Latest from Book Reviews

Book reviews: Crime fiction
Greg Fleming reviews the latest crop of crime fiction and points out some of the year's best reads.

Book Review: Hidden Bodies - Caroline Kepnes
Joe Goldberg's your average, cantankerous New York rare books seller. He's also an accomplished serial killer. When we meet him

Death by marriage: From loving husband to wife-killer
After nearly 50 years together, a husband is jailed for life for the strangulation of his wife. Greg Bruce discovers how an ordinary relationship went so horribly wrong.

Ceramic artist moulds his own career
Ceramic artist John Parker's stunning book encompasses 50 years of his work.

Book Reviews: Crime fiction
Reviews of crime-fiction by Michael Connelly, Ian Austin, Sam Carmody and Laura Lippman

Book review: Bright, Precious Days by Jay McInerney
Author Jay McInerney's old-fashioned belief that Love and Art can defy both time and money is to be applauded.

Book Review: History meets crime in Red Herring
RED HERRING by Jonothan Cullinane (HarperCollins, $37) Auckland 1951: trams run along Queen St, women aren't allowed in the RSC

Book review: Rich account of raw history
Wiremu Heke, known as Billhook, leaves his Otago home in 1825 with regret in his heart and vengeance in mind.

Book review: Of labour and love
Ian McEwan's narrators have often been edgy, fractured, disturbed or disturbing, but none has come near the voice that drives his latest novel.

Book review: Epic Bike Rides of the World
Mountain bike enthusiast Russell Baillie reviews the dangerous new tome from Lonely Planet.

Review: J.K. Rowling, none of this makes any sense
COMMENT: I've loved the Harry Potter series and J.K. Rowling for over 10 years, but now, for the first time, I feel disappointed with her - and it hurts.

Book review: The Salted Air
A person could so easily be attracted to this book by its cover. But no, we mustn't judge.

Book review: Chris Gayle's biography Six Machine
When Chris Gayle foolishly sleazed on cricket journalist Mel McLaughlin, he became Australia's public enemy one.

Book review: When spores go bad
Joe Hill's latest work has post-apocalyptic optimism, writes Stephen Jewell.

Reviews: Crime fiction round-up
A Time To Die (Hachette) Tom Wood $34.99 Englishman Wood says he got into the book business "to pen thrillers with the boring bits

Book review: A right kind of life
Gustav Perle, son of a dead policeman and a bitter mother whom he loves despite her disaffection for him, is merely 5 as this story

Book review: Good People
Written six years ago, the Israeli writer's novel is a disquieting mix of apocalyptic and quotidian, incongruous career jealousies in a time of national blood-letting.

Book review: My Last Continent
This hot love story from an American author, set on a freezing continent, has touches of New Zealand occasionally. The setting is

Book review: City of Mirrors
Justin Cronin's readers can't easily put him down, writes Dionne Christian.

Book review: Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley
Danyl, the protagonist, is back after a six-month absence caused by a misunderstanding with the justice system.

A thriller juicy with secrets
On a chilly, rainy day, it's tempting to escape to the baking heat of Australia.

A Kiwi's walk backwards in Mao's footsteps
It sounds almost too extraordinary to be true: a Kiwi advertising executive makes a pilgrimage across the byways of China, where tourists are rarely seen, and tracks down a long lost son of Mao Tse Tung.

Flash win for Kiwi storyteller
Christchurch-based writer Heather McQuillan is the winner of this year's National Flash Fiction Day competition.

CKS share plates
Karl Stead is like a grand old sideboard in the dining room of New Zealand literature.

Book review: The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
Novels about painters and paintings have been in vogue recently.

Novel digs into dark world of home invasions
Jennifer Dann meets an author whose book is inspired by violence but defined by humanity.

Book review: The Blackbird Sings At Dusk
Elizabeth is a husk of a woman. She feels nothing. Why she continues to live baffles her.