Robert Goodman: Hi, and welcome to Crime Fiction Down Under, where we review and discuss the latest in Australian crime fiction releases and crime fiction news and give you some recommendations from the wider world of crime fiction. I'm Robert Goodman. I review books for Power by the Bed and was a longtime judge of the Australian Crime Writers Association, Ned Kelly Awards. And joining me is my co-host Jackie Horwood, library nerd, reader, writer, former Ned Kelly Judge for the Australian Crime Writers Association, and former convener for the Sisters in Crime Australia David Awards. Hi, Jackie.
Jacqui: Hi Robert. It's great to be back for episode two, the slightly less awkward episode two. Thanks to everyone who listened and I'm glad you've all come back for round two. What are we we reviewing this time, Robert?
Robert Goodman: I'm gonna be going to Sydney's King's Cross to talk about Joanne Jenkins' new novel, Bad Neighbours.
Jacqui: Yeah, we've all had a few of those.
Robert Goodman: And and you're headed to the misty Scottish Highlands to review Laura McCluskey's latest book, not at all ominously called The Cursed Road.
Jacqui: Yes. And we have quite a bit of awards news this week as well and plenty of books to talk about. So let's get into it.
Robert Goodman: Joanna Jenkins grew up in rural Queensland, where she went on to study English literature and law and then went to work as a lawyer, including for many years as a partner in an international law firm. So I guess for those who knew her, it came as no surprise when she turned out her first novel, and it was a crime novel, set in Queensland, featuring a female partner in a major law firm, and was called How to Kill a Client. That Deboo novel was shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly Deboo Award and the Bad Danger Prize Debut Award back in 2023. How to kill a client introduce readers to lawyer and part-time sleuth Ruth Dawson. In that book, Ruth is sent from Sydney to the Queensland office. We talked last week about the fact that there are not a lot of Australian political thrillers. Well, equally, we don't really punch above our weight on legal or courtroom thrillers either. So it was refreshing to find a book sent in the offices of a major law firm. That book dug deeply into issues around corporate culture. And particularly the gender politics at play at the big end of town, and it felt very much drawn from experience. Jenkins followed up How to Kill a Client with a book called The Bluff, which took Ruth Dawson to the country where she spent some time running a country solicitor's office. Once again, there's a murder, and once again, Ruth is put in a position where she needs to help solve it. As with her debut, Jenkins used the action to shine a light on broader issues, including whitewashing of history, institutional racism, and a poke at the wellness industry. And As we mentioned last week, the bluff has been shortlisted for the best crime fiction in this year's Sisters in Crime David Awards. you've read How to Kill a Client, Jackie?
Jacqui: I have, so I'll be interested to hear about this new one.
Robert Goodman: this is the third Ruth Dawson, dare I say, adventure. and it's called Bad Neighbors. Bad Neighbors finds Ruth returning to Sydney and once again taking up as a high-flying corporate lawyer, doing work for her old friend, whose nickname is Crack, which is short for Caroline Rackerman. Crack works
Jacqui: good one.
Robert Goodman: for one of the big banks. and it seems her bank has possibly been involved in some dodgy property deals, and she wants Ruth and her team to look into that. Ruth has only just come back to Sydney, and one of her juniors, Sylvia, suggests that she looks at an apartment that's come up for sale in her building. That building is called the Lumen, and it's an art deco block in Sydney's King's Cross, which seems to have fallen a little on hard times. Despite its kind of run-down grandeur, Ruth is enchanted by the flat, which has a lot of charm and it has harbor glimpses. But it's unfortunately after Ruth moves into the Lumen that her troubles start. Bad Neighbours is structured very much in the same way as Schenken's previous two books. The book opens with the discovery of a murder, then rewinds a few months to introduce a large cast of characters and set up their relationships and gives you the idea that any of them could be a suspect, and then gets on with the business of the aftermath of the murder.
Jacqui: Mm. So who is the victim in this one?
Robert Goodman: the victim is a young man called Ben, who's homeless and has been living in a shed at the back of the building. He was given the keys to the shed by Zara, who is one of the other residents. She's a fading starlet whose heyday was in the 70s, it seems that Ben used to live in the building with his father, but when his father died, he was turned out and the flat was sold to pay his father's debts. And the flat is now being run as an Airbnb. Marshall the Chagrin of the other residents of the building.
Jacqui: I remember from the first one, Jenkins has a large number of different points of view characters. Is that also the case in this one?
Robert Goodman: yeah, there are a lot of characters in Bad Neighbours, which is sort of a good and a bad thing, I guess. Jenkins fleshes out the lives of pretty much all the other residents of the building. the nice thing is they're an odd assortment and they're all very recognizable Sydney types. So there's Zara, who I mentioned before. She rents out her spare room to Ruth's staff member Sylvia and is a little bit hard up, so she does the cleaning for a lot of the other
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: residents in the building, which allows her to go in and out of their apartments. there's Stella, who A lot of people recognize as the strict head of the owners committee and doesn't take any nonsense. Lucas, who's a reclusive video game designer. Lawrence and Humphrey, who are an elderly couple who are keen to get into everybody else's business. And then there's a penthouse on the top of the Lumen, which is owned by Andrew. and he has a trophy wife, called Silva. both of Andrew and Silver get point of view chapters. so there are lots of colorful characters to keep track of. but as with the other two books, Ruth is very much at the center of both the story and the action.
Jacqui: So she gets into the investigating then.
Robert Goodman: Yeah, as with both other books, she quickly decides that the police aren't doing a good enough job and that she probably needs to start investigating. only it's really the residents of the building who are the other suspects. And she also finds herself implicated as a possible suspect, and that has flown impacts on her job, to the point where she actually ends up having to solve the crime to clear her name and save her job. I think one of the things I like about that aspect of the book is that one of the reasons why the police suspect Ruth is because of her history of being involved with murder. She's always seems to be around murders. So that makes her a suspect in the police's eyes. which is, I think it's a good lampshading moment because it answers the question we always want to ask about amateur detectives, you know, why are they always around murders and why doesn't anyone suspect them if there are all these murders happening around them? So it was kind of a nice aspect of the novel, but it also puts Ruth pretty much in the frame and and forces her to solve the crime in order to clear her name.
Jacqui: you said you liked the book because it was very Sydney. What do you mean by that?
