Character first: 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists revealed

 

Character first: 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists offer page-turning tales that explore people and place

From a young Māori chef to a grieving family torn asunder by internet disinformation, wartime spies to comical Northland drug runners, the finalists for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards offer readers a kaleidoscopic array of unforgettable characters, fictional and real, among compelling tales full of mystery and thrills, touching on vital issues of modern times and eras past

“In our fifteenth anniversary season of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, we’ve been blessed with a fascinating range of entries across our three categories, from a diverse array of Kiwi voices and stories, styles, and settings, making our international judging panels’ jobs both very enjoyable and at times very tricky,” says Ngaio Marsh Awards founder Craig Sisterson.

Now in their sixteenth season, the Ngaio Marsh Awards celebrate excellence in mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense writing from Aotearoa storytellers. The 2025 finalists were announced today in Best Non-Fiction, Best First Novel, and Best Novel categories. 

“As the likes of Val McDermid and Dennis Lehane have said, if you want to better understand a place, read its crime fiction,” says Sisterson. “Crime writing in its wider sense can deliver interesting insights alongside rollicking entertainment, and is an ideal form for delving into people and place, as well as broader societal issues. And in our case with the Ngaios, we certainly see that across both our fiction and non-fiction entries and finalists.” 

The Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Non-Fiction is a biennial prize first presented in 2017, and previously won by Michael Bennett, Kelly Dennett, Martin van Beynen, and Steve Braunias. 

From a fascinating array of 2025 entrants, this year’s six finalists explore some truly remarkable real-life tales, ranging from a fresh look at New Zealand’s most infamous cold case to the little-discussed deadly legacy of a 1930s Devonport nurse. The finalists are:

• THE TRIALS OF NURSE KERR by Scott Bainbridge (Bateman Books)
• THE SURVIVORS by Steve Braunias (HarperCollins)
• THE CREWE MURDERS by Kirsty Johnstone & James Hollings (Massey Uni Press)
• THE LAST SECRET AGENT by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin)
• GANGSTER’S PARADISE by Jared Savage (HarperCollins)
• FAR NORTH by David White & Angus Gillies (Upstart Press)

This year’s finalists for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, an annual award first presented in 2016, and won last year by Rotorua author Claire Baylis for DICE, her extraordinary novel providing a jury-eyed-view of a sexual assault case, are: 

• DARK SKY by Marie Connolly (Quentin Wilson Publishing)
• LIE DOWN WITH DOGS by Syd Knight (Rusty Hills)
• A FLY UNDER THE RADAR by William McCartney 
• THE DEFIANCE OF FRANCES DICKINSON by Wendy Parkins (Affirm Press)
• THE CALL by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
• KISS OF DEATH by Stephen Tester (Heritage Press)

“It’s really heartening each year to see the range of new voices infusing fresh perspectives into the crime and thriller backstreets of our local literary landscape,” says Sisterson. 

This year that ranges from a mystery set at Tekapo's Mt John Observatory to a legal thriller set against the Spanish flu epidemic, from a blackly comic crime caper from a Devonport lawyer to the gritty first novel from one of our most acclaimed screen storytellers. 

Lastly, the finalists for the 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel, selected by an international panel of crime and thriller experts from a remarkable 15-book longlist, are:

• RETURN TO BLOOD by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster)
• A DIVINE FURY by DV Bishop (Macmillan)
• WOMAN, MISSING by Sherryl Clark (HarperCollins)
• HOME TRUTHS by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
• 17 YEARS LATER by JP Pomare (Hachette)
• THE CALL by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin)
• PREY by Vanda Symon (Orenda Books)

“It’s a dazzling group of finalists to emerge from a terrific longlist, and a fascinating broader group of entries that seems to get deeper and stronger every year,” says Sisterson. “Our international judges were full of praise for the entire longlist, and remarked on the world-class writing as well as compelling storytelling in many books that didn’t become finalists, as well as the overall variety within #yeahnoir, our Kiwi take on a globally popular genre.”

The 2025 Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists will be celebrated and this year’s winners announced at a special event, “The Ngaio Marsh Awards and The Murderous Mystery”, to be held in association with WORD Christchurch at Tūranga on Thursday, 25 September. The thrilling evening includes an improv murder mystery performance by the famed Court Theatre.  

Review: THE POOL

THE POOL by Hannah Tunnicliffe (Ultimo Press, 2024)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Prince of spin and life of the party, Baz King, is missing. Nine years ago, at an innocent summer barbecue in Melbourne, everything imploded. For the Kings and the four other young families there that fateful day marriages fractured, friendships crumbled and lives were upended.

Nothing would ever be the same.

