Category Archives: Katherine Howell (Aus)

The half-way point

Posted on by
11

As of the end of June I had finished 84 books (and abandoned another eight) which is a pretty good start to the year. I consider anything I rate 3 stars or above to be reading time well spent and 70 (or 83%) of the books I’ve read have fallen into that category this year. While this is obviously good news for my reading it does make choosing ‘best of’ lists quite hard. Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise is, once again, collecting ‘best crime fiction books of the year so far’ lists and after much struggling I’ve come up with 10:

Left off this list (because if I didn’t stop at 10 I’d have listed the lot) were a whole load of great books. Most of these are listed on my 2011 reviews page (a few books have not been reviewed but that can’t be helped)

Aussie Authors Update #2

Posted on by
4

My reviews of Aussie crime fiction are published exclusively at my other blog, Fair Dinkum Crime, which I co-host with fellow Australian blogger and crime fiction fan Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise. But I like to do an occasional wrap-up of my recent Aussie crime fiction reads here at Reactions to Reading

HOW THE DEAD SEE by David Owen

Synopsis: Detective Inspector Franz Heineken of the Tasmanian Police Force is nicknamed Pufferfish, described as

A prickly, toxic bastard, ability to inflate and even explode when severely provoked.

In this outing he is confronted by several high-profile cases including the theft of a valuable diamond necklace, the death of a well-known actor which is reported as suicide until the actor’s girlfriend claims it was murder and the vicious beating of a young Indian woman. Heineken and his team, DC Faye Addison and DS Rafe Tredway, think they know which of the island’s criminal fraternity is responsible for the necklace theft but they have a devil of a time proving it as their prime suspect has claimed police harassment before so they must read very carefully indeed. The investigation into the actor’s death meanwhile introduces the police to an entirely.

Review summary: The book makes excellent use of the first-person point of view by showing us both the public face and private thoughts of its protagonist. It also has a really topical and clever mystery element in addition to its great sense of humour and deliciously off-beat characters. A delight to read.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime, My rating 4/5

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

BEYOND FEAR by Jaye Ford

Synopsis: Jodie, Hannah, Louise and Corinne plan a relaxing weekend away without their kids or husbands. Jodie has chosen a newly renovated barn in the country town of Bald Hill, a short drive from Newcastle where the women all live, for the annual getaway. The weekend starts to go wrong when the women have a minor car accident on their drive to the barn, though this does provide the opportunity for them to meet Matt Wiseman, working at his father’s garage while recovering from injuries received in his job as a policeman. Though they do manage to squeeze in some some of the champagne-drinking and chocolate-eating they planned, the weekend turns very grim for the four friends when two men turn up at the barn and won’t leave.

Review summary: A debut novel by a former journalist, Beyond Fear is a fast-paced psychological thriller and an easy read that I gobbled up in a single sitting. The strong female characters are a highlight, though I did think the first half of this one was stronger than the second.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime. My rating 3/5

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

VIOLENT EXPOSURE by Katherine Howell

Synopsis: Paramedics are called to a domestic disturbance at the suburban home of Suzanne and Connor Crawford one night only to have the couple explain the incident away as nothing more than a disagreement. The next evening Police and paramedics are again called to the address only this time Suzanne Crawford is dead and her husband is missing. Detective Ella Marconi and her partner start to focus on the missing husband as a suspect in his wife’s murder. They are hampered  by not being able to discover much about the husband’s past and then then learn about some bizarre behaviour that Suzanne was engaging in prior to her death. Although a very focussed policewoman, usually to the detriment of her personal relationships, Ella is troubled here by her father’s health problems and there’s also a minor but thought-provoking thread involving the paramedics who were called to the Crawford house on the night of the murder.

Review summary: In my view Katherine Howell has risen to the upper echelons of crime writing story tellers, having now produced four very accomplished tales which just keep getting better. Here she manages the multiple plot threads expertly and creates credible suspense out of the lives of average people and throws in a moral conundrum or two.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime. My rating 4.5/5

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

MATTER OF TRUST by Sydney Bauer (audio)

Synopsis: In his youth Boston-based lawyer David Cavanagh had two best friends, Chris Kincaid and Mike Murphy, though he hasn’t kept in close contact with either. However there is a shared history that binds the three together and when Chris is arrested for the murder of a woman they all knew, David can’t help but go home to Newark, New Jersey to help. Deeply buried family secrets need to be investigated before there’s even a glimmer of hope that Kincaid can be successfully defended.