Robert Goodman: Bad Neighbours is set in Sydney's King's Cross. For those who don't know it, the Cross was, and I guess still is to an extent, Sydney's Red Light District. It has a long history associated with crime and drugs and prostitution from the razor gangs of the 1920s, and made famous by a book, an autobiography of one of the criminal figures, I guess, of the cross, John Ibrahim, called The Last King of the Cross, which is not to be confused with Mark Dappan's novel, Kings of the Cross, which which was a great novel that explored 40 years of King's Cross criminal history, and actually won an Ed Kelly Award for Deboo in 2015. but besides this, the the King's Cross was also a bohemian part of Sydney. It's full of Art Deco buildings. it has a very Bohemian history, and Bad Neighbours leans more into this aspect than its criminal past. but also, as with the previous books, Jenkins uses the action to explore some very Sydney concerns. I guess they're also universal concerns, but the very Sydney concerns which are around property, living in apartments and renovation. So, there's the basic issue of living in an apartment block where decisions have to be made collectively and where everybody is potentially in everybody else's business. there's how those relationships are thrown askew when some of those apartments are used as short term rentals for Airbnb. there's our fascination with renovation. one of the subplots involves the penthouse being renovated and the pressure that puts on the building and the relationships within the building. and there are a whole lot of threads in the novel around new development, about property skullduggery and corruption.
Jacqui: So typical Sydney dinner party conversation topics then. Although to be fair, pretty Melbourne as well.
Robert Goodman: Absolute. Well, as I say, they're very they're quite universal, but they're very, very Sydney. I think you don't go to a Sydney dinner
Jacqui: Turn.
Robert Goodman: party where people aren't talking about property at some point in time. but for those who are interested in the sedia side of the history of King's Cross, I also want to mention Natalie Conya's latest novel, Finding the Bones. this one came out earlier this year and is set in King's Cross. It's based on A notorious case from the 1970s, which was the disappearance of Juita Nielsen. Although Conya moves the history of the action to the 1980s, and the plot involves action in the 1980s and then action in the present. Conya gives a colourful portrait of King's Cross in the 80s, which explores both its criminal and its bohemian sides. like the Mark Smith book you talked about last in our last episode, both Jenkins and Cony are. use Sydney really well. they both send their investigators around the city to different suburbs and they capture the the essence of those suburbs and name drop, you know, real pubs and eateries. So Bad Neighbors is kind of like the full Sydney package. It's a great mystery. It's full of really interesting characters and it's a lot of fun.
Jacqui: good, sounds great. If you I haven't read it, but Fiona McGregor's book Iris looks at that world, that Sydney world during the nineteen thirties. So if you want a more historical take on that city side of Sydney, that that's a great book to start with. But yeah, as I said, I've read Jenkins' first novel. I haven't read The Bluff, so I have a bit of a catching up to do 'cause that one sounds really good. Thank you, Robert. Thanks for that. As I mentioned in our last episode, I had reserved The Cursed Road by Laura McCluskey at my local library. So that's what I'm covering. The Cursed Road follows on from last year's The Wolf Tree, which was McCluskey's debut, and this book won the 2026 CWA John Creasey dagger for the best debut novel. McCluskey is a Melbourne-based writer, and she's set her two books, in Scotland.
Robert Goodman: had you read the Wolf Tree, Jackie?
Jacqui: No, unfortunately I hadn't.
Robert Goodman: but you felt okay reading this one as a standalone?
Jacqui: Yeah, look, it would have been better to read the books in order, but the Curse Road can definitely be read alone. There's enough backstory given to you as a new reader that you can you can catch on to what happened in the first book. Not all the fine details, but the basic details so that you can keep reading. So the events of the Wolf Tree have had long-lasting impacts on our two main protagonists, Detective Inspectors Georgina Lennox, George, and Richard Stewart, Richie. They're workmates. George is in her 30s and Richie's older and a bit more of a mentor. So, in the wake of that last book and the events of that last book, George is now in therapy and she's addressed her prescription pill issue, which I gather was a bit of an issue in the first book. Her relationship with Richie, however, has fractured. Their boss is worried about Richie. He's not himself, and there's been complaints about his behaviour. He's been irritable, he's been aggressive, complete opposite to his normal, quite patient self. So their boss gives them a new case to work on and asks George to keep an eye on Richie. The new case takes them to the Scottish Highlands to a small town called Kircree. The body of a young woman who's been shot by a rifle has been found in an isolated country road outside of Kirk Cree. And that the type of rifle used is one that could be used in deer hunting, and that will make sense as I go. We meet the young woman briefly in the opening chapter where she is escaping from someone and or something, and we follow her in her attempted escape. when the woman's found, she's found with another woman's name scratched on her forearm. And the name is Cara Reed, and this is a young woman who's been missing for ten years. And it's a case that Richie had originally worked on and not solved, but has kept tabs on. And he's kept you know, annually he'll visit the relatives of Cara to see how they're doing and give them an update.
Robert Goodman: So so we know Kara, but we don't know who this young woman is. She's just the subject of a of a cold open of someone in distress.
Jacqui: Yeah, yeah. Essentially George and Richie need to uncover the identity of the young woman, find the killer, and find what the links are to Cara Reed. So in the meantime, we have Warring Neighbours, who I'll discuss later, a local sex offender, and the simmering tensions between George and Richie. And Dogging George is a persistent journalist, Henry Shaw, who wants an exclusive with her on the events of the Wolf Tree. This book is infused with gothic overtones, local myths and legends, which make it for a very creepy read. The road where the woman's body is found is locally known as the Cursed Road, thus the title. The book also uses the Gaelic version of this name, but I am not going to attempt to say it and to pronounce it. The story behind the name is that there were two older, wealthier families, the Fairgreaves and the Grants, who lived for hundreds of years on either side of the road. There was a falling out somewhere along the line which led to all sorts of troubles. To try and fix things, one of the Fairgreaves men proposed he would marry one of the Grant women, Edith. On the day of the wedding, a fight erupted and the Fargreaves killed everyone in the Grant family except Edith.
Robert Goodman: Sounds sounds very red wedding.
Jacqui: Mm-hmm. Bit of a recurring story, yeah. Anyway, the township cursed the Fairgreaves and have avoided them ever since. And there are stories of the ghost of Edith wandering along the road as well. The Fairgreaves still live on their property in a once grand house that is crumbling around their ears and includes a crypt where forebears have been buried. And you know, Robert, if a crypt is mentioned at the start of a book, you know you're gonna find out about it later on in the book. Their overbearing patriarch obsessed with the family regaining its status and maintaining its lineage, his three sons and a very snarky daughter-in-law. They're all very strange, but what role do they play in the death of this young woman? The property, once owned by the grants, is now owned by a wealthy, arrogant couple who run deer hunting tours on their grounds. They've had issues with anti-animal cruelty groups and also with the fairgreaves. They're quick to threaten legal ramifications at the sign of any troubles. And it does give rise to the question whether the victim was shot by one of their deer hunting clients by mistakes mistake and they're trying to cover things up. In the midst of this, there's also a local sex offender who's been released and reappears in Kirkree. He's now working with the grants. So is he resuming his old habits?
Robert Goodman: Sounds like a lot going on. I do like the idea of Chekhov's crypt though for Gothic Mysteries. so
Jacqui: Ha ha ha.
