Tag: Murder

Kill For Me Kill For You by Steve Cavanagh

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Thriller5 Comments

Kill For Me Kill For You Cover

Publisher: Headline (Trade Paperback – 25 July 2023)

Series: Standalone

Length: 356 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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The always entertaining Steve Cavanagh returns with another outstanding thriller, this time with an awesome new take on an old classic with Kill For Me Kill For You.

Steve Cavanagh is an outstanding author who I have been having a wonderful time reading in recent years.  Cavanagh is best known for his awesome Eddie Flynn legal thriller series that follows a former conman turned defence attorney as he uses his unique insights and tricks to win impossible cases, even when everything is stacked against him.  I have had a ton of fun with the last few books in the series, The Devil’s Advocate and The Accomplice, and Cavanagh is firmly on my yearly must-read list now as a result.  I had been hoping for another Eddie Flynn novel this year, but I was happy to receive a copy of Cavanagh’s new standalone thriller, Kill For Me Kill For You, which throws a grieving mother into a terrible situation.

Amanda White is a woman who lost everything in life when her young daughter was kidnapped and murdered.  Left helpless as the prime suspect is found innocent while her own husband killed himself out of despair, all Amanda has left is a desire for revenge.  But with her target aware of her hatred, and the police certain to arrest her if she tries anything, Amanda can only sit back and do nothing.

Required by the court to attend a trauma support group, Amanda has a chance encounter with another member, Wendy, who has her own desire for revenge.  Like Amanda, Wendy wants to kill the man responsible for her own child’s death but is determined to avoid police retaliation.  Together, the two women plot on how to take out the men that they hate, and soon draw inspiration from a classic Hitchcock film in which two strangers kill the other’s target.

However, when Wendy suddenly kills Amanda’s obsession, she is forced to act quickly and commit her murder for Wendy before the police come for her.  But nothing is as it seems, and Amanda soon finds herself trapped in a deadly situation with the police hot on her trail.  To survive, Amanda will need to dive into the past to discover a legacy of hatred, death and manipulation that will drive her to the brink of sanity and despair.

This was an excellent new thriller from Cavanagh that I managed to power through in no time at all thanks to its exciting and fast-paced plot.  Told from several different perspectives, Kill For Me Kill For You tells a clever and multi-layered narrative that proves very hard to put down, especially as Cavanagh loads it with his usual fun collection of twists, betrayals and compelling reveals.

Kill For Me Kill For You has a great character-driven narrative that follow several very damaged protagonists in a series of compelling situations.  The main storyline follows the character of Amanda White, whose desire for revenge against her daughter’s killer sees her form a friendship with Wendy, when they try to enact their Strangers on a Train inspired double murder.  At the same time, a good chunk of the plot revolves around the character of Ruth Gelman, who survives a brutal attack by a serial killer and is forced to deal with the traumatic consequences.  These two storylines are linked by a third major point-of-view character, Detective Farrow, who investigates both the assault on Ruth and the murder of Amanda’s daughter and finds himself getting drawn into both of their lives.

Both major storylines continue at a fast and compelling pace throughout the book, with Amanda’s storyline focusing on the clever intrigue, while Ruth’s storyline has a more emotional edge to it as she and her husband Scott are forced to deal with her injuries and ongoing fear of the killer’s return.  There are some fantastic developments in both, especially for Amanda when the Strangers on a Train plan goes out the window as expected.  I really loved the fantastic twists that surround Amanda at the middle of the book which completely change the trajectory of her entire plot as a result.  Both stories continue mostly unrelated for the rest of the book, and I think both develop in a great way independent of the other.  They do eventually come together towards the end of the book, and for me that was where Kill For Me Kill For You fell apart a little.  The joining twist of these two independent storylines is very predictable, even though Cavanagh did try to cover it up in a few clever ways.  Certain elements of this twist also stretch the feasibility of the plot to a degree, and while possible, it was a very unlikely.  Still, this only ruins the flow of the book a little and readers will still be hooked on the plot.  I loved the final few twists that Cavanagh loaded towards the end of the book, and the overlying emotional story writing and character moments that are utilised throughout the entire plot ensure that this is a very powerful read.  Readers will come away from this book very satisfied, and I honestly could not put Kill For Me Kill For You down the entire way through.

With the exception of the that problematic twist I discussed above, I mostly enjoyed how Cavanagh wrote Kill For Me Kill For You.  The excellent use of multiple character perspectives which shift from chapter to chapter works well to tell an expansive story with a lot more facets than I thought it would.  The different story focuses is very interesting and I liked the unique stories that both of the major characters (Amanda and Ruth) told throughout the book.  While I did find the chapters focusing on Amanda and her crisscross a lot more interesting, the Ruth storylines are more psychologically powerful and have some compelling edges to them.

I have to say that I was also very impressed with how Cavanagh made excellent use of the Strangers on a Train inspired murder plot throughout Kill For Me Kill For You.  Cavanagh makes some clever references to the classic film (and the book it is based on) throughout the novel, and I loved how he put his own spin on this classic tale.  I was worried in advance that it would be too much like other crime fiction homages to Strangers on a Train that I have seen before, but Cavanagh really made this plot element his own in Kill For Me Kill For You, working the film into his story in an excellent and memorable way.  The resulting compelling storyline was so much fun, and I cannot emphasise how brilliant and captivating this part of the book was.

In addition to the fun story elements, I also deeply appreciated the powerful character focus that Cavanagh featured throughout Kill For Me Kill For You.  There are four major point-of-view characters in Kill For Me Kill For You, and Cavanagh ensures that they have some complex and emotionally charged moments throughout the course of the plot.  All four of these characters are damaged by trauma or loss in their own unique way, including Amanda’s deep obsessive need for revenge, Ruth’s intense fear after surviving her traumatic attack, Scott’s guilt for not being there for his wife which leads to anger and despair and Farrow’s detrimental connection to his cases and the people impacted by them.  The author does an amazing job of diving into each of these character aspects throughout the course of Kill For Me Kill For You and you really grow to understand their individual traumas, obsessions and motivations throughout the course of the book.  Each character reacts to their damage and obsessions in different ways, and watching them overcome them, or succumb to them, are a key part of the plot.  This was probably the most emotionally charged and character focused book of Cavanagh’s that I have read so far, and I really appreciated how he dove into his complex protagonist’s psyches and attempted to highlight just how damaging death, violence and trauma can be on a person.

Kill For Me Kill For You was an outstanding read from Steve Cavanagh and one that I would very strongly recommend.  Featuring a unique and highly entertaining thriller narrative that cleverly balances intensity, twists, a wonderful homage to a classic piece of crime fiction, and powerful character moments, this is an excellent read that I really got attached to.  While I did have issue with a certain key point in the book, Kill For Me Kill For You was an overall strong and compelling novel that really showcases Cavanagh’s rising talents as an awesome thriller writer.

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Killer Traitor Spy by Tim Ayliffe

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Thriller9 Comments

Killer Traitor Spy Cover

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia (ebook – 5 July 2023)

Series: John Bailey – Book Four

Length: 310 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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One of Australia’s fastest rising thriller authors, Tim Ayliffe, returns with the fourth book in his outstanding John Bailey series, Killer Traitor Spy, which sees Cold War espionage re-emerge right in the heart of modern day Australia.

Over the last few years I have been having an amazing time reading a particularly cool Australian thriller series, the Jon Bailey books by journalist Tim Ayliffe.  Following a damaged investigative reporter who relentlessly follows his stories no matter how dangerous they are, the John Bailey books are an outstanding series that combined intriguing storylines with compelling and highly insightful depictions of modern-day Australia.  This series has so far featured three fantastic books, The Greater Good, which looked at Chinese interference in Australian politics; State of Fear, which examined Islamic radicalisation; and The Enemy Within, which presented a compelling look at Australian white supremacism.  I have deeply enjoyed all three of Ayliffe’s previous novels and I was very glad that I managed to get a copy of his fourth book, Killer Traitor Spy, a few weeks ago.

After a sex worker is accidently poisoned by a deadly neurotoxin, it quickly becomes clear that someone is trying to kill Russian millionaire Dmitry Lebedev.  As Dmitry disappears into the wind, reporter John Bailey finds himself drawn to the mysterious events, especially as his old friend, Scarlett Merriman, was the unintended victim.  As Bailey begins to dig into the circumstances around Scarlett’s poisoning, he soon discovers a hidden world of spies, espionage and secret deals, all tied to his long-time friend, CIA agent Ronnie Johnson.

It soon becomes apparent that Dmitry was an undercover spy secretly working with Ronnie and providing insights into Russian espionage efforts in Australia.  His latest bit of intelligence could expose a deadly traitor working at the highest echelons of the government, and many people wanted him dead to keep that a secret.  As Ronnie attempts to bring him in, he finds himself being targeted as well, as whoever tried to kill Dmitry has just framed Ronnie for murder.

