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Good Reading : July 2011
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WWW.GOODREADINGMAGAZINE.COM GOOD READING JULY 2011 34 CRIME FICTION WOM word of mouth Killed at the Whim ofaHat Colin Cotterill Colin Cotterill has taken time off writing about Siri Paiboun, the elderly male coroner of Laos, to introduce us to Jimm Juree, a feisty 30-something female crime reporter in Thailand. When she's forced to quit the city for a sleepy fishing village north-east of Phuket to look after a mother who's on the edge of dementia, she's convinced her career is over. And then ... two skeletons are found during the excavation of a well. They are sitting side-by-side in a rotting camper van -- and one of them is wearing a hat. After sending off her copy to her editor, Jimm calls in to the police station to check on developments and learns that an abbot has been brutally murdered at a local monastery. Our intrepid reporter pretty well takes over the two investigations using her intuition, her analytical ability and her colourful family to do much of the legwork. Wonderful characters abound and laugh-out-loud humour is frequent. The police are left to direct traffic, take messages and fill in the paperwork. This is escapism par excellence. I hope there's a sequel. The mystery of the missing father needs to be pursued and unresolved sexual tension between Jimm and a guy whose ... top was off ... all muscle ... silvery sweat clung to him like ... Well, you get the message. ★★★★ Quercus $32.99 e Reviewed by Clive Hodges The Fifth Witness Michael Connelly Crime-writing maestro Michael Connelly retur ns his conflicted legal hero Mickey Haller to the defence side of the courtroom, after 'the Lincoln Lawyer' dipped his toes into the prosecutorial waters last year in The Reversal -- in which he also shared star billing with Connelly's other ter rific creation, Harry Bosch. Like many, Haller has been badly affected by the global financial crisis, but the street-smart attorney has found a way to keep the money rolling in: taking on mortgagee cases. His days are filled with defending clients more from home foreclosures than criminal charges. But then one troublesome client who's been loudly accusing her bank of fraud finds herself on the wrong end of a murder rap when the bank's CEO is discovered dead in a carpark. And Haller finds himself back doing what he does best: defending a client against the might of the state in a high-profile case and trying to use every trick in his book to see that justice is served. Together with a thrilling plot line and great characterisation (Haller questions many of his own life choices), The Fifth Witness explores the murky causes and troubling effects of the financial meltdown. Another terrific novel from one of the very best in the game. ★★★★ Allen & Unwin $32.99 e Reviewed by Craig Sisterson The Payback Simon Kernick Over the past decade British author Kernick has become a real star of the fast-paced thriller game. In The Payback he brings together two of his most compelling 'heroes': cop-tur ned- hitman-with-a-conscience Dennis Milne (from Ker nick's 2002 debut The Business of Dying and the 2005 novel A Good Day to Die) and prickly, obsessive DI Tina Boyd (from The Crime Trade and last year's The Last 10 Seconds). Milne is now living a low-profile life in South-East Asia, earning his way by killing drug dealers, corrupt businessmen and others who his conscience decides deser ve to die. Then he gets a new target, a young woman ar riving in Manila who has made herself some nasty enemies. Meanwhile Boyd has decided to travel to the Philippines on the trail of a ruthless and dangerous gangster who for years has managed to evade justice for his many crimes, including the murder of her jour nalist lover. These two are set on a dangerous collision course. Kernick has a Patterson-esque touch for helter-skelter pacing and plotlines, only with more depth and better characterisation. The Payback tears along and is the kind of book you devour in one sitting, staying up late as the pages whir. ★★★ Bantam $32.95 e Reviewed by Craig Sisterson Killing Hour Andrew Gross Andrew Gross first broke into novel writing as part of the James Patterson production line, co-writing five bestselling page-tur ners (including The Jester, 2nd Chance and 3rd Degree) with the prolific and popular crime writer. Killing Hour is Gross's fifth thriller solely under his own name. Dr Jay Handler has a good, stable life, unlike his brother in California, who has suffered from mental illness for decades and lived on the edges of society. Then Jay gets a phone call that changes everything: his disturbed nephew Evan has apparently thrown himself off a cliff, and Jay's brother is distraught. Heading to California, Jay begins to think Evan's death wasn't a suicide, but the police and then other shadowy figures want him to leave the matter alone. As the trail leads to his own brother's murky past, things get even more dangerous for Jay and all those he loves. The good and stable life is long gone. Gross writes in a fairly straightforward, linear style, with little in the way of surprises, subtext or depth. He does create a nice want-to-know-what-happens-next narrative drive, but Killing Hour isn't the type of book that will have you fondly remembering compelling characters, snappy dialogue or well-evoked settings. It's just an easy, breezy read. ★★ HarperCollins $29.99 e Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
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