an AI computer generated Janet. As an aside, I imagine this would be much like the Metaverse that Zuck’s is creating!

But, back to the book…

Weeks into the job, Scarpetta is called to a crime scene where a women’s body, with her throat cut to her spine and her hands missing, is found at a railway track. Scarpetta is also called to the White House and tasked to investigate an incident in a top-secret outer space lab – could these two events be connected? 

And while she works on the first crime scene, an apparent serial killer strikes again!

In this latest novel in the Kay Scarpetta series, Patricia Cornwell offers readers high-wire tension and the forensic detail that she’s known for. Although it’s the 25^th book in the series, it is a standalone novel. I did feel there was rather too much time spent on minutiae and not a lot of action so, for me, this wasn’t a quick read. The murder mystery is also unravelled rather rapidly towards the end of the book – too quickly in my opinion. 

Keep a secret. Tell a lie. Protect the family. At all costs.

A thoroughly enjoyable suspense thriller from Ngaio Marsh Award shortlisted author, Nikki Crutchley, which I eagerly consumed over a rainy weekend.

To the Sea follows a family who live on a secluded coastal property, Iluka, in a remote part of New Zealand. They live off the land and, every so often, rent out a cabin for income. A gruesome crime is committed on their isolated beach and it’s this same beach, 23 years later, where the story begins to unfold. 

Iluka has been the only home that 18-year-old Ana has ever known. Her grandfather builds furniture using wood from the surrounding wild pine plantation, her aunt rents out a cabin to artists and her uncle tends the land. It’s a beautiful, secluded spot with only one landline and an old-fashioned dial up internet connection – safe from the outside world. The family are mostly self-sufficient and avoid going to town as there they are treated with suspicion and dislike.

Ana’s grandfather has essentially cut the family off from the world, ostensibly to protect the family. Although Ana has to follow her grandfather’s strict rules and is often subjected to his barbaric punishments, she knows nothing else. Her mother, Anahita, is a staunch supporter of her grandfather’s beliefs and her uncle does his best to keep his distance from everyone. 

Everything changes when Nikau, a supposed photographer, rents one of the cabins and starts quizzing Ana about her life at Iluka. As she unearths a web of dark secrets and lies, she finds she’s in a precarious position with the power to protect or destroy Iluka.

The story is told in two narratives, one through Anahita, 24 years previously, and Ana’s perspective now. As the story unravels, the reader slowly learns that dark, violent secrets are hidden and newcomers and questions aren’t welcome. Through the pages, the reader is given unsettling insights into abusive control and domestic violence.

Bound together by a single ancient text, the characters of Cloud Cuckoo Land are dreamers and outsiders trying to figure out the world around them.

Thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, lives inside the formidable walls of Constantinople in a house of women who make their living embroidering the robes of priests. Through her insatiable curiousty, Anna learns to read and learns the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.

Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, we find idealist Seymour and octogenarian Zeno who is rehearsing children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story and, in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance copies  the story of Aethon on scraps of sacking.

Anthony Doerr has written an intriguing tale, connecting five characters, several stories, multiple time lines and different places but all connected to a single book but it’s only at the end that all the connections are fully revealed.

“The world we’re handing our kids brims with challenges: climate instability, pandemics, disinformation. I wanted this novel to reflect those anxieties, but also offer meaningful hope, so I tried to create a tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness – with other species, with each other, with the ones who lived before us, and the ones who will be here after we’re gone.” – Anthony Doerr

The tale creatively interweaves medieval, contemporary, and speculative/future settings into a single novel. I’m not 100% certain whether this book falls into the science fiction or fantasy genre – perhaps a combination of the two? It’s not a genre I would normally read and, I confess, was hard going at times. 

Ultimately, the author hopes readers will ask themselves whether they have been good ancestors? “Remembering that I’m just one link in the chain of people, will my great-grand-daughter thank me for some of the things I did… Will they get to live in stable environments where the ocean stays in one place and the forests don’t burn every summer?”

The inspiration for Whittet’s debut novel Gang Girl is based on working as a rural GP in a New Zealand community for more than 20 years, much of which involved treating people enmeshed in gang life. 

Gang Girl is the story of Alicia, the daughter of a notorious gang leader, who dreams of breaking free from her miserable, controlled childhood. 

In the opening chapter, her father makes her watch the savage tattooing of young boys in a gang ceremony. Things get worse when she is pledged in blood to her cousin Mickey who, in time, becomes a ruthless gang member.  

A chance meeting with an outsider gives Alicia the escape she’s always dreamt about but will she be able to break free? Everything comes to a climax on her wedding day. 

Set on the west coast in the 1970s, the story has a strong wahine at its centre. A woman determined to take charge of her own destiny. It’s a story of love, betrayal and redemption and is certainly thought-provoking.