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'48

Karen Chisholm — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:25:22 +0000

In 1945, Hitler unleashed the Blood Death on Britain as his final act of vengeance.Those who died at once were the lucky ones. The really unfortunate took years. The survivors - people like me, who had the blood group that kept us safe from the disease - were now targets for those who believed our blood could save them.I survived for three years. I lived alone, spending my days avoiding the fascist Blackshirts who wanted my blood for their dying leader. Then I met the others - and life got complicated all over again . . .

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'Twixt Land and Sea

Karen Chisholm — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:20:37 +0000

In this collection, first published in 1912, Conrad has brought vividly to life the world of the sea and its adventurers. 'The only bond,' he wrote 'between these three stories is, so to speak, geographical, for their scene, be it land, be it sea, is situated in the same region which may be called the region of the Indian Ocean.'

The stories themselves are impressive examples of his shorter fiction : with their qualities of suspense and adventure, tragedy and romance, they evoke all the atmosphere of the Indies and the characters to be found there : the reprobate Jacobus and his castaway daughter Alice ; the young captain who, surprising by himself, takes on board a mysterious swimmer in the Gulf of Siam ; and in the last story, which one reader at the time said was so intolerably harrowing that Conrad had no right to publish it, he has created in Freya one of his most enduring and compelling heroines.

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Mon, 01/01/1912

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1.9.7 HAMBURG, Alexa Camouro

Karen Chisholm — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 04:03:06 +0000

A modern day industrial espionage tale, 1.9.7 HAMBURG, the debut novel from Alex Camouro is a very brave undertaking. Moving backwards and forwards in time in chapter jumps, it tells the story of much of Dixon Grace's past life as well as present circumstances. As befits the situation she finds herself in Germany, everything about Grace is complicated - her name, her ethnic background, her family, her current situation, the investigation she's involved in, her love life. Everything.

Part of the braveness of this novel is what seems to be the intentional use of complication. There's very little in this book that's straightforward. Fortunately it did work as quite a strong hook, as the complication, even when it contributes to a bit of confusion on the part of the reader, manages to hold the reader's attention - provided the reader is comfortable with being confused.

The downside, however, of the frequent confusion is that there are points when the pace lags - either because of all that darting backwards and forwards, or genuinely because nothing actually seems to be happening. The ability to stick with those parts of the narrative might have a lot to do with a reader's connection with Dixon Grace.

The viewpoint of the entire novel is that of Dixon Grace's. There are other characters moving in and out of the storyline, and whilst many of these are a standout (Grace's grandmother for example), they are ultimately less well formed and out of focus. And therein lies another problem - if you don't like Dixon Grace then just about everything else here is going to jar. Even if you struggle a bit with her, then the confusion is likely to be annoying. If the confusion is driving you bats, then Grace is going to be profoundly irritating. It's very much an all or nothing type of book.

Which gets you back to the braveness of the undertaking. One of the strengths and weaknesses of 1.9.7 HAMBURG is difference. This isn't a crime / solution style of novel. It's not straight-forward and it's not built around likeable or even easily understandable characters. It's not about resolution either. Whilst for this reader, despite a somewhat ambivalent attitude to Grace, and some profound confusion at points, that lack of resolution and the non-straightforward nature of the entire novel worked. It might not have made for comfort reading, and there were times when I was obsessed with desire for something, anything to happen. But never once did I feel like throwing in the towel on it. Which in itself was rather intriguing.

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Alexa Camouro

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Crime Fiction

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Dixon Grace: 1.9.7 Hamburg

Dixon's European sojourn goes awry when she's arrested for corporate espionage. She's just an innocent Australian teacher working abroad. Or is she? For Dixon, it's a matter of wrong place, wrong time. The investigating officers are convinced she's stolen the navigation and guidance technology from the plane manufacturer Flussair, and that she's behind the murder of a top-ranking executive. All the evidence points to her, but she insists it's all a misunderstanding. She breaks out of custody in order to prove her innocence. But there are sinister elements at every turn, including a rising Indian corporation called Nayakall, a people-smuggling prostitution ring in Hamburg, a language school up to no good and a boyfriend with a dark secret. Who can Dixon trust? Will she get out of Hamburg alive?

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Alexa Camouro

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Tue, 01/10/2013

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12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas

Karen Chisholm — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 01:25:38 +0000

All Olivia wanted was one last miserable Christmas with her husband’s awful family before moving to Australia. She didn’t expect a murder.

Now the snow has cut them off and she’s stuck in a stately country house, with her increasingly deranged relatives and the rising suspicion that someone is picking them off one by one.

As the bodies pile up and the festive façade starts to crack, Olivia must survive the season, or, at the very least, get through lunch without anyone else choking on a sprout.

