Peter Mulraney

Grabbed a copy of this after seeing it on the list of Ned Kelly entrants for 2017 - without paying a lot of attention to the category it was entered in. (I've been cherry-picking from the list when I see a copy of the book available anywhere). I have to confess I went back and checked as I thought it was a debut novel, and was having a bit of trouble reconciling some elements. HOLY DEATH is the 3rd in the, I believe, self-published Inspector West series.

I have to confess I absolutely struggled with this one. Formal in dialogue style, I couldn't get the timeframe straight in my head - if asked I'd say this was an historical series, set a long time ago. Which it probably isn't. With what felt like a very wordy style, there's back story there, but still there's something about Inspector West that didn't quite jell with this reader. Hence the feeling that it may have been a debut - which it obviously isn't.

As with all these things, other reader's mileage will vary dramatically.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-holy-death-peter-mulraney… (meer)

I received an early reviewer copy of this novella. It is a police procedural set in and around a beach in Australia. When a young girl's naked body turns up on the beach in a place called Morton Sands, Detective Inspector Carl West is called in to investigate. The investigation drags on because there are no obvious suspects, and before West and his Detective Constable Peter James can get their hands on their killer, another naked body turns up on the sands. I found that the plot in this novella didn't move along seamlessly and, at times, seemed quite laborious. In my opinion there wasn't much tension either. I read it, but don't think I'd recommend it even to die-hard mystery lovers.… (meer)