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A cross between Carl Hiaasen’s madcap plotting and Adrian McKinty’s scurrilous Irish humor, Caimh McDonnell now closes off his wonderful hybrid mystery Dublin Trilogy with Last Orders, which kicks off with madman Bunny McGarry’s funeral and spirals into a dense, highly Irish plot. Goofy yet sympathetic characters abound, with even the walk-on roles offering pleasure (check out Agent Dove with the metal arm!). Dublin and its pubs and environs is wonderfully brought to life, the humor bubbles, and an alert intelligence underpins what can seem like an out-of-control plot. It took me half a book’s reading to sink into McDonnell’s flow but once I did, I was hooked. A highly recommended, imaginative, enjoyable read.

Author Skelton knows how to plot a book, especially one in which the hero, in this case an ex-member of an elite shadow operation, wakes up next to his dead girlfriend and finds himself on the run, pursued by the police and homicidal maniacs. The combination of breakneck action and espionage/mob strategies reminded me of Robert Ludlum, and The Janus Run almost breaks out into that elite category. Almost but not quite, for the writing style is choppy and the blur of action numbs one after a while, something that definitely shouldn’t happen with such a thriller. Not everyone in the extensive cast of characters work as well as protagonist Coleman Lang but I was swept up within the New York City hunt and chase scenes, and enjoyed much of the darkly flavored dialogue. An enjoyable race to the end but oh, how good it could have been!

Of all the sci-fi sub-genres, that of space travel, the nitty gritty of it, had almost faded away until it was resurrected seven years ago by Andy Weir’s The Martian. What distinguished that enjoyable novel (remember Matt Damon in the movie?) was a geeky delight in the engineering intricacies of life in space, allied to a fast plot and serviceable writing. Ex-geologist Simon Morden and prolific science fiction novelist, in various sub-genres, has now reprised the original conceit of The Martian – humanity goes there! – with a few twists and just as particular a technical focus. In One Way, the first of a double-volume series, convicted murderer Frank Kittridge joins six other criminals to train up as an astronaut, land on Mars, and bang together housing for humans. Then the deaths occur . . . The murder mystery is no brain twister but does satisfy, Morden brings Kittridge to mordant life, space is exotically evoked, and the techo aspects are delicious. A glorious astronaut-in-jeopardy romp that begs for filmic extension.

Family secrets make for marvellous mysteries. When a Melbourne photographer is confronted by an American man claiming she is the grown-up version of a child missing for nearly three decades, her increasingly baffled investigations take her to Kentucky and a backwater cult. The Nowhere Child’s plot combusts capably, if a trifle slowly, and the plucky protagonist works well. White’s style is sure and smooth, the locales evocative. I enjoyed this quick classic-hued tale. A solid Australian crime debut.