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1222

Karen Chisholm — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 06:46:31 +0000

1222 metres above sea level, train 601 from Oslo to Bergen careens off iced rails as the worst snowstorm in Norwegian history gathers force around it. Marooned in the high mountains with night falling and the temperature plummeting, its 269 passengers are forced to abandon their snowbound train and decamp to a centuries-old mountain hotel. They ought to be safe from the storm here, but as dawn breaks one of them will be found dead, murdered.

1222, Anne Holt

Take one gloriously grumpy central protagonist, add that train crash, include a massive snowstorm cutting off a train full of people 1222 metres above sea level in an inaccessible hotel, add a mysterious locked carriage and a group of shadowy unknown passengers, then kill off a high-profile passenger and see what happens.

What happens is that our grumpy protagonist, Hanne Wilhemlsen, ex-police officer, in a wheelchair as a result of being shot on duty, has to work out what is going on before the body count continues to increase. With no official help from the outside, and way too much interfering help on the inside, Hanne and a small group of trusted people - some passengers, some staff, some locals, need to work out who wanted to kill off a seemingly harmless, albeit annoying, priest. And the killing doesn't stop there.

Of course this plot has more than a hat-tip to a few perennial favourite devices - a closed room setting, albeit a biggish closed room in this example. This is a very large, rather luxurious resort, capable of taking in 269 or so people at a moment's notice. Then there's the idea of the thinking, observational detective - in this case enforced because of physical restrictions, there's something vaguely reminiscent of Nero Wolfe or Hercule Poriot about Hanne, although her Archie / Hastings is embodied in more than one person in 1222.

There is a large potential cast of passengers, staff and local helpers so it's just possible that the concept of a resort (that's further divided after a particular storm event) could be what makes the action being centred around a very small group of people feasible. Despite this, there was more than one point where I did wonder where everybody else was hiding - 269 plus people not being a small number after all. Add to that the secretive sub-thread about the mysterious closed off carriage, and you couldn't help wondering what was going on behind closed doors, besides the murder plotting of course!

That secretive sub-thread is probably the only part of the book that simply flat-out, doesn't work. This reader had to assume that perhaps the closed carriage was there as a bit of a hap-tip to the classic red-herring (being another perennial favourite), but to be honest, it didn't work as a red-herring throughout the book and the resolution... well it was just pointless.

Ignoring that bit of off-kilter action, the rest of the book was really good. I really like Hanne (and not just because I like grumpy protagonists!), and the use of the setting to provide a closed off, claustrophobic environment along with a sense of potential threat worked. There was a good cast of supporting characters, some nice touches of humour and good pace, and for readers who like to work out the whodonnit aspects, the author has played pretty fair - you've got a good chance of sorting it out, although you will be waiting until the last minute to get your deductions confirmed.

After a bit of a look around it seems that, in that delightful habit publishers have designed to drive readers mildly bats, 1222 is the eighth Hanne Wilhelmsen novel, but the first to be translated into English. Hopefully we'll get the rest of the series "toots sweet". In the right order would be greatly appreciated.

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1222, Anne Holt

Karen Chisholm — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 07:50:19 +0000

Author:

Anne Holt

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Crime Fiction

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1222

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Anne Holt

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Marlaine Delargy

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Tue, 01/12/2020

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13 Shots of Noir

Karen Chisholm — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:58:36 +0000

English writer Paul D Brazill's 13 Shots Of Noir is a collection of short stories in the vein of Roald Dahl, The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The first story, "The Tut", was nominated for a 2010 Spinetingler Award, while the story "Anger Management" was chosen as one of the Predators and Editors top twenty crime stories.

13 Shots of Noir, Paul D. Brazill

Dark, funny, dark, clever, funny, dark and absolutely brilliant, 13 SHOTS OF NOIR is a short story collection blurbed as in the "vein of Roald Dahl". I need to go back and read Dahl. Unless Brazill's got more of these collections.

Short, sharp and lyrical, these are dark dark dark little morsels, gloriously British in feel, funny where required, poignant where appropriate. Cleverly balanced between sharply observant and a bit of sly commentary on the "human condition", there's really not a bad one in the bunch here. It made me laugh, and made me think all at the same time. Which makes it perfect reading.

Every now and then the universe sneaks up and smacks you very hard around the head and shoulders until you pay attention to that which is being waved right in front of your nose. If this happens to you, and it is 13 SHOTS OF NOIR wafting in and out of your slightly blurred vision, then take the bloody hint.

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Sat, 19/11/2011

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9781611871807

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13 Shots of Noir, Paul D. Brazill

Karen Chisholm — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 07:03:07 +0000

Author:

Paul D. Brazill

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Crime Fiction

13 Shots of Noir

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Paul D. Brazill

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Sat, 19/11/2011

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9781611871807

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13-Point Plan for a Perfect Murder

Karen Chisholm — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 03:18:04 +0000

TASMANIA'S rise and rise as a tourist destination makes the island an ideal location for the cashed-up international polo-set, jetting in from Europe, Buenos Aires, Shanghai and LA for their late summer carnival and relaxathon in the world's latest clean-green hotspot. They play fiercely and party hard at the swish Polo Palace, built near beautiful beaches through the largesse of an island-loving polo-mad billionaire Bahraini businessman.