Now in their forties and their children teenagers, Baz King cannot be found. Has his charm finally run out? With a history of dodgy dealings and no shortage of motives, anyone could be a suspect – his ex-wife, Birdie; his colleague, Alex Turner; his lover, Jess and her husband, Richard; his friend’s nanny and new wife, Madison – who wants him out of the picture?.

The promotional material pushes the connection, and it's hard not to get a vibe of THE SLAP from the blurb of this one  - young families, a tragedy at a BBQ that implodes relationships, crumbles friendships and all, but fear not if you're feeling like this is another commentary on parenting, because I will confess that's kind of the worry I had going in as well, and not the feeling I had coming out the other side of Hannah Tunnicliffe's THE POOL.

The catalyst of this story is events at a BBQ, nine years ago in Melbourne, after which prince of spin, life of the party, father, Baz King vanished. It's easy to imagine that he's simply done a runner, what with a history of dodgy dealings and a plethora of reasons for him to disappear himself, but there's a lot of suspects on that day including ex-wife Birdie, new wife Madison, colleagues, friends and a complicated interweaving of children, staff, lovers, and married partners who also have lovers. And a eye-watering and skin-crawling tendency towards flaunted privilege, tacky interpersonal relationships, misogyny, and, it has to be said, some truly bloody awful parenting.

So a lot going on, and a big cast of characters which means readers may find themselves floundering a bit in the early stages - particularly as there's a type here - big noting, big talking, basically not a lot there blokes, and pretty, vapid, put upon women. There's leering, there's suggestive talk, there's men at the BBQ, women in the kitchen, and the constant bickering over who is watching what kids, and there's alcohol. All of which leads to a tragedy, which leads to fracturing, which leads to the idea that it's nine years later, things are finally setting down, and all those people, with all those motives have finished with their own dramas and look to what really happened back then. 

There's also a lot of points of view, and what is, ultimately a cast of pretty unlikeable people, which may not necessarily appeal to many readers, but it had a feeling of real life about it, perhaps because of that. It also made the drama that bit more heightened, the number of potentially unreliable narrator's high, and the mystery and lying all the more believable.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect THE POOL is the sort of novel that will appeal directly to lovers of books of the sorts of suburban noir that writers like Liane Moriarty, Sally Hepworth, Caroline Overington and Louise Candlish are known for. There will be others that I should have included on that list. Blame too many books, too few brain cells left for any unforgivable omissions.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a regular judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by New Zealanders adn Australians on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"A tasty amuse-bouche" - review of THE BABY IS MINE

THE BABY IS MINE by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic Press, 2021)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

When his girlfriend throws him out during the pandemic, Bambi has to go to his Uncle's house in lock-down Lagos. He arrives during a blackout, and is surprised to find his Aunty Bidemi sitting in a candlelit room with another woman. They both claim to be the mother of the baby boy, fast asleep in his crib.

At night Bambi is kept awake by the baby's cries, and during the days he is disturbed by a cockerel that stalks the garden. There is sand in the rice. A blood stain appears on the wall. Someone scores tribal markings into the baby's cheeks. Who is lying and who is telling the truth?

Readers around the world have been looking forward to another novel from Nigerian star Oyinkan Braithwaite since her superb My Sister, the Serial Killer debuted to global acclaim pre-pandemic. That darkly funny slice of Lagos domestic noir was shortlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize, among other accolades.

The wait is nearly over, as next month Braithwaite’s second novel, Cursed Daughters, will be released. In the meantime however, readers can enjoy this fascinating novella. Set during the pandemic, it sees our protagonist Bambi kicked out of his girlfriend’s house. With Lagos in a blackout as well as lockdown, and with nowhere to go, he drives across the city to his late uncle’s house, only to be surprised by his Aunty Bidemi, and his uncle’s mistress, Esohe. And a baby.

Already under pressure, longtime playboy Bambi finds himself in a surreal world of bottle feeding, dirty nappies, and two women who both claim to be the baby’s mother. A stray cockerel stalks the garden. Someone puts sand in the rice. His aunty has to scrub blood stains off a wall. The baby’s cheeks are scratched with tribal markings. Who can Bambi believe – his grieving aunty, or Esohe, who had once shared Bambi’s bed too?

Braithwaite crafts a fast-flowing read full of darkness and humour. Aptly touted as a ‘blackly funny piece of Lagos gothic’, The Baby Is Mine is a lovely wee gift from a talented storyteller; a tasty amuse-bouche between the fuller courses of her novels..