Robert Goodman: there are a lot of characters here. Do we see all this from George Ann Ritchie's perspective? Are there multiple points of view?
Jacqui: This is all George's story, though it's all her from her perspective. and the fantastic element of this book is the way McCluske brings us George and Richie's relationship through George's eyes, particularly George recognising that Richie needs help and h doesn't know how to ask for it. It's not an easy road for either of them, but the journey is finally wrought by McCluskey. It's really well done.
Robert Goodman: And I guess like a lot of Australian raw crime, we're getting it sounds like the landscape plays a big role in
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: in the story.
Jacqui: Yeah, it does. It plays a huge role in the book. McCluskey really delivers on that really creepy gothic ha atmosphere. Like Cold River, the Margaret Hickey book that we discussed last time, and with Jane Harper's books, I think particularly The Lost Man, which is really atmospheric, although set, you know, in a in a desert location, the landscape becomes a foreboding character in the book. McCluskey beautifully describes the the highlands and the land around Kirkeree and gives it that gothic feel. Let's talk of ghosts and boogeymen, of vines and dark bushes. It's all very claustrophobic to read.
Robert Goodman: There are there are a few Australian crime writers delivering kind of landscape-driven books set in other parts
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: of the world. I'm thinking of authors like Derville McTannon, who sets her Cormac Riley series in Ireland,
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: and Matt Francis, who sets his Murder in the Pacific series in a very different part of the world in Vanuatu. And then of course locally we've got Chris Hammer who does landscape really well
Jacqui: Yeah.
Robert Goodman: thanks, Jackie. And finally, for those collecting great names for crime sub subgenres, something we should have mentioned last week is that this strain of dark Scottish crime fiction is often referred to as tartan noir, which is a term I absolutely love.
Jacqui: Yeah. I I don't know, I think it's a bit more tart and gothic, but yeah, I love Tartan Noir. I'm very partial to Scottish crime writers. I I just love that black humour.
Robert Goodman: So now it's time for our crime fiction news and awards. We've just had the Thiekston's Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in England. This one builds itself as the world's longest running and most prestigious celebration of crime writing. it's in Harrogate. and they of course hand out some crime awards for writers from the UK and Ireland. And their McDermott Award for Best Taboo this year went to Francis Crawford's A Bad Bad Place, which was the book you recommended last week, Jackie.
Jacqui: Yeah. That festival, apart from having it the best festival name of all time, is on my retirement bucket list. I would love to go. we have also seen the Niomarsh Awards best novel long list as well, and that's the the New Zealand Crime Writing Awards. So there's twelve New Zealand crime novels that run the Gamut from Dark to Crazy. There's twelve titles. We're not going to read them out, are we, Robert? But I think you'll find the Nio Marsh Awards on Facebook. Is that right, Facebook?
Robert Goodman: Yeah, Facebook. The the
Jacqui: An Instagram?
Robert Goodman: the list is on Facebook and on Instagram. NIO, for those
Jacqui: Yeah, so you can look it up.
Robert Goodman: who need to know, is spelt N-G-A-I-O.
Jacqui: Yes, and she was one of the golden age mystery writers along with Agatha Christie and a few other people. So have you read any of the of the list?
Robert Goodman: I haven't read all the books on the list, but those that I have read are really great reads. I can absolutely recommend Tom Baraguanath's Lucky Thing, which is a sequel to his award-winning debut Paper Cage. I can definitely recommend Carved in Blood, which is the third book in Michael Bennett's fabulous Auckland-based series featuring Maori policewoman Hannah Westerman, which is also a series that's been garnering lots of awards and short lists. and there's also a really great debut called Softly Calls the Devil by Chris Blake, which is a dark regional crime
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: novel set in the very south of New Zealand. And while it's not my favorite of these, I know a lot of people loved the book A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan, which has a bit of a nostalgic glow of family holidays in the nineteen eighties and is narrated by a precocious ten-year-old. have you read any of them, Jackie?
Jacqui: I've only read one. I've read Amanda Hampson's The Deadly Dispute, which is part of her Tea Ladies series, which I love. They're always great reads. But the exciting news for the week for us is the release of the Ned Kelly Awards Best Debut Shortlist. Now this is an award that both of us have judged in the past.
Robert Goodman: Yeah, it's probably my favorite award when I judged because it gave us a chance to identify some really amazing crime writers right at the beginning of their careers. And also just selfishly, the number of books you had to read for that category was always a lot less than the best crime fiction category. I think this year the best crime fiction character category had over 80 entries, but the best taboo only gets around 25 to 30, which is
Jacqui: Mm, yeah.
Robert Goodman: feels a bit manageable when you're a when you're in a literary judge. but the Ned Kelly Awards in its 30 year history has been pretty successful in picking winners of this. Category. And I mean, I have to say, I'm proud to say I was on the Debut judging panel back in 2014 when Candace Fox won for her debut Hades.
Jacqui: Yeah, and what a career she's had since then. She's done it amazingly, Candace. Some of the other authors that have won this award include Peter Temple, way back in nineteen ninety-seven, one of my favourite writers. Alan Carter, a good mate of ours, Andrew McGahn, was that The Last Drinks? That one, the Andrew McGahn one.
Robert Goodman: I think so.
Jacqui: Yeah, I love that book. Malcolm Knox, Jane Harper, Sarah Bailey, Jock Sarong, Emma Viskich, and Derv La Tienen, just to name a few.
Robert Goodman: so who's made this year's list?
Jacqui: Right, this year's Ned Kelly Debut crime fiction shortlist is In Bloom by Liz Allen, The Butterfly Women by Madeline Cleary, The Peak by Sam Guthrie, Malaluca by Angie Fay Martin, The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey, and Wykomest by Alexandra Strenad. This is an incredibly strong field. Many of these authors and titles have been recognised elsewhere. Liz Allen was recognised as an observer best debut novelist this year. Malalucka won the Australian Book Industry Award this year for Best Debut. We talked about the Wolf Tree winning the British Crime Writers Association debut Dagger last time, and that the peak had been shortlisted for that award as well. The Butterfly Women has also been shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards this year. And while What the Wycomist is Alexandra Strenard's debut novel, she's also a poet who has won awards for her poetry. So I imagine the discussion in that judge's panel would have been pretty intense.
Robert Goodman: Yeah, I I haven't read The Wycomist, but it's been written by Poet, which is always actually a green flag for me. I I kind of love it when poets write
Jacqui: Mm-hmm.
Robert Goodman: fiction because they have that sensibility about them. this one's been described by the publisher as Saltburn meets American psycho. I don't know how you go past that. So I'm gonna see if I can add it to my pile.
Jacqui: Sounds just up your alley.
Robert Goodman: Ha ha.
