This week, Jeff Popple reviews three enjoyable novels about historical and new crimes. More of Jeff’s reviews can be found on his blog: murdermayhemandlongdogs.com
Carnival of Lies by D. V. Bishop
Macmillan, $34.99
D. V. Bishop’s Carnival of Lies takes his popular sixteenth-century Italian detective Cesare Aldo from his beloved Florence to the city of masks, Venice. It is the winter of 1539. Aldo is no longer part of the Otto, the city police, but is now working for Cosimo de’ Medici, the powerful Duke of Florence. Employed to protect the Duke, Aldo finds himself tasked with retrieving Cosimo de’ Medici’s stolen personal diary, which could have catastrophic consequences in the wrong hands. A quest that takes him to Venice, where he has no allies and many enemies. An exquisitely plotted and thoroughly enjoyable historical thriller.
The Sunbaker by P. A. Thomas
Echo, $32.99
Local Canberra readers tired of the winter chills will enjoy being taken to the much warmer climes of the Byron Bay region in P. A. Thomas’ second novel, The Sunbaker. Newcomer to the region, forensic pathologist Nicola Fox, is shocked to find a dead sunbaker in the backyard of her holiday house. She is more concerned, however, when she becomes the police’s chief suspect in the sunbaker’s murder. In desperation, she turns to local journalist Jack Harris for help. Jack has proven skills as an investigator from Thomas’ first book, The Beacon, but this time around, he is in greater danger. Good fun.
An Ill Wind by Margaret Hickey
Penguin, $34.99
Margaret Hickey’s An Ill Wind opens in gruesome fashion with the discovery of a body hanging from the blade of a wind turbine on the outskirts of a Victorian farming town. The dead man is Geordie Pritchard, a rich local philanthropist and owner of a controversial wind energy farm. Detective Sergeants Belinda Burney and Will Lovell initially suspect suicide, until Pritchard’s widow screams murder and has the death threats to prove it. Margaret once more does a very good job of using the crime novel to explore contemporary issues that reveal the tensions in small rural towns undergoing change. A solid slice of bush noir.
