Review: OKIWI BROWN

OKIWI BROWN by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press, 2024)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

The Burke and Hare anatomy murders of 1828 terrify Edinburgh, until Burke is hanged and Hare disappears. Over a decade later, in the early days of New Zealand colonial settlement, a whaler washes up on the eastern shores of Port Nicholson. He calls himself Ōkiwi Brown, sets up a pub with an evil reputation and takes in a woman abandoned on his beach. Nearby, children sing dark nursery rhymes of murder.

One afternoon, Õkiwi is visited by a pair of ex-soldiers, a bosun looking for a fight, and itinerant worker William Leckie with his young daughter, Mary. When a body is discovered on the beach, it could be that a drunken man has drowned. But perhaps the gathered witnesses know something more.

Cristina Sanders is a new to me author who has written a number of books in the past along the same lines of ŌKIWI BROWN - a fictionalised version of historical events that incorporate early tales (tall and true) of Aotearoa. 

This story is told in a series of anecdotes, incorporating the story of a man, a waler who washed up on the eastern shores of Port Nicholson many years ago, in the early days of colonial settlement. He sets himself up with a pub and makes a home with a woman found abandoned on the nearby beach, quickly developing a reputation for evil and nasty going's on. 

The set up to this is an unusual one, perhaps not so out of the ordinary for Cristina Sanders if the blurbs for her other books (MRS JEWELL AND THE WRECK OF THE GENERAL GRANT, JERNINGHAM and DISPLACED) are anything to go by, although this one appears to be the only novel that so directly connects the possibility of past and present murders, and a potential character from history. 

Told with incredible strength, and a profound sense of place, ŌKIWI BROWN never shies away from the intrinsic evil of that unknown waler, or the difficulties of life in the new colony, whilst weaving in enough of the story of Burke and Hare to give the assumption of identity some credence. 

Overall it's well depicted, although populated by a lot of characters and some very disparate stories. All in all, it was increasingly disconcerting to think about the possibility of who else washed up on what shores in the days of very limited communications.

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. 

"Full throttle thriller, well written" - review of NOBODY'S HERO

NOBODY'S HERO by MW Craven (Little, Brown, Oct 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

When a shocking murder and abduction on the streets of London leads investigators to him, Ben Koenig has no idea at first why the highest echelons of the CIA would need his help. But then he realises he knows the woman who carried out the killings. Ten years earlier, without being told why, he was tasked with helping her disappear.

Far from being a deranged killer, she is the gatekeeper of a secret that could take down the West, so for years she has been in hiding. Until now. And if she has resurfaced, the danger may be closer and more terrifying than anyone can imagine.

So Ben Koenig has to find her before it's too late. But Ben suffers from a syndrome which means he can't feel fear. He doesn't always know when he should walk away, or when he's leading others into danger...

While I've really enjoyed some of MW Craven's excellent crime novels starring DS Washington Poe and civilian analyst Tilly Bradshaw - last year's The Mercy Chair was one of my top reads of 2024 - I hadn't read Fearless, Craven's then-standalone thriller that introduced Ben Koenig, a former US Marshall turned ghost of a man; a man who couldn't feel fear in the way normal humans do. 

So I went into Nobody's Hero, the sequel, not knowing quite what to expect. Overall, it was a highly compelling, page-whirring read. A little different in style - more full-throttle thriller with a shade less character development or layers compared to the Tilly and Poe books, while still being well written. 

And involving huge stakes. Save the world kind of matters, compared to Poe's more local investigations. Speckled too with memorable, if at times over-the-top, characters. Echoes of 007. 

The reappearance of the woman Koenig helped vanish ties to 'the Acacia Avenue Protocol'. In a CIA safe is a list of four names. Koenig is the only one still alive. But he has no clue what the Acacia Avenue Protocol is, or why he's on the top secret list. At first appearance, the nomadic Koenig also doesn't seem like the kind of operative to task with such a mission. But he knows that if the woman has resurfaced then something must be very, very wrong. Sent to London to pick up the trail, Koenig gets sucked into a globe-trotting, action-packed quest taking him from Scotland to New York to Nevada. While dodging or dealing with some very dangerous individuals, including a cabal of corrupt cops, and a peculiar hitman. 