Now on the run from the authorities and with no official backup to help him, Ronnie has no choice but to call on Bailey to help him investigate the attempted assassination and uncover the traitor.  But the more Bailey works with Ronnie, the more he discovers the dark side of the espionage business and the fact that nobody is what they seem.  Moving from the deadly urban sprawl of Sydney to the secretive suburbs of Canberra, can Bailey and Ronnie find the truth before it is too late, or will they be the latest victims of an insidious intelligence plot threatening to undermine the entire country?

This was another great book from Ayliffe, who continues to impress me with his intense and addictive reads.  Killer Traitor Spy served as a brilliant fourth book in the series, and I had such a wonderful time getting through this captivating and clever story that I ended up reading this book in a single day.

Killer Traitor Spy has a great story behind it that I instantly got hooked on.  Ayliffe sets up a fast and high-stakes narrative for his fourth book that brings in some compelling real-life spy elements to increase the realism and impact of the plot.  Starting off with a failed assassination, some fantastic spy elements, and a great reintroduction to Ayliffe’s relentless protagonist, the author gets Killer Traitor Spy going strong, and it barely slows down after that.  The author weaves together a complex net of mystery and espionage as the protagonists try to find the missing Dmitry, while also uncovering Russian agents working in Australia.  The fantastic web of murders, betrayals and lies proves to be very compelling.  There are several interesting reveals and clever turns as the plot progresses, and I loved how the story soon moved to Canberra with a ton of fun scenes.  Ayliffe really raises the stakes in the second half of Killer Traitor Spy, and the final reveal of who the various traitors and culprits are proves to be very satisfying.

I honestly had a hard time putting down this awesome book, and I wasn’t kidding when I said I read it all in a single day.  Ayliffe did a fantastic job of making his complex and compelling story as fast-paced and addictive as possible, and there wasn’t a single scene in this book that slowed me down.  There were a ton of great features to how Ayliffe wrote Killer Traitor Spy, and I personally loved how the plot featured a fun combination of journalism, espionage and mystery throughout.  While there is a bit of action throughout the book, the focus is always on uncovering the deeper secrets, and I loved seeing the different methodologies that the various protagonists used.  The author’s reliance on multiple character perspectives in Killer Traitor Spy was a particularly effective feature, especially as you got even more scenes from the always entertaining Ronnie Johnson.  This allowed Ayliffe to really separate out the various focuses of his novel, and the contrasts between Bailey’s scenes, where he investigates, and Ronnie’s scenes, where he uses more direct methods, are a lot of fun.

Unsurprisingly, the scenes focusing on journalism and investigative reporting are very impressive and insightful as Ayliffe makes full use of his background to dive into the intricacies and secrets of the trade.  However, the more espionage focused sequences are also really clever and helped ensure this book felt a lot like his original novel, The Greater Good.  The focus on the various espionage concerns in Australia were really quite compelling, and it was clear that the author did a lot of research around it.  I recognised quite a few espionage elements featured in the novel from Australian news stories, and the author covers a lot of compelling ground as a result.  I particularly liked the focus on Australia’s strategic importance, the intelligence relationship it has with other Western nations, the examination of potential espionage elements currently running around the country, and there was even a fun inclusion of the infamous “Havana Syndrome” and the potential weapons behind it.  I really enjoyed this deep dive into potential Russian espionage in Australia, and it was certainly eye opening in places, especially considering current world events.  This excellent novel really draws you in quickly and I had such an outstanding time getting through it.

One of the things that I have always deeply appreciated about the John Bailey books is the way in which Ayliffe masterfully depicts and utilises his Sydney settings throughout the stories.  So many of Sydney’s suburbs, iconic areas, and even several restaurants and bars serve as either key locations or have cameos throughout the series.  It is always very cool to see locations you are familiar with utilised in fiction, and Ayliffe always does such a wonderful job of showcasing these locales in his stories, which really help to draw Australian readers in.  This continues to be the case in Killer Traitor Spy, as several different areas of Sydney are featured strongly throughout the plot. Ayliffe, who clearly has a lot of love for Sydney, has fun bringing these locations to life throughout this book and it was really fascinating to see how he fits his narrative around these real spaces.  A good chunk of the second half of the book is set in my hometown of Canberra. As the national capital hosting government agencies and politicians, Canberra is an excellent setting for a spy thriller book such as Killer Traitor Spy, and it was great to see it utilised as such within this book.  I had a ton of fun seeing the characters reference areas that I see all the time, and it was awesome envisioning some of the action occurring within them, especially as most of our scandals aren’t so thrilling.  I also had a chuckle at all the inside jokes or references that Ayliffe layered into the story around these settings, such as his very accurate description of the drive between Sydney and Canberra (it really is that visually boring).  This excellent use of real locations as a backdrop really helped to drag me even further into Killer Traitor Spy and I really appreciate it when authors draw from their own experiences to help tell an awesome story.

Finally, I must highlight the character work featured in Killer Traitor Spy.  The intrepid and damaged protagonists have always been a big reason why the John Bailey books have been so successful as you grow very attached to these complex figures.  I have a lot of love for the impressive character growth that has surrounded the main character of John Bailey in the lead-up to Killer Traitor Spy and it was really moving to see him finally have his life together, despite all the traumas he has experienced.  This also allowed him to focus more on his journalistic work, and watching the dogged, veteran reporter chase down several stories in his usual gruff and unrelenting manner was a ton of fun.  Of course, Ayliffe did add in a few more issues for him in Killer Traitor Spy, both psychically and ethically, and I will be interested to see how they impact him in the future.  Ayliffe also features quite a lot of Ronnie Johnson in this latest novel as well, which was a major plus in my book.  Ronnie has always been a fantastic character (he caused a damned Harold Holt moment in the first book), and it was great to see him a much more of a central figure in Killer Traitor Spy.  His more espionage and violence focused chapters balance out Bailey’s chapters in some compelling ways, and I enjoyed the fantastic deeper dive into the relationship between these two protagonists that emerged as a result.  Ayliffe’s use of these two main characters was a real highlight of Killer Traitor Spy and I really appreciated the powerful story the author wove around them.

Overall, Killer Traitor Spy is a fantastic novel from Tim Ayliffe that did a wonderful job continuing his excellent John Bailey series.  A complex and entertaining Australian thriller, Killer Traitor Spy was a ton of fun to read and I really got hooked on it compelling and fast-paced story.  With great characters, a complex plot, and some intriguing Australian inclusions, Killer Traitor Spy is well worth the read, especially if you loved the previous books in the series.

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Waiting on Wednesday – Vendetta by Sarah Barrie

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Murder Mystery, Thriller, Waiting on Wednesday5 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  For this week’s Waiting on Wednesday, I highlight an awesome upcoming Australian thriller from an outstanding local author, with Vendetta by Sarah Barrie.

Vendetta Cover

Due my geographical location, I am a massive fan of Australian fiction, especially as there are so many talented authors here creating some amazing and elaborate reads.  I particularly enjoy Australian crime fiction that set dark and compelling stories in locations I am more familiar with, as this usually results in some truly outstanding reads.  One of my favourite Australian crime fiction authors at the moment talented writer Sarah Barrie, who has been killing it over the last couple of years with her fantastic novels.

Barrie is a veteran author with several compelling Australian series under her belt.  I am personally familiar with her due to her amazing Lexi Winter series, which so far features two great books.  These novels follows titular protagonist, Lexi Winters, a vigilante hacker turned police officer, who uses her computer talents to take down the worst criminals around Sydney, often behind her superiors back.  The first book in the series, Unforgiven, saw Lexi attempt to destroy a child paedophile ring that was connected to her own childhood abuse, while in Retribution, she faced off against a notorious crime family who were getting in the way of her vengeance.  Thanks to their clever mysteries, complex characters, and very dark story content, both Unforgiven and Retribution were very impressive reads and they were some of the best Australian fiction I read in 2021 and 2022 respectfully.  I am now a firm fan of this series and I was very happy to hear that a third Lexi Winter novel is coming out later this year.

This new Lexi Winter novel is titled Vendetta and is currently set for release in early November 2023.  Vendetta looks set to continue several of the storylines from the previous two books, with the protagonist struggling to determine whether she is a vigilante or a police officer.  This new book will also apparently dive deeper into her hidden criminal/vigilante past as she is forced to return to an outlaw motorcycle club she used to work for, this time to save some of her friends.  It looks like Lexi is once again going to go rogue in her attempts to get justice and help the people she loves, and this should result in some compelling and emotionally charged storylines, especially as she tries to work out just what side of the legal fence she is on.  The inclusion of a deadly motorcycle gang that the protagonist used to be a part of should also be an interesting feature, especially as they will find themselves at war with their former president who is out for his own form of justice.  This outstanding plot has a lot of potential behind it and it should make for quite the awesome read.