Jacqui: The Ned Kelly Awards will be announced later in September and there'll be announcement events at selected bookshops in most capital cities. So put that in your diaries and we will give you more details closer to the time. Last week we mentioned the David Awards shortlist for best crime novel by an Australian female writer. This award's run by Sisters in Crime Australia. And if you've wanna go to the awards night, head off to sistersandcrime.org.au to book tickets. The awards evening is held in Melbourne and it'll be on the 12th of September. It's always heaps of fun. There are always writers, you know, you'll find your favourite writers there. I sat on a table one year, Robert, with Val McDermott. I didn't say a lot to her, but I was in her presence. This year the awards are being presented by Derville McTiernan, one of our faves, and hosted by journalist and writer Louise Milligan. And speaking of Sisters and Crime, for all the aspiring crime writing women out there, you have about a week to go before entries close for this year's Scarlet Stiletto Awards. These awards are for short stories with a crime theme and a female protagonist and written by a woman. So head off to sistersandcrime.org.au for all the details. And I think that's the end of the news.
Robert Goodman: Okay, let's get on to some recommendations. Jackie, what have you got for us this week?
Jacqui: Okay, I am currently reading the first book of the New Zealand based book detective series, Dead Girl Gone by Gareth and Louise Ward. Gareth and Louise Ward are ex English police officers who emigrated to New Zealand and opened a bookshop. Gareth is already an established writer who writes steampunk. Have you read any of that?
Robert Goodman: haven't read anything by Gareth Ward. I'll have to look him up.
Jacqui: Hmm. This This is their first book together and is about two ex English police officers who emigrate to New Zealand and open a bookshop. In the book, they're Garth and Eloise Sherlock, and they have a bookshop called Sherlock Tomes. And there are lots of punny shop names in this book, if you like that stuff, along with some you know, references and jokes about existing writers and books. It's a bit of a laugh. Garth also talks about I know.
Robert Goodman: I don't know if I can get past Sherlock Home. Sorry, I don't know if I can get past Sherlock Holmes.
Jacqui: I know, I know, it's pretty bad. There's lots of them. Garth even talks about how Gareth Ward is one of his favourite writers.
Robert Goodman: It's so so it's all a bit meta, kinda like the Anthony Horowitz Hawthorne series.
Jacqui: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you like your cozies, you'll love this one. In this book, we learn Garth and Eloise left England due to a case with a serial killer called Pinter that Eloise worked on, and Pinter was knocking off self-published authors who he didn't think, you know, met the mark. At the start of the book, our heroes are told that a famous but reclusive writer, Il Isabella Garanti, so I think Elena Ferranti, wants to launch. Her next book in their bookshop. So the action happens with this event hanging over their heads. A mysterious package turns up at their doorstep with Eloise's old PC number on it, not something that people locally would know about, so her old place constable number. In the package is a book with highlighted sentences and a message which basically asks them to look into the disappearance of a local schoolgirl, Tracy Jervis, who had disappeared 20 years ago. There are plenty of suspects. There's her controlling abusive father. The English teacher that everyone said Tracy was seeing, the sleazy dubious local businessman and property developer, are there any other types? And her best friend whose family left for England just after the disappearance. Add to the mix that the circus was in town at the same time, and Tracy had been flirting with a young man who worked at the circus. Eloise is also worried, worried that Pintar is somehow involved with a mysterious package, despite him being banged up in jail in England. Along the way we meet a cast of colourful locals, including a goth girl they refer to as Dead Girl Deirdre, an older retired gentleman they call the Admiral, the local guy who's appears to be homeless. And we have minor crimes like who's stealing the flowers out front of the shop and you know, lots of local gossip and shenanigans. It's a look, if you like cozy, it's a it's a fun read.
Robert Goodman: you said that's the first book in the series. Are there other books in the in the bookshop detectives?
Jacqui: Yeah. Yeah, there's tea cake Tea Cake and Death is the second one. And the third one's just come out and I think it's called Murder and Mojitos. So good fun. What about you, Robert?
Robert Goodman: Excellent. I've also got a New Zealand author to talk about, but probably at the darker end of the crime spectrum, probably more my speed.
Jacqui: Yeah.
Robert Goodman: And that's an author called Gavin Strawn. His new book is called Slash. Slash is the follow-up to Strawn's Taboo, which was called The Call. The Call was published by Alan and Unwin after it won their Crime Fiction Award for Best Unpublished Crime Book
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: Manuscript in 2023. the call introduced readers to traumatized policewoman Honey Charmers and was a really effective piece of small town noir. Strawn deliberately digs beneath the kind of travel brochure version of New Zealand to expose a world of drug dealing and gang wars in the call. and he goes to a different problematic aspect of New Zealand rural life in slash. the name itself refers to the material left after a logging operation. and the main plot revolves around the rapaciousness of the timber industry outside of this small town. that said, Strawn is also still interested in the drug trade and the impact that it's having on small communities. So in Slash, Honey Charmers is kind of a bit loose after she's kind of left the police and she's hired by a local man to review the police report into the death of his son, which happened during an event called Cycling Gabriel, which was a real event. and had a huge
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: impact on New Zealand rural communities. And it's an event that's had bigger impacts on those communities that also had been deforested because the slash moved down the the hillsides which
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: had which had no trees on them anymore. so it looks like it's a a simple case, but of course Honey finds there's much more going on than first appeared. Honey Charmers is a is a great central character. She's traumatized, she has conversations with someone who's passed away. She's impulsive. She likes empathy. So she has a friend who kind of does the empathizing for her. but she's also a dogged investigator who, no matter what happens, must get to the truth. You know, she's they tell her not to keep going, she just keeps going.
Jacqui: Yeah. So could you read this one as a standalone? Do you have to read the call first?
Robert Goodman: I think you could. I think Strawn fills in enough of the backstory. as with all these things, you're probably better off starting at the beginning. interestingly, Strawn says is in acknowledgments that he wrote he wrote Slash because he was being pestered by readers who wanted to know what was going to happen to Honey Charmers next. so I guess that's an argument for reader power. and probably to stop readers asking what is happening next, he's kind of left this open for another book. with honey, which I assume we're gonna get.
Jacqui: She sounds like a great character. Really sounds like a great read. Now Robert, you mentioned in the intro you write book reviews. If people are interested in following up and reading your reviews, and I think they should, where can they find you?
Robert Goodman: sure, I can be found on Instagram at Pile by the Bed. That's all one word. or you can find my reviews on my website, which is pilebythebed.com. and you can even hit the subscribe button and get reviews delivered straight to your inbox. they are not just crime. I review anything I can get my hands on.
Jacqui: But if you are a genre reader, Robert is your man.
Robert Goodman: so that's it for this episode. all the books we mentioned will be in the show notes, as are any of the links that we mentioned as well. Crime Fiction Down Under was recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people in Sydney and the Waterong people in Ballarat. while we do receive some copies of books for review, neither Jackie or I have any financial relationship with any publishers. And the opinions expressed in this podcast are purely our own. Thank you, Jackie.
