"More festive than mystery" - review of MURDER UNDER THE MISTLETOE

MURDER UNDER THE MISTLETOE by Richard Coles (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

It is Christmas Day and at Champton Rectory, Canon Daniel Clement and his mother Audrey are joined by the residents and guests of the big house to drink, eat and be merry.

At the festive feast, peace and goodwill prevail.

Until two meet under the mistletoe. One of them falls down dead. And Daniel suspects murder has returned to Champton...

Can Daniel and Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo solve the crime and catch the Christmas killer? 

Last year, the Reverend Richard Coles, who seems like a really lovely man (having seen him at festivals and events, etc), got all doubly trendy by adding the 'writing a Christmas book' arrow to his 'TV celebrities writing crime novels' bow, so to speak. A publicist's dream, perhaps...

I do like to read a few Christmas-themed books around the holiday season, including crime novels, and have really enjoyed the likes of The Mistletoe Murder And Other Stories by P.D. James and Christmas is Murder: A Chilling Short Story Collection by Val McDermid in recent years.

Funnily enough, in each case those books from two Queens of Crime contained multiple short stories or novellas, sort of like lovely little stocking fillers for the season. High quality though, very good reads, the titular tales and others included. Well worth reading.

So rather than being put off by the slim (140 pages or so) nature of Richard Coles festive offering, Murder Under the Mistletoe, I was intrigued, and really looking forward to a lovely one-sitting read, digging into a festive mystery.

Sadly, while Coles does a pretty good job with the 'festive', he faceplants with the mystery.

Most of Murder Under the Mistletoe lathers readers in oft-fascinating, sometimes overdone details of the parish preparations by Canon Daniel Clement and his formidable mother Audrey, for the festive services and a stress-inducing Christmas Dinner that unexpectedly grows in size and importance when the local Lord and his family are added to the guest list.

Rather than an early dead body that provokes a fascinating investigation full of suspects, motives, red herrings, and revelations, Coles delays the death itself (trumpeted in the title and blurb) til very late in the piece - which in of itself isn't fatal to a good crime read, but unfortunately he's compressed the 'investigation' to such a point its nearly non-existent, erasing may of the reasons a lot of readers may pick up a 'festive mystery'.

There's little to no mystery (I actually picked the killer before the murder even occurred), and most things surrounding the crime are fairly obvious. Coles serves up some wit or charm with his characters, and big fans of his ongoing series may enjoy spending some more time with the regulars in a festive setting, but overall Murder Under the Mistletoe feels like a short story idea that could have been great at 15-25 pages but instead was stretched out to 140 or so.

One for the ardent Coles fans, perhaps, not first-timers to his oeuvre.

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Review: THE JIBE

THE JIBE by Robyn Cotton (Hatherop Books, 2024)

Reviewed by Carolyn McKenzie

Ella Hampton makes a mayday call from Aurora on the Hauraki Gulf saying her husband has been lost overboard during a jibe manoeuvre. A body identified as Dean Hampton washes up with a gash to the head and other injuries. The coroner rules it an accident.

Amy Fagin, Dean's sister, while dealing with her recent diagnosis of young-onset Parkinson's disease, suspects something is amiss. Determined to find the truth about her brother's fate, she convinces Frank Smythe, of the Maritime Police Unit, to investigate the case further. Frank partners with Anahera Raupara to determine what really happened aboard Aurora.

Sailing back to Auckland after a few days on Great Barrier Island, Dean Hampton is lost overboard. His wife, Ella, is the only crew member and her mayday call sets a search in motion. Several days later Dean’s body is found with significant injuries probably caused by a propeller blade and a head injury which ties in with Ella’s account of Dean being hit on the head by the boom as the yacht changed direction. The coroner’s decision that it was an accident is widely accepted, although anyone who knew Dean is surprised that he wasn’t wearing a life jacket. Among the mourners at the loved and respected dentist’s funeral are his sister Amy, and Frank Smythe who had sailed with Dean many years ago. Now, as a detective in Auckland’s Maritime Police Unit, Frank also accepts that it was an accident until Amy contacts him to say there are some things which don’t add up. Could it have been murder?

What follows unwinds as a cunningly constructed plot which seesaws between the certainty that Ella must be innocent to no, she must be guilty, but then how did she do it? I can imagine readers with a sailing background joining Frank in calculating how winds and tides impacted the marine tragedy.