This sounds like such a fun book and I am really glad that we are getting another Lexi Winter novel in a few short months.  Barrie has really proven herself to be such a talented and intense crime fiction author and I cannot wait to see how she continues to explore her complex and damaged protagonist.  I already know that I am going to love this book and I am very excited to see how Vendetta turns out.

Plot Synopsis:

Cop or criminal? When you’re undercover, the lines can get a little blurry. Former vigilante Lexi Winter, returns in a fast-paced, suspenseful crime thriller for readers of Candice Fox and Shelley Burr


Ace hacker, former sex worker and vigilante, Lexi Winter is now a cop and not keen to revisit her criminal past. But when old friends invoke the wrath of a local motorcycle club – the same club Lexi herself used to work for – she races to help them the only way she can: undercover.

If Lexi is to save a child’s life, she is going to have to go back – back to a life she thought she had outrun. Back to the person she used to be. But her timing isn’t great. Former club president Arthur Cronin has finished his long prison sentence and is out for revenge for the death of his wife and child. As he launches a series of bomb attacks on the club members who set him up and the cops who took him down, Lexi is caught in the middle.

Torn between old loyalties and new responsibilities, she must decide once and for all which side she’s on, but even if she does decide to break free, are her old criminal friends ready to let her go?

Her Sweet Revenge by Sarah Bonner

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Thriller6 Comments

Her Sweet Revenge Cover

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (Trade Paperback – 6 April 2023)

Series: Standalone

Length: 408 pages

My Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

Amazon

Last year I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the fun and twisty thriller novel, Her Perfect Twin by Sarah Bonner, an outstanding read that got a full five-star rating from me and which ended up being one my top debuts of 2022.  I have a lot of love for Her Perfect Twin thanks to its murderous plot and brilliant surprises, and I have been eager to see how Bonner was going to follow up her first book.  As such, I was pretty excited to see that she had a second cool thriller, Her Sweet Revenge, coming out this year, and I just finished it off.  Her Sweet Revenge was another outstanding read that blends complex characters with a fantastic and complex revenge plot to create an outstanding story.

Helena is a successful fashion blogger living in Exeter and married to a seemingly perfect man.  While her controlling in-laws seem to be her biggest problem, Helena is hiding a dark secret, one that could twist her entire life around and turn everyone against her.  When a series of notes begin to arrive, threatening to expose her, Helena desperately tries to keep her secrets hidden from her husband and evil mother-in-law.  But her attempts to stop the truth leaking out have lethal consequences.

Several years later, Thea is still mourning the loss of her best friend, Helena, and is convinced that her death was no accident.  Digging into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Helena’s demise, Thea is contacted by someone who claims to have known Helena and is also convinced that her death was deliberate.  Determined to get revenge for her friend’s murder, Thea dives even further down the rabbit hole and soon begins to create a lethal plot against those she thinks is responsible.  But not everything is as it seems, and the secrets surrounding Helena’s death are far more complex and dark than anyone realises.  As she gets closer to her target, Thea will need to determine just how far she is willing to go for revenge, and who truly deserves her wrath.

This was another exceptional novel from Bonner, who really looks set to make a name for herself in the thriller genre.  Her Sweet Revenge was another brilliant standalone novel which takes the reader on a wild and dark journey through death, bad relationships and revenge, and which proves near impossible to put down.

Bonner came up with quite the intricate and complex narrative for Her Sweet Revenge, and it really worked to tell a unique and powerful story.  Told in a similar style to her first book, Her Sweet Revenge is broken up into several parts and employs a series of time jumps and different character perspectives to tell a particularly intense story.  The first part of the book, which is one of the more substantial sections of Her Sweet Revenge, is told from the point of view of Helena in 2018 and Thea in 2022, with the story jumping between them chapter to chapter.  Both character-focused storylines set the scene extremely well, with the Helena chapters showing her turbulent life and the events that led up to her death, with the Thea chapters show the characters initial investigations into her friend’s death.

These two disparate timelines complement each other extremely well, and the reader is soon drawn into each character’s distinctive emotionally charged narratives.  Both storylines are pretty powerful in different ways, with Helena’s story focusing on her abuse by her in-laws and the trauma of being blackmailed for her secrets.  Watching Helena’s slow dive into instability is both shocking and moving, and you can’t help but feel for the injustices that the character is experiencing.  These feelings are further expanded on in the Thea chapters, as you feel the pain the character is experiencing at the loss of her friend, as well as the guilt that drives her to investigate Helena’s death and find the truth.  Bonner makes great use of this first part of the book to primarily set the scene for the rest of the plot, as well as introduce the key characters to the reader, and as such there are limited big reveals or twists at this point in the plot.  However, Bonner does do a good job of whetting the reader’s anticipation for what is to come by leaving several plot points unfinished and really showcasing just how bad all the people involved are.  The jump between 2018 and 2022 works really well, and it was interesting to see events from Helena’s chapters play into Thea’s storyline, especially when you know that there are still secrets being kept from both characters.

The second act of Her Sweet Revenge is where the plot really starts to fire up.  This section of the book is primarily focused on revenge, as Thea finds out some truths about Helena’s death and starts to plot about how to get her justice.  This section is solely shown from Thea’s perspective, and Bonner uses this to full effect to really dive down into the character and show how she got so vengeful and clever.  There are a lot of great moments here, especially when it comes to the plotting for revenge, and I loved the great character focuses that emerged.  There still aren’t a lot of twists at this part of the book, as Bonner is mostly building on what was revealed in the first half of the novel, but the author does do some good set-up here that works perfectly for the rest of the story.

The final third of the book is broken up into several separate parts, each of which is told from a different perspective character.  I won’t go into too much detail, but it works really well in the context of the story, and it is very interesting to see who gets focused on and why.  Bonner really starts to layer in her trademark twists and turns here, as everything you thought you knew about several characters turns out to be false, as motivations change, people are revealed to be something completely different, and the author includes some great dives into the past to show what really happened to Helena.  All the accompanying revelations have been masterfully set up in the earlier chapters, and I loved how the twists and turns seemed to build on top of one and other, with one betrayal or lie for a character followed by a bigger lie from another.  You honestly don’t know where the story is going at times, and I was extremely hooked for the last 150 pages as I waited to see who was going to come out on top and just who was getting revenge on whom.  While there are a lot of twists and reveals, Bonner keeps the story pretty tidy, and at no point did things get too convoluted or unbelievable.  I loved fully untangling the clever web that Bonner came up with, and the final result is pretty amazing and highly satisfying, especially as the very last reveals are some of the best, with everyone who should be punished getting what they deserve.  This was such a well-written and impressively crafted thriller narrative, and I guarantee that you won’t be able to stop yourself from reading more and more, just to see how everything ends.

In addition to the meticulously crafted narrative, I really need to highlight the outstanding characters featured throughout Her Sweet Revenge, each of whom is driven to edge in various different ways.  Bonner does an excellent job of introducing and building up several great characters throughout the course of her plot, and each of them was distinctive in their own way.  A good chunk of the plot’s focus is on the initial point-of-view characters, Helena and Thea, old friends who go through quite a lot during the novel.  Bonner introduces some excellent development to both in different ways, with Helena given a crash course in personal destruction, while Thea is slowly built up as a caring friend with a scary vengeful streak.  You get very invested in both of their respective storylines, one because of how sudden and emotionally crushing it is, and the other because of the reader’s natural sense of justice and loyalty, and I felt they were great focuses for so much of the book.  The rest of the cast is interesting and distinctive as well, mainly because so many of them are just naturally bad or dislikeable characters, with Helena’s mother-in-law, Geraldine, being an extremely good example.  Everything about Geraldine is designed to aggravate the reader and make them feel extreme sympathy for Helena, and Bonner made excellent use of her throughout the plot as a compelling side character.  These complex figures and more added a ton to the impact of the narrative, and I deeply appreciated Bonner’s ability to create intriguing characters with such fantastic nasty streaks behind.

Her Sweet Revenge was another outstanding thriller from Sarah Bonner, who produces a brilliant and captivating narrative, loaded with fantastic twists and surprising turns.  The revenge focused story is deeply addictive, and you find yourself quickly getting dragged into the intense and clever book.  I had a wonderful time reading Her Sweet Revenge, and it comes very highly recommended to anyone who wants a slick and memorable thriller read.

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Dead of Night by Simon Scarrow

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Historical Fiction, Murder Mystery, Thriller10 Comments

Dead of Night Cover

Publisher: Headline (Trade Paperback – 14 February 2023)

Series: Berlin Wartime Thriller – Book Two

Length: 422 pages

My Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

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One of my favourite historical fiction authors, the always impressive Simon Scarrow, dives back into turbulent World War II Germany with his latest compelling read, Dead of Night, an excellent and intense historical thriller with a dark twist to it.

