What to read this week

True crime, ghost cities and whales feature in this week’s list of Notable Books to read this week.

Notable Books: our guide to what to read this week

Red River Road features Katy Sweeney, who is desperate to find her missing sister Phoebe, who vanished on the Coral Coast of Western Australia a year earlier. Phoebe was on a road trip with nothing but her van. Unfortunately, with a lack of evidence and no leads, the case has been left to go cold. Using Phoebe’s social media accounts to help her trace her sister’s last movements, she begins to search for any clues that police missed. Anna Downes grew up in the UK, but now calls the Central Coast home. She has studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The missing solo traveller in remote Australia is a familiar story but Downes has handled it well, and given it new life.

 

 

Kelli Hawkins is one of the best psychological thriller writers in Australia, which makes sense, given her other job, writing reports for a private investigator. She has also worked as a political journalist, a graphic designer, and of course, a novelist. Her new book, The Miller Women, is unnerving. When a teenage girl goes missing, Nicola Miller has questions about her own daughter’s possible involvement. Could Abby be the killer? Nicola has never told anyone the truth about what happened to Abby’s father. Secrets are rife in this family, and they may have just finally caught up with the Miller women. A “page-turner” feels like an understatement.

 

Ghost Cities is inspired by the abandoned metropolises of China. It is at once a mastercraft of imagery, and a bustling storyline hosting multiple narratives; including a horny mountain that gains sentience, an ancient emperor who creates a thousand doubles of himself, and a chess-playing automaton that hides a deadly secret. Siang Lu is a writer on the rise. His debut, The Whitewash, won the ABIA Audiobook of the Year in 2023 for its audio adaption, which notably starred a staggering 14 voice actors. Siang Lu also won the Glendower Award for an emerging writer and was shortlisted for a NSW Premier’s Literary Award. In 2023, he was named as one of the Top 40 Under 40 Asian-Australians.

 

Vanessa Pirotta is a wildlife scientist who has been studying whales in Australian waters and around the world for the past 14 years. She is a powerful role model for younger generations. Her work uses new technologies to help conserve wildlife in both marine and terrestrial environments. Pirotta clearly has an unconditional love for these majestic creatures – her passion leaps off the page – and that is despite the fact that she has been mugged by whales and covered in their snot. Mysterious by nature, Humpback Highway takes readers on an eye-opening tour of life in the deep vast blue – from their life cycle and the challenges they face with human interruption, to the cutting-edge of research technology. This is a book for all nature lovers.

 

 

I recently saw Julie Janson speak at a literary conference. She is a Burruberongal woman of the Darug nation, a novelist, playwright, and poet. Her Indigenous crime novel Madukka the River Serpent was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Davitt Award in 2023. Compassion is the sequel to Benevolence, which was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award and was longlisted for the NIB Literary Award and the Voss Literary Prize. The novel continues her commitment to the emotional and penetrating exploration of the difficult and dangerous lives of Aboriginal women in colonial NSW in the 1800s. The story is a dramatised account of the life story of one of Janson’s ancestors who came to be on trial for stealing livestock.

A growing list of academic works seek to examine threats to Australia’s national security. In Girt by Sea, Rebecca Strating and Joanne Wallis, both international-relations experts, scrutinise the six maritime domains that are central to Australia’s national interests. They include the North Sea, the Western Pacific, the South China Sea, the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Southern Ocean. Australia has close relations with many of its neighbours but still looks to Europe and the US for security. Strating, who is the director of La Trobe Asia, and Wallis, who is a professor of international security at the University of Adelaide, have produced a book that is crucial to understanding the ongoing security issues in the region.

 

It has been almost two years since I had the pleasure of including Bobby Palmer’s debut novel, Isaac and the Egg, in my Notable Books. It was an outstanding debut - Waterstones Books named it Paperback of the Year. I am thrilled to include his follow-up, Small Hours, which may even be better than his debut. Jack was certain he wanted the life he had been living - a city life. But he is drawn home to the country by a phone call from his sister. Their mother has disappeared. He has avoided home because of a tumultuous relationship with his father, Gerry, who is living with dementia. Along the way, Jack comes across an injured fox which he helps, and which then follows him on his journey. It is a story about family, in all of its beautiful and tragic complexity, and it’s about connection. Bobby Palmer is a literary gem. I adore him.

Run For Your Life by Sue Williams

Sue Williams is an award-winning journalist. In her latest book, she introduces readers to the Stride family. Run For Your Life is the true story of a family who were forced into hiding for leaking Russian secrets. After moving to Moscow in 1998 to help build the British Embassy, Nick, his wife, and their two children were forced to flee the country, eventually arriving in the extremely remote, sparsely populated, far northern reaches of Western Australia. There they faced a very different life, a life of survival in the Australian Outback, as they sought to escape Russians on their tails. What a ride.