2012 Bendigo Writers' Festival

Killing Floor by Lee Child
The first Jack Reacher novel, in which he investigates the death of his brother and a major crime ring in a small country town. A little rough around the edges but you can see where the later novels sprung from.

 

The Eerie Silence: Are we Alone in the Universe? by Paul Davies
Davies contemplates the subtitle, examining all the evidence and possibilities.

 

The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
The 2011 Ned Kelly Award winner - the first Charlie Berlin novel. A Melbourne detective investigates a series of robberies and a murder in Albury-Wondonga in the 1950s.

 

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
The second volume of Martin's monumental Song of Fire and Ice sequence. Not as good as the first volume and acts more as a stage-setting set of exercises, but you can tell it's building up to something big.

 

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
The 2011 Man Booker Prize winner. Not Barnes's best book but highly readable and echoes some of his very early work.

 

Hook's Mountain by James McQueen
McQueen's sadly neglected novel from the early eighties. A WW II returned serviceman dives headfirst into environmental confrontation. This may be Australia's first "eco-terrorism" novel.

 

The Troubled Man by Henning Menkell
Menkell's last "Kurt Wallander" novel. As the detective investigates the disappearance of his daughter's future parents-in-law he encounters dark clouds everywhere, including his own life, past and future.

 

Shatter by Michael Robotham
This 2008 Ned Kelly Award winner is an excellent thriller featuring a revenge-seeking ex-army killer, and a physically and mentally scarred psychologist who races to avoid being the next victim.

 

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman's coming-of-age story about a crippled boy and his attempt to save Asgard from the Frost Giants.

 

The Goldilocks Enigma by Paul Davies
Davies's investigation into why the universe is like it is - "weak", "strong" and "final" anthropic theories all get a going over.

 

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann
A collection of Grann's journalism featuring tales of murder, madness and obsession. Varied but generally fairly interesting, and sometimes just plain bizarre.

 

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell's investigation of why some people are more successful than others. Interesting but not up to his previous work.

 

The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin
Rankin's second novel featuring his new detective Malcolm Fox of The Complaints. There are echoes of Rebus here, but it still has some way to go to reach those heights.