Readers of this blog will know that I have long been a fan of Simon Scarrow ever since I read his first exceptional novel many years ago.  I particularly enjoy his long-running Eagles of the Empire series, an outstanding adventure series that follows two Roman officers as they travel throughout the empire.  The Eagles of the Empire books are some of the best historical fiction I have ever read, and I have had the pleasure of reviewing several of them, including The Blood of Rome, Traitors of Rome, The Emperor’s Exile, The Honour of Rome and Death to the Emperor.  Aside from his Roman novels, Scarrow has also written several other series and standalone books set in various periods of history.  This includes his 2021 release, Blackout, a gritty and complex murder mystery set in Nazi-controlled Berlin.  Blackout was an awesome book, and I was very happy to hear that Scarrow was producing a sequel, Dead of Night, which turned out to be another outstanding read.

Berlin, January 1940.  As Germany’s invasion of Poland rolls along, the Nazis continue to take complete control of their own country.  While the people of Berlin wait to see how the Allies will retaliate, a mysterious death is about to occur with massive ramifications.  A prominent SS doctor and his wife return home, having had a seemingly normal night attending a concert with the Nazi elite of the city.  However, by the morning, the doctor will be dead in his study, the result of an apparent suicide.

After his last near-fatal brush with the Nazi state, Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke of the Berlin Kripo is determined to simply do his job and stay off the party’s radar.  However, when Ruth Frankel, the Jewish woman whose life he saved during his previous investigation, reappears, Horst is once again dragged into unwanted trouble.  The dead SS doctor is an old friend of Ruth’s family, and Ruth has promised his widow that she would help find out the truth behind his death, and Horst is her tool to do so.

Reluctantly agreeing to help, Horst looks into the case and quickly realises that the doctor’s death was no suicide.  However, his superiors soon pull him off the investigation and forbid him from digging any further.  But with his curiosity peaked, Horst cannot turn away, especially when he manages to connect the victim to the mysterious deaths of several children throughout Germany.  Determined to find the truth no matter what, Horst soon discovers a terrible secret that places him in the firing line of the entire Nazi party and other volatile factions in the city.  Can Horst survive this new case, or will the regime he despises finally take him off the board?

This was an excellent read from Scarrow, who has been on a real roll lately with his awesome books.  Dead of Night not only served as an incredible sequel to Blackout, but it also features an intense and historically powerful narrative that had me hooked from the very beginning.

Dead of Night follows several of the same characters from the first book, primarily Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke, who serves as the main protagonist and point of view character, in another intriguing and complex case.  Schenke must again work with Ruth Frankel to investigate the apparent suicide of a prominent SS doctor, which produces an intriguing and compelling early investigation storyline that I really enjoyed.  However, Schenke soon runs into political problems, as well as threats of violence, which force him to conduct a subtle investigation.  At the same time, Schenke’s socially crusading love interest, Karin, requests that he look into the mysterious deaths of several children at a remote medical institute.  This second investigation takes up a good chunk of the novel and the protagonists dive into really starts to enhance the intensity of the plot.  This is because Scarrow starts to utilise particularly sinister elements of Nazi history in the plot, which ensures that the novel gets fairly dark in tone and content.  Scarrow is very subtle in how he brings these elements to the character’s attention, and there is a lot of emotion and disgust that emerges in the story as the protagonists realise what is going on.

From there the two divergent investigations start to come together as subtle clues that the author introduced in the first half of the book are brought to light again.  The revelation of how the two cases are connected is pretty captivating, especially as it gives the ‘antagonists’ of the novel a very compelling and relatable motivation.  The protagonist is forced to make some hard decisions as they come to terms with just what is going on and this leads to some great scenes about the differences between duty and what is right.  Everything leads up to an emotionally charged confrontation which cleverly brings the entire story together and wraps up all the remaining mysteries and character arcs.  This final major sequence is pretty damn awesome and it results in some of the most dramatic and powerful moments in the entire novel.  I really liked how the entire novel came together at the end, especially as the protagonist is left in several unenviable positions while he watches his country descend further into darkness.  I felt that the entire novel was very well paced out, and it doesn’t take long for the readers to get hooked on the story, especially with the two quality mysteries that Scarrow came up with.  The blend of mystery, dark historical moments, and intriguing character interactions is pretty perfect, and it works to create a memorable and haunting tale.  Combined with some of the great twists, many of which are based around evil parts of real-life history, and I felt that Dead of Night surpassed is predecessor in some very awesome ways

For me, the best thing about Dead of Night was the fantastic and distinctive wartime setting that surrounded the plot.  Stories set in Nazi controlled Germany are always intense and dark for obvious reasons, but I felt that Scarrow did a particularly outstanding job of capturing it, especially as he pairs the dark mood with a gritty winter backdrop.  Just like with Blackout, there is a focus on the evils of the Nazi regime in Dead of Night, and quite a lot of the plot is devoted to seeing how normal citizens, including non-political police officers, view what their city and country has turned into.  There is a good focus on the fear and control that the Nazis blanket the city with, and the investigation angles of the narrative become even more complex and compelling due to the protagonist being constantly blocked by his Nazi and SS superiors.  However, the best, or worst, historical elements of the book revolve around one of the cases that Inspector Schenke is dragged into, specifically around the death of several children.  This case thrusts the protagonist right into the heart of some of the darkest things the Nazis ever did to their own people, which really gives this entire book a powerfully tragic edge.  Scarrow uses this historical inclusion to his full advantage, as not only does it provide an excellent motivation for some of the crimes being committed, but it also increases the emotional conflict of the protagonist.  Scarrow really does not hold back when it comes to showcasing these historical horrors and the readers get a full idea of what is going on and the sort of people behind it.  This dark historical inclusion really helped to turn Dead of Night’s narrative into something particularly distinctive and captivating, and I felt that Scarrow did a fantastic job of drawing the reader in by giving them knowledge of this terrible moment from history.

I also need to highlight some of the excellent characters featured within Dead of Night, several of whom carry on from the previous novel in the series.  Most of the focus is around Inspector Horst Schenke, one of the few senior police officers left in Berlin without a connection to the Nazi Party.  Dedicated to the law, Schenke, a man already traumatised by his past, keeps finding it harder and harder to do his job in the new regime.  Despite his best efforts, Schenke keeps getting dragged into the middle of the several Nazi plots and hidden schemes, which constantly place him in political danger.  I loved the deep conflict that this builds within him as he is forced to choose between ignoring what he discovers, or trying to get justice and doing something.  Further complicating matters are his relationships with the two women in his life, his girlfriend, Karin, and the Jewish women he previously saved, Ruth Frankel.  Both keep pushing him to do more to oppose the Nazis or get to the truth of crimes they are covering up, and he is forced to balance his desires to help them with his sense of pragmatism while trying to protect them from the Nazis.

Other great characters in this book include Schenke’s police backup, Sergeant Hauser and former Gestapo agent Liebwitz.  These two are great supporting characters and they provide interesting counterviews to German life, with Hauser being a more everyman figure, while Liebwitz is bound up by his Gestapo training.  Despite the apparent differences between Hauser and Liebwitz, the two work together well and serve as good support to Schenke, and I liked the fun odd-couple team that they formed.  They also have some intriguing moments throughout the book, especially when they encounter some of the horrors of the Nazi regime.  While Hauser has some great emotional reactions, especially when it comes to the death of children, Liebwitz has the more intriguing responses, as he balances his loyalty to the state with his own past experiences and conscious.  Watching him come to terms with some of the evils he witnesses makes for some powerful reading and I am glad that Scarrow added in these intriguing alternate characters.  I also really enjoyed the complex main antagonists of the story, as they had quite a powerful motivation for some of the crimes committed in the book.  While they are not as noble as they believe, the antagonist’s goal still serves to trouble the protagonist’s sense of justice, and interesting compromises have to be made as a result.  I deeply appreciated some of the deep characters that Scarrow featured in this novel and I look forward to seeing how they are utilised in any future books in the series.

Simon Scarrow continues to impress me as one of the best historical fiction authors out there with this incredible new read.  Dead of Night has a brilliant and powerful story behind it that takes full advantage of its bleak and historically rich setting.  Featuring an outstanding investigation narrative and some dark insights into the horrors of the Nazi regime, Dead of Night will easily grab your attention and ensure you will not forget it anytime soon.  A highly recommended novel from one of my favourite authors.

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Fire With Fire by Candice Fox

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Murder Mystery, Thriller8 Comments

Fire With Fire Cover

Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia (Trade Paperback – 4 April 2023)

Series: Standalone

Length: 480 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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One of Australia’s most exciting and compelling crime fiction authors, Candice Fox, returns with another intense and impressive novel, the powerful and memorable Fire With Fire.

