eyes.2c Reviews

Tipping Point  (Detective Kate Miles #3 ) by Dinuka McKenzie              ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Northern Rivers NSW. Kate Miles is a cop who’s returned to work in her home town of Esserton. But now two men are dead, childhood friends of her brother Luke. One, Antony Reed in Sydney, the other Marcus Rowntree,  son of a local film star. Marcus appears to have fallen and shot himself whilst out in the paddocks drunk, taking potshots at rabbits. Luke, Kate’s brother has come home for Marcus’ funeral and to escape the fallout from a sex scandal with a coworker and the very real possibility of charges being laid, is viewed as a possible suspect in Marcus’ death. Kate finds herself relegated to the back row when the new acting commander of the station turns up. He turns out to be an ex lover. Kate’s been trying to move forward with her marriage and career, thus the relocation. Career and family relations have become even more complicated. Even more so when Ant’s...

Dancing with Dragons  by Jenni Ogden    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Starkly beautiful story set  on the Western Australian coastline, four hours drive north of Perth.  It’s 1977 and Gaia and her brother Bron are having dance lessons with their mother in the studio. Gaia’s mother Margot had been a famous ballet dancer with the American Ballet Theatre company in New York.  She’d married an Australian and they’d settled back here at Goshawk Gardens. Gaia and Bron had been trained by their mother in dance from a young age. Their mother’s long term vision was that eventually Gaia and Bron would go back to the States to take up dancing careers.  Theirs was an idyllic life spent off grid, on a pristine bay, growing enough food for themselves and to sell. Their nearest neighbours were on an adjoining plot of land. Gaia  had been out snorkelling when she’d spotted two sea dragons involved in their courtship dance. It was stunning. Gaia was overcome by the beauty of it. Tha...

Murder in Punch Lane  by Jane Sullivan     ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I really wanted to love this. I’m familiar with the laneways  around this area of Melbourne. Chock full of the city’s history, where the dark underbelly of the city met the rich and powerful. A step away from Parliament, a whisker from the Melbourne Club. When Marie St. Denis, a highly regarded actress and best friend of Lola Sanchez, dies in Lola’s arms, Lola decides to find out who’s responsible.Lola’s a struggling actress.  The police won’t investigate. The coroner, a friend of Marie’s has ruled Marie’s death as suicide? Lola seeks the help of Magnus Scott, popular newspaper reporter, aka the Walking Gentleman. A solid mystery for sure but didn't  quite inveigle me. An Echo ARC via NetGalley.                                               Many thanks to the author and publisher

The Beacon   by P.A. Thomas           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Jack Harris, son to Media Magnate Malcolm (ring any bells? Can’t help but see a sly reference to a real Australian Media Magnate) has been sent back to the town he grew up in to work on his father’s first newspaper, The Beacon. His father’s decided Jack needs to learn to be a journalist from the ground up, with one of the best, Patrick O’Shaughnessy. Up until now Jack’s been in Melbourne helping his father run his business conglomerate. Jack had been running the Harris Media portfolio. He’d also tentatively voiced opinions about ethical journalism. Now here he’s back in Byron Bay about to work in a regional newspaper as the lowest ranking hack. (Byron Bay is the easternmost point on the Australian coastline. Another interesting fact, the lighthouse is the most powerful in Australia!) What Jack doesn’t count on is Patrick being found dead, mauled by a great white shark. Except there’s something off about Patri...

Love, Just In by Natalie Murray    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Friends to lovers romance that’s complicated, heart breaking and strangely surprising. Set in Australia this is the tale of two friends. Josie Larson and Zac Jameson have been friends since they first met years ago when Josie changed schools, from a private girls school to the local high school They did everything together. W hen Zac asks her to be his girlfriend, Josie said No but even then she’d wondered about a Yes! They went to university together, had too much to drink together, laughed and mourned—together. Now it’s fifteen years later and Josie’s a television journalist. Recently she had a panic attack on air and froze. In  an  attempt to regain her mojo and prove she’s fine, Josie’s moving from Sydney down to Newcastle to consolidate her experience. She has an eye to reclaiming her reputation, and  anchoring the  Sydney desk in the near future. Zac is in Newcastle, a paramedic. He’s been through a hard ...