The story clips along at a good pace and is hard to put down, with any hint of the solution held back until the very last pages. 

Sailing on the Hauraki Gulf is central to the story but the terminology is so well explained that non-sailors won’t have any trouble understanding what supposedly happened and what really happened. Great Barrier Island, Waiheke, Westhaven Marina and Sea Cleaners all play their part in this mystery along with the police launch Deodar III. The concept of setting a lot of the action in the Gulf rather than onshore is a refreshing novelty.

The Jibe is a novel about Kiwis doing things that we can all relate to: in spite of not being close to her sister-in-law, Amy puts her all into catering for the visitors who flock to Ella’s place to pay their respects after Dean is killed. Amy is less stoic than Ella – her grief is heightened by her young-onset Parkinson’s disease and the book discreetly informs readers of what living with this illness is like and answers some FAQs about it.

Given the essentially kiwi nature of this novel, I was at first puzzled by Cotton’s choice of jibe rather than the British English gybe to describe the fatal manoeuvre. There isn’t a lot of US English in the book, so when there is, it grates – turn off the faucet, instead of tap. However, jibe has other meanings besides the sailing one and these sit well with how the plot unfolds. To jibe with means to agree with and as the story moves along, various accounts and theories of what happened to Dean certainly don’t jibe with each other. As well, to make a jibe at means to taunt and there is plenty of that in the lies and the surprising truths that lay a false trail throughout. 

The Jibe is Cotton’s first book in the crime fiction genre and I’m looking forward to reading more from her.

This review was first published in FlaxFlower reviews, which focuses on in-depth reviews of New Zealand books of all kinds, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of Flaxflower founder and editor Bronwyn Elsmore. 

"Excellent storyteller with knack for atypical protagonists" - review of BLACK AS DEATH

BLACK AS DEATH by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, translated by Lorenza Garcia (Orenda Books, 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

When the chief suspect in the disappearance of Áróra's sister is found dead, and Áróra's new financial investigation leads to the street where her sister was last seen, she is drawn into a shocking case that threatens everything. A three-year-old claims she is the reincarnation of Áróra's sister, Ísafold, and knows details of her death that have never been made public. Is it a hoax, or could there be a more sinister explanation?

As Áróra delves deeper, she uncovers a web of secrets and lies, forcing her to confront her own guilt and the possibility that she never really knew her sister at all. With the help of her boyfriend, Daniel, and her eccentric friend, Lady Gúgúlú, Áróra must unravel the truth before it's too late. But as the lines between the past and present blur, Áróra finds herself in a race against time to save not only herself but also the memory of her sister. 

While Icelandic screenwriter, playwright and crime novelist Lilja Sigurdardottir brings the curtain down (for now, at least) on her award-winning Áróra Investigates series with this gripping fifth instalment. 

A few years after returning to Iceland to search for her estranged sister, financial investigator Áróra is forced to confront some hard truths after Bjorn, the abusive boyfriend and chief suspect in her sister’s disappearance, is found dead, folded into a suitcase in a volcanic fissure. What now?

When Áróra’s investigation into a strangely profitable coffee chain leads to the very street her sister Ísafold was last seen, her search for answers see hers tumbling into a dangerous Europol case.

As Áróra and her police detective boyfriend Daniel probe into the darker sides of the Icelandic community, readers also experience Ísafold’s life in the months leading up to her disappearance.

An excellent storyteller with a knack for atypical female protagonists, Sigurdardottir doesn’t shy away from the trauma and complexities of domestic violence, as Ísafold struggles with her love for, and fear of, Bjorn. While the climax to Isafold’s narrative seems inevitable, Sigurdardottir masterfully keeps the tension high, playing with what we and Áróra know, or think we do.

A fine slice of Nordic Noir that will likely have even more impact if you’ve read some or all of the preceding four books in what is an excellent series. 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Review: OKIWI BROWN

OKIWI BROWN by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press, 2024)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

The Burke and Hare anatomy murders of 1828 terrify Edinburgh, until Burke is hanged and Hare disappears. Over a decade later, in the early days of New Zealand colonial settlement, a whaler washes up on the eastern shores of Port Nicholson. He calls himself Ōkiwi Brown, sets up a pub with an evil reputation and takes in a woman abandoned on his beach. Nearby, children sing dark nursery rhymes of murder.