Over the last several years, few Australian authors have dominated the crime fiction market as effectively as veteran author Candice Fox, who has produced some outstanding reads.  Fox is a very interesting author who started off focusing on the Australian market with several books set out in the wilds of Australia, including her Archer and Bennet series and the Crimson Lake books, the latter of which was recently adapted into the Australian television show, Troppo.  However, in more recent years, Fox has moved on to the larger international audience and has produced several great books set in America, as well as collaborating with legendary author James Patterson for their Detective Harriet Blue series.  I personally know Fox more for her international work rather than her Australian fiction, as I have been lucky enough to receive copies of her last few books, including the gritty standalone read Gathering Dark, the elaborate prison break novel The Chase, and the fantastic and heartfelt 2 Sisters Detective Agency co-written with James Patterson.  Each of these novels has been fun in their own way, and 2 Sisters Detective Agency ended up being one of my favourite Australian books of 2021.  Due to excellent books like these, Fox is now a key addition to my yearly reading schedule, and I just had to grab a copy of her latest novel, Fire With Fire, especially as it had a pretty epic plot behind it.

What starts as a normal day at the understaffed Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Centre in Los Angeles swiftly turns deadly when two people take over the lab, holding three people hostage.  However, this is no ordinary hostage situation, as the kidnappers are husband and wife Ryan and Elsie Delaney.  Two years earlier, the Delaneys’ daughter Tilly went missing at the Santa Monica beach, which the police eventually ruled an accidental drowning.  However, Tilly’s body was never found, key evidence was lost, and her parents never believed the official story and resented a lacklustre police investigation.

Now, desperate for answers, the Delaneys offer the LAPD an ultimatum: find Tilly dead or alive within 24 hours or they will destroy evidence in several major cases, all but destroying key investigations.  Armed with uncanny knowledge of which evidence is the most vital to the LAPD and which samples are too valuable to lose, the Delaneys appear to hold all the cards against the police.  However, the LAPD have no intention of validating the Delaneys’ actions by searching for Tilly.

However, one LAPD detective, Charlie Hoskins, has more motivation to save the evidence in the lab than the rest of the department.  Hoskins has finished up a gruelling five-year undercover stint within the ruthless Death Machines biker gang, an experience he barely survived.  All the evidence that he collected against the gang is now sitting in the lab, and if it goes up in flames, everything he tried to accomplish would be for nothing.  With the rest of the police force angling for a more lethal solution to the Delaney problem, Hoskins decides to find Tilly himself.

Helped by recently fired rookie Lynette Lamb, the woman responsible for blowing his cover with the Death Machines, which saw him literally thrown to the sharks, Hoskins begins a new investigation into Tilly’s disappearance, hoping to find any evidence that can convince the Delaneys that their daughter really did drown.  However, the more they dig, the more Hoskins and Lamb begin to realise that there is something far more sinister behind Tilly’s disappearance.  With time running out before his evidence is destroyed, and with the Death Machines hunting him across LA, can Hoskins find out what happened to Tilly before it’s too late and a lethal gang of killers are set free?

This was another excellent novel from Fox that featured an outstanding and captivating story.  Fox sets the entire narrative up perfectly, first introducing the main characters of Hoskins and Lamb by showing them on the very worst days of their life, as Hoskins is tortured out by the gang he infiltrated, while Lamb is fired on her first day as a rookie cop for being responsible for the leak.  From there, the story focuses on the start of the lab siege as the Delaneys take over and send the police their demands.  I really love this cool main scenario for the Fire With Fire as it is such a brilliant way to gain leverage over a police force.  Fox uses this to great effect to engage the major storylines of the book.  Firstly, there is an intriguing and intense siege storyline as police, led by LAPD Chief of Police Saskia Ferboden, attempt to resolve the situation without the destruction of evidence.  Fox examines many different sides of this situation, from the desperation of the Delaneys, the fear of the hostages in the lab, the emotions of the Delaney’s remaining daughter outside, and the growing hostility of the cops as they watch their evidence get destroyed.  This leads to a captivating series of events as Saskia and her FBI negotiator try to resolve the situation peacefully, only to hit setback after setback, as the Delaneys get violent, the hostages try to be heroic, and all her cops get mutinous at her decisions.

While the storyline around the siege is pretty intense and emotionally powerful, the real meat of the story focuses on Hoskins and Lamb as they attempt to find the Delaneys’ missing daughter, Tilly, before it is too late.  This entire storyline falls together extremely well as the unlikely partnership of Hoskins and Lamb are forced to work together and soon form an entertaining team as they simultaneously investigate the disappearance while also dodging the vengeful gang gunning for Hoskins.  The investigation angle takes them into some interesting directions, and I liked the compelling mystery that Fox wove together for this part of the book.  The author loads in a ton of misleads, alternate suspects, and problematic witnesses, each of whom muddy the water and ensure that the ultimate solution to the case isn’t too clear until the end.  The confrontation between Hoskins and his former gang also forms a great part of this story, especially as there are some excellent twists involved there, and the resulting carnage adds some major danger to the book.  However, the best part of this storyline is the partnership between Hoskins and Lamb, which steals the show with its genuineness and fun moments.

Fox has a highly readable writing style that I felt lent itself to this story and helped to turn it into an enjoyable read.  Pretty much everything about this book, including its flow, its pacing and the balance of story elements is set up really well, and I had a fun time getting through it.  The fast-paced and sharp chapters really move the plot along quickly, and you find yourself reading page after page, trying to see what awesome or intense event will occur next.  I liked how Fox split the story focus around Fire With Fire and the constant changes between the investigation for the missing girl and the deadly siege at the lab, really helps to amplify the intensity of the plot and keep the stakes very high.  I was also very impressed by the excellent blend of mystery, intense drama, high-octane action, and powerful character development, that were the primary features of the plot.  There is a barely a page where Fox isn’t portraying something pretty damn interesting or moving, and you are constantly intrigued with what is going to happen to the characters or the plot moving forward.  This ended up being a pretty amazing read, and I had such a great time getting through it.

One of the major writing highlights of Fire With Fire has to be the complex and damaged characters who formed the basis for much of the story.  There are some exceptional and well-written characters featured throughout this book, and Fox does a great job of showcasing their inner pain, motivations, and compelling personal pasts to the reader as the focus switches between them.  Two of the most notable are the characters of Detective Charlie Hoskins and Lynette Lamb, who serve as the main figures of the investigate arm of the plot.  Hoskins is a tough and independent figure who spent five years infiltrating a deadly criminal gang trying to find evidence to put them all away for murder, only to be discovered at the last minute and tortured.  Barely recovered from his ordeal, Hoskins spends the book trying to protect his hard-won evidence by finding the missing girl.  There is a lot of desperation behind Hoskins as he tries to make all the sacrifices and bad things he did over the last five years matter, and this leads to some great character moments throughout Fire With Fire.  There is also a major trauma component behind Hoskins, as he tries to get over the dark things he experienced during his torture and escape, which leads to him making some reckless decisions.

Hoskins is well matched up with his young and somewhat naïve partner Lynette Lamb.  Lamb is a rookie cop who was targeted without her knowledge and used to find information that exposed Hoskins to his gang.  Fired on her first day on the job, Lamb manages to find Hoskins out of both guilt and determination, hoping that he can get her job back.  Thrust together by circumstance, Lamb stubbornly partners up with Hoskins and works with him to find the missing girl.  There are a lot of great elements to Lamb’s storyline, and out of all the characters in Fire With Fire, she has the most growth as she tries to prove she is tough and capable enough to be a police officer.  The pairing of Hoskins and Lamb is an excellent highlight of the book and I loved how Hoskins reluctantly takes Lamb under his wing and tries to toughen her up., quickly realising there is far more to her than he initially though.  The two make an outstanding team, and they both cover the other’s weakness extremely well.

Aside from Hoskins and Lamb, some of the other standout characters include Ryan and Elsie Delaney, who take over the forensic lab and hold the evidence and people there hostage.  Fox does an outstanding job portraying the desperation behind these two characters as their obsession about finding their missing daughter, bought on by guilt and anger, drives them to extremes.  These two are some of the most complex figures in the entire book, especially as their actions, while bad, are understandable.  Other characters, such as Chief Ferboden and Hoskin’s entertaining friend Surge, help to round out the excellent cast of this book and I felt that these great figures really helped to turn Fire With Fire into a powerful and highly enjoyable read.

Overall, this was an amazing novel from Candice Fox, who once again shows why she is one of Australia’s premier crime fiction authors.  Fire With Fire had an outstanding and clever narrative to it that really drew me in and kept me extremely engaged the entire way through.  The excellent blend of intense narrative, amazing characters and a unique crime fiction scenario was highly effective, and I had a wonderful time reading this awesome book.  Fire With Fire comes highly recommended, and you will get really drawn into this great standalone crime fiction novel.

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Waiting on Wednesday – Ripper by Shelley Burr

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Murder Mystery, Waiting on Wednesday4 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  For this latest Waiting on Wednesday, I highlight a great new upcoming Australian crime fiction novel from one of the breakout authors of 2022 with Ripper by Shelley Burr.

