Tag Archives: book review

Review: What Came Before

Posted on 12/07/2014 by Angela Savage

“My name is David James Forrester. I’m a solicitor. Tonight, at 6.10, I killed my wife. This is my statement.” So opens Anna George’s debut novel, What Came Before. The story is narrated alternatively by David, Elle — his wife … Continue reading →

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Review: A Morbid Habit

Posted on 21/06/2014 by Angela Savage

A Morbid Habit is the third novel in Annie Hauxwell’s Catherine Berlin series and to my mind, it’s her best yet. Set mostly in Russia, A Morbid Habit is as bleak and dark as a Moscow winter. The plot is satisfyingly complex, the suspense … Continue reading →

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Review: Sweet One

Posted on 29/05/2014 by Angela Savage

Sweet One is a powerful novel that depicts white Australia’s conflict with black Australia as a frontier war that has never ended, at the same time daring to imagine a day when it might. Set in the Western Australian goldfields, … Continue reading →

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Review: Through the Cracks

Posted on 10/05/2014 by Angela Savage

I make no secret of being a big fan of Australian writer Honey Brown’s work and her new novel, Through the Cracks, may well be her best. The novel’s opening jolts the reader like a slap in the face, occurring at the moment … Continue reading →

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Review: Dog Will Have His Day

Posted on 29/04/2014 by Angela Savage

In Dog Will Have His Day, set in France in 1995, Fred Vargas has produced a deliciously off-beat novel that delivers on suspense while also being a pleasure to read. Much about Dog Will Have His Day is slightly off-centre, including our first glimpse of the central character, Louis/Ludwig Kehlweiler, through the … Continue reading →

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Review: Beams Falling

Posted on 26/03/2014 by Angela Savage

Beams Falling by PM Newton is a powerful book that explores trauma and its legacy in the guise of a police procedural. The central character is Detective Nhu ‘Ned’ Kelly, the child of an Anglo-Australian veteran and his Vietnamese wife who were killed in front … Continue reading →

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Review: Holiday in Cambodia

Posted on 02/03/2014 by Angela Savage

I started this year with a plan for this blog. Each month, I was going to post, in sequence: an update on my writing, an article inspired by my reading, a review of someone else’s book, and a post about … Continue reading →

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Review: The Lost Girls

Posted on 25/02/2014 by Angela Savage

With The Lost Girls, Wendy James has produced a cleverly plotted, eloquently written page-turner that shores up her status as Australia’s queen of the domestic thriller. I wouldn’t normally associate the word ‘domestic’ with anything thrilling. But James has a special talent for depicting … Continue reading →

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Review: Sightseeing

Posted on 10/02/2014 by Angela Savage

As I’m always on the lookout for books by Thai writers available in English, I can’t believe it has taken me all this time to discover Sightseeing, Rattawut Lapcharoensap’s award-winning short story collection first published in 2005. I chanced upon a hardcover … Continue reading →

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From the vault: Birth Marks by Sarah Dunant

Posted on 02/02/2014 by Angela Savage

I came to Sarah Dunant’s 1991 novel Birth Marks via an interest in stories about — Actually, I can’t disclose what drew me to Birth Marks without spoiling the plot. Suffice it to say, I’m glad I found my way to this terrific … Continue reading →

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