Jacqui: Thank you, Robert. See you in a fortnight.
Robert Goodman: See you in a fortnight.
Jacqui: Hi Robert. It's great to be back for episode two, the slightly less awkward episode two. Thanks to everyone who listened and I'm glad you've all come back for round two. What are we we reviewing this time, Robert?
Robert Goodman: I'm gonna be going to Sydney's King's Cross to talk about Joanne Jenkins' new novel, Bad Neighbours.
Jacqui: Yeah, we've all had a few of those.
Robert Goodman: And and you're headed to the misty Scottish Highlands to review Laura McCluskey's latest book, not at all ominously called The Cursed Road.
Jacqui: Yes. And we have quite a bit of awards news this week as well and plenty of books to talk about. So let's get into it.
Robert Goodman: Joanna Jenkins grew up in rural Queensland, where she went on to study English literature and law and then went to work as a lawyer, including for many years as a partner in an international law firm. So I guess for those who knew her, it came as no surprise when she turned out her first novel, and it was a crime novel, set in Queensland, featuring a female partner in a major law firm, and was called How to Kill a Client. That Deboo novel was shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly Deboo Award and the Bad Danger Prize Debut Award back in 2023. How to kill a client introduce readers to lawyer and part-time sleuth Ruth Dawson. In that book, Ruth is sent from Sydney to the Queensland office. We talked last week about the fact that there are not a lot of Australian political thrillers. Well, equally, we don't really punch above our weight on legal or courtroom thrillers either. So it was refreshing to find a book sent in the offices of a major law firm. That book dug deeply into issues around corporate culture. And particularly the gender politics at play at the big end of town, and it felt very much drawn from experience. Jenkins followed up How to Kill a Client with a book called The Bluff, which took Ruth Dawson to the country where she spent some time running a country solicitor's office. Once again, there's a murder, and once again, Ruth is put in a position where she needs to help solve it. As with her debut, Jenkins used the action to shine a light on broader issues, including whitewashing of history, institutional racism, and a poke at the wellness industry. And As we mentioned last week, the bluff has been shortlisted for the best crime fiction in this year's Sisters in Crime David Awards. you've read How to Kill a Client, Jackie?
Jacqui: I have, so I'll be interested to hear about this new one.
Robert Goodman: this is the third Ruth Dawson, dare I say, adventure. and it's called Bad Neighbors. Bad Neighbors finds Ruth returning to Sydney and once again taking up as a high-flying corporate lawyer, doing work for her old friend, whose nickname is Crack, which is short for Caroline Rackerman. Crack works
Jacqui: good one.
Robert Goodman: for one of the big banks. and it seems her bank has possibly been involved in some dodgy property deals, and she wants Ruth and her team to look into that. Ruth has only just come back to Sydney, and one of her juniors, Sylvia, suggests that she looks at an apartment that's come up for sale in her building. That building is called the Lumen, and it's an art deco block in Sydney's King's Cross, which seems to have fallen a little on hard times. Despite its kind of run-down grandeur, Ruth is enchanted by the flat, which has a lot of charm and it has harbor glimpses. But it's unfortunately after Ruth moves into the Lumen that her troubles start. Bad Neighbours is structured very much in the same way as Schenken's previous two books. The book opens with the discovery of a murder, then rewinds a few months to introduce a large cast of characters and set up their relationships and gives you the idea that any of them could be a suspect, and then gets on with the business of the aftermath of the murder.
Jacqui: Mm. So who is the victim in this one?
Robert Goodman: the victim is a young man called Ben, who's homeless and has been living in a shed at the back of the building. He was given the keys to the shed by Zara, who is one of the other residents. She's a fading starlet whose heyday was in the 70s, it seems that Ben used to live in the building with his father, but when his father died, he was turned out and the flat was sold to pay his father's debts. And the flat is now being run as an Airbnb. Marshall the Chagrin of the other residents of the building.
Jacqui: I remember from the first one, Jenkins has a large number of different points of view characters. Is that also the case in this one?
Robert Goodman: yeah, there are a lot of characters in Bad Neighbours, which is sort of a good and a bad thing, I guess. Jenkins fleshes out the lives of pretty much all the other residents of the building. the nice thing is they're an odd assortment and they're all very recognizable Sydney types. So there's Zara, who I mentioned before. She rents out her spare room to Ruth's staff member Sylvia and is a little bit hard up, so she does the cleaning for a lot of the other
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: residents in the building, which allows her to go in and out of their apartments. there's Stella, who A lot of people recognize as the strict head of the owners committee and doesn't take any nonsense. Lucas, who's a reclusive video game designer. Lawrence and Humphrey, who are an elderly couple who are keen to get into everybody else's business. And then there's a penthouse on the top of the Lumen, which is owned by Andrew. and he has a trophy wife, called Silva. both of Andrew and Silver get point of view chapters. so there are lots of colorful characters to keep track of. but as with the other two books, Ruth is very much at the center of both the story and the action.
Jacqui: So she gets into the investigating then.
Robert Goodman: Yeah, as with both other books, she quickly decides that the police aren't doing a good enough job and that she probably needs to start investigating. only it's really the residents of the building who are the other suspects. And she also finds herself implicated as a possible suspect, and that has flown impacts on her job, to the point where she actually ends up having to solve the crime to clear her name and save her job. I think one of the things I like about that aspect of the book is that one of the reasons why the police suspect Ruth is because of her history of being involved with murder. She's always seems to be around murders. So that makes her a suspect in the police's eyes. which is, I think it's a good lampshading moment because it answers the question we always want to ask about amateur detectives, you know, why are they always around murders and why doesn't anyone suspect them if there are all these murders happening around them? So it was kind of a nice aspect of the novel, but it also puts Ruth pretty much in the frame and and forces her to solve the crime in order to clear her name.
Jacqui: you said you liked the book because it was very Sydney. What do you mean by that?
Robert Goodman: Bad Neighbours is set in Sydney's King's Cross. For those who don't know it, the Cross was, and I guess still is to an extent, Sydney's Red Light District. It has a long history associated with crime and drugs and prostitution from the razor gangs of the 1920s, and made famous by a book, an autobiography of one of the criminal figures, I guess, of the cross, John Ibrahim, called The Last King of the Cross, which is not to be confused with Mark Dappan's novel, Kings of the Cross, which which was a great novel that explored 40 years of King's Cross criminal history, and actually won an Ed Kelly Award for Deboo in 2015. but besides this, the the King's Cross was also a bohemian part of Sydney. It's full of Art Deco buildings. it has a very Bohemian history, and Bad Neighbours leans more into this aspect than its criminal past. but also, as with the previous books, Jenkins uses the action to explore some very Sydney concerns. I guess they're also universal concerns, but the very Sydney concerns which are around property, living in apartments and renovation. So, there's the basic issue of living in an apartment block where decisions have to be made collectively and where everybody is potentially in everybody else's business. there's how those relationships are thrown askew when some of those apartments are used as short term rentals for Airbnb. there's our fascination with renovation. one of the subplots involves the penthouse being renovated and the pressure that puts on the building and the relationships within the building. and there are a whole lot of threads in the novel around new development, about property skullduggery and corruption.