Ripper Cover

Last year I had the very great pleasure of reading the fantastic first novel from debuting Australian author Shelley Burr, Wake.  Set in a dying rural town out in the middle of the Australian outback, Wake examined an infamous crime where a young girl disappeared from her house without a trace, never to be seen again.  19 years later, two determined people with their own traumas attempt to find out what happened to the missing girl, including her haunted twin sister and a professional investigator with secret reasons for trying to solve the mystery.  Wake ended up being an outstanding novel and I loved how its compelling and intense mystery unfolded while also expertly showing off the desolate local landscape.  This was such an amazing read and it ended up being one of my top debuts and favourite Australian fiction novels of 2022.

Due to how impressive her first book turned out, I have been eager to see what Burr would come up with next and I was very happy that details about her second book was recently released.  This second book is Ripper, which is currently set for release in August 2023, and will take the reader to a new outback town with a murderous past, this time as the location of a serial killer’s final three murders.

Plot Synopsis:

Gemma Guillory has lived in Rainier her entire life. She knows the tiny town’s ins and outs like the back of her hand, the people like they are her family, their quirks as if they were her own.

She knows her once-charming town is now remembered for one reason, and one reason only. That three innocent people died. That the last stop on the Rainier Ripper’s trail of death seventeen years ago was her innocuous little teashop. She knows that the consequences of catching the Ripper still haunt her police officer husband and their marriage to this day and that some of her neighbours are desperate – desperate enough to welcome a dark tourism company keen to cash in on Rainier’s reputation as the murder town.

 When the tour operator is killed by a Ripper copycat on Gemma’s doorstep, the unease that has lurked quietly in the original killer’s wake turns to foreboding, and she’s drawn into the investigation. Unbeknownst to her, so is a prisoner named Lane Holland.

 Gemma knows her town. She knows her people. Doesn’t she?


Ripper sounds like it is going to be quite an awesome book.  I love the idea of returning to another town whose reputation has been tainted by a notorious crime, and the setting of Ripper is pretty cool with its connection to the Rainier Ripper.  Seeing a dark tourist company coming to town, only to be targeted by a copycat at the place of the original killer’s last stand sounds fantastic, especially as it is going to reopen all the wounds the previous killings left open.

I have no doubt that Burr will produce an excellent mystery around that premise, however, the thing that is really interesting to me about Ripper’s plot synopsis is the reference to the prisoner Lane Holland.  Holland was one of the protagonists of Wake, so it looks like Ripper is going to be a direct sequel to Burr’s first book.  I am very interested in seeing Burr continue Holland’s story from Wake, especially as the character’s attempts to stop his terrible father saw him sent to jail, and it will be cool to see how the author brings him into this latest story.  While I was definitely going to seek out Burr’s new book no matter what, the fact that is a sequel is a major selling point to me and Ripper is now one of the books I most excited for in the next few months.  Ripper has a ton of potential and I look forward to seeing how this talented new Australian author follows up her first epic novel.

Echo Lake by Joan Sauers

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Murder Mystery3 Comments

Echo Laker Cover

Publisher: Allen & Unwin (Trade Paperback – 2 May 2023)

Series: Standalone/Book One

Length: 375 pages

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

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Acclaimed Australian screenwriter Joan Sauers makes her crime fiction debut in a big way with the clever and enticing mystery novel, Echo Lake, a riveting read that makes great use of its iconic Australian setting.

Following an ugly divorce, historian Rose McHugh decides to completely uproot her life and move out of the hustle and bustle of Sydney.  Following her dreams of a rural lifestyle, Rose moves to the Southern Highlands of Australia, buying a rustic cabin outside the town of Berrima.  However, despite her hopes of an idealised and quiet life in the countryside, Rose is about to discover that the Southern Highlands have some big secrets.

After an encounter with a local thug, Rose makes an intriguing discovery of an undeveloped roll of film buried in her back garden.  Burning with curiosity, Rose develops the photos, only to discover that they contain the last known pictures of a beautiful young woman who went missing six years earlier and who the police suspect was murdered.  Fascinated by the mysterious turn of events, Rose decides to do her own digging into the case.

However, rather than the fun adventure she was expecting, Rose soon finds herself in grave danger when one of the people she talks to winds up dead.  Going against the advice of the police, Rose continues her investigation, working with a cohort of new friends from around the local towns.  But the closer she gets to the truth, the more she discovers that there is something sinister going on in her new home.  Can Rose uncover the truth before it is too late, or will she also end up a cautionary tale of the Southern Highlands?

This was an excellent first novel from Sauers, who takes the reader on a magical and entertaining journey into a great Australian setting with this gripping murder mystery.  Echo Lake is a fantastic read that really does a good job of drawing you in with its scenic and beautiful locales before hooking you with the captivating mystery.  Sauers starts the story off strongly, showcasing the location while also introducing you to protagonist Rose McHugh, whose complex history, relationships, and canine companion makes her quite an appealing character.  The initial chapters focus on her getting her bearing in the various towns of the Southern Highlands, including meeting members of the supporting cast, before she is dragged into the mystery of the missing woman thanks to a discovery of film in her backyard.  From there the mystery develops at a quick pace, as a witness is murdered, and Joan finds herself both a target and a suspect.  Doing her own investigation, she uncovers several new clues that slowly begin to unravel the mystery, which becomes her new obsession.  At the same time, Sauers provides an intense and compelling examination into Rose’s life in the Southern Highlands, as well as her complex history and desires for the future.  There are some moving moments as Rose attempts to get her life on track and this ties nicely into the final revelations about who the killer is and how they have been targeting people.  This results in an intense and captivating conclusion that I was pretty hooked to, and this ended up being a really good and entertaining read.

I quite liked how Echo Lake turned out, and Sauers did a fantastic job of creating a novel that was both exciting and heartfelt.  Echo Lake falls within the cosy mystery subgenre as the book is often focused on Rose’s life and amateur sleuthing rather than scenes of death and carnage.  I felt that the author got the right balance of character development, scene setting and personal drama within Echo Lake that served as a great counterbalance to the crime fiction side of things.  You really get to know and appreciated Rose and the cast of supporting characters, and it will be fun to see them again if Sauers ends up doing a sequel.  I will admit that I wasn’t always the biggest fan of the protagonist, mainly because Sauers gave her psychic vibes (a major cliché for me) and she makes a lot of silly decisions.  Despite this, I still really enjoyed her emotional journey, and she served as a great focus for the plot.  Sauers also produced a great mystery in Echo Lake, and I liked how twisty and complex it got in the places.  The raft of intriguing and memorable supporting characters worked to create multiple possible suspects, each of whom may have had a connection to the case, and you are left wondering for a good portion of the novel who might have done it.  I think the eventual reveal of the killer was done well and Sauers set it up with some clever clues.  As such, this ends up being a very impressive read and I had a great time getting through this classy and compelling read.

While I loved the story and characters, for me the best and most iconic part of Echo Lake was the author’s brilliant use of setting as she explores the Southern Highlands of Australia.  The Southern Highlands is a historical area of Australia that lies between Canberra and Sydney, and which is now filled with picturesque small towns that cater to the tourist trade.  Sauers’ is clearly a fan of this area and makes great use of this setting throughout Echo Lake, featuring several notable local towns and bush locations, often in entertaining and clever ways.  Due to a lifetime of travelling between Canberra and Sydney, I am well familiar with these towns, and I can say that Sauers did a pretty awesome job of capturing their feel and layout.  You can really sense each town’s distinctive vibes through Sauers’ writing, and I loved how she captured the beauty and sense of community that they have.  The author goes out of her way to feature as many iconic places from these locations as possible, including several of the better cafes, stores, pubs, and even the local dog park.  I was personally happy that Sauers featured the iconic and fun antique shop, Dirty Janes, in her novel (a favourite of my wife/editor), and Echo Lake often came across a bit like a tourist brochure at times.

However, the really impressive setting descriptions in Echo Lake come when Sauers looks at the bushland that surrounds the central town locations.  Many of the most dramatic moments of Echo Lake occur out in the ancient bush and walking trails the area is known for, and the author does a beautiful job showing how isolated, quiet and hauntingly beautiful these bush locations can be.  These descriptions run the gauntlet from awe-inspiring to extremely sinister, depending on the tone of the story, but they always work to enhance the book no matter the scene.  As such, I was deeply impressed by the authors use of setting, and I loved how well she featured this familiar Australian location into this amazing novel.

Overall, Echo Lake was a great first novel from Joan Sauers who produced a comfortable and intriguing Australian murder mystery.  I loved the interesting story and striking settings of Echo Lake, which work wonderfully together to produce a captivating and entertaining read.  A fantastic novel that is really worth checking out.

Amazon

Waiting on Wednesday – Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Australian, Murder Mystery, Waiting on Wednesday5 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  In this latest Waiting on Wednesday, I highlight a fantastic upcoming novel that is likely to be one of the funniest and most compelling Australian reads of 2023 with Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson.

