The Wilder Aisles

Peter May has long been one of my favourite crime writers. I especially enjoyed The Lewis Trilogy and The Enzo Papers. His new book, A Winter Grave, is what is called a stand-alone title. He has written others, not in a series, and I have read some of them, Coffin Road, in particular, stands out.

In this story, we meet Detective Inspector Cameron Brodie. Based in Glasgow, not the sort of cop that I usually meet in the crime novels I read. He is big, rough around the edges, and sometimes quite brutal. As the book opens, Brodie is in court. He has been courtbashing a suspect and is in trouble. On top of that, he has just had tests for medical problems concerning him. After Brodie is called into the boss’s office, he is told he will not be charged with the offence but will be sent to the north to investigate the death of an investigative journalist. Brodie says he can’t go as he hasn’t received the results of his tests. However, after an event in which he is implicated, Brodie changes his mind about going. Another reason he was reluctant to take the job is because his estranged daughter, Addie, works in a weather station near where the body was found.

In fact, it was Addie who found the body. Addie refused anything to do with Brodie after her mother’s death, which she blames him for. The story of Brodie, Addie and Mel runs through the book, which is sombre. Brodie arrives in the north with a daughter who won’t speak to him, a corpse that has been frozen in an ice shelf, and little does he know, more deaths to come. This is an ecological thriller set in 2051, where warnings of a climate change catastrophe have long been ignored. Don’t let the climate change storyline put you off. It is a great crime story, with a twist at the end which I didn’t see coming, but then again, I usually don’t. If you like this, I suggest The Lewis Trilogy, especially if you long to go to those wonderful islands, which, unfortunately, I will only find on tv and, of course, in books.

Apart from crime, I have just finished reading all the books by Elizabeth Strout, probably best known for her Lucy Barton books. I came across Strout some time ago.

I read Amy and Isabelle, Abide With Me and The Burgess Boys, and then I read Olive Kitteridge, and that was when I discovered how incredibly talented this writer is.

Olive Kitteridge is a wonderful book. I really loved it, and sad to say, I kind of identified with Olive, who really wasn’t a very nice person. I think my favourite Lucy Barton title is Lucy by the Sea, where Lucy is taken by her ex-husband to Maine to escape from the pandemic. During their time away, Lucy discovers that these long quiet days inspire contemplation of the past and looking at the possibilities of the future.

Another title, Anything is Possible, looks at Lucy’s life as a child in Amgash, Illinois. How Lucy survives her terrible home life, her unloving mother, and the lack of any kind of stimulation to become a successful New York Writer is a story of resilience and courage. This book is like a series of short stories, telling of the happenings in the small town in nine chapters. One of the things I like about Strout’s novels is that all her characters have a guest appearance in the books. There is mention of Olive Kitteridge, who hasn’t changed much, if at all, and Lucy becomes friendly with one of the Burgess boys when staying in Maine. These books have been called small masterpieces, and I couldn’t agree more. I love smart and consider her books to be treasured, kept, and reread on the day when something special is required. Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge, which was turned into an award-winning mini-series, and the book topped the New York Times best-seller.

Talk soon, Janice

Home

Cailean Steed

Someone has broken into Zoe’s flat. A man she thought she’d never see again.They call him the Hand of God. She thought she’d left him far behind, along with the cult of the Children and their isolated compound Home but now he’s found her, and Zoe realises she must go back with him if she’s to rescue the sister who helped her escape originally. But going back will make her question everything she believed about her past and could also risk her hard-won freedom.

How To Kill A Client

Gavin Jones is dead at thirty-nine. As an in-house lawyer who controlled millions of dollars in fees per year, he was legal firm Howard Greene’s biggest client and wielded that power with manipulative contempt. But no one liked Gavin. The list of those who suffered from his cruelty was long enough to include pretty much everyone who had contact with him. So who actually killed him?

Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder

Lenny Marks is good at not remembering. She has spent the last 20 years not thinking about when her mother left. Now thirtyseven, Lenny prefers contentment and order over the unreliability of happiness and the messiness of relationships. Then, out of the blue, a letter arrives from the Adult Parole Board. And when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel. Worse, she starts to remember.

True Crime

The Snakehead

Patrick Radden Keefe

Picador, $37.00

Patrick Radden Keefe investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal: a charismatic middleaged grandmother, who from a tiny noodle shop in New York’s Chinatown managed a multi-million dollar business smuggling people. He paints a stunning portrait of Sister Ping’s complex empire and a generation of illegal immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them.

Untamed Shore

Virdiana spends her days dreaming of romance, travel and of a future beyond the drab town she lives in. So when an opportunity arrives to be the assistant of an American writer, she jumps at the offer, entangling herself in the glamorous foreigners’ lives. It’s not long before Viridiana has some of her own questions about the identities of her new acquaintances. Sharks may be dangerous, but there are worse predators nearby.

The Dead of Winter

It was supposed to be a simple delivery job for DI Victoria Montgomery. Pick up a prisoner from HMP Grampian and take them to their new state-funded home - but life’s never that straightforward. But when the approaching blizzards shut everything down, and an ex-cop-turned-gangster is discovered skinned alive in his bungalow, someone needs to take charge. Something nasty has come to Glenfarach, and Victoria is standing right in its way.