Review summary: A fairly standard legal procedural/thriller that had a little too much of a TV sensibility for me to be fully engaged with it, though the story did have a decent pace and the complex plot was logical even if it was a bit predictable and tended towards the soap opera at the end.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime. My rating 2.5/5

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

THE PERICLES COMMISSION by Gary Corby

Synopsis: A dead man falls from the sky and lands at the feet of Nicolas son of Sophroniscus the sculptor one Athens morning in 461AD. The body is that of Ephialtes, creator of the world’s first, and still fledgling, democracy and his death could mean civil war. In the absence of a family member to do the job Pericles, a politician and fellow supporter of the move towards democracy, commissions Nicolas to investigate Ephialtes’ death with the hopes of quickly being able to discover the responsible party and bring them to justice. Of course the most obvious suspects are those old-guard politicians who weren’t to keen on handing political power over to the people, so Nicolas is literally putting his life at risk by taking on the job. However he’s young and idealistic and also sees it as the perfect opportunity to get a foothold in politics himself which would mean he doesn’t have to follow in his father’s profession.

Review summary: Corby has woven and intriguing and plausible fictional tale around the real events of the time in this debut historical mystery. The engaging young hero and humour of the book are definite highlights of the book.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime. My rating 3.5/5

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A DECLINE IN PROPHETS by Sulari Gentill

Synopsis: It’s 1932 and the luxury ocean liner RMS Aquitania is making its way to Australia with Rowland ‘Rowly’ Sinclair and his travelling companions on board. Their fellow passengers include an octogenarian political activist and former head of the Theosophist movement, several other members of the movement, a Catholic Bishop and a couple of priests. When there is a grim murder on board Rowly is at the centre of things, mostly because he’s a bit too polite for his own good. The boat stops in New York before making landfall in Australia but things go from bad to worse for Rowly and his friends and at one point it looks like  poor Rowly will hardly be considered a suitable godfather for his newest nephew.

Review summary:  Highlights of this book include thoughtfully drawn characters, a gentle but clever humour, fantastic insight into the period and a real Australian feel to it.  A very satisfying read for me and one I would recommend widely.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime. My rating 4/5

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I’m trying to read as many books as I can that are either nominated for this year’s Ned Kelly Awards (best Australian crime fiction) or are eligible for this year’s Davitt Awards (I can vote in the Reader’s choice category of the awards for crime writing by Australian women) so there will hopefully be lots more Aussie books to come in the next few weeks.

Review: Cold Justice by Katherine Howell

Posted on by
15

My third book for this year’s Aussie Authors challenge is also Katherine Howell’s third novel, which I only realised recently I had somehow missed on its release in February last year. Of course I had to read it before embarking on her fourth book which has just been released.

Tim Pieters’ body was found hidden in bushes not far from his home 19 years ago. His killer was never found. Now his cousin is a Member of Parliament and has enough clout to arrange for the case to be re-opened. Detective Ella Marconi is assigned to the cold case as her first job back at work after being shot. Among the many investigative avenues she takes is the need to track down Georgie Daniels who was Tim’s school classmate and was the one to stumble over his body. She is now a paramedic who has recently undergone some workplace troubles and is being assessed for fitness to work.

This is one of the most cleverly plotted novels I have ever read. I had some issues with plotting in this book’s predecessor but here Howell has excelled at creating a complex, taut drama that is also easy to follow. The story is told mainly in two alternating threads from Georgie and Ella’s points of view but when necessary to fill in details no one else could know there are also chapters from other key players’ perspectives, including Tim’s cousin Callum who is responsible for the case being re-opened. The way these threads are woven together is outstanding and the result is a totally gripping novel full of suspense. This is one of those books that genuinely deserves the ‘unputdownable’ label as I read it over the course of a single day/night and only stopped when circumstances positively demanded I do so.