[This review was first published in the August 2025 issue of Good Reading magazine in Australia]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

"Lingers long after the final page" - review of THE GIRL IN CELL A

THE GIRL IN CELL A by Vaseem Khan (Hachette, 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Convicted of murder at seventeen, infamous killer and true crime celebrity Orianna Negi has always maintained her innocence. BUT IF SHE DIDN'T KILL GIDEON WYCLERC...

Orianna has a blind spot over that fateful she can't remember what happened. Forensic psychologist Annie Ledet is tasked with unlocking the truth... THEN WHO DID?

Orianna grew up in Eden Falls, ruled by the insular Wyclerc dynasty and its ruthless patriarch , Amos. As their sessions progress, Annie reaches into Orianna's past to a shattering realisation... Scandal. Sex. Power. Race. And murder. Between guilt and innocence lies a fallen Eden.. 

Mystery readers may be pretty familiar with Vaseem Khan, the most recent Chair of the famed Crime Writers Association, thanks to his two fabulous series set in India - the Baby Ganesh mysteries, and the Malabar House historical mysteries set in post-Raj years. But the British-Indian author provides something very different with The Girl in Cell A, the first of two curveballs the sports-loving storyteller is throwing in 2025 (keep an eye out for his ‘James Bond universe’ thriller later this year).

Alternating between doctor and patient perspectives of prison psychologist Annie Ledet and celebrity killer Orianna Negi, The Girl in Cell A is a masterful mix of psychological thriller and rural noir. While Orianna has always maintained her innocence, despite being unable to recall events, it was no surprise she was convicted of killing Gideon Wyclerc, scion of the family that founded Eden Falls. She was found lying near the body, her fingerprints were on the shotgun, gunshot residue on

her, and plenty of motive given events of that day, and her entire life. A black teen with dissociative amnesia, a controversial diagnosis fuelling Orianna’s true crime celebrity, and plenty of online conspiracy theories. Can Annie Ledet uncover the truth; should Orianna ever be released?

Khan soaks readers in a town full of secrets and scandals and a crumbling dynasty with its own mythology. The Girl in Cell A is an impressive novel about the stories we believe and the lies we tell others and ourselves, that lingers long after its final page.

[This review was first published in the Summer 2025 issue of Deadly Pleasures magazine in the USA]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

"Rich in character and place, beautifully written" - review of THE VANISHING PLACE

THE VANISHING PLACE by Zoe Rankin (Moa Press, August 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

On the remote West Coast of the South Island, vast forests stretch out between mountain ranges and rugged beaches. There, in the small town of Koraha, not a lot happens - until a young girl with blood on her hands walks out of the bush and into the local store, collapsing to the floor.

She can't - or won't - speak to anyone. It's the town's sole policeman who recognises her face. She looks exactly like a local girl who disappeared twenty years ago. She has the same red hair. The same green eyes. What horrors has she left behind in the bush? Who will come looking for her? And what secrets are about to come to light?

A twisty and daring thriller about how those close to you can be even more dangerous than the deadliest wilderness. 

Scotland-born author Zoë Rankin’s passion for the outdoors seeps through the pages of her outstanding debut The Vanishing Place, which takes readers deep into the rugged, deadly magnificence of the New Zealand bush. It’s a compelling, atmospheric tale set on the ‘wild West Coast’ of her adopted homeland’s South Island, entwined with smalltown secrets, past sins, atypical upbringings, and religious fervour. With an exceptionally strong sense of people and place; you can almost smell the fern-encrusted undergrowth as you read, hear the babbling streams and birdsong, and feel the scratching anxiety of just how easy it would be to vanish in such isolated back country.

As we begin, Effie is a highly capable police officer on the Isle of Skye in Scotland who has a habit of sometimes stubbornly getting in over her head. Putting herself and others in danger, with the best of intentions. She has always loved remote places, despite mixed memories of growing up in a cabin deep in the bush outside of Koraha, a tiny West Coast settlement, before escaping to the far side of the world as a teenager. But when a girl who looks just like Effie stumbles into a Koraha store, covered in blood, bringing back echoes of a troubling past to the small community, Effie is called back to New Zealand to try to find answers, including what happened to the rest of her own family?

There is a lot to love about The Vanishing Place. Rankin, who has won prizes for her short story writing and been knocking on the door of the (novel) publishing world for a while, masterfully immerses readers in Effie’s tale, past and present, along with that of Lewis, the boy who saved her many years ago, and is now a sole-charge policeman on the West Coast who is trying to deal with Anya, the bloodied young girl who’d appeared out of the bush. The Vanishing Place is an exceptionally well-crafted thriller, rich in character and place, beautifully written.