One afternoon, Õkiwi is visited by a pair of ex-soldiers, a bosun looking for a fight, and itinerant worker William Leckie with his young daughter, Mary. When a body is discovered on the beach, it could be that a drunken man has drowned. But perhaps the gathered witnesses know something more.

Cristina Sanders is a new to me author who has written a number of books in the past along the same lines of ŌKIWI BROWN - a fictionalised version of historical events that incorporate early tales (tall and true) of Aotearoa. 

This story is told in a series of anecdotes, incorporating the story of a man, a waler who washed up on the eastern shores of Port Nicholson many years ago, in the early days of colonial settlement. He sets himself up with a pub and makes a home with a woman found abandoned on the nearby beach, quickly developing a reputation for evil and nasty going's on. 

The set up to this is an unusual one, perhaps not so out of the ordinary for Cristina Sanders if the blurbs for her other books (MRS JEWELL AND THE WRECK OF THE GENERAL GRANT, JERNINGHAM and DISPLACED) are anything to go by, although this one appears to be the only novel that so directly connects the possibility of past and present murders, and a potential character from history. 

Told with incredible strength, and a profound sense of place, ŌKIWI BROWN never shies away from the intrinsic evil of that unknown waler, or the difficulties of life in the new colony, whilst weaving in enough of the story of Burke and Hare to give the assumption of identity some credence. 

Overall it's well depicted, although populated by a lot of characters and some very disparate stories. All in all, it was increasingly disconcerting to think about the possibility of who else washed up on what shores in the days of very limited communications.

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a regular judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by New Zealanders adn Australians on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

"Full throttle thriller, well written" - review of NOBODY'S HERO

NOBODY'S HERO by MW Craven (Little, Brown, Oct 2024)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

When a shocking murder and abduction on the streets of London leads investigators to him, Ben Koenig has no idea at first why the highest echelons of the CIA would need his help. But then he realises he knows the woman who carried out the killings. Ten years earlier, without being told why, he was tasked with helping her disappear.

Far from being a deranged killer, she is the gatekeeper of a secret that could take down the West, so for years she has been in hiding. Until now. And if she has resurfaced, the danger may be closer and more terrifying than anyone can imagine.

So Ben Koenig has to find her before it's too late. But Ben suffers from a syndrome which means he can't feel fear. He doesn't always know when he should walk away, or when he's leading others into danger...

While I've really enjoyed some of MW Craven's excellent crime novels starring DS Washington Poe and civilian analyst Tilly Bradshaw - last year's The Mercy Chair was one of my top reads of 2024 - I hadn't read Fearless, Craven's then-standalone thriller that introduced Ben Koenig, a former US Marshall turned ghost of a man; a man who couldn't feel fear in the way normal humans do. 

So I went into Nobody's Hero, the sequel, not knowing quite what to expect. Overall, it was a highly compelling, page-whirring read. A little different in style - more full-throttle thriller with a shade less character development or layers compared to the Tilly and Poe books, while still being well written. 

And involving huge stakes. Save the world kind of matters, compared to Poe's more local investigations. Speckled too with memorable, if at times over-the-top, characters. Echoes of 007. 

The reappearance of the woman Koenig helped vanish ties to 'the Acacia Avenue Protocol'. In a CIA safe is a list of four names. Koenig is the only one still alive. But he has no clue what the Acacia Avenue Protocol is, or why he's on the top secret list. At first appearance, the nomadic Koenig also doesn't seem like the kind of operative to task with such a mission. But he knows that if the woman has resurfaced then something must be very, very wrong. Sent to London to pick up the trail, Koenig gets sucked into a globe-trotting, action-packed quest taking him from Scotland to New York to Nevada. While dodging or dealing with some very dangerous individuals, including a cabal of corrupt cops, and a peculiar hitman. 

With Nobody's Hero, Craven crafts a master class in action thrillers: lots of intensity, lots of movement, high stakes, interesting characters, an intricate plots and some wonderful set pieces. Koenig is an intriguing hero - even if he feels like nobody's idea of a hero - and the surrounding cast, including frenemy Jen Draper, add extra colour and intrigue. Other than blowing the budget with some spectacular set pieces, Nobody's Hero would likely translate very well to the screen. 

