100 Books Like Ruddy Gore

This is another extremely well-plotted book, set in rural Australia. The detective, Joe Cashin, is living in the small town where he grew up, when a rich guy living on a huge estate is brutally murdered. The local police think it was three Aboriginal teens, but an operation to take them in for questioning goes awry.

I love the setting here; the small coastal town is really vivid. There’s the mystery, which gathers steam and gets very compelling, but there are also lots of great descriptions of Joe’s two dogs, annoying well-written dialogue and plenty of dry humor as well.

From the first page of this book, I was there. The drought-ridden farming community of Kiewarra, Australia, is evoked so vividly that the whole story feels as gritty and parched as the landscape. For me, this book has all the ingredients that make a claustrophobic setting even more intense: harsh weather conditions, hostile locals, and a dingy bar where fights break out and people drink away their troubles. For these reasons alone, I was sold! This is a community where everyone knows everyone, but they’re all under so much pressure you just know they’d turn on their neighbors in a heartbeat.

I’m also a sucker for a narrative in which someone who has moved away from their hometown is drawn reluctantly back, and this book has that in spades. The main character, Detective Aaron Falk, left Kiewarra under murky circumstances as a teenager and is forced to return when his… show more.

Corris and his protagonist, the hard-scrabble private detective Cliff Hardy, are quintessentially Australian. The Dying Trade introduces Cliff (smoker, drinker, ex-boxer) and sets the standard for all the books that follow in this series. It’s dry and laconic, with a wonderful sense of place (a very gritty 1980s Sydney). There’s a definite nod to the greats— Chandler and Hammett in this series; you know Cliff Hardy probably shouldn’t take this job, it’s odds-on he’ll cop a beating along the way, possible he’ll find love and lose it again. I enjoy the author’s economy with words and the moral complexity of his characters. If you like hard-boiled crime, this series is worth a look!

*Note: Sydney is much nicer than it may seem when you walk in Corris’s shoes!

I like the historical setting of Gentil’s books (mainly 1930s Australia, although her characters venture overseas in a couple of the books) and the original newspaper clippings that introduce the chapters, which give you a glimpse of current affairs that form the backdrop to the story. Personally, I also enjoy the fact that her protagonist is an artist, albeit one with a wealthy family behind him. There’s danger, disapproving family, Blackshirts, unrequited love, and above all, staunch friendships; Rowland and his mates are people you wish you could hang out with. Give the Devil His Due is the seventh book in the Rowland Sinclair series.  

I love the character of VI Warshawski: tough, brave, capable, and utterly loyal to her friends. VI (as she is known) is the archetypal ‘tart noir’–a female investigator in the mold of the hardboiled noir detectives but with empathy, vulnerability, and great style. VI can pack a punch, handle a gun, and is tenacious to the point of stubbornness, often at great personal risk, yet we also see her moments of self-doubt, her humanity, and her compassion towards others.

I couldn’t put this book down.

I love the character of Kinsey Millhone because she’s so human and relatable. Her life is messy; she gets herself caught up in situations where she knows she ought to let things drop but just can’t let them go, and she has a kind heart. She also has the endearing quality of being self-deprecating and not taking herself too seriously.

This book is set in the 1980s, and I enjoy seeing Kinsey’s legwork to solve her case without the benefit of mobile phones or the internet. I also love her relationship with her elderly neighbor and how protective she is of him when she feels that new people in the neighborhood are taking advantage of him.

Although I love a good murder story, I also enjoy fiction about other sorts of crime.

In this book, Manchester-based private investigator Kate Brannigan has two cases to solve: a series of art thefts and a case of industrial sabotage that leads to two murders that seem at first glance to be unconnected. Kate is determined to solve the case, even if it involves using unorthodox methods to do so. 

I love her range of skills, from Thai boxing to going undercover to staking out a suspect. I find Kate a very likable character: funny, sarcastic, conflicted about her love life, and with a backing group of friends she genuinely cares for.

When I first read this book, I wanted to be the protagonist, Sam Jones. Sam is bold, confident, and very sexy, has numerous vibrant, arty friends, owns a wardrobe of fabulous outfits, and is never far from trouble.

She’s a sculptor who turns unofficial investigator when a dead body turns up at the theatre where she’s been commissioned to create a series of mobiles for a stage production.

When not solving crimes, her life is a round of making art, complicated love affairs, drinking cocktails, and going out clubbing. I love her dry wit, strength, and self-deprecating humor.

This laugh-out-loud crime mystery has a special place for me because I read it not long after migrating to Australia and, through the lead character, Murray Whelan (a political staffer who spends his time digging himself in and out of holes), I was not only introduced to Australian humour but also to a new way of viewing Melbourne, its politics, establishments, and suburbs. In Stiff, as with Shane Maloney's other books in this series, the city landscape is as much a character as Murray Whelan himself, and this sense of place adds a richness to the story that would be missing if it were merely treated as a backdrop.

I really enjoyed reading this tale about Australia’s first female-owned and all-female garage in Melbourne in the 1920s. I was given the book twice, once as a gift and once as I presented with the author, so knew that I just HAD to read it. I was astounded to find that the subject of my book (with Les Parsons) The Red Devil - pioneer aviator Harry Butler – had a garage (Butler and Nicholson) which had sponsored Alice Anderson’s (garage owner’s) adventurous trip from Melbourne to Alice Springs after his death.