Everyone on this Train is a Suspect Cover

Amazon

One of the benefits of living in Australia as I have the great pleasure of receiving and reading multiple Australian novels each year, which has really introduced me to some fantastic writers.  One of the most solid and fun in recent years is Benjamin Stevenson, who has really made his mark on the Australian crime fiction landscape.  Previously known as a comedian with his twin brother, Stevenson made his crime fiction debut back in 2018 with the impressive murder mystery Greenlight.  Released as Trust Me When I Lie and She Lies in the Vines outside of Australia, Greenlight was an excellent novel that followed a guilt-ridden true-crime documentary maker who might have gotten a murderer out of jail.  This was an outstanding read and Stevenson followed it up in 2020 with the sequel book Either Side of Midnight (one of my favourite Australian books of 2020) which saw his protagonist investigate another elaborate murder made to look like a very public suicide.  Both these books were extremely good and I loved the compelling combination of clever mystery and a complex protagonist.

While I enjoyed his original two crime fiction novel, I personally don’t think that Stevenson really hit his stride as an author until last year when he presented his epic read, Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone.  Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone was a brilliant and captivating novel that saw the protagonist recount a complex family tale in memoir format of a very complicated family reunion at a ski resort where the guests started ending up murdered.  Of course, everyone in the family is a potential suspect as, like the title of the book suggests, they have all been responsible for someone’s death in the past.  Not only was this a very clever and entertaining story, but Stevenson also loaded the plot with a ton of humour while also making a ton of homages to classic whodunnits and locked room mysteries.  Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone was an exceptional novel that got an easy five-star rating from me and ended up being one of the best Australian novels of 2022.

I really, really loved Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone, as it was such a fantastic novel, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Stevenson was planning a sequel to it with the focus of this article, Everyone on This Train is a Suspect, which is set for release in October 2023.  As the name suggests, this new novel will see the protagonist of Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone get involved in another series of murders, this time aboard a train setting.

Plot Synopsis:

Ernest Cunningham returns in a deliciously witty locked room (train) mystery.

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer.

But when one of us is murdered, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

Or commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?

Oh dear, now this is going to be pretty damn hilarious.  Look I was already hyped about Stevenson’s new novel well before I knew the plot details, but the above synopsis is so fun.  There are so many layers to this upcoming story, including the clear Murder of the Orient Express homages, the setting aboard the iconic Ghan train, and the fact that every suspect on the train is a mystery writer of some variety.  The idea that one of these authors (which includes the protagonist) is a potential killer and they are using their literary skills to get away with it is brilliant and has a lot of potential from a mystery and narrative perspective.

However, the thing that I am most looking forward to in Everyone on This Train is a Suspect is the way that Stevenson will no doubt lovingly lampoon every single one of these different crime fiction sub-genres in his own fantastic way.  He did such an outstanding job of both satirising and exemplifying the whodunnit novel in his last book, which is what I assume he is planning for the sequel.  Simultaneously examining and making fun of several different crime fiction genres is going to be a big ask from the author, but I honestly have no doubt he can pull it off and turn it into something special for all crime fiction readers.

Look, based on how good Stevenson’s previous novels, especially Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone, was, there was very little chance that I wouldn’t have grabbed this book later this year.  But the fact that Everyone on This Train is a Suspect is an awesome sequel to his previous fantastic novel which aims to further reference and examine fun crime fiction elements is a major selling point to me.  Stevenson honestly gets better with every book he writes, and this new novel has so much damn potential as a result.  As such, I have no doubts whatsoever that Everyone on This Train is a Suspect is going to be a remarkable read and I am fully expecting it to be one of the absolute best Australian novels of the year.

Throwback Thursday – Warhammer 40,000: The Guns of Tanith by Dan Abnett

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Extended Universe, Science Fiction, Throwback Thursday, Tie-in Novel, Warhammer14 Comments

The Guns of Tanith Cover

Publisher: Black Library (Audiobook – 25 April 2002)

Series: Gaunt’s Ghosts – Book Five

Length: 10 hours and 10 minutes

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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Welcome back to my Throwback Thursday series, where I republish old reviews, review books I have read before or review older books I have only just had a chance to read.  After having such a great time reviewing the previous Gaunt’s Ghosts novel, Honour Guard, in my last Throwback Thursday, I immediately read the fifth fantastic entry in the series, The Guns of Tanith, which proved to be just as awesome and exciting.

As I mentioned last week, I have been really getting into the works of Dan Abnett over the last year, and I now consider several of his books to be amongst the best Warhammer 40,000 novels I have had the pleasure of reading.  Not only did I deeply enjoy his epic Eisenhorn trilogy (made up of Xenos, Malleus and Hereticus) but I have also been powering through his Gaunt’s Ghosts books.  The Gaunt’s Ghosts books are some of the more iconic novels in the Warhammer 40,000 franchise and are often considered essential reading by fans of the franchise due to the captivating way they capture the gruelling experiences of ordinary human soldiers in this grim, futuristic setting.  The first four novels in the series, First and Only, Ghostmaker, Necropolis and Honour Guard, as well as the prequel novel The Vincula Insurgency, are all excellent and exciting in their own way, and I have had a ton of fun seeing the impressive war narratives set around the men of the Tanith First-and-Only, informally known as Gaunt’s Ghosts.  As I was still in the mood for some awesome action at the end of last week, I just had to keep going with these books and I quickly picked up the fifth entry, The Guns of Tanith.

As the massive Sabbat Worlds Crusade continues to pit the forces of the Imperium of Man against the foul forces of Chaos, the battlelines extend across multiple planets and systems, drawing in millions of soldiers.  The latest phase of the crusade has severely stretched the supply lines of the Imperial assault and the Chaos foes are quick to take advantage, threatening to cut off and surround the main Imperial force.  To stave off disaster, Warmaster Macaroth, needs the Tanith First-and-Only to recapture the vital promethium producing planet of Phantine so the crusade can be resupplied and continue.

Led by the heroic Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, the Tanith First-and-Only engage in a deadly airborne assault on several of the planet’s domed cities.  Relying on their unique skills of navigation and infiltration, the Ghosts prove to be vital to the operation and soon take the key city of Cirenholm.  However, holding the city proves to be harder than expected.  While preparing for the next assault, the vile murder of a freed Cirenholm civilian places a Ghost on trial and opens up the festering cultural divides within the regiment.

As Gaunt attempts to get to the bottom of the crime and ensure that the innocent are left alive, the Ghosts are given a vital mission to undertake.  A dangerous Chaos warlord has taken command of the final occupied city, Ouranberg, and his lethal command threatens to devastate an attack by the Imperials.  To ensure a successful invasion of this Chaos stronghold, a specialised team of Ghosts is tasked with infiltrating the city and assassinating the enemy leader in advance of the main assault force.  Featuring some of the best the Ghosts have to offer, the assassination squad will be forced to walk through hell to achieve their objective and not everyone will be coming back.

In this fifth entry in this amazing series, Abnett continues to impress with another powerful and captivating character-driven read that takes the Ghosts through a gruelling round of battles, tragedy and growth that proves near impossible to put down.  The Guns of Tanith was a pretty strong entry in the series, expanding on some of the interesting storylines from the first novel while also introducing a new dark scenario for the characters to deal with.

The Guns of Tanith features a fantastic narrative from Abnett that contains his usual blend of high-intensity action, character growth, and intriguing examinations of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, that make all the Gaunt’s Ghosts novels such a treat to read.  Following on from the events of the previous books in the series The Guns of Tanith is told in Abnett’s typical style, with a ton of unique character perspectives, mostly those of the Ghosts, which presents the reader with a rich and vibrant view of the events, as well as the unique, character-driven storylines that emerge.  While this fifth Gaunt’s Ghosts novel can be read as a standalone book, The Guns of Tanith does see several ongoing, character focused storylines come to a head or get even more complicated. As such, readers should really consider checking out the previous novels first so they can get the full emotional weight of the revelations and twists that emerge.

The main narrative of The Guns of Tanith is bookended by major extended battle sequences that see the Ghosts and their allies engage in elaborate fights across two separate cities.  The first of these battles, in Cirenhom, sees all the Ghosts forced to engage in a particularly bloody battle with limited ammunition against a dangerous and determined foe that has set up some elaborate traps.  This extended sequence is both epic and useful as it provides the reader with a ton of intense action to draw them into the novel while Abnett introduces the characters and storylines that this latest novel is focused on.  You also get a good overview to the new setting of Phantine, a polluted planet with a toxic atmosphere that requires multiple forms of airship to traverse.  This unique location adds some great spice to the overall story, especially as it requires the characters to learn some unique aerial skills, while also allowing Abnett to have fun featuring several impressive dogfights.  There are some great moments during this first extended battle sequence, and it sets the rest of the book up nicely.

