Review: The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

I love Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair series. They’re clever and funny and stylish and I hope to be able to read more as they are published (will there be more?). So I was excited to try The Mystery Writer, one of her more contemporary standalone novels. And at first, I was all in. The premise is intriguing. A young Australian woman, Theodosia Benton, moves to the US to chase her dream of being a writer. She becomes friends with a famous novelist, gets caught up in a relationship with him, and before long finds herself at the centre of his murder investigation.

The early chapters are great. It has that contemporary feel with just the right dose of thriller. Theo is a satisfying main character. She is determined, slightly unsure of herself, and pulled into a world she doesn’t fully understand. The setting, the pacing, and the mood all worked for me. It had that very moreish quality where I kept reading just a bit further each night than I meant to.

But then came the ending.

Without giving anything away, I just found it a bit much. The final act took a turn that felt over the top, and it wrapped up far too quickly for my liking. I don’t mind a bit of implausibility in a mystery novel, but this stretched things a little too far. I was hoping for a slow and sensible unravelling, but instead it was all very sudden and, frankly, a little ludicrous.

It reminded me of The Nowhere Child by Christian White, which I also read recently in the way that they both have a strong, promising start that gradually builds tension, only to completely lose me with an ending that didn’t quite fit the tone of the rest of the book. It’s frustrating when you’re enjoying the ride and then feel like the author lost confidence in the story and just sped to the finish line.

That said, I didn’t dislike the book. I enjoyed most of the journey. Gentill is a good writer, and the idea behind the novel, which is probably about exploring ambition and developing creative identity, is interesting. But it didn’t land for me in the way I hoped it would. I would still recommend it, with a warning that the ending might leave you a bit cold.

So not my favourite Gentill (Rowland Sinclair still holds that spot) but I’m glad I gave this one a go and I will still eventually read all of her novels. 

Review: The Scholar and The Good Turn by Dervla Tiernan

I’ve done a complete turnaround on this series.

After reading The Rúin, I wasn’t totally convinced it was for me. I didn’t dislike it, but it felt a bit slow and unsatisfying. But I kept going and I’m so glad I did. With each book, the series gets stronger. By the time I finished The Good Turn, I was completely hooked. This is now a series I genuinely look forward to continuing.

In The Scholar, Cormac Reilly finds himself drawn into a murder investigation after his partner Emma discovers a hit-and-run victim near the university where she works. The case quickly escalates. Layers of privilege, power, and pharmaceutical money complicate everything. It’s more tightly plotted than The Rúin, and I found the pacing better too. There’s still that brooding atmosphere and a focus on Cormac’s professional isolation, but it felt more focused this time. I got a better sense of who Cormac was as a character, someone who was reserved but felt things deeply. 

Then came The Good Turn. This one brings Peter Fisher, Cormac's colleague, to the forefront, and the narrative shifts between Galway and the small coastal town of Roundstone. A young girl is abducted, a key arrest is botched by Peter Fisher, and Cormac makes a career-defining decision to deal with corruption in the police force. The story delves into the police corruption and even outside of that the procedural pressure felt by police and the personal fallout for them. I found myself more invested in Peter than I expected to be, and the change of scenery added something fresh to the series. McTiernan manages to keep the crime procedural format and deepen the emotional stakes.

In short, I recommend this series. The characters become more compelling as we go, and McTiernan seems to grow more confident with each book. So if you’ve read The Rúin and weren’t quite sure, I’d encourage you to keep going. I enjoyed The Scholar a lot, but The Good Turn really sealed the deal for me. I'm reading the fourth book now. 

Review: The Cryptic Clue: A Tea Ladies Mystery by Amanda Hampson

I absolutely love this series.

This is the second in Amanda Hampson’s Tea Ladies Mystery series (following The Tea Ladies, with The Deadly Dispute to come) I try to savour these books because I love them so much but they're just so easy to fall into that I end up devouring them in a few sittings.

The Cryptic Clue is set in 1966 Sydney, just a street or two from my current office. That proximity adds an extra layer to the reading experience, walking down those same laneways and picturing Hazel, Betty, Merle and Irene stepping through a bygone version of the city.

In this adventure, the tea ladies are juggling a plot that threatens national security, a coded message promising the spoils of a bank robbery and tensions at Empire Fashionwear over job cuts. It's cosy crime in all its glory.

I love the way that Hampson captures the rhythm of 1960s work life. You can almost live the tea trolley rolling in, the banter and the biscuits. And there’s a delightful commentary tucked in exploring the looming automation of tea services, class divides (cream biscuits vs plain ones), and the quiet power of a group of women who refuse to be sidelined. There is humour tinged with sadness in the character's reflections that no automated tea station where workers can simply help themselves to tea would ever replace a tea lady. 

I especially love how close I feel to Hazel. She is observant, pragmatic, and grounded. And thanks to the setting, I can picture her ducking into a corner café in Surry Hills and spotting clues between sips of tea.