The Running Club

The wealthy community of Esperance is picture-perfect. Big houses, stunning views, beautiful people. A brand new running track for the local club to jog around in the evenings. From the outside, it looks like paradise. But the women of the town know the truth: you can hide anything - from wrinkles to secrets from your past - if you have enough money. You could even hide a murder.

The Hard Sell

Evan Hughes

Picador, $37.00

In the early 2000s, John Kapoor had already amassed a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he founded Insys Therapeutics. A boom time for painkillers, he had developed a novel formulation of fentanyl, the most potent opioid on the market. What follows is the inside story of a band of entrepreneurial upstarts who made millions selling painkillers - until their scheme unravelled, placing them at the centre of a landmark criminal trial.

Maus Now

Art Spiegelman & Hilary Chute

Penguin, $50.00 (HC)

Maus has shaped the fields of literature, history, and art, and enlivened our collective sense of what these practices can accomplish. Collecting responses to the work that confirm its unique and terrain-shifting status, this collection sees various writers approaching the complexity of Maus from a wide range of viewpoints and traditions.

On Animals

Susan Orlean

Atlantic, $23.00

Since the age of six, Susan Orlean has been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in this collection of stories she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career. Equal parts delightful, profound, and enriched by Orlean’s stylish prose and precise research.

Map Reading

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Bloomsbury, $23.00

‘Writing’ is the lecture of the Nobel Laureate in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah. Collected here with three further essays, it explores his coming-of-age, his early experiences in 1960s Britain, his lifelong love affair with reading, and the power of writing to subvert the stories that have been handed to us. Generous, funny and wise, this collection is the perfect introduction to the storyteller described as ‘one of Africa’s most important living writers’.

On Women

Susan Sontag

Bloomsbury, $30.00 (HC)

A brilliant new collection of essays on the oppression of women and the tools necessary for liberation from highlyacclaimed author Susan Sontag. First written in the 1970s during the height of second-wave feminism, this collection of lost essays examines the ‘biological division of labour’, the double standard for ageing and the struggle for real power, topics which are strikingly relevant to our contemporary conversations.

The One Thing We’ve Never Spoken About

Journalist Elfy Scott grew up in a household where her mother’s schizophrenia was rarely, if ever, spoken about. Part memoir, part deep-dive investigation, this book is filled with rage at how our nation’s public discourse, emergency services and healthcare systems continue to fail so many people. It is also a work of care, telling the little-heard stories of people who live with these conditions and work at the front lines of mental health.

The Secret Code-Breakers of Central Bureau

David Dufty

Central Bureau - Australia’s own large and sophisticated intelligence network, built from scratch. A groundbreaking work of military history, this publication gives these talented and dedicated individuals their due at last. It is a rich account of the shadowy side of military strength and of the men and women whose work was, in the words of the US navy, of ‘immeasurable importance in the successful prosecution’ of the Pacific War.

Smashing Serendipity

Wreathed in morning mist, the rainforest is a place where evolution and legend rule. After bitterly fought battles against logging, much of Australia’s remaining wet tropical rainforest is now World Heritage-listed and is once again being managed by Traditional Owners. Will the unique capacity of these rainforests to counteract climate change be their salvation, or will they continue to be vulnerable to exploitation for short-term gain? A delightful and urgent read.

Life is tough for the Connell family, growing up in a small town where racist attitudes, discrimination and violence against Aboriginal people are commonplace. Lavinia is lucky that her parents ensure her family stays together while other cousins and friends are removed from the state. In time, Lavinia will find herself a homeless young widow, stripped of hope when her own four children are taken away. But she has a way of righting herself, using education and determination to bring her small family back together, and finding love when she least expects it.

Gigorou (jig-goo-roo) means ‘beauty’ or ‘beautiful’ in Jirrbal, the language of Sasha Kutabah Sarago’s grandmother. Growing up, Sasha didn’t feel gigorou. At a young age, she was told, ‘You’re too pretty to be Aboriginal’. In this intimately fierce, funny and reflective book, Sasha retraces her footsteps as a beauty assistant, model and magazine editor to find the answers she’s searching for.

O’Leary of the Underworld

In June 1926, a posse of police officers and white civilians murdered at least twenty Oombulgurri people. After the massacre, a conspiracy of silence descended. One of the massacre’s perpetrators was Bernard O’Leary, a former soldier whose land holding was known as ‘the underworld’. In this electric prose, Auty depicts O’Leary as a merciless killer, while the apparatus that concealed his crimes is portrayed with great realism and clarity. The book exposes the injustices embedded in Australian settlement history, and the culture of denial that has prevented truth-telling in this country.

On Her Own Terms

Elected to federal parliament aged just twenty-eight, Tanya Plibersek has lived almost half her life in the public eye - and is the longest-serving woman in Australia’s House of Representatives. But how much do we know about what drives her, what she values, and what we can expect from her next? Margaret Simons draws on exclusive interviews with Plibersek, her political contemporaries, family and close friends to trace the personal and political strands of this modern Australian story.

Australian Foreign Affairs 17: Grit By China

The latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs examines the growing rivalry and increasing tension in the Pacific as it becomes a stage for a great-power contest to gain influence and a strategic position in the region. It looks at the challenges for Canberra as it seeks to strengthen ties with Pacific island countries and to counter moves by China to extend its reach into the waters off northern Australia.

Hodder & Stoughton

$35.00