With Nobody's Hero, Craven crafts a master class in action thrillers: lots of intensity, lots of movement, high stakes, interesting characters, an intricate plots and some wonderful set pieces. Koenig is an intriguing hero - even if he feels like nobody's idea of a hero - and the surrounding cast, including frenemy Jen Draper, add extra colour and intrigue. Other than blowing the budget with some spectacular set pieces, Nobody's Hero would likely translate very well to the screen. 

For now though, at least we can all enjoy a ripsnorter of a read. 

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.

"Cutting edge tech with timeless thrills" - review of THE PROVING GROUND

THE PROVING GROUND by Michael Connelly (Allen & Unwin, 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Mickey Haller has moved from criminal to civil court, but murder remains in his sights—in particular, the case of a chatbot encouraging the killing of a teenage girl.

Mickey files a civil lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company responsible for the chatbot and instantly finds himself on the wild frontier of the billion-dollar AI industry. Grappling with a terrifying lack of regulation and data overload, Haller partners with journalist Jack McEvoy. But they are up against mega-forces, and even the bravest whistleblower faces grave danger.

In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess master Garry Kasparov with an unexpected gambit. In a Herculean new match of man vs machine, can Haller pull off a winning play for humanity?

Long-time fans of Michael Connelly’s work have already had plenty to enjoy this year, with the crescendo of the excellent Bosch screen adaptation starring Titus Welliver, the launch of the Renee Ballard series on Amazon Prime, continuation of the hit Lincoln Lawyer adaptation on Netflix, and a new series character – LA County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell, exiled to rustic Catalina Island – introduced in Connelly’s previous 2025 novel Nightshade. But wait, there’s more… 

Now Mickey Haller is back on the page too, joined by another Connelly main character, in The Proving Ground. For nearly 35 years Connelly has been entertaining readers (and viewers) with top-notch storytelling that manages to be both timeless, and timely. He’s unafraid to delve into societal and other changes, show the impact of cases on his characters,  and offer modern takes on the detective fiction tropes that have served for more than a century, while still honouring readers and what we love or expect about the mystery genre. And with Michael Conelly’s tales themselves, long-time readers have built up an expectation of consistent excellence.

 

He delivers once more in The Proving Ground, blending familiar foundations with splashes of the new.

In search of a new direction, Mickey Haller, aka ‘the Lincoln Lawyer’, is taking on civil rather than criminal cases, and now he has an artificial intelligence (AI) company in his sights. The creators of a chatbot that may have played a key role in a sixteen-year-old boy killing his ex-girlfriend. 

Delving into unfamiliar ground, Haller joins forces with relentless journalist Jack McEvoy (The Poet, The Scarecrow, etc) as they take on a pioneering case that explores the dangerous sides of the booming AI industry where technological innovation and the race to cash in threatens to overwhelm outdated regulations or any guardrails. With billions at stake, and powerful forces in the tech industry not keen to have progress or profits slowed in any way, it’s an extremely dangerous case.

It's almost redundant nowadays to say Connelly is a master storyteller; it goes without saying. In The Proving Ground he draws readers into a hugely compelling tale that delves into cutting-edge technology while also delivering timeless intrigue and thrills. It’s great to be riding with the Lincoln Lawyer again on the page, and teaming McEvoy and Haller brings another fresh twist to the expansive ‘Bosch universe’ that Connelly has built over more than three decades. 

AI and technology – not to mention the legal system itself – is a hugely complex subject matter, but Connelly deftly draws readers in and provides enough information and background while still maintaining narrative drive and excitement. He’s a master of the ‘telling detail’ that delivers a sense of something without requiring lengthy description. I tore through this book in a day. Another very enjoyable read in Connelly’s ever-expanding canon. As he gets set to celebrate his 70th birthday next year, Connelly is a beacon among the mystery and thriller genre of maintaining the highest standards throughout a long-running series, and threading the needle of fresh and familiar. 

[This review was first published in the Fall 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.

Review: THE MIRES

THE DEEPER THE DEAD by Catherine Lea (Bateman Books, 2025)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old tearaway Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child, who always picks up on things that aren't hers to worry about. They live next door to Janet, a white woman with an opinion about everything, and new arrival Sera, whose family are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe.

 

When Janet’s son Conor arrives home without warning, sporting a fresh buzzcut and a new tattoo, the quiet tension between the neighbours grows, but no one suspects just how extreme Conor has become. No one except Wairere, who can feel the danger in their midst, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.

