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Mesquite Smoke-Dance, Andrew Grant

Hazard Press
Reviewed by James O'Sullivan (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A middle-aged detective with personal problems is chasing down a sadistic serial killer. He's just beaten his alcohol addiction, but he is yet to get over the deaths of his wife and his old partner. Enter a good-looking blonde who says she's his new partner. There is tension at first.

Full review here

Metro Girl, Janet Evanovich

HarperCollins
Reviewed by Alex Van Paassen (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Janet Evanovich has written 10 books. The first was One For The Money. The second, Two For The Dough. And so on up to Ten Big Ones. You get the picture. Her latest, Metro Girl, is equally taxing of the reader's imagination.

Full review here

Midnight, Jacqueline Wilson

Corgi
Reviewed By Tess Novak, 14, (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Violet has always been the boring one, the loner at school and the ridiculed bookworm.
It's her brother Will who creates all the interest and attracts the attention of the student population. But ever since that visit to Grandma's, things at home have been different.

Full review here

Millennium People, J.G. Ballard

Harper Perennial
Reviewed by John Whelan (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

In J.G. Ballard's troubled brave new world the English middle classes have had enough. Enough of being locked into sky-high mortgages, of forking out huge school fees, of being overlooked for promotion and, damn it all, never being able to find anywhere to park.

How's this for a description of the whole event? "An entire social class is peeling the velvet off the bars and tasting the steel." Get the idea?

Full review here

Monday Mourning, Kathy Reichs

William Heinemann
Reviewed by Sheila Forbes (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Kathy Reichs is back in her favourite city, Montreal, where Temperance Brennan's special skills as a forensic anthropologist are once again required to unravel the mystery of three sets of bones found in a shallow grave beneath a pizza parlour.

Full review here

Mortification – Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame, Robin Robertson (Editor)

HarperCollins
Reviewed by Jan Treliving-Brown (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Seventy specially commissioned contributions make up this highly entertaining book. I say "highly entertaining" as a writer. For the non-writer it is an irritating navel-gaze by writers about experiences only they care about.

Full review here

Mourning Ruby, Helen Dunmore

Penguin
Reviewed by Sheila Forbes (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

This is an unusual and disturbing tale of loss, sometimes perplexing, at times deeply moving.

Full review here

Mr Starlight, Laurie Graham

Fourth Estate
Reviewed by Nick Churchouse (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Mr Starlight is everything its title and cover suggests – a sequined sashay from working-class Birmingham to poolside Las Vegas with boats, broads and brotherly bickering all along the route.

Laurie Graham paints an all-too-familiar picture of sibling rivalry amidst a humble upbringing in middling England and weaves it into a journey of discovery for the star-crossed Boff brothers, Cled and Sel.

Full review here

Music From a Distant Room, Stephanie Johnson

Vintage
Reviewed by John Whelan (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Through this novel we get a glimpse at the life of Nola Tyler. The story covers her formative years in Auckland as a school dental nurse in the sixties.

Gradually her memories are revealed to us as we find her telling a woman, Tamara, intimate details about her life and that of her son, Carl. Tamara, we soon discover, was Carl's lover; they were both blind, both jazz musicians. Now Carl is dead. Left behind are many unanswered questions.

Full review here