Jacqui: So typical Sydney dinner party conversation topics then. Although to be fair, pretty Melbourne as well.
Robert Goodman: Absolute. Well, as I say, they're very they're quite universal, but they're very, very Sydney. I think you don't go to a Sydney dinner
Jacqui: Turn.
Robert Goodman: party where people aren't talking about property at some point in time. but for those who are interested in the sedia side of the history of King's Cross, I also want to mention Natalie Conya's latest novel, Finding the Bones. this one came out earlier this year and is set in King's Cross. It's based on A notorious case from the 1970s, which was the disappearance of Juita Nielsen. Although Conya moves the history of the action to the 1980s, and the plot involves action in the 1980s and then action in the present. Conya gives a colourful portrait of King's Cross in the 80s, which explores both its criminal and its bohemian sides. like the Mark Smith book you talked about last in our last episode, both Jenkins and Cony are. use Sydney really well. they both send their investigators around the city to different suburbs and they capture the the essence of those suburbs and name drop, you know, real pubs and eateries. So Bad Neighbors is kind of like the full Sydney package. It's a great mystery. It's full of really interesting characters and it's a lot of fun.
Jacqui: good, sounds great. If you I haven't read it, but Fiona McGregor's book Iris looks at that world, that Sydney world during the nineteen thirties. So if you want a more historical take on that city side of Sydney, that that's a great book to start with. But yeah, as I said, I've read Jenkins' first novel. I haven't read The Bluff, so I have a bit of a catching up to do 'cause that one sounds really good. Thank you, Robert. Thanks for that. As I mentioned in our last episode, I had reserved The Cursed Road by Laura McCluskey at my local library. So that's what I'm covering. The Cursed Road follows on from last year's The Wolf Tree, which was McCluskey's debut, and this book won the 2026 CWA John Creasey dagger for the best debut novel. McCluskey is a Melbourne-based writer, and she's set her two books, in Scotland.
Robert Goodman: had you read the Wolf Tree, Jackie?
Jacqui: No, unfortunately I hadn't.
Robert Goodman: but you felt okay reading this one as a standalone?
Jacqui: Yeah, look, it would have been better to read the books in order, but the Curse Road can definitely be read alone. There's enough backstory given to you as a new reader that you can you can catch on to what happened in the first book. Not all the fine details, but the basic details so that you can keep reading. So the events of the Wolf Tree have had long-lasting impacts on our two main protagonists, Detective Inspectors Georgina Lennox, George, and Richard Stewart, Richie. They're workmates. George is in her 30s and Richie's older and a bit more of a mentor. So, in the wake of that last book and the events of that last book, George is now in therapy and she's addressed her prescription pill issue, which I gather was a bit of an issue in the first book. Her relationship with Richie, however, has fractured. Their boss is worried about Richie. He's not himself, and there's been complaints about his behaviour. He's been irritable, he's been aggressive, complete opposite to his normal, quite patient self. So their boss gives them a new case to work on and asks George to keep an eye on Richie. The new case takes them to the Scottish Highlands to a small town called Kircree. The body of a young woman who's been shot by a rifle has been found in an isolated country road outside of Kirk Cree. And that the type of rifle used is one that could be used in deer hunting, and that will make sense as I go. We meet the young woman briefly in the opening chapter where she is escaping from someone and or something, and we follow her in her attempted escape. when the woman's found, she's found with another woman's name scratched on her forearm. And the name is Cara Reed, and this is a young woman who's been missing for ten years. And it's a case that Richie had originally worked on and not solved, but has kept tabs on. And he's kept you know, annually he'll visit the relatives of Cara to see how they're doing and give them an update.
Robert Goodman: So so we know Kara, but we don't know who this young woman is. She's just the subject of a of a cold open of someone in distress.
Jacqui: Yeah, yeah. Essentially George and Richie need to uncover the identity of the young woman, find the killer, and find what the links are to Cara Reed. So in the meantime, we have Warring Neighbours, who I'll discuss later, a local sex offender, and the simmering tensions between George and Richie. And Dogging George is a persistent journalist, Henry Shaw, who wants an exclusive with her on the events of the Wolf Tree. This book is infused with gothic overtones, local myths and legends, which make it for a very creepy read. The road where the woman's body is found is locally known as the Cursed Road, thus the title. The book also uses the Gaelic version of this name, but I am not going to attempt to say it and to pronounce it. The story behind the name is that there were two older, wealthier families, the Fairgreaves and the Grants, who lived for hundreds of years on either side of the road. There was a falling out somewhere along the line which led to all sorts of troubles. To try and fix things, one of the Fairgreaves men proposed he would marry one of the Grant women, Edith. On the day of the wedding, a fight erupted and the Fargreaves killed everyone in the Grant family except Edith.
Robert Goodman: Sounds sounds very red wedding.
Jacqui: Mm-hmm. Bit of a recurring story, yeah. Anyway, the township cursed the Fairgreaves and have avoided them ever since. And there are stories of the ghost of Edith wandering along the road as well. The Fairgreaves still live on their property in a once grand house that is crumbling around their ears and includes a crypt where forebears have been buried. And you know, Robert, if a crypt is mentioned at the start of a book, you know you're gonna find out about it later on in the book. Their overbearing patriarch obsessed with the family regaining its status and maintaining its lineage, his three sons and a very snarky daughter-in-law. They're all very strange, but what role do they play in the death of this young woman? The property, once owned by the grants, is now owned by a wealthy, arrogant couple who run deer hunting tours on their grounds. They've had issues with anti-animal cruelty groups and also with the fairgreaves. They're quick to threaten legal ramifications at the sign of any troubles. And it does give rise to the question whether the victim was shot by one of their deer hunting clients by mistakes mistake and they're trying to cover things up. In the midst of this, there's also a local sex offender who's been released and reappears in Kirkree. He's now working with the grants. So is he resuming his old habits?
Robert Goodman: Sounds like a lot going on. I do like the idea of Chekhov's crypt though for Gothic Mysteries. so
Jacqui: Ha ha ha.
Robert Goodman: there are a lot of characters here. Do we see all this from George Ann Ritchie's perspective? Are there multiple points of view?
Jacqui: This is all George's story, though it's all her from her perspective. and the fantastic element of this book is the way McCluske brings us George and Richie's relationship through George's eyes, particularly George recognising that Richie needs help and h doesn't know how to ask for it. It's not an easy road for either of them, but the journey is finally wrought by McCluskey. It's really well done.
