Recent Books

… but I digress (June 2023)

By Lois Galer

June 8, 2023

If Lois Galer is remembered for one trait, it would be for being somewhat outspoken, particularly when it comes to protecting Dunedin’s rich historic heritage, about which Lois has written five books.  But there are other issues that have aroused her passion, too, like promoting equal opportunities and rights for women, and broadening the horizons of those who for generations have been hidden behind their aprons.

That she chose outside employment over schoolwork before she turned 15, was never a disadvantage to her.  She simply saw it as a chance to move onwards and upwards in her chosen fields, with motherhood neatly slotted between career changes.  As an only and lonely child, Lois was determined from the start that things would be different for her children.  She and her seafaring husband Bill had three daughters in under four years.  From then on life became a roller coaster of adventurers with travel, career changes and with another couple, a foray into the international business world with a cure for smelly feet!  Taking early retirement, the two moved to Central Otago to run a backpacker lodge and restore an early gold-miner’s cottage where Lois wrote her sixth book, Time to Smell the Roses.

In her memoir…but I digress Lois’s journey through life is largely centred on her love of Dunedin, its built heritage, its beauty and its social scene before TV, which will no doubt jog the memories of many of her contemporaries.

The Pimlico Murder (June 2023)

By Mike Hollow

June 8, 2023

Armistice Day, 1940.  The nation remembers the Great War while a new and harrowing conflict rumbles on.  The Blitz Detective, John Jago, must set aside his own painful memories to investigate a suspicious death in Pimlico, south-west London.  The body of a young man has been discovered in an Anderson shelter, with two white poppies in his pocket.

As the investigation progresses, Jago and his assistant, DC Cradock, find themselves knee-deep in the area’s shady underworld and connections with Mosley’s fascist party.  It will take all their skills to uncover the truth behind the young man’s brutal death.

The Joy and Light Bus Company (June 2023)

By Alexander McCall Smith

June 8, 2023

Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi, Gaborone’s No. 1 Lady Detectives, do not always agree on important issues – one being the complex male psyche.  Mma Ramotswe is reminded of this when her husband, J. L. B. Matekoni, is offered a daunting business oportunity: one which, if it fails, threatens their exisiting livelihood, including the detective agency.  Somehow, Precious must guide her husband to the right decision, while being mindful of how much he wants The Joy and Light Bus Company to succeed.

Meanwhile, there are other problems to solve.  A wealthy client’s elderly father has changed his will, making his devoted live-in nurse a significant beneficiary, and the ladies are tasked with uncovering the woman as a fraud.  And then there is the disturbing rumoured maltreatment of children living and working on a local farm, which Mma Ramotswe is determined to investigate.

Killing Moon (June 2023)

By Jo Nesbo

June 8, 2023

Two young women are missing.  Strangers to each other, but last seen at the same party.  When the body of one of them is found with fresh stitches along her hairline the hunt is on to find a murderer with particular tastes.

Catching this criminal calls for a detective with a very particular mind

Only Harry Hole can stop this ingenious psychopath.  But Harry is gone: struck off the force, down and out in LA.  It seems like nothing can entice him back to Oslo.  Until someone close to him comes under threat.

But there is more to this case than meets the eye, and the clock is ticking down to find the other missing girl before the body count rises.

This killer has got inside Harry’s head.  And now he’s coming for you.

About Time (June 2023)

By Jodi Taylor

June 8, 2023

Patience is not a virtue known to the Time Police.  And Commander Hay is facing the longest day of her life …

After their heroic efforts to safeguard the Acropolis and prevent the Paris Time-Stop, the Time Police have gone from zero to hero.  Then one fateful mission to apprehend a minor criminal selling dodgy historical artefacts blows up in all their faces.

An officer is attacked within TPHQ.  A prisoner is murdered.  And investigations are about to lead to the one place where no officer can legally tread.

Worst of all, trouble is brewing for Luke, Jan and Mathew as a shocking revelation threatens to tear Team Weird apart for good.

A Gentleman in Moscow (June 2023) – Athenaeum Book Club 2023

By Amor Towles

June 8, 2023

On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.

Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely.  But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.

Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?

Did I Ever Tell You This? A Memoir (May 2023)

By Sam Neill

May 22, 2023

Born in 1947 in Ireland, Sam Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of seven.  Young Sam discovered he was hopeless at sport, but loved acting.

In 1977 he played the lead in the pioneering New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs, a performance that led to a starring role in Gillian Armstrong’s groundbreaking My Brilliant Career.

And after that Sam Neill found his way, sometimes by accident, into his own brilliant career.  He has worked everywhere, from art house to blockbuster to TV, from The Piano to the Jurassic Park movies, from The Dish to Peaky Blinders.

This moving and often very funny book is the inspirational story of a man who, when life knocks him down, stands up again.  Sam Neill is a natural storyteller.  He writes with love and warmth about his friends and family, and about his adventures as a farmer and winemaker.

There is a grand tradition of unputdownable memoirs by great actors, which now includes Sam Neill’s Did I Ever Tell You This?

Simply Lies (May 2023)

By David Baldacci

May 16, 2023

A street detective turned cyber-investigator

Following a disastrous divorce, former New Jersey detective Mickey Gibson is now employed by global investigation company ProEye to track down some of the extremely wealthy who seem bent on not paying their debts.  Mickey misses police work, but it made no room for her new role as the sole carer of her two young children.

A woman of mystery

When Mickey is asked by Arlene Robinson a colleague from ProEye, to inventory an old mansion owned by Rutger Novak, a notorious former arms dealer, she discovers a long-decomposed body in a secret room.  Apparently, Novak has cheated ProEye clients out of millions in the past and now they want to nail him.

As the police investigation begins, they discover that there is no Arlene Robinson working for ProEye.  Nor does the mansion with a body belong to Novak.  The dead man is a local, wealthy recluse with a mysterious past.  Mickey is in trouble for being duped, but ‘Arlene’ is very clever and seems able to convince anyone of anything.

A dangerous game

A sinister and compelling cat-and-mouse contest begins between Mickey and the woman with a secret agenda – who has no name and seemingly no morals or empathy, and who harbours one big secret.

But will the schocking revelation of her true identity be too late to save her and Mickey?

The Murder Book (May 2023)

By Mark Billingham

May 16, 2023

Tom Thorne has it all.

In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side.  He finally has a love life worth a damn and is happy in the job to which he has devoted his life…

He was everything to lose.

Hunting the women responsible for a series of grisly murders.  Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake.

And he will do anything to keep it.

Finally, Thorne’s past has caught up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed.  If he wants to save himself and his friends, he must do the unthinkable.

The Only Suspect (May 2023)

By Louise Candlish

May 16, 2023

There’s the obvious story.  And then there’s the truth.

Alex lives a comfortable life with his wife Beth in the leafy suburb of Silver Vale.  Fine, so he’s not the most sociable guy on the street, he prefers to keep himself to himself, but he’s a good husband and an easy-going neighbour.

That’s until Beth announces the creation of a nature trail on a local site that’s been disused for decades and suddenly Alex is a changed man.  Now he’s always watching.  Questioning.  Struggling to hide his dread…

As the landscapers get to work, a secret threatens to surface from years ago, back in Alex’s twenties when he got entangled with a seductive young woman called Marina, who threw both their lives into turmoil.

And who sparked a police hunt for a murder suspect that was never quite what it seemed.

It still isn’t.