Fremantle Press’s crime list seems to have taken on a different shade of murder recently, with the release of three debut titles by women writers. All three will be finding a place under my Christmas tree this year.
Sally Scott
Fromage
Fremantle Press
$32.99
Sally Scott has a wicked sense of humour, so I feel confident in predicting readers of Fromage are in for a pacy crime story with more than a few laughs along the way. Listen to her talk about killing people with food, as well as the more serious matter of writing while undergoing cancer treatment, in this ABC Radio interview.
Journalist Alex Grant is enjoying the last days of her summer holiday in Croatia when she is accosted by an old school friend, Marie Puharich, and her odious brother, Brian, both there to attend the funeral of their fearsome grandfather’s two loyal retainers. The only upside of the whole sorry business is meeting Marco, the family’s resident Adonis. An incorrigible foodie, Alex is unable to resist Brian’s invitation to visit the family creamery in Australia’s south-west to snoop around for stories and eat her body weight in brie. But trouble has a way of finding Alex, not least because her curiosity is the size of a giant goudawheel. What begins as a country jaunt in search of a juicy story will end in death, disaster and the destruction of multiple pairs of shoes.
Karen Herbert
The River Mouth
Fremantle Press
$32.99
I saw Karen Herbert interviewed at this year’s York Festival, and The River Mouth sounds like a brilliant thriller with a lot to say about the social world. It’s been described by Readings as ‘a stunning debut that will keep you guessing till the last chapter’. There’s an interview here in which Karen talks about her inspiration for writing.
Fifteen-year-old Darren Davies is found facedown in the Weymouth River with a gunshot wound to his chest. The killer is never found. Ten years later, his mother receives a visit from the local police. Sandra’s best friend has been found dead on a remote Pilbara road. And Barbara’s DNA matches the DNA found under Darren’s fingernails. When the investigation into her son’s murder is reopened, Sandra begins to question what she knew about her best friend. As she digs, she discovers that there are many secrets in her small town, and that her murdered son had secrets too.
Laura Ellery
Private Prosecution
Fremantle Press
$32.99
It always adds another layer of interest when authors write what they know. Lisa Ellery is a lawyer who runs her own law practice, and has now turned to writing crime. There’s a great interview with her here.
Andrew Deacon is young, fit and single, a junior prosecutor at the WA DPP with a bright future and a sense of entitlement to match. That future starts to look darker when he spends the night with an attractive stranger, Lily Constantine, and she is found murdered in her apartment the following day. Andrew believes he knows who killed Lily but there is not a shred of evidence to prove it.
This is a pacy, darkly comic whodunnit with a twist—Andrew knows who did it but the clock is ticking and he has to prove it before he gets himself taken out.
looking up/looking down 