The middle of the book is where the reader gets into the real meat of the story, especially as it lowers the intensity levels down from the action-packed introduction and allows the reader to breathe and absorb all the intriguing story elements to come.  At first, I wasn’t too keen on a quieter middle section to this novel, especially as I thought it would make The Guns of Tanith more of a bridging novel in the series, rather than a book that could stand on its own.  However, Abnett soon proved me wrong as this intriguing central storyline contained a lot of major character moments and intriguing plot lines, while also expertly setting up the final third of the book.  The main storyline explored in the centre involves a murder investigation when one of the Ghosts is accused of killing an innocent civilian.  Abnett does a great job with this murder storyline, especially as it brings in compelling mystery and legal thriller elements to it, while also driving the characters in some excellent directions.  However, the real joy of this part of the book is the focus on the camaraderie and factions within the Ghosts, and the fracturing coherence in places leads to some memorable moments later on.

The final section of the book focuses on the assault of the Phantine city, Ouranberg, and the special Ghosts mission to assassinate the Chaos warlord.  Following several supporting members of the cast, this final third of The Guns of Tanith takes these characters on a particularly dark mission through a Chaos stronghold, and Abnett throttles up the tension and brutality to the maximum, ensuring that the readers are strongly hooked on everything unfolding.  Watching the separated teams attempt to navigate through enemy territory leads to some dark and bloody sequences, and everything comes together in a brutal confrontation where all the characters get a moment to shine.  The invasion in the aftermath of this assault brings the entirety of The Guns of Tanith together in an outstanding way, as several major storylines are expertly and impressively resolved, often in ways that leave the characters even more damaged than when they started.  This is also a particularly shocking death of a major character that is guaranteed to move long-term readers of the series.  Abnett does a masterful job of setting this death up, including by showcasing several misleading near-misses, so you really don’t know who is going to live or die right up to the end.  His eventual choice is one designed to wound his readers, and you will have to come back to see how it impacts the rest of this series.  Overall, this was an extremely solid and impressive Gaunt’s Ghosts narrative, and I deeply enjoyed how Abnett continued and finalised some of the great character storylines from the previous books, while also providing the reader with more action and intrigue than they can handle.

As with most of the Gaunt’s Ghosts books, The Guns of Tanith is an open read to all those unfamiliar with the wider Warhammer 40,000 canon.  Abnett goes out of his way to make his books accessible for new readers, and he always provides enough detail and background so that anyone can catch up and enjoy the subsequent story.  However, for those fans more familiar with the Warhammer universe, there are always a ton of great elements or unique world building details that they will find particularly fascinating.  The new locations in The Guns of Tanith are pretty damn spiffing, and I had a lot of fun with the polluted planet, especially as it requires multiple arial sequences.  This is turn leads to the introduction of the Phantine XX Fighter Corps, who Abnett will go on to feature in his spin-off novel, Double Eagle, and it was fun to see how they get their start here.  For me, though, the best part of the universe expansion was Abnett’s in-depth look at the day-to-day life of the common soldier in the Imperial Guard.  While Abnett has always done a masterful job of capturing the footslogger experience in his novels, I felt that The Guns of Tanith was one of his best attempts to dive into the core of his beloved regiment.  Not only is there are lot of story focus on the various members and factions of the regiment, but Abnett also spent some time trying to explore the downtime and personal lives of the characters, and it was pretty intriguing to see the accompanying civilian baggage train of the regiment, which includes their families and other vital services.  I also personally loved the scenes that examined the problems associated with the Imperial bureaucracy as the Ghosts come up against their greatest enemy: bad paperwork.  Certain mistakes ensure that the Ghosts are left with minimal ammunition as the Departmento Munitorum orders the wrong power packs for their lasguns.  The following extended sequence which saw the regiment unable to fight effectively because their ammunition couldn’t fit their guns was an impressive part of the book and it definitely raised the stakes during the book’s introduction.

As usual, one of the major highlights of The Guns of Tanith is the amazing characters that the story focuses on, as Abnett once again fits a huge number of character-driven storylines into the book.  At this point in the series, Abnett has introduced a pretty substantial cast of characters, many of whom have ongoing storylines, and it is intriguing to see them unfold even further in The Guns of Tanith, especially as Abnett does a great job featuring most of them equally and then combining them into the larger narrative.  Many of the more intriguing character arcs in this book carry over from the previous novels and there are some great conclusions and expansions to them here that helps to improve the already great narrative of The Guns of Tanith.  At the same time, several new characters are introduced here or finally given prominence, and it was interesting to see how they fit into the already established character dynamics that Abnett has been building up.  The cohesiveness of the Ghosts as a regiment ends up becoming a huge fixture of this book as the Tanith-Verghastite divide is explored in greater detail by many of the characters.  It was fascinating to see how Abnett handled these character storylines in The Guns of Tanith, and several of them ended up being some of the best parts of the book.

As with most of the novels in the series, quite a lot of character focus goes towards the main protagonist, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, whose experiences as the commander of this unique regiment continue to trouble him in various ways.  In The Guns of Tanith, this takes the form of his apparent unconscious bias towards the Tanith elements of his regiment over the Verghastite recruits, which is showcased by his differing reactions during two court cases.  This results in several intense interactions between Gaunt and members of his team, which helped to showcase the protagonist’s idealism and a certain degree of naiveté when it comes to Imperial politics, both of which will cause him trouble in the future.  This is also an intriguing look at the issues caused by Gaunt holding the dual rank of Colonel and Commissar, which make him simultaneously a command officer and a political officer in charge of discipline.  This is the first time the duality of his roles has caused some major problems for him, and it was interesting to see several characters question him about it.  Watching Gaunt try to balance his various hats while also maintaining the respect of his men and his superiors makes this a rather compelling novel for Gaunt and I will be intrigued to see how this affects the character in the future.

While there is always a lot of focus on Gaunt, many of the other characters have big moments here, and it is always interesting to see which characters Abnett will focus on in each particular novel.  Firstly, this is one of the Gaunt’s Ghosts books where the major characters of Colm Corbec and Elim Rawne do not get a lot of focus, as Abnett sets them aside to make room for others.  Corbec is once again wounded early on in the plot to keeps him out of the action, while Rawne, after getting a good needling into Gaunt, is showcased as the senior commander, but that’s about it.  Instead, a lot of the focus goes towards some of the newer members of the cast, such as Gol Kolea, whose attempts to balance his complex family concerns leads only to tragedy and despair for him and the reader.  Cuu continues to be a menace, while surgeon Ana Curth acts as several character’s consciences throughout the book.  The previously overlooked but surprisingly lucky Bonin finally got some prominence in this novel, and I loved finding out how he survived Necropolis.  The newer characters of Commissar Hark and Captain Ban Daur also proved to be essential parts of the plot, and I am really glad that Abnett continued to utilise them, as they helped Gaunt see the errors of several decisions while simultaneously taking on some of Gaunt’s more unorthodox methods.  Members of the original Ghosts, such as Brin Milo, Larkin, Bragg and Mkoll all had good roles in The Guns of Tanith as well, and their balanced scenes showcased different triumphs and tragedies.  Finally, I was glad that Abnett decided to keep featuring the mysterious preacher, Ayatani Zweil, after his fun introduction in Honour Guard.  Zweil is an always entertaining yet serious figure, and it was great to see him knock some sense into several characters when they needed it.  I’m honestly only scratching the surface here, as a ton of other characters were well featured throughout The Guns of Tanith as Abnett continues to build and bring together his final cast of major characters.  Each of these amazing protagonists had some superb impacts on narrative of this novel, and I cannot wait to see how Abnett continues to develop them in the later books of the series.  I am assuming it is only a matter of time until more of the characters start to die, and I am sure that will break my heart just as much as the big death in The Guns of Tanith did.

Due to my love of the format, I of course listened to The Guns of Tanith on audiobook, which is easily the best way to enjoy any Warhammer book.  I have gone on a lot about the fantastic Gaunt’s Ghosts audiobooks in recent reviews, and The Guns of Tanith has all the same advantages, as one of my favourite audiobook narrators, Toby Longworth, brings the reader right into the heart of the action with his great voice work.  Every scene is masterfully showcased by his narration, and all the characters are brought to life thanks to the great voices he utilises for them.  Longworth really stretched himself when it came to accents in this latest novel, and he features a ton of great new voices, as well as the existing tones from the previous audiobooks, to bring this entire audiobook together.  With the standard runtime of just over 10 hours, The Guns of Tanith audiobook is a real snap to power through, and I honestly finished it off in only a few days.

Unsurprisingly, I absolutely loved the fifth entry in Dan Abnett’s exceptional Gaunt’s Ghosts books, The Guns of Tanith, which proved to be another powerful and enjoyable Warhammer 40,000 novel.  Filled with Abnett’s usual impressive battles, The Guns of Tanith also had a brilliant focus on characters-driven storylines that dominated most of the plot and kept the readers hooked the entire time.  An intense, addictive, and deeply personal Gaunt’s Ghosts books, The Guns of Tanith was pretty damn outstanding and I loved every second of it.

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