Dogboy v Catfish by Luke Gracias      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Wow! Multilayered, unusual and thoroughly engaging story about a rather different man’s journey and those he pulled along with him. This Australian crime/mystery/noir novel was just so unusual. It’s a real page turner. Four people who’d been students together at Melbourne University are pulled back together again after one of them, ‘Dogboy’ Lindsay Kramer goes missing.  His wife, Katherine Kelly Fisher ‘Catfish’ walks into a family lawyer’s chambers. Freya Keogh is  known for her merciless divorce settlements. Katherine is seeking help to divorce her husband. Katherine doesn’t know that Keogh knew Lindsay when she was a student. Keogh feels right away that something is off. A month later Katherine decides not to go ahead with the separation. The catch? Lindsay has disappeared. Further reveals show that Katherine’s former husband Darren Berrington had died unexpectedly whilst on a trip to Bangkok. Two members of C...

The Butterfly Collector by Tea Cooper    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Tea Cooper has an uncanny ability to join a story by threads of happenstance across several generations. This time in Morpeth, NSW (Australia). The story is connected by the central idea of a delicate painting of the first discovery  of the Wanderer Butterfly,  painted and researched by Theodora Breckenridge (unacknowledged of course!) Add into this the tragedy of baby farms, stolen children and a woman who orchestrated these things, and we have a stunning expose across time delving into just exactly what happened in the Morpeth community between 1868 and 1922. In 1922 Verity Binks, a struggling reporter and the daughter of the a now deceased war correspondent, is invited to write a piece about a charity, the Treadwell Foundation. The mover behind the organization is David Treadwell, husband to Theodora’s sister Florence . It’s in Treadwell’s home that Verity first sees the stunning painting of the Wanderer Butterf...

Black River  (Rose Riley #1) by Matthew Spencer           ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Set on the Parramatta River north of Sydney near Gladesville. A series of particularly viscous sexual murders have spooked the community. The deaths began maybe a couple of years ago. A huge investigative police strike force has been put together led by Detective Chief Inspector Steve O’Neil and Detective Sergeant Rose Riley. Its code name is Satyr. Adam Bowman is a newspaper journalist who lives out that way, near the elite boarding school, Prince Albert, he’d attended. His father had been the school chaplain. An attack has happened at the school. The current chaplain’s eighteen year old daughter Marguerite Dunlop, is found murdered. Is it the work of Gladesville, the killer the police are combing through a zillion places for? Gladesville is dubbed the Blue Moon Killer by the press. Bowman knows the place like the back of his hand and walks through tracks unknown to the police to take a ...

Just Murdered  (Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mystery #1) by   Katherine Kovacic    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A spin off from the Phyrne Fisher mysteries that has Phyrne’s niece Peregrine front and center Phyrne is missing. Last seen six months ago in Papua New Guinea. As per her legal instructions her heir is notified.  Peregrine has inherited Phyrne’s fortune, including the use of Phyrne’s house and car, and a seat in the Adventuresses’ Club, Which is rather useful as Peregrine has been moonlighting various jobs including hairdressing (not her finest hour!) up in Queensland, and living on the edge in a run down caravan park. Her efforts to claim her inheritance end up with Peregrine scaling walls and landing with a crash in the halls of the select Adventuresses’ Club, of the top end of Collins Street, Melbourne. Some controlling members of the club want nothing to do with her.  Peregrine has other ideas, particularly when she ends up in a murder investigation. Because not f...

The Woman in the Library   by Sulari Gentill          ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’ll admit that I was unsure where this unusual murder mystery arose from and where it was heading. It’s definitely not a cosy mystery. It hangs around in the thriller zeitgeist. By the time I was into the second chapter I was still trying to build a picture of events, and who was who. Talk about needing bits of tape to join the pieces together! Reality and fiction became intertwined—despite it all being fiction. By this time I’d been neatly suckered in and there was no way I was leaving. So we begin with four unusual strangers hearing a woman’s scream in the Boston library. This single fact draws them together. The four Boston Library would-be-friends are amazing, somewhat weird, and all have secrets. I loved the whole crazy group encounter—built on a scream and held together by that event.  I really enjoyed the plot. Australian writer Hannah, a Marriott Fellowship Holder who’s working o...