[This review was first published in the Summer 2025 issue of Deadly Pleasures magazine in the USA]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

"Fun read with nods to Christie, grief, and memento mori" - review of FIVE FOUND DEAD

FIVE FOUND DEAD by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press, August 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

On a train, there are only so many places to hide… Crime fiction author Joe Penvale has won the most brutal battle of his life. Now that he has finished his intense medical treatment, he and his twin sister, Meredith, are boarding the glorious Orient Express in Paris, hoping for some much-needed rest and rejuvenation. Meredith also hopes that the literary ghosts on the train will nudge Joe's muse awake, and he'll be inspired to write again. And he is; after their first evening spent getting to know some of their fellow travelers, Joe pulls out his laptop and opens a new document. Seems like this trip is just what the doctor ordered…

And then some. The next morning, Joe and Meredith are shocked to witness that the cabin next door has become a crime scene, bathed in blood but with no body in sight. The pair soon find themselves caught up in an Agatha Christie-esque murder investigation. Without any help from the authorities, and with the victim still not found, Joe and Meredith are asked to join a group of fellow passengers with law enforcement backgrounds to look into the mysterious disappearance of the man in Cabin16G. But when the steward guarding the crime scene is murdered, it marks the beginning of a killing spree which leaves five found dead―and one still missing. Now Joe and Meredith must fight once again to preserve their newfound future and to catch a cunning killer before they reach the end of the line.

The Orient Express. An iconic multi-day train journey between Paris and Istanbul that for more than a century has symbolised both luxury travel, and murder, thanks to Agatha Christie’s iconic 1934 novel. The mere words can’t help but conjure images of a moustachioed Belgian sleuth, in whichever of his various forms, from Albert Finney to Kenneth Branagh, Alfred Molina to David Suchet.

While there is no Poirot in sight, there are plenty of sleuths on board in Five Found Dead, Sri Lankan-Australian crime writer Sulari Gentill’s modern homage to the Christie Classic. Narrator Meredith is a lawyer accompanying her twin Joe on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, celebrating Joe surviving a life-threatening illness, and to hopefully rekindle his crime writing mojo. Their fellow passengers include former spies, police officers, private eyes, and a pair of sisters on the trail of a swindler. Suspicious? Or merely to be expected given the iconic train’s drawcard mix of literary history and luxury?

Joe’s muse is stirred by the setting and company; on the first evening he begins to write again. But the next morning the murder mysteries become all-too-real, as the cabin next door is bathed in blood. But where’s the body? Cut off from the outside due to various factors, including a COVID strain tearing through parts of the train, Joe and Meredith are requested to join a group looking to find answers. But what if one of them is the killer? Especially as other bodies begin to show up.

Gentill, who earlier this year won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for her novel The Mystery Writer at the 2025 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, clearly has lots of love for Golden Age-style mysteries given her own terrific series set in 1930s Australia starring artist-sleuth Rowly Sinclair. She appears to be thoroughly enjoying herself with Five Found Dead, a clever and engrossing mystery that like her prior novel plays with the mystery genre, and has plenty of winks and nods to Christie, Hitchcock, and others. There’s even an appearance by real-life Australian books podcasters Flex & Herds (who host "Death of the Reader", which deep-dives into classic and foreign mystery fiction), who enthusiastically (and dangerously?) insert themselves into the investigation.

It’s a fun read, and more, that like Christie herself at times, rides the implausibility curve to its limits. But there’s depth here too, Gentill threads in nods to memento mori and meditations on the fragility of life – perhaps inspired by her own cancer scare - as Joe and others confront their mortality..

[This review was first published in Deadly Pleasures magazine in the United States]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Review: THE SECRET OF THE ANGEL WHO DIED AT MIDNIGHT

THE SECRET OF THE ANGEL WHO DIED AT MIDNIGHT by Rosy Fenwicke (June 2025)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

In the quiet wine-growing town of Martinborough, Detective Senior Sergeant Kate Sutton is called to investigate the murder of respected local physician Dr. Geoffrey Scott. Found dead in his own garden, the doctor's death sends ripples of unease through the close-knit community.

Recently divorced and still settling into her new home, Kate methodically begins to piece together the puzzle. As the investigation deepens, she discovers unexpected connections to the three-year-old disappearance of a young French woman—a case that has lingered unresolved in her career.

In this meticulously crafted mystery set in New Zealand's picturesque Wairarapa region, Rosy Fenwicke delivers a compelling police procedural that rewards careful attention and offers satisfying twists in the tradition of classic detective fiction. As Kate follows the clues to their logical conclusion, she discovers that even in the most idyllic settings, the past never truly stays buried.

The first in a new series from NZ author Rosy Fenwicke, THE SECRET OF THE ANGEL WHO DIED AT MIDNIGHT is a police procedural novel introducing DSS Kate Sutton.

