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Enjoyable quick read book

25/4/2019

Death On The Quay
by Thomas W Devine

This paperback book is an easy to read murder mystery “whodunnit”. Suitable for over 18 years of age as some details of violent acts are quite graphic. However, these are necessary for the story and a mature reader will understand this.
The story begins with a young freelance journalist, Adam Adair, walking to work along Lambton Quay in Wellington, when a woman collides with him and overbalances. Adam eases her fall and in the process of trying to sit her up, a bystander notices that she is bleeding from a knife wound in her back. The woman fixes her eyes on Adam with a desperate, pleading look before losing consciousness. Adam soon learns that she dies in the ambulance before reaching hospital.
Adam is haunted by the young woman's desperate attempt at communication and decides to investigate, as the Police do not seem to be making any progress, putting him and his closest friend in great danger.
Meanwhile, fashionable socialite, Cynthia, is being stalked, but hides her fears as she has a great secret that she cannot risk being uncovered. The plot thickens as some unsavoury characters are introduced.
The author keeps the reader wondering until the end of the story as events start to link in with each other, highlighting the stark differences of behaviour and attitudes between social classes. The author has the ability to make the characters to become quickly familiar to the reader which makes for easy reading.
The author also has a great knowledge of the City of Wellington and describes the locations of events very well, so even a reader not familiar with the city would get a good picture of Wellington and environs. If I had any criticism at all, it would be that occasionally the author slightly overdoes the details of road and area names.
Altogether an enjoyable quick read book with a good story line, written in a fairly simplistic manner which makes it the easy read that it is. I would recommend this book as a “put your feet up” holiday read.

Review by Fran Hartley

Title: Death On The Quay
Author: Thomas W Devine
Publisher: Thomas W Devine (through Amazon KDP Publishing)
ISBN: 9781729132289
RRP: US$12.65
Available: Paperback & e-book. Amazon & other online outlets; Writers Plot Readers Read Bookshop Upper Hutt

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A great read

18/4/2019

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No One Can Hear You
by Nikki Crutchley

This is a great read. I read it in one sitting and finished it with that regretful feeling of having finished a good book and wishing for more. On page 9 I read:
‘….the clouds glided across the darkening sky – even they had a better place to be.’
And knew I was in the safe hands of a born story-teller.
Zoe Haywood has been informed that her mother Lillian has committed suicide. She is forced to return to Crawton, the small New Zealand town she grew up in and longed to escape from. Ghosts from her past abound for Zoe as she rekindles her old friendship with Alex, the nerdy boy who had been her best friend. This relationship gives Zoe a light in the darkness that has become her life as she struggles to feel anything for the mother who never loved her. Then Zoe finds a notebook of Lillian’s. Girls have been going missing and as a respected, much-loved school counsellor, Lillian had known these girls but her suspicions are fogged by the Alzheimers claiming her mind and Zoe, reading the ramblings in the notebooks, can’t decide what’s true and what’s illness.
This novel has an unsettling opening. The principal of an expensive private school is covering up the violence of one of Zoe’s pupils. The father of the boy makes everything go away with a hefty donation – rich privilege protecting and covering up its bad behaviour. One of our local Catholic schools engaged in similar behaviour not too long ago – protecting the boys of privileged backgrounds whose untenable behaviour led to two young female teachers having to leave so, from the outset of this book, I felt a strong sense of ‘This could happen. It all too easily could.’ And that feeling lasted through the horrors of abduction and slavery in Auckland.
I don’t want to say too much and offer spoilers in the guise of this review so will finish with this – Strong characters. Good dialogue on the whole. Great plot. Wonderful reveal. This would make a great mini-series for TV.
Thanks to Nikki for a great read.

Review by TJ Ramsay

Title: No One Can Hear You
Author: Nikki Crutchley
Publisher: Oak House Press
ISBN: 978-0-473-44936-0
RRP: $31.99
Available: from www.nikkicrutchley.com and ebook from Amazon

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Collection to be read and reread

13/4/2019

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Murmurations
by Art Nahill

This tight little book of 68 pages contains a weight of wisdom, phrased in very effective poetic form.
The poems included are ordered into three sections.
In Part l, some deep emotions are given voice. Sad loneliness is portrayed in Athazagoraphobia–
       Every day I check the mail
       sometimes twice for evidence
       of my existence…
– and also in other poems such as, Superstitions, and A Brief History of Salt, that together suggest biographical progression.
Then, in Part ll, memories of past times and people once known – Mary Lou, Mr Dombrinski and more, as well as some on the inevitability of old age –