If you’re a fan of cosy crime and strong, clever women (and especially if Sydney’s your city) The Cryptic Clue is an absolute delight. It's smart, witty, and just the right level of puzzling without tipping into overly dark territory. Highly recommended, I can't wait for the next one but at the same time I am delaying it to savour the experience of the series. 

Review: Bliss by Peter Carey

 Well… this was a bit of a ride.

I finally read Bliss by Peter Carey as part of efforts to read the winners of Australia's Miles Franklin Awards (it was the 1981 Winner, here is a record of my efforts so far). Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. It’s one of those books that made me feel like I had missed something important, like there was a deeper meaning just out of reach, but I couldn’t quite grab hold of it. People rave about Carey, and this one was his debut novel which kickstarted his career and won the Miles Franklin Award, but I just didn’t connect with it.

The novel opens with Harry Joy, an advertising executive, literally dying and coming back to life. After that, he becomes convinced he’s living in hell. And from there, it just gets stranger. There’s satire, there’s surrealism, there’s environmentalism, there’s infidelity, there’s a woman in a tree… it’s all happening, and yet I found myself mostly confused and detached.

Carey’s writing is clever but I didn’t feel emotionally invested. I spent a lot of the book trying to work out what was going on, or more often what I was meant to take from it. I think it was meant to be funny in parts, or biting in its social commentary, but it all felt a bit kooky for kooky’s sake. Maybe it was pushing boundaries at the time, but now it just feels kind of… odd?

There were moments where I caught glimpses of what Carey was trying to do which was critiquing consumerism and playing with ideas of personal transformation etc, but I struggled to care about Harry or the other strange characters. Maybe that’s the point? Maybe it’s all meant to be disorienting and ironic and a little absurd. If so then he met the brief, but not in a good way - at least for me.

That said, I can sort of see why it’s a classic of Australian literature. It’s bold, and Carey clearly wasn’t interested in writing a straightforward story. But I don’t think I’ll be rushing to read it again or recommending it to anyone unless they’re in the mood for something truly bizarre.

So: clever, a bit crazy, a bit kooky. Not really my thing. But if you like your fiction strange and satirical, Bliss might be the book for you.

Review: Revisiting The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

 

"Watch thou for the Mutant; Keep pure the stock of the Lord."

I first reviewed The Chrysalids in 2011 and declared it one of my favourite books of all time and honestly, nothing has changed. I’ve now read it multiple times, and each time I pick it up I’m gripped all over again. It’s one of those rare books that never loses its power for me. Every time I read it I find myself holding my breath in the same places, turning the pages fast and completely absorbed. 

Written in 1955, The Chrysalids is a post-apocalyptic novel set in a future that feels alarmingly possible. Society has collapsed (we assume due to nuclear disaster), and the survivors have retreated into a fundamentalist worldview where 'purity' is everything. It’s a rigid, brutal world in which any deviation from the norm (whether animal, plant, or person) caused by the nuclear disaster is hunted out and destroyed.

The protagonist and narrator, David, is a quiet boy growing up in this strict religious farming community. But he’s also harbouring a dangerous secret: he has telepathic powers. There are others like him who can communicate silently across great distances and who realise that they must band together for survival and hide what they are. But of course, that only lasts so long. The tension builds as David and the others are forced to run, ultimately placing all their hopes in a mysterious, advanced society from a far-away land called Sealand (which is very obviously meant to be New Zealand, I love that).

Reading it again, what continues to impress me is just how modern this book still feels. Wyndham might be writing from the 1950s, but his insights into bigotry, conformity, fear and power could be written today. The Chrysalids is a novel about intolerance, and I don't just mean the overt kind. Importantly, it's about subtle, systemic, internalised intolerance. It asks huge questions in a deceptively simple way: What is 'normal' and who gets to decide? What happens when you fall outside of that?

What stood out more on this re-read is just how unsettling some of the ethical questions are. Wyndham doesn’t make it easy for us to pick sides. The religious fundamentalists are clearly oppressive, but the Sealanders, with all their superiority and cool detachment, are not necessarily the comforting saviours they appear to be. There’s a moment near the end when one of the Sealand women explains, without emotion, why those who can't communicate telepathically will inevitably be left behind. And you realise that every society, no matter how advanced it considers itself to be, has its own intolerances and dogma.

That’s what I love about this book. It’s not just thrilling and absorbing, it also leaves you thinking long after you’ve put it down. I keep returning to the idea that prejudice never looks the same twice. It mutates, just like the people and animals in the story.

This time around, I couldn’t help but see the parallels with today’s politics, particularly in the US where groups like Trump supporters rail against things like "liberal cancel culture” and preach about free speech and traditional values, while simultaneously banning books, suppressing education, and attacking anyone who doesn’t conform to their version of what’s 'normal'. It’s the same pattern Wyndham explores - a fear of difference and change disguised as moral certainty.

