A round-up of recent crime fiction.
Mark McGinn
Merlot Publishing
Mark McGinn worked in the New Zealand court system for many years. This drives his crime writing and is reflected in his knowledge of court procedure.
His third novel, long-listed in the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards, for a change has a female as its central character. The story opens with defence lawyer Sasha Stace suffering a Pyrrhic victory when her, presumably guilty, client is found not guilty on a rape charge. Sasha’s life gets complicated when first she’s asked to investigate a charge of misconduct against a fellow lawyer. Then she’s offered a judgeship and, finally, the baby girl she gave up for adoption 30 years earlier shows up on her doorstep.
What follows is a twisting tale, somewhat stretched, of a challenged integrity.
Tess Gerritsen
Penguin Random House/Bantam Press
"She’s all plastic, from her face to her credit cards."
So says a funeral bystander in this, the 12th in the Detective Jane Rizzoli and Medical Examiner Maura Isles series of novels.
In this book the pair are called to a series of decidedly macabre murders: the first death is of a young woman found in bed with her eyes gouged out; the second is that of a man found dead with three arrows in his heart. Strangely, the arrows don’t appear to be what killed him and in neither case is the cause of death apparent.
There is one woman who can help both Rizzoli and Isles, but she knows the killer is coming for her next. And she has a secret she wants to keep.
This is a book not for the faint of heart, perhaps not surprising given author Tess Gerritsen is a retired physician.
Sarah Bailey
Allen & Unwin
The debut novel from Sarah Bailey, a Melbourne-based writer who has written a number of short stories and opinion pieces, is set in small-town Australia where everyone knows everyone. This extends to an adored and admired young teacher, Rosalind Ryan, who is found dead and surrounded by red roses at the edge of a lake. Assigned to the case is detective and ex-classmate Gemma Woodstock and her partner, Felix McKinnon.
Gemma knows more about the victim than she lets on and knows that if her superiors find out she’ll be off the case. That’s one complication. The others are she’s having an affair with partner Felix, who has a wife and three daughters, and also has a child and a man who wants to marry her.
Not only that, Gemma’s past still haunts her and her memories of a high school boyfriend’s suicide are stirred by the case. There are enough red herrings in this yarn to start a fish shop, but the story is bit too complex and drawn out to be entirely satisfying.
Sara Foster
Simon & Schuster
Did Arabella Lane jump or was she pushed? That’s the question being asked on the frigid winter’s morning following the office Christmas party, when Arabella, a senior executive at a children’s publisher, is found dead in the Thames.The one person who may be able to answer the question, is the newest employee at Parker and Lane, office temp Eleanor. The trouble is, during the party Arabella had slipped drugs into Eleanor’s drink and now the events of the evening are a black, blank hole accompanied by a massive hangover.
Eleanor urgently seeks answers to what happened that evening, as her present collides with her past. The events being mixed with flashbacks to the traumatic events of her Australian childhood.
All in all, a psychological whodunit that keeps the reader guessing.
Mark Brandi
Hachette New Zealand
Set in the late 1980s in Stawell, a town on the edge of Weemara, Australia, this tale evokes secrecy and tragedy, a dark world of child exploitation, grooming and predators, sparked when a 14-year-old girl is found hanging from a family’s backyard clothesline. In three parts, the novel opens with the childhood of friends Ben and Fab; the former is from a happy family, the latter the son of an Italian immigrant father, who is a drunken ne’er-do-well. Part two of the novel fast-forwards 20 years to find Fab stuck in the same town with a mindless job and his friendship with Ben disintegrated; he’s desperate to get away from the town and his past. In part three, Fab faces the truth, the consequences, the law and the damage.A thought-provoking read about dark, shadowy corners and spoilt lives, Wimmera won the British Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger award (for unpublished manuscripts).
Tom Wood
Hachette New Zealand
Book seven in the Victor the assassin series, The Final Hour follows A Time to Die, in which Victor met a female assassin named Raven, whom he poisoned after she tried to kill him.
The beginning of The Final Hour reveals that Raven survived and notes Victor told her she would live, but only if she was "strong enough". All Raven wants to do is quickly get well and back off the grid.
Victor, meanwhile, has become a target. Newly promoted Antonio Alvarez, a US intelligence agency official, finds himself in a position where he can track down his nemesis, Victor, who has successfully evaded authorities worldwide. However, Victor has vanished. He’s stopped working, started to care and made mistakes. He turns to Raven, the only person who can help him. Victor wants her to kill him.
Teamed up and with double the number of enemies, the action intensifies. Edge of the seat stuff.
- Ted Fox is an online marketing and social media consultant