Robert Goodman: And I guess like a lot of Australian raw crime, we're getting it sounds like the landscape plays a big role in
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: in the story.
Jacqui: Yeah, it does. It plays a huge role in the book. McCluskey really delivers on that really creepy gothic ha atmosphere. Like Cold River, the Margaret Hickey book that we discussed last time, and with Jane Harper's books, I think particularly The Lost Man, which is really atmospheric, although set, you know, in a in a desert location, the landscape becomes a foreboding character in the book. McCluskey beautifully describes the the highlands and the land around Kirkeree and gives it that gothic feel. Let's talk of ghosts and boogeymen, of vines and dark bushes. It's all very claustrophobic to read.
Robert Goodman: There are there are a few Australian crime writers delivering kind of landscape-driven books set in other parts
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: of the world. I'm thinking of authors like Derville McTannon, who sets her Cormac Riley series in Ireland,
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: and Matt Francis, who sets his Murder in the Pacific series in a very different part of the world in Vanuatu. And then of course locally we've got Chris Hammer who does landscape really well
Jacqui: Yeah.
Robert Goodman: thanks, Jackie. And finally, for those collecting great names for crime sub subgenres, something we should have mentioned last week is that this strain of dark Scottish crime fiction is often referred to as tartan noir, which is a term I absolutely love.
Jacqui: Yeah. I I don't know, I think it's a bit more tart and gothic, but yeah, I love Tartan Noir. I'm very partial to Scottish crime writers. I I just love that black humour.
Robert Goodman: So now it's time for our crime fiction news and awards. We've just had the Thiekston's Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in England. This one builds itself as the world's longest running and most prestigious celebration of crime writing. it's in Harrogate. and they of course hand out some crime awards for writers from the UK and Ireland. And their McDermott Award for Best Taboo this year went to Francis Crawford's A Bad Bad Place, which was the book you recommended last week, Jackie.
Jacqui: Yeah. That festival, apart from having it the best festival name of all time, is on my retirement bucket list. I would love to go. we have also seen the Niomarsh Awards best novel long list as well, and that's the the New Zealand Crime Writing Awards. So there's twelve New Zealand crime novels that run the Gamut from Dark to Crazy. There's twelve titles. We're not going to read them out, are we, Robert? But I think you'll find the Nio Marsh Awards on Facebook. Is that right, Facebook?
Robert Goodman: Yeah, Facebook. The the
Jacqui: An Instagram?
Robert Goodman: the list is on Facebook and on Instagram. NIO, for those
Jacqui: Yeah, so you can look it up.
Robert Goodman: who need to know, is spelt N-G-A-I-O.
Jacqui: Yes, and she was one of the golden age mystery writers along with Agatha Christie and a few other people. So have you read any of the of the list?
Robert Goodman: I haven't read all the books on the list, but those that I have read are really great reads. I can absolutely recommend Tom Baraguanath's Lucky Thing, which is a sequel to his award-winning debut Paper Cage. I can definitely recommend Carved in Blood, which is the third book in Michael Bennett's fabulous Auckland-based series featuring Maori policewoman Hannah Westerman, which is also a series that's been garnering lots of awards and short lists. and there's also a really great debut called Softly Calls the Devil by Chris Blake, which is a dark regional crime
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: novel set in the very south of New Zealand. And while it's not my favorite of these, I know a lot of people loved the book A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan, which has a bit of a nostalgic glow of family holidays in the nineteen eighties and is narrated by a precocious ten-year-old. have you read any of them, Jackie?
Jacqui: I've only read one. I've read Amanda Hampson's The Deadly Dispute, which is part of her Tea Ladies series, which I love. They're always great reads. But the exciting news for the week for us is the release of the Ned Kelly Awards Best Debut Shortlist. Now this is an award that both of us have judged in the past.
Robert Goodman: Yeah, it's probably my favorite award when I judged because it gave us a chance to identify some really amazing crime writers right at the beginning of their careers. And also just selfishly, the number of books you had to read for that category was always a lot less than the best crime fiction category. I think this year the best crime fiction character category had over 80 entries, but the best taboo only gets around 25 to 30, which is
Jacqui: Mm, yeah.
Robert Goodman: feels a bit manageable when you're a when you're in a literary judge. but the Ned Kelly Awards in its 30 year history has been pretty successful in picking winners of this. Category. And I mean, I have to say, I'm proud to say I was on the Debut judging panel back in 2014 when Candace Fox won for her debut Hades.
Jacqui: Yeah, and what a career she's had since then. She's done it amazingly, Candace. Some of the other authors that have won this award include Peter Temple, way back in nineteen ninety-seven, one of my favourite writers. Alan Carter, a good mate of ours, Andrew McGahn, was that The Last Drinks? That one, the Andrew McGahn one.
Robert Goodman: I think so.
Jacqui: Yeah, I love that book. Malcolm Knox, Jane Harper, Sarah Bailey, Jock Sarong, Emma Viskich, and Derv La Tienen, just to name a few.
Robert Goodman: so who's made this year's list?
Jacqui: Right, this year's Ned Kelly Debut crime fiction shortlist is In Bloom by Liz Allen, The Butterfly Women by Madeline Cleary, The Peak by Sam Guthrie, Malaluca by Angie Fay Martin, The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey, and Wykomest by Alexandra Strenad. This is an incredibly strong field. Many of these authors and titles have been recognised elsewhere. Liz Allen was recognised as an observer best debut novelist this year. Malalucka won the Australian Book Industry Award this year for Best Debut. We talked about the Wolf Tree winning the British Crime Writers Association debut Dagger last time, and that the peak had been shortlisted for that award as well. The Butterfly Women has also been shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards this year. And while What the Wycomist is Alexandra Strenard's debut novel, she's also a poet who has won awards for her poetry. So I imagine the discussion in that judge's panel would have been pretty intense.
Robert Goodman: Yeah, I I haven't read The Wycomist, but it's been written by Poet, which is always actually a green flag for me. I I kind of love it when poets write
Jacqui: Mm-hmm.
Robert Goodman: fiction because they have that sensibility about them. this one's been described by the publisher as Saltburn meets American psycho. I don't know how you go past that. So I'm gonna see if I can add it to my pile.
Jacqui: Sounds just up your alley.
Robert Goodman: Ha ha.
