RaveSydney Morning Herald (AUS)A beautifully observed crime novel about regional life ... While the mystery of Kim’s disappearance might be the narrative hook on which this crime novel hangs, what renders it so engaging is Harper’s keen observation of people and place captured in swift glimpses ... Quietly and inevitably, the secrets and deceptions are unravelled as Falk finds himself deftly woven into the weft of this small community.
Richard Osman
RaveThe Sydney Morning Herald (AUS)\"... don’t be fooled by the lemon drizzle cake and apple crumbles. Like all the great elderly sleuths of the past, Joyce doesn’t miss a thing when it comes to a suspicious death ... Here Osman is channelling all the best of British cosies with a smidge of the Ealing comedies and more than a few poignant asides on the process of ageing and the end of life ... a plot that thickens like custard. This is light entertainment with edge.
\
Don Winslow
RaveThe Sydney Morning Herald (AUS)If you haven’t read American writer Don Winslow, Broken is all the introduction you need. In six novellas, each different in focus and mood, Winslow showcases his best moves. These stories may worry you – the first, Broken, is the most confronting – but then, as Winslow makes clear, America itself is indeed broken ... will make you laugh and cry, but in the end will explain why The New York Times thinks Winslow is simply \'the greatest\'. Not forgetting, of course, his prose. He crafts every sentence until it beats to a rhythm of its own ... The humour may be gentle but it is acute ... devastating and brilliant.
Garry Disher
PositiveThe Sydney Morning HeraldThere are many twists to a tale that opens with one of those closely observed vignettes of outer suburban life that Disher does so well ... Here\'s hoping we meet this Equalizer again.
Jane Harper
RaveThe Sydney Morning HerladHarper handles these relationships with delicacy ... Like the country it describes, this is a \'big\' book, and one likely to cement Harper\'s place as one of the most interesting Australian crime writers to emerge in the past decade. Her sense of place is acute, but it is her attention to the relationships that are shaped by this unforgiving, magnificent landscape that will linger long after the mystery of stockman\'s grave is finally revealed.
Chris Hammer
RaveThe Sydney Morning Herald\"Scrublands is the epic novel about rural life in Australia that we need right now ... He\'s done the background research and now woven it into a crime novel that slowly unwraps the layers of complexity that constitute the tightly woven Riversend ... As might be expected, Hammer\'s account of the media shenanigans that ensue is spot on ... Scrublands is a rural crime novel with remarkable breadth and depth that would also make a superb TV series.\