Set in a wine-growing region of New Zealand, the sense of place in this one is pretty strong, drawing on a small town, with tensions between the old residents and newcomers staying very close to home. The victim in this novel is the local GP, Dr Geoffrey Scott, a man who has taken over his father's practice, a well known figure in the small community in which he's lived his life, his wife being the incomer. Younger, an artist, and right from the start seemingly somebody very different from her quiet, garden loving husband. Turns out that the relationship between these two is complicated, as it the truth behind Dr Geoffrey Scott's own position.

The investigation itself centres around recently divorced, and adjusting to a very different life, DSS Kate Sutton. She's got a supportive boss, a resentful underling, one son who remains close, one who is distant and an ex-husband who, frankly, sounds like a bit of a dick. She's also got a mostly absent, very eccentric father who arrives out of nowhere whilst Sutton is knee-deep in investigation problems and really not in the mood. Particularly when he temporarily moves into the spare room in her brand-new townhouse, although his presence does somehow smooth the path between Sutton and her youngest - part just a grumpy pain in the rear teenager, part the victim of a fairly acrimonious divorce.

The balancing act achieved between a complicated investigation - mostly because of what seems like a decidedly absent list of potential suspects - and the personal is good in this one though. The reader is allowed to get to know Sutton easily, as she navigates the complications of leading what turns into a pretty high profile case, at the same time that she works out how to start living on her own after many years juggling the job and the demands of a family. When a potential suspect does come to light, the pressure ramps up as the chance to arrest him is blown, and a second murder really makes the residents of this small town very twitchy. It's really only constant digging, and pushing and looking for things out of place, that ultimately connect events around the disappearance of a young French backpacker three years before, and the current murders.

In a police procedural style novel, readers will be looking for a believable investigative scenario, something not necessarily new, but well delivered, and increasingly a good balance between angst and hard work, inspiration and solid investigation. All of which THE SECRET OF THE ANGEL WHO DIED AT MIDNIGHT delivers well. The characters are good, the tension within the team believable and the slightly different angle of supportive boss / tricky colleague is a nice touch. As were the complications about the victim that were revealed as the case went on, and the way that the problems in his life took a while for people to be willing to talk about.

I think I saw somewhere that the second novel in this series is due out early in 2026, which is very good news as this is definitely a series worth keeping an eye out for.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by Australians and New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

Review: GLASS BARBIE

GLASS BARBIE by Michael Botur (Lasavia Publishing, 2024)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

'Cockroach' Karl Copley, a crackhead crim with a small brain and a big mouth, convinces his former best friend Richie McMullan - now a squeaky-clean senior cop - he can help rescue Barbara 'Barbie' Konstantinou, a high school crush apparently held for ransom by bikers in New Zealand's sunny north.

Problems pile up quickly, though, when Barbie doesn't want to go back to her effed-up family and it emerges there's much more at stake than a simple kidnapping.

Over two wild weeks of love/hate hangouts and rescue attempts, from Whāngarei to Kaitaia to the Bay of Islands, we find out if Crooked Karl has what it takes to solve the mystery and bring back Barbie.

If you're looking for something that's wild, ranty, full to brim with nobody (including the good, bad, and slightly deluded) winning at anything, then GLASS BARBIE could be just the ticket.

It's a roller coaster ride alongside wild man, crackhead, Karl Copley. He of the big mouth and small brain, who somehow convinces an old mate, now a senior cop, Richie McMullan that the two of them can rescue Copley's high school sweetheart Barbara Konstantinou (the Barbie from the title), who is being held for ransom by bikies. I mean why wouldn't a senior cop buy into a plan which doesn't bother to take into account a hefty bit of reluctance on the part of the victim, and a few more complications than just kidnapping? Basically it's a couple of weeks in their madness whilst the reader hangs onto the edge of the page, wondering what the... why the... when the... oh, they won't, will they? 

Of course they will. It's almost a guarantee that any book from this author will involve a hefty dose of what do you mean this is all madness, of COURSE it's all madness, where did you think that blurb was hinting this was all going to go?

Of course it will lack quite a bit of nuance, the point here is madness, violence, no brains, and men being utter dickheads, and it's delivering that. In spades ... chucked at heads mostly. 

Of course it will come with a hefty dose of ranty humour, and violence, and pace, and crazy. The whole thing is crazy really, and if you're here for crazy, dark, bitter twisted funny, and don't mind a heap of violence, lots of sweary language, and a scenario that's as daft as a bucketload of brushes, then go for it. This is your moment.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a regular judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by New Zealanders adn Australians on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction.