Greg Rucka is an unsung genius of thriller writing, whose debut Keeper still sparkles more than 20 years after its publication. His professional bodyguard protagonist, Atticus Kodiak, has as much brio as Jack Reacher; but his heroics are packaged in adventures anchored by dynamic characters, and a willingness to dive deep into social issues without forsaking the vitality of the narrative. In this case, it’s America’s abortion debate, which remains salient today, more than four decades after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, and two decades since Keeper landed in bookstores, with opponents and supporters of abortion rights are still arguing over the issue.
In Keeper, Kodiak is hired to protect the director of a Manhattan abortion clinic whose life has been threatened by militant pro-lifers lead by a zealous charlatan, Jonathan Crowell. Kodiak, whose girlfriend has just undergone an abortion herself, is personally committed to Felice Romero and the safe-guarding of her daughter, Katie, who has Down syndrome. So when his protective details fails to stop a particularly heart-wrenching murder, Kodiak doubles-down on protecting his charge, and uncovering the identity of the killer, and putting them in the ground.
Rucka, whose prose has echoes of Robert B. Parker and Chandler, maintains a rapid pace, steadily increasing the tension as the narrative builds to its cinematic climax at a cemetery. The ingredients are familiar, but in Rucka’s hands, the recipe is fresh and exciting.
ISBN: 9780553574289
Format: Paperback / softback
Pages: 332
Imprint: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc
Publish Date: 5-May-1997
Country of Publication: United States
A superbly crafted espionage thriller that doubles as a gripping mystery.
Published in 1980, The Dying Trade introduced readers to one of Australian crime fiction’s most enduring and endearing protagonists, Sydney-based private investigator Cliff Hardy. At the time of his death last year, Peter Corris had written more than forty mysteries starring the hardscrabble gumshoe. I’ve read maybe half of them, and even the mid-grade mysteries are buffed to high gloss thanks to the author’s economy with words, and acute sense of place; Corris’s ear is finely attuned to the voices of Sydney’s distinct neighbourhoods. Not to mention the first-person narrator makes for good company.
“If the story was not shared, nothing would change. Problems that are not seen cannot be addressed. In our world of journalism, the story was the end, the result, the final product. But in the world at large, the emergence of new information was just the beginning — of conversation, action, change.”
I have read all 32 — now 33 with The Night Fire — of Michael Connelly’s crime novels at least twice, and I’m almost certain I’ve read each instalment in the Harry Bosch series on three or four separate occasions. These books are nestled in my bookcase, spines proudly creased, pages yellowed; worn, and loved, and returned to. If one author epitomises precisely what I want from my crime fiction, it’s Connelly: enthralling police procedurals without the outrage pyrotechnics that blight many of his peers.
A rich and compelling mystery that will hook new readers, while its subplots and provocative, sharply delineated characters will keep established fans glued to the page. Somehow, Dervla McTiernan keeps topping her own best work. Her third novel is a triumph. 
In Darkness For Light, her third crime novel starring Caleb Zelic, Emma Viskic marries themes of loyalty, betrayal, friendship and love into a taut, exceptional thriller. While some writers settle for shaping their novels as instalments in an ongoing serial drama, each one intended to set up the next, Viskic seems determined to make each one count and resonate. No longer merely a bright star on the Australian crime-writing firmament, Emma Viskic should now be considered a master of the genre, and Caleb Zelic one of its most endearing protagonists: a flawed, valiant hero, hard-fisted yet soft-hearted, 