Hopefully more and more of us are looking for answers to the state of the world in the right directions, but then again you look at the state of world politics and the rise of the nationalistic mobs, environmental degradation and climate change denial, and it's getting hard to see any light at the end of an increasingly long, dark tunnel. Tina Makereti has chosen to take this situation, and the hopelessness generated hyper-local, with THE MIRES. Into a small community, living on top of a swamp in Kapiti, on the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand which is trying to coexist, and it's in their interactions and responses to threats that we have been given the opportunity to learn something,

The story is centred around three women - all from different countries and different decades, all of whom with children and life experience that vary dramatically. First up is Keri, a Māori woman who lives with the aftermath of domestic violence, struggling to feed her two children - a lively four year old called Walty and her reserved teenage daughter Wairere, who hears the voices of her ancestors and has the gift of sight.

She lives between, on the one side, refugees from ecological breakdown in Europe - Sera, her husband Adam and baby Aliana. On the other Janet, another survivor of domestic violence, she's a white New Zealander woman with very fixed ideas about how everybody else should live. Meanwhile her son, Conor, is becoming increasing radicalised, behaving very secretly and strangely.

These three women - Keri, Sera and Janet - form the core of this novel, but it's Conor who becomes the catalyst, returning home without warning, sporting tattoos and a buzzcut, his behaviour really causing the tension to ramp up. Whilst the older women may not immediately realise just how warped Conor's beliefs have become, Wairere immediately senses the danger.

As with the outstanding and very moving KATARAINA, central to the core of the Māori people is their connection to vital areas of the landscape - in this case, again, a swamp that forms both part of the community and their sensibility for want of a better description. The novel starts out quite deceptively, with the feel of a gentle, domestic styled story about women, families and living in small communities or suburbs. As friendships are formed, and the younger children in particular form initial bridges between them, the novel itself starts to build through the gathering of strangers and the perceived threat of difference to a very particular threat within. Conor and his extremist right-wing connections, isolation, and targeting of women and migrants in particular becomes something that could break this small, almost insulated world apart.

Informed strongly by indigenous sensibilities, beliefs and spiritual connections to Country, and ancestors, THE MIRES also isn't afraid to use the examples of the horror of white supremacy, the massacres that are all too often performed in its name, and attempt to shine a light on that darkest of human behaviour whilst more importantly, providing examples of how the best of humanity can rise above. 

Whilst parts of THE MIRES were devastating, and very discomforting to read, it's message of hope and connection shone through. It has a particularly indigenous sensibility - the things that matter - people / community / connection to those and to place, always to place, feels very much like an answer we could all be looking towards. .

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. 

“Unique, enthralling mystery" - review of THE NANCYS AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING NECKLACE

THE NANCYS AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING NECKLACE by RWR McDonald (Orenda Books, Nov 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Eleven-year-old Tippy’s uncle and his boyfriend turn up in her small New Zealand town to look after her when his mother is away over Christmas, but when her schoolteacher is found dead and her best friend has a near-fatal accident, the trio turns detective, dubbing themselves The Nancys, and launching a chaotic, hilarious investigation.

I don't know if I've grinned as much reading a crime novel for quite a long time. There's such a lovely sense of exuberance to Melbourne-based Kiwi author RWR McDonald's debut mystery, which is set in a fictional small town in the deep south of New Zealand.

Delightful, charming, heartfelt, exuberant; they're not usually the words that come top of mind when musing on a crime novel, but they absolutely fit for The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace, which has an adolescent heroine but is very much an adult mystery novel (not a young adult or juvenile mystery).

I can certainly see why the then-unpublished manuscript was highly commended in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (a pipeline that has highlighted the likes of The Dry by Jane Harper, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, and The Nowhere Child by Christian White).

There's just something, well, je ne sais quoi, about The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace that makes it quite different to much of the great rural and small-town crime writing coming out of Australia and New Zealand in recent years. While it has some of the quirky local characters and secrets-behind-closed-doors you'd expect with 'rural noir', there's a different energy and tone, delightfully so.

At its heart, and the book has a big one, The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace centres on the misadventures of an unlikely investigating trio and the colourful South Otago townsfolk they encounter. along the way.

Tippy Chan is an eleven-year-old Riverstone local delighted by a visit from her beloved Uncle Pike, a Sydney hairdresser who could body double for Santa Claus. Pike has returned to the riverside town he fled years before - "the town that style forgot", as the blurb aptly describes - with his fashionista boyfriend Devon in tow, to look after Tippy while her mother goes on a cruise.