A feature of this series is that although the Detective is consistent across the books there is always another lead character who is a different paramedic each time. Howell is a former paramedic herself so brings an authenticity to her depictions of this high-stress workplace which are always fascinating and provide lots of drama. Using a different character each time keeps the series genuinely fresh by having someone other than the Detective lead us through some of the important action. It also gets rid of the credibility problem that can sometimes happen in long running series where awful things keep happening to the same poor sod. Importantly though the characters are always well-drawn, whether they are long-running ones or only to appear in a single book. Ella, who we have come to know over three books, has a near-obsession with work which impacts her personal life in various ways. The characters new to this book, including Georgie and the family of the murdered boy who have all struggled in various ways to come to terms with his death and the lack of closure on the case, are all sensitively described and people whose stories I felt quickly drawn into.

I loved the way this book approached the idea of people’s pasts and how they might feel differently about events they witnessed or took part in with the benefit of age and distance. There are multiple characters, major and minor, who Howell uses to explore some variation of this idea and it really does give some insight into how real world cold cases might be solved years after the event even if there isn’t new evidence.

In short the book is brilliantly plotted, full of compelling characters and can be just as easily read by people new to the series as it can by existing fans. It’s Howell’s best book to date and is highly recommended to all.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Cold Justice has been reviewed at Aust Crime Fiction

I read Howell’s first book, Frantic, in my pre-blog days but have reviewed the second book, The Darkest Hour.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Author website http://www.katherinehowell.com/index.htm
Publisher Pan Macmillan [2010]
ISBN 97814055039277
Length 329 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series #3 in the Ella Marconi series
Source I bought it

Review: The Darkest Hour by Katherine Howell

Posted on by
Reply

Title: The Darkest Hour

Author: Katherine Howell

Publisher: Pan Macmillan [2008]

ISBN: 978-0-330-42467-7

Length: 491 pages

Paramedic Lauren Yates is working alone one night when a man bolts from an alley in the heart of Sydney and she stops to see what’s going on. She stumbles upon the body of a convicted paedophile then the man’s killer, Thomas Werner, who is Lauren’s sister’s ex boyfriend and the father of her niece. He warns her to say nothing if she wants her family to be OK. Some months later, after Lauren has lied about the events she say in the alley that night, Lauren and her partner Joe are transporting a stabbed man to the hospital in their ambulance and he makes a dying declaration that the man who killed him was Thomas Werner. Detective Ella Marconi is assigned to the investigative team and realises that Lauren has something to hide when she tries to change her statement about the patient’s dying declaration.

This is the second of Howell’s books to be published and, like the first book Frantic, for me it was more about the psychology of the situations people find themselves in than a standard police procedural. Howell is a former paramedic she really captures the tension and emotion that must be a constant for people in that line of work. Some of the most compelling reading in the book is when the paramedics respond to callouts where they have little knowledge of what they’ll find. But she also, hopefully without the same first-hand knowledge, does a top job of depicting the crumbling of the fragile relationships between the various criminals that feature in the book. Her main characters, Lauren and Ella, are both shown to be fully rounded people with all the foibles and shades of grey that we humans have and seeing what made them tick and how they would handle the increasingly nasty stuff being thrown at them made me want to keep reading.

I did struggle with the plot a bit. Partly this is my fault as I read the book over a week or so rather than my usual couple of days. But even accounting for that I felt the need for a whiteboard and coloured markers so I could keep track of the various telephone calls that connected the many players together. The introduction of the daily investigating team meetings at which the day’s discoveries were summarised was, I suppose, an acknowledgement of the plot’s complexity and while it helped me a bit I think the whole thing could have been resovled more simply.  The beginning and the end were perfectly understandable but I lost my way a couple of times in the middle.

Ultimately though this is a good read, particularly if you like to read about how various types of people will react to life’s nastiness.

My rating 3.5/5

Other Stuff

Reviewed at Crime Down Under,  Aust Crime Fiction (Sally) and Aust Crime Fiction (Karen) , Mysteries in Paradise

Katherine Howell’s previous book, featuring a different paramedic but the same police detective, is Franticand I rated it a 4/5 (pre blog days)