So when this idyll is gruesomely interrupted by the murder of Sebastian Wicken, a dashing and wealthy Englishman famous for wielding his stick and ball. Pufferfish, aka seasoned Detective Inspector Franz Heineken of the Tasmanian Police Force, is called to investigate.

13-Point Plan For a Perfect Murder, David Owen

Pufferfish is one of my all time favourite Australian Crime Fiction identities. He's taciturn, reticent and often recalcitrant. He's frequently obtuse, often slightly grumpy, addicted to strong espresso and liquorice all-sorts and finally, he's back. No matter how many of these books are written, it's always going to be way too long between visits with DI Franz Heineken, his offsiders Rafe and Faye and the brief glimpses of glorious Tasmanian locations.

In order to get this series readers will need to love dry, wicked humour with a dose of tongue firmly placed in cheek. Sort of. Owen is an author who is not above a little go at just about everybody via our beloved and tricky Pufferfish. Even his own, where a hapless professional development course in which a lone blowfly is considerably more appealing than yet another Powerpoint slide, includes a lovely dig:

Our PD man further averred that the enduring popularity of the genre sends inappropriate messages about policing's reality, the public gulled into assuming that being a cop is a glossy gun-and-capspray-on-hip caper with no need for more government funding, and he singled out the absurdity of the dramatic insistence that there must be a dead body in the first chapter or before the first ad break, and he further said that while crime fiction readers are innocent fools and can therefore be forgiven, its authors, by peddling and profiting off their deliberate distortions and falsehoods, should themselves be treated as criminals, and he quoted S.18 C of the IGGA, the Ill-Gotten Gains Act, to prove his point.

Oh Pufferfish, if being at one with the sort of character that quotes such bitterness is a fool's game, it's one worth playing :)

But then that's the point of Pufferfish. He grumps and mumbles his way through the excesses of the worst and highest of society in his books. In 13-POINT PLAN these class distinctions collide in a most unpleasant manner - what with the murder of a posh, wealthy English polo player, at the feet of the rotting, and somewhat Tasmanian Tiger mangled corpse of a local, recently released from prison, criminal. How these two deaths are connected, if the crime scene is to be believed becomes foremost in Pufferfish's mind. As does the need to understand why Rafe's taken to wearing skinny leather ties, why his ex-girlfriend is back in town and what current paramour Hedda's going to make of that, and when he is ever likely to cut a break when it comes to bosses.

Part of the sheer joy of these books is obviously Pufferfish himself. A man with a chequered background he's not so much hiding out deep in the Tasmanian Police Force as he is immersed. He's not exactly unlucky in love, but he certainly makes it hard for himself sometimes. He's a good boss, provided his colleagues don't mind the occasional outburst, and that habit of drinking espresso and eating liquorice all-sorts is enough to make a reader vaguely queasy. This whole series is part sheer enjoyment, part laugh out loud, and part serious detecting with some particularly horrible criminals to be tracked down. In this outing the family connections of both victims play and interesting part in the entire story, with Pufferfish and his team moving between the two different worlds seamlessly for them, creating all sorts of dangerous rips for others.

If you've not caught up with the earlier books in the Pufferfish series (and seriously why the hell not!) the earlier ones might now be a a challenge to find (Pig's Head - 1994, Z and Y - 1995, A Second Hand - 1995 and The Devil Taker - 1997), but the more recent ones from 2011 No Weather for a Burial and How the Dead See should be around. If access is an issue then start wherever you can - you'll get enough of the background to DI Franz Heineken, his team, his bosses, and his Tasmania to feel right at home.

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13-Point Plan For a Perfect Murder, David Owen

Karen Chisholm — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 03:20:33 +0000

Our PD man further averred that the enduring popularity of the genre sends inappropriate messages about policing's reality, the public gulled into assuming that being a cop is a glossy gun-and-capspray-on-hip caper with no need for more government funding, and he singled out the absurdity of the dramatic insistence that there must be a dead body in the first chapter or before the first ad break, and he further said that while crime fiction readers are innocent fools and can therefore be forgiven, its authors, by peddling and profiting off their deliberate distortions and falsehoods, should themselves be treated as criminals, and he quoted S.18 C of the IGGA, the Ill-Gotten Gains Act, to prove his point.

Oh Pufferfish, if being at one with the sort of character that quotes such bitterness is a fool's game, it's one worth playing :)

Author:

David Owen

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I received a copy of this book from the Author

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Crime Fiction

#AusCrime