It's been a tough time for the Chan family, with Tippy's father passing away in the past year and even more stress heaped on her mother, Pike's sister, who could do with a good break away. Tippy loves her uncle’s old Nancy Drew books, and when her best friend falls off a bridge and then her teacher’s body is found near the town's only traffic light, the trio see a chance to solve a mystery for real. At the same time they're juggling other local adventures, including a surprising makeover of a glum teenage neighbour for a local show, and Pike dealing with his past history in the town.

Overall The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace is a real delight, a charming mystery that is much more than charm, packed with lovably unruly characters and chaotic events and perfectly seasoned with humour and heart. First-time novelist McDonald has opened his account with a real belter, a unique and enthralling tale.

[I originally reviewed this book for the New Zealand Listener and this blog on its original Australian and New Zealand release a few years ago. Today a newly edited and updated version, The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace has been published for the first time for UK, USA & global market] 

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: A HOUSE BUILT ON SAND

A HOUSE BUILT ON SAND by Tina Shaw (Text Publishing, 2024)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Maxine has been losing things lately. Her car in the shopping centre carpark. Important work files—and her job as a result. Her marbles? ‘Mild cognitive impairment’, according to the doctor. Time for a nursing home, according to her daughter, Rose.

Rose has her own troubles with a recurring vision of a locked cupboard, claustrophobic panic. Something in the shadows. Something to do with the old family house in Kutarere.

Back in that house by the beach, Maxine and Rose try to find their bearings. But they can’t move forward without dealing with the past—and the past has a few more surprises in store.

The idea of losing things being a precursor to something more sinister is one of those noises lurking at the back of many minds of a "certain age". On the one hand we're always told that forgetting names, losing your keys, forgetting where the car was parked - it's all part of life busy noise. You get it when you're juggling too many things in too small a space of time with not enough sleep because along with that forgetfulness come the aches, pains and niggles. Did I mention dropping things? Am I projecting here? Quite possibly, but A HOUSE BUILT ON SAND was a memorable reading experience because of so many things it's hard to know where to start.

When Maxine's doctor diagnosed 'mild cognitive impairment', he probably should have included a diagnosis for her daughter Rose, who is on edge and suffering some form of PTSD right from the start of this novel. Which means, despite her doctor's explicit instructions not to drive, when Maxine heads out to drive from Auckland to the family bach at Kutarere, she causes panic and resentment. She's hoping that whatever it is that's really important about going there will come to her when she arrives, but a near miss with a truck and a crash into a ditch mean that Rose is called and she could really. Live. Without. The four-hour-drive to collect Maxine. This is not the first drop everything and run episode with Maxine and Rose is annoyed, Rose's husband is tetchy and Maxine doesn't seem to care.

Once Rose gets there though, the idea of an extra night at the house, where there are so many happy memories, seems like a good idea. And then the reader starts to discover just what a car crash Rose's own life has become, even without her mother's dramas. Infertility challenges and a less than invested partner, a job as an early childhood educator adding to the sense of personal failure, to say nothing of the strain of working with other people's children in general. Claustrophobia, and a therapist that can treat her over the phone, at the location of the worst of her childhood triggering memories seems like a good plan, as does the chance to find some way of reconnection with her mother. But Maxine is dealing with her own stirred memories - not all of them good, and there's something, in particular that's worrying her, making her feel guilty and stressed. 

A HOUSE BUILT ON SAND is a interesting approach to what is a very convincing portrayal of somebody's slip into dementia. Giving that the twist of a mystery to be solved seems to reflect the way that life goes - for the sufferer and their families, little mysteries of what / why and when being solved on a regular basis, but this time, with something bigger behind it. It seems that the author of this work has some personal experience of parts of this scenario and the narrative reads as both convincing and sympathetic but realistic, warts and all with humour and sadness, and past and present, leading inexorably to a future that needs some getting used to.

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. 

"An original, intricate mystery" - review of THE TWYFORD CODE

THE TWYFORD CODE by Janice Hallett (Viper, 2022)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children's book, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. He took it to his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles, who became convinced it was the key to solving a puzzle. That a message in secret code ran through all Edith Twyford's novels. Then Miss Isles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven's memory won't allow him to remember what happened. 

Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Steven decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. Was Miss Isles murdered? Was she deluded? Or was she right about the code? And is it still in use today? Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Isles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn't just a writer of forgotten children's stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn't the only one trying to solve it.