  Where There's a Will (Rowland Sinclair #10) by Sulari Gentill      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rowly and the gang head off to Boston where Rowly is executor of a friend's estate, millionaire Daniel Cartwright. Turns out that Daniel, Rowly’s mate from Oxford, was murdered and of course there's another mystery for the friends to solve. This time Edna is in danger, the Irish and Italian mafias loom on the horizon, and things take a dangerous turn. The resolution is unexpected and I'm left wondering! Another brilliant read from Gentill, once again weaving so seamlessly historical personages occurrences of the day into the storyline. It’s easy to imagine the atmosphere of those times. Helped by an excerpt from various newspapers of the day as chapter introductions, centering us on the era. Cleverly executed, I do so love the Rolland Sinclair titles. A Poisoned Press ARC via NetGalley 

The Cartographer's Secret by Tea Cooper   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Once more a richly interwoven story that spreads across the Australian landscape of the lushly appointed Hunter Valley region. Two women become immersed in their individual trajectories as family secrets are uncovered, and a deep historical mystery is given prominence—the disappearance of explorer Ludwig Leichhardt of the face of the continent. One of the greatest puzzles of Australian European history. Spanning the years of 1880, the story centres around Evie Maynard and her mapping  skills and is picked up in 1911 with Letitia Rawlings. Lettie’s family has been estranged from Great-Aunt Olivia Maynard. The whys are unknown. A family tragedy leaves the Maynards, particularly Lettie reeling. She  volunteers to inform their great aunt of events. Anything to get away.  The devastated Lettie travels to her great aunt’s home at Wollombi. It’s here the family mystery deepens. It’s here her Aunt Evie is revealed. As secre...

All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton         ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The composition of the chapters read like a songline across the Northern Territory  landscape, pulling in the sights, sounds and aspects of country. The bull ant climbing across the gravestone, the endless sky, the black rock frog roc, all forming a rich background that waits—for stories to unfold as time hangs suspended. A curse and family secrets. The young grave digger girl Molly Hook, the dying mother, the despicable men of the family—all is lost and harsh. 1942, the bombing of Darwin  and falling into another scene complete with a Japanese  pilot and the old fire-forged shortsword his father had handed him. Throughout all the night sky is watching.  Absorbingly weird, poetically charged, with snatches of magic realism etched across the pages that carry one on a wild journey at the top end Australia. A read that keeps you on your toes, grasping for the next piece of the puzzle. ...

A Death in Daylesford (Phryne Fisher #21) by Kerry Greenwood             ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, friend and stalwart figure in Phryne Fisher’s life, a fixed presence who is frequently involved in a love/hate tussle with her, is on secondment investigating a highly hush hush operation that goes to the upper echelons of the police. Detective Sergeant Hugh Collins, finds himself with a replacement boss who is rather ineffective yet, Oh So sure of himself. Hugh determines that he might have to quietly go his own way in investigative matters. Hugh is Phryne's personal assistant Dot’s intended. Hugh is living at Phryne's for the moment. Jane and Ruth, Phryne’s adoptive daughters are concerned about a missing school chum. Tinker, another edition to the Fisher household, meanwhile has met up with Cec and Bert down at the wharves after school where they’re fishing for eels. They find a body in the water. As all this is occurring Phryne and Dot...

The House on Boundary Street by Tea Cooper            It's 1923 Sydney. With her brother killed in the war, her father now dead, and lack of a job has Dolly Bowman leaves her small town home of Wollombi and heads for Sydney. She's lined up new employment as a maid at a boarding house, 54 Boundary Street. What Dolly doesn't know is that she's taking employment in a high class brothel where the step up from maid to whore is a forgone conclusion. Her brother's best mate Jack Dalton hasn't been back to their hometown ever. Imagine his shocked surprise when Dolly, also a childhood friend turns up at Boundary Street and after a few shocks becomes the new singer in the club he part owns. Surprises all around, and how Dolly avoids the oldest profession in the world is another tale. Then there's the problem of the cocaine trade in Sydney. Not that Boundary Street has anything to do with that. A story with quite a few twists and turns about a time in Australi...

The Woman in the Green Dress by Tea Cooper           I fairly raced through this tale, although I hesitated. I felt it was going to be complex. I was right. Atmospheric, at times oppressive, this is a dynamic historical read with mysterious overtones. Unknown to us the story is woven around the supposed discovery of the first opal in Australia. To my mind that takes a secondary place, and yet it bubbles along under the surface almost as a raison d'être. Stefan von Richter journeys to 1853 Sydney to trace the opal and have its authenticity verified for his former mentor. The action shifts between 1853 and 1920's Sydney and the Hawksbury region. (I am reminded that the marvellous Kate Grenville writes historical fiction centered around this region) Della Atterton spends her time on the family property at Mogo Creek out beyond Wisemans Ferry and St Albans in the Upper Hawksbury region of New South Wales, practicing her taxidermist craft. Living on land impo...