Jacqui: The Ned Kelly Awards will be announced later in September and there'll be announcement events at selected bookshops in most capital cities. So put that in your diaries and we will give you more details closer to the time. Last week we mentioned the David Awards shortlist for best crime novel by an Australian female writer. This award's run by Sisters in Crime Australia. And if you've wanna go to the awards night, head off to sistersandcrime.org.au to book tickets. The awards evening is held in Melbourne and it'll be on the 12th of September. It's always heaps of fun. There are always writers, you know, you'll find your favourite writers there. I sat on a table one year, Robert, with Val McDermott. I didn't say a lot to her, but I was in her presence. This year the awards are being presented by Derville McTiernan, one of our faves, and hosted by journalist and writer Louise Milligan. And speaking of Sisters and Crime, for all the aspiring crime writing women out there, you have about a week to go before entries close for this year's Scarlet Stiletto Awards. These awards are for short stories with a crime theme and a female protagonist and written by a woman. So head off to sistersandcrime.org.au for all the details. And I think that's the end of the news.
Robert Goodman: Okay, let's get on to some recommendations. Jackie, what have you got for us this week?
Jacqui: Okay, I am currently reading the first book of the New Zealand based book detective series, Dead Girl Gone by Gareth and Louise Ward. Gareth and Louise Ward are ex English police officers who emigrated to New Zealand and opened a bookshop. Gareth is already an established writer who writes steampunk. Have you read any of that?
Robert Goodman: haven't read anything by Gareth Ward. I'll have to look him up.
Jacqui: Hmm. This This is their first book together and is about two ex English police officers who emigrate to New Zealand and open a bookshop. In the book, they're Garth and Eloise Sherlock, and they have a bookshop called Sherlock Tomes. And there are lots of punny shop names in this book, if you like that stuff, along with some you know, references and jokes about existing writers and books. It's a bit of a laugh. Garth also talks about I know.
Robert Goodman: I don't know if I can get past Sherlock Home. Sorry, I don't know if I can get past Sherlock Holmes.
Jacqui: I know, I know, it's pretty bad. There's lots of them. Garth even talks about how Gareth Ward is one of his favourite writers.
Robert Goodman: It's so so it's all a bit meta, kinda like the Anthony Horowitz Hawthorne series.
Jacqui: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you like your cozies, you'll love this one. In this book, we learn Garth and Eloise left England due to a case with a serial killer called Pinter that Eloise worked on, and Pinter was knocking off self-published authors who he didn't think, you know, met the mark. At the start of the book, our heroes are told that a famous but reclusive writer, Il Isabella Garanti, so I think Elena Ferranti, wants to launch. Her next book in their bookshop. So the action happens with this event hanging over their heads. A mysterious package turns up at their doorstep with Eloise's old PC number on it, not something that people locally would know about, so her old place constable number. In the package is a book with highlighted sentences and a message which basically asks them to look into the disappearance of a local schoolgirl, Tracy Jervis, who had disappeared 20 years ago. There are plenty of suspects. There's her controlling abusive father. The English teacher that everyone said Tracy was seeing, the sleazy dubious local businessman and property developer, are there any other types? And her best friend whose family left for England just after the disappearance. Add to the mix that the circus was in town at the same time, and Tracy had been flirting with a young man who worked at the circus. Eloise is also worried, worried that Pintar is somehow involved with a mysterious package, despite him being banged up in jail in England. Along the way we meet a cast of colourful locals, including a goth girl they refer to as Dead Girl Deirdre, an older retired gentleman they call the Admiral, the local guy who's appears to be homeless. And we have minor crimes like who's stealing the flowers out front of the shop and you know, lots of local gossip and shenanigans. It's a look, if you like cozy, it's a it's a fun read.
Robert Goodman: you said that's the first book in the series. Are there other books in the in the bookshop detectives?
Jacqui: Yeah. Yeah, there's tea cake Tea Cake and Death is the second one. And the third one's just come out and I think it's called Murder and Mojitos. So good fun. What about you, Robert?
Robert Goodman: Excellent. I've also got a New Zealand author to talk about, but probably at the darker end of the crime spectrum, probably more my speed.
Jacqui: Yeah.
Robert Goodman: And that's an author called Gavin Strawn. His new book is called Slash. Slash is the follow-up to Strawn's Taboo, which was called The Call. The Call was published by Alan and Unwin after it won their Crime Fiction Award for Best Unpublished Crime Book
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: Manuscript in 2023. the call introduced readers to traumatized policewoman Honey Charmers and was a really effective piece of small town noir. Strawn deliberately digs beneath the kind of travel brochure version of New Zealand to expose a world of drug dealing and gang wars in the call. and he goes to a different problematic aspect of New Zealand rural life in slash. the name itself refers to the material left after a logging operation. and the main plot revolves around the rapaciousness of the timber industry outside of this small town. that said, Strawn is also still interested in the drug trade and the impact that it's having on small communities. So in Slash, Honey Charmers is kind of a bit loose after she's kind of left the police and she's hired by a local man to review the police report into the death of his son, which happened during an event called Cycling Gabriel, which was a real event. and had a huge
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: impact on New Zealand rural communities. And it's an event that's had bigger impacts on those communities that also had been deforested because the slash moved down the the hillsides which
Jacqui: Mm.
Robert Goodman: had which had no trees on them anymore. so it looks like it's a a simple case, but of course Honey finds there's much more going on than first appeared. Honey Charmers is a is a great central character. She's traumatized, she has conversations with someone who's passed away. She's impulsive. She likes empathy. So she has a friend who kind of does the empathizing for her. but she's also a dogged investigator who, no matter what happens, must get to the truth. You know, she's they tell her not to keep going, she just keeps going.
Jacqui: Yeah. So could you read this one as a standalone? Do you have to read the call first?
Robert Goodman: I think you could. I think Strawn fills in enough of the backstory. as with all these things, you're probably better off starting at the beginning. interestingly, Strawn says is in acknowledgments that he wrote he wrote Slash because he was being pestered by readers who wanted to know what was going to happen to Honey Charmers next. so I guess that's an argument for reader power. and probably to stop readers asking what is happening next, he's kind of left this open for another book. with honey, which I assume we're gonna get.
Jacqui: She sounds like a great character. Really sounds like a great read. Now Robert, you mentioned in the intro you write book reviews. If people are interested in following up and reading your reviews, and I think they should, where can they find you?
Robert Goodman: sure, I can be found on Instagram at Pile by the Bed. That's all one word. or you can find my reviews on my website, which is pilebythebed.com. and you can even hit the subscribe button and get reviews delivered straight to your inbox. they are not just crime. I review anything I can get my hands on.
Jacqui: But if you are a genre reader, Robert is your man.
Robert Goodman: so that's it for this episode. all the books we mentioned will be in the show notes, as are any of the links that we mentioned as well. Crime Fiction Down Under was recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people in Sydney and the Waterong people in Ballarat. while we do receive some copies of books for review, neither Jackie or I have any financial relationship with any publishers. And the opinions expressed in this podcast are purely our own. Thank you, Jackie.
Jacqui: Thank you, Robert. See you in a fortnight.
Robert Goodman: See you in a fortnight.