       Sit here too long
and you can feel the world
   shaking you
off its back like a wet dog.
     Also in this section is a group of poems on birds, including one, Murmurations, which is the inspiration for the title and the cover design – to my mind not the most effective in the collection, but it’s a great title. In fact, titles of individual poems throughout the volume are very well chosen.
In Part lll, I find great use of metaphors to paint evocative word pictures. In Ars Poetica #78, the metaphor of an ant is used to comment on the form of the poem itself. Very arty, Mr Nahill.
Then in the next poem, You Say My Poems Have Too Many Adjectives, there’s an answer to critics from the poet himself –
  As if a lamp
could be just a lamp
a shoe just a way
to get around
as if our lives
didn’t need
a bit
of embellishment
– written almost without an adjective.
     The head-on approach of Damn Right I Let the Cat Out, is also present in others – it’s a collection that looks at aspects of life, living, and experience with honesty.
     The poems mentioned, and others, make this a collection to be read and reread. They’re all very accessible, and even readers who don’t usually read poetry should find them rewarding.
     They’re not lengthy, mainly having just a few words in each line. Dare I suggest that, if there’s to be a reprint, a larger font, and placing each one further out on the page to make a wider gutter, would increase readability. But it’s a minor niggle.

Review by J.M.

Title: Murmurations
Author: Art Nahill
Publisher: Two Hemispheres Poetry
ISBN: 9780473430535
RRP: $20
Available: Order through TimeOut Books, Unity Books or other independent bookseller or via twohemispherespoetry.com

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Thriller has it all

6/4/2019

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The Pumpkin Eater’s Wife
by Tannis Laidlaw

Domestic violence, both physical and psychological abuse, identity theft, HIV, immigration offences, an estranged child. This book has them all.
It is the story of a woman escaping a very bad marriage and carrying the knowledge she is a murderer. We follow her as she escapes to another country breaking many laws along the way as she attempts to make a new life for herself.
Predictably, it all works out well for her because she is our heroine. She gets the life she wants and the baddies get their comeuppance. How she gets away, finds jobs and friends all seems a bit too easy to me but it keeps the story moving along and the pages turning, which is what we ask of thrillers.
At the beginning the author apologises to North American readers for using New Zealand English. Why? Do American authors ever apologise to us for using different spelling and syntax? Maybe this novel was aimed at the American market as the name refers to the American Nursery Rhyme “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater”.
I would probably class this an airport novel.

Review by Rewa Vivienne

Title: The Pumpkin Eater’s Wife
Author: Tannis Laidlaw
Publisher: Forth Estate Books
Available: as e-book only, via Amazon (B06XK2QVGH), Kobo and distributors

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Diary may be key to mystery

1/4/2019

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Diary of a Kiwi Kid
by Robin Lee-Robinson

The greater part of this book is in the form of a diary kept by nine year old Rosalyn Jondell a Gisborne schoolgirl in 1977.
Preceding this is a ten page introduction written by her grandson, fourteen year old Jack Jondell, documenting his family’s whakapapa and how he came to have access to the diary. I had to refer back to these pages several times while reading the book – but maybe this says more about me than Jack.
He refers to the mystery surrounding his grandmother Rosalyn’s disappearance at the age of eighteen.
The following 105 pages constitute Rosalyn Jondell’s diary and give insights into the minutiae and vernacular of her schooldays.
As a nine year old the writer of the diary, Rosalyn, regards herself as a house slave, albeit a sophisticated one, doesn’t like her name, and is already developing leanings towards political activism. These aspirations inspire her to attend a young writers’ course with the objective of eventually becoming a writer. Meanwhile she is not averse to undertaking practical projects such as building go-carts, with her father’s help. She tends to make assumptions about people, which are often proved to be wrong, but give authenticity to the fact that the diary was being written by a young person.
The book’s author tactfully speculates how nine year olds might be confused by adult same sex relationships. Even though the title of the book suggests it may be suitable for young readers I would hesitate to recommend it to an immature young person unless I knew their level of understanding of sexuality.
There is mention of one or two things which I feel would have been misplaced on a time scale. For example Cabbage Patch dolls did not become a craze until 1983 and this would have been in the USA and not available to the Gisborne public by 1977. And wet wipes were not commonplace in provincial New Zealand at that time. These are only trivial details which need not detract from the story and would probably go unnoticed by modern teenagers who are the likely target readers.
Most books are complete in themselves and have a denouement, even in a series. In this case we will have to wait for a subsequent book for the mystery to be resolved which some readers would find disappointing.
The inclusion of a glossary of Maori words and phrases is a useful addition and the book has an attractive cover which is nice to the touch.
My appetite is whetted and I would read more books in the series.

Review by Irene Thomas

Title: Diary of a Kiwi Kid
By: Robin Lee-Robinson
Publisher: Red Hen Books
ISBN: 978 -0-473-45519-4 (p/b)
RRP: $25
Available: Print only, via bookstores, public libraries and viaRed Hen Books, P.O. Box 503, Opotiki 3162

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Enjoyable quick read book

A great read

Collection to be read and reread

Thriller has it all

Diary may be key to mystery

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