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Ken Bruen
 
 
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Elizabeth George
 
 

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Ruth Rendell

 
 
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Lee Tulloch
 
 
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Ridley Pearson
 
 
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Kathy Reichs
 
 
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Peter Corris
 
 
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Donald James
 
 

The Blue Edge of Midnight
Jonathon King

 
 
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Nick Tosches
 
 
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Jake Arnott
 
 
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Lisa Scottoline
 
 
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D. W. Buffa
 
 

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Wayne Grogan

 
 
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Curt Colbert
 
 
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Jon Cleary
 
 
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Mark Billingham
 
 

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Kirsty Brooks

 
 
Medusa
Michael Dibdin
 
 
Nothing Like the Night
David Lawrence
 
 
Soul Circus
George P. Pelecanos
 
 
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Simon Kernick
 
 
Spygirl
Amy Gray
 
 
Thicker Than Water
Lindy Cameron
 
 
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P. D. James
 
 
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Lawrence Block
 
 
Kiss It Away
Carol Anne Davis
 
 
The Perpetrators
Gary Phillips
 
   
 
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Tony Saint
 
   
 
 
 
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12 true-crime stories that shocked Australia
Paul Anderson
 
 

True Crime Round-Up
by Vikki Petraitis and David Honeybone

 
 
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Rusty Young
 
 

One Down, One Missing
Joe D'Alo & David Astle

 
   
 
 
 
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6 November, 2003  
Spy Girl

Amy Gray

Random House

rrp $22.95

 
Thicker Than Water

Lindy Cameron

HarperCollins

 
 
Spy Girl

There's something a little schizophrenic about a book with a lurid pink cover and a Kafka quote heading up the first chapter. Still I thought, got to give it to her for cross genre marketing.

This book chronicles the true-life story of the author's forage into private investigation in New York City. Ahhh the truth. How many times have we been duped with promises of true stories only to find out later that it was all lies? But there are no car chases, mysterious suspects, psychopaths or dead bodies in Spy Girl. In 270 odd pages Amy's investigating consists of sitting at a desk looking up stuff on the internet. Yeah, this is the truth, and that's why we have fiction.

To fill the void the bulk of the book is dedicated to the author's love life and disturbingly shallow friends. "Harriet the Spy meets Sex in the City" screams the blurb. Well if this is Sex in the City it's a very coy 20-somethings version.

I can say the chapter quotes are entertaining and the book is basically well written. But unfortunately it's just a diary with not much to say.

Thicker Than Water

I can guarantee you one thing. When you finally turn that last page you'll be utterly and absolutely exhausted. Kit O'Malley is a motor mouth PI with a wicked sense of humour, and she has to be the most exuberant detective we've ever seen in print.

O'Malley tangles with a couple of Melbourne's most notorious crime families, a dodgy cop, some crooked ex-cops, a few drug dealers, a couple of bungling kidnappers, a Toorak socialite, some hot shot journos, and of course a few dead bodies (actually quite a lot of dead bodies). In the mean time her own brand-new romance is distracting her ever so slightly. And did I forget to tell you, just to add a little atmosphere, there's a serial killer on the loose.

If there were a criticism it would be that perhaps there is just a little too much going on. Kit, who also happens to be a would-be novelist, even gives us a couple of pages on writers' block and how to develop character.

O'Malley has a million friends and even more enemies, they're all entertaining and most of them would talk under wet cement. At the very least you'll feel like you got your monies worth.

Paula Hunt