Former journalist and British government speechwriter Janice Hallett burst onto the mystery writing scene during the pandemic with The Appeal, a modern take the classic ‘crossword puzzle’ style murder mysteries, with an epistolary twist. Told via letters, emails, and messages, readers were invited to try to solve the mystery alongside two young lawyers looking for ‘the real killer’ among all the documents in a case. 

Hallett’s fascinating second novel, The Twyford Code, continues her ‘found documents’ approach; this time readers are given semi-accurate transcripts of audio recordings aging ex-con Steven Smith has made on an old iPhone given to him by his estranged son. Looking for redemption, or perhaps just purpose, Steven tries to find out what happened to his remedial English teacher forty years before. Miss Isles had vanished after an unauthorised field trip to visit the countryside haunts of Edith Twyford, a maligned and rather forgotten children’s author whose old-fashioned mysteries may have contained a secret code to solve a real mystery, along with their racism, sexism, and xenophobia. 

Was Miss Isles disappearance linked to the Twyford Code? 

Shadowy figures seem determined to stop Steven, who cajoles some old classmates into the hunt, with mixed success, and is joined by young librarian Lucy for what becomes a dangerous mission entwined with wartime secrets and London gangs. But how much can we believe?  

Hallett deftly keeps readers guessing throughout an entertaining tale. The error-speckled audio transcripts may take readers a while to adjust to, but overall work very well to give voice to characters and a different sheen to the suspects/clues/red herrings nature of a classic mystery. 

The Twyford Code is an original, intricate mystery. A few pacing issues, perhaps, and at times the conceit threatens to overwhelm the story or our connection to characters, but Hallett brings it all together brilliantly at the end. A very good read.

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.

"A fresh take on the Bond universe" - review of QUANTUM OF MENACE

QUANTUM OF MENACE by Vaseem Khan (Zaffre, 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Q is out of MI6 ... and in over his head. After Q (aka Major Boothroyd) is unexpectedly ousted from his role with British Intelligence developing technologies for MI6's 00 agents, he finds himself back in his sleepy hometown of Wickstone-on-Water. 

His childhood friend, renowned quantum computer scientist Peter Napier, has died in mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a cryptic note. The police seem uninterested, but Q feels compelled to investigate and soon discovers that Napier's ground-breaking work may have attracted sinister forces . . . Can Q decode the truth behind Napier's death, even as danger closes in?

Award-winning author Vaseem Khan is trying something new. The creator of two terrific mystery series set in India – one historic, one contemporary - and the first-ever non-white Chair of the esteemed Crime Writers Association, in his latest quaffable novel Khan veers into Ian Fleming territory.

Quantum of Menace is an authorised novel in the James Bond universe. Not starring 007; instead, the former head of the British Secret Service’s R&D department, aka Q Branch.

Recently evicted by a new M from his longtime role arming Bond and other agents with all sorts of gadgets, Major Boothroyd, aka Q, travels back to his hometown of Wickstone-on-Water following the mysterious drowning of a childhood friend. Did brilliant quantum computer scientist Peter Napier kill himself? While the local police don’t seem interested, Q is compelled to investigate.

But is he just distracting himself from being put on the career shelf in middle age? Or from his own painful history he left behind in Wickstone-on-Water, decades ago?

Quantum of Menace is a highly engaging, cosier take on the Bond universe, packed with dry humour alongside plenty of intrigue. Khan deftly crafts a fascinating, reimagined Q who is neither the legendary Desmond Llewelyn’s onscreen version from the 1960s-1990s, nor the more recent Ben Whishaw portrayal from Daniel Craig’s 007 films. Instead, a richly drawn character with his own backstory. A desk and lab warrior for Queen (now King) and country, who suddenly finds himself ‘in the field’. What would 007 do? Does that even matter, given Q’s differing set of special skills?

Khan crafts an absorbing, page-whirring tale where the shadow of the famed spy is often present, and there are plenty of nods to Fleming’s oeuvre and the films. While Bond may have favoured Aston Martins, Q has his own eye-catching vehicle, a lime green Caterham. Plus an inherited dog named Bastard, a robot companion called Honeypenny, and tricky relationships with old friends and family in Wickstone-on-Water. The Prodigal Son returns, causing plenty of trouble.

A fascinating read and fresh take on the Bond universe. Very good.

[This review was first published in the Fall 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.