And we’ve seen shades of it here in Australia too. I reflect on the national debate around the Voice referendum and the way some political leaders painted the proposal as divisive while encouraging fear, misinformation and a rigid definition of unity that excluded actual inclusion. It’s not hard to draw a line from that kind of rhetoric back to Waknuk. In both cases, it’s about controlling the narrative of what belongs, and what doesn’t.

Wyndham reminds us that intolerance often wears the mask of righteousness. Whether it’s religious purity in Waknuk and the US or political dogma and national identity debates in Australia and the US, the urge to define and destroy the 'other' is disturbingly persistent.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. The Chrysalids is easily my favourite Wyndham. It's one of my all-time favourite books full stop. And somehow, it keeps getting better and more relevant every time I read it.

Review: The Lost Man by Jane Harper

 

There is a particular comfort in a Jane Harper novel. She reliably provides a great read for when you want to be hooked but you don't want to be challenged. Her novels are always very similar, geographically and thematically, and she has become one of my favourite authors for when I want to pull myself out of a bit of a reading slump. That sounds a little negative, but I don't mean it to, I enjoy her novels and think that they would be appealing to a wide audience. 

The Lost Man transports readers to the blistering sun and dusty expanses of the Australian outback, to the fictional Spinner family cattle station in regional Queensland. The novel opens with the death of Cameron “Cam” Spinner, found near an isolated historical grave in scorching heat. His vehicle is found abandoned some kilometres away, with no explanation for why he would have abandoned the car and found himself at the isolated spot he ultimately met his death. His brother Nathan finds himself unravelling what happened to Cam.  

Harper uses shifting timelines to uncover fractures in the family. Cam’s death might be accident, suicide, or something darker. Each chapter peels back another layer of familial history. There is resentment between the brothers, buried disputes and Cam, Bub and Nathan’s fraught relationship with their abusive father. The tension builds gradually until the reveal, with no major twists along the way. The tension arises from suppressed emotions, strained silences, and obligations born of duty. They silently move around each other, usually being careful not to revisit old wounds in their dealings with one another and occasionally airing old grievances. In other words, it's a slow burn and good for if you want something atmospheric and psychological.

Harper’s rendering of the outback makes it almost a character in and of itself. It is oppressive but beautiful. Like with The Dry and Force of Nature (also great books), Harper uses the landscape of the setting to heighten tension. The physical landscape and the psychological landscapes mirror each other.  

Although I enjoyed it a lot, I did enjoy The Dry, Forces of Nature and even Exiles slightly more. The slow build in The Lost Man, although effective, at times felt a little slower than I would have preferred and I found myself waiting for it to speed up a little. Nonetheless, I recommend The Lost Man if you’re drawn to character‑driven mysteries set in evocative landscapes, with a slow‑burn reveal and emotional depth.

Six Degrees of Separation (July): Theory and Practice to Babel: Or The Necessity of Violence

The meme is hosted by Books are My Favourite Best and is described thus: On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book. Each person’s chain will look completely different. It doesn’t matter what the connection is or where it takes you – just take us on the journey with you.

This month starts with Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser:

In the late 1980s, the narrator of Theory & Practice—a first generation immigrant from Sri Lanka who moved to Sydney in her childhood—sets up a life in Melbourne for graduate school. Jilted by a lover who cheats on her with another self-described "feminist," she is thrown into deeper confusion about her identity and the people around her.

I admit to only having read one book by Michelle de Kretser, The Lost Dog and I wasn't enamoured with it. I know I've read so many good things about Theory and Practice, but I don't think it will be high on my priority list. 

A favourite book of mine by an Australian author - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (my review here). Love it, everyone should read it, one of my all-time favourite books. I could rave all day about this. 

Another book that begins at the end: We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver (my review here). This novel is epic. It had me completely hysterical at the end. I remember calling my husband crying and worrying him that something was really wrong. It was, but fortunately just in the story. 

I also cried like a baby in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (my review here), when Dobby died. He died a hero's death, but goodness it was heartbreaking. 

Another tearjerker - The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (my review here). I love this book. One my absolute favourites and I would read it more often if it wasn't right at the top of my bookcase where I can't reach it. 

I am noticing a theme that a lot of the books that I would say are my favourite also make me cry. I will have to do some self-reflection about this at a later date. 

With that in mind, another favourite book but this time one that didn't make me cry: The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox (my review here). I've never met anyone else who has read this so if you have, please make yourself known! Similar to The Time Traveller's Wife it's a magical realism novel, but in this case it's not time travel but a vintner in the early 19th century who makes friends / falls in love with an angel. Sounds weird, but its beautiful. 

Finally, the most recent book that I read that could be considered magical realism was Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence by Rebecca F Kuang (my review here). Wonderful deep dive into the question of how necessary violence is to bring about real, important, and necessary social change. Definitely a relevant question for today. 

For good measure: the books I read in June