In the context of Alice Rohrwacher’s film La Chimera, the Chimera of the title is something people search for but never manage to find. The fictional story features a band of Tombaroli, Italian grave robbers, looking for archaeological wonders. Their lucky charm is an eccentric British archaeologist, Arthur (Josh O’Connor), who finds things others can’t,…
Following the award-winning Cormac Riley crime fiction series set in Ireland, Australian crime author Dervla McTiernan turned her attention to the United States. Her first novel set there was The Murder Rule, a courtroom/crime thriller based around the Innocence Project which was not all that successful. Her follow up, What Happened to Nina?, is something…
Thomas Mullen has shown his ability to deliver engaging crime-genre driven historical fiction in the trilogy which started with 2017’s Darktown. Set in Atlanta in the late 1940s, that series focussed on the first Black policemen in the city as they navigated the city’s racial divide. His new book, The Rumor Game, has some similar…
Dinuka McKenzie’s police detective Kate Miles is back for the third time in Tipping Point, and once again her family and community connections are central to the story. Miles was introduced in McKenzie’s award winning debut The Torrent and returned in Taken. This third book in the series could be the last if for no…
You know how siblings can be. When one gets to do something, the other just has to do it too. So when Joel Coen stepped out of the Coen Brothers cocoon in 2021 to direct the brooding, highly stylised The Tragedy of Macbeth, it was only a matter of time before younger brother Ethan Coen…
Non-indigenous Australians have often had a rather fraught relationship with the landscape of this continent. On one hand, its “boundless plains” offered a sense of opportunity; a chance to control the environment. But the land is also sometimes perceived as a wild place that can never be controlled. This led to a pervading sense of…
– The Rooster – Only in cinemas from 22 February 2024 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Bonsai Films. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE Written and directed by award-winning actor Mark Leonard Winter, who makes his feature filmmaking debut with THE ROOSTER. Produced by Logie-nominated actor Geraldine Hakewill (Wanted,…
Japanese novelist Kotaro Isaka hit on a great formula with his last book, Bullet Train. That was a fast paced, violent and weird battle between a group of idiosyncratic assassins on a train. Bullet Train was influenced by more than a little manga, plenty of early Tarantino and a whole lot of swagger. And while…
Australian rural crime author Adrian Hyland brought character Jesse Redpath from the red outback of Northern Territory to a tinder-dry Victorian country town in Canticle Creek. There was a raging bushfire in the climax to Canticle Creek but when Hyland’s follow-up The Wiregrass opens, the weather could not be more different. Jesse finds herself working…
Robert Goodman For more of Robert’s reviews, visit his blog Pile By the Bed Robert GoodmanRobert Goodman is a book reviewer, former Ned Kelly Awards judge and institutionalised public servant based in Sydney. This and over 450 more book reviews can be found on his website Pile By the Bed. pilebythebed.com/