For now though, at least we can all enjoy a ripsnorter of a read. 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

"Cutting edge tech with timeless thrills" - review of THE PROVING GROUND

THE PROVING GROUND by Michael Connelly (Allen & Unwin, 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Mickey Haller has moved from criminal to civil court, but murder remains in his sights—in particular, the case of a chatbot encouraging the killing of a teenage girl.

Mickey files a civil lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company responsible for the chatbot and instantly finds himself on the wild frontier of the billion-dollar AI industry. Grappling with a terrifying lack of regulation and data overload, Haller partners with journalist Jack McEvoy. But they are up against mega-forces, and even the bravest whistleblower faces grave danger.

In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess master Garry Kasparov with an unexpected gambit. In a Herculean new match of man vs machine, can Haller pull off a winning play for humanity?

Long-time fans of Michael Connelly’s work have already had plenty to enjoy this year, with the crescendo of the excellent Bosch screen adaptation starring Titus Welliver, the launch of the Renee Ballard series on Amazon Prime, continuation of the hit Lincoln Lawyer adaptation on Netflix, and a new series character – LA County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell, exiled to rustic Catalina Island – introduced in Connelly’s previous 2025 novel Nightshade. But wait, there’s more… 

Now Mickey Haller is back on the page too, joined by another Connelly main character, in The Proving Ground. For nearly 35 years Connelly has been entertaining readers (and viewers) with top-notch storytelling that manages to be both timeless, and timely. He’s unafraid to delve into societal and other changes, show the impact of cases on his characters,  and offer modern takes on the detective fiction tropes that have served for more than a century, while still honouring readers and what we love or expect about the mystery genre. And with Michael Conelly’s tales themselves, long-time readers have built up an expectation of consistent excellence.

 

He delivers once more in The Proving Ground, blending familiar foundations with splashes of the new.

In search of a new direction, Mickey Haller, aka ‘the Lincoln Lawyer’, is taking on civil rather than criminal cases, and now he has an artificial intelligence (AI) company in his sights. The creators of a chatbot that may have played a key role in a sixteen-year-old boy killing his ex-girlfriend. 

Delving into unfamiliar ground, Haller joins forces with relentless journalist Jack McEvoy (The Poet, The Scarecrow, etc) as they take on a pioneering case that explores the dangerous sides of the booming AI industry where technological innovation and the race to cash in threatens to overwhelm outdated regulations or any guardrails. With billions at stake, and powerful forces in the tech industry not keen to have progress or profits slowed in any way, it’s an extremely dangerous case.

It's almost redundant nowadays to say Connelly is a master storyteller; it goes without saying. In The Proving Ground he draws readers into a hugely compelling tale that delves into cutting-edge technology while also delivering timeless intrigue and thrills. It’s great to be riding with the Lincoln Lawyer again on the page, and teaming McEvoy and Haller brings another fresh twist to the expansive ‘Bosch universe’ that Connelly has built over more than three decades. 

AI and technology – not to mention the legal system itself – is a hugely complex subject matter, but Connelly deftly draws readers in and provides enough information and background while still maintaining narrative drive and excitement. He’s a master of the ‘telling detail’ that delivers a sense of something without requiring lengthy description. I tore through this book in a day. Another very enjoyable read in Connelly’s ever-expanding canon. As he gets set to celebrate his 70th birthday next year, Connelly is a beacon among the mystery and thriller genre of maintaining the highest standards throughout a long-running series, and threading the needle of fresh and familiar. 

[This review was first published in the Fall 2025 issue of Deadly Pleasures magazine in the USA]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.

Review: THE MIRES

THE DEEPER THE DEAD by Catherine Lea (Bateman Books, 2025)

Reviewed by Karen Chisholm

Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old tearaway Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child, who always picks up on things that aren't hers to worry about. They live next door to Janet, a white woman with an opinion about everything, and new arrival Sera, whose family are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe.

 

When Janet’s son Conor arrives home without warning, sporting a fresh buzzcut and a new tattoo, the quiet tension between the neighbours grows, but no one suspects just how extreme Conor has become. No one except Wairere, who can feel the danger in their midst, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.

Hopefully more and more of us are looking for answers to the state of the world in the right directions, but then again you look at the state of world politics and the rise of the nationalistic mobs, environmental degradation and climate change denial, and it's getting hard to see any light at the end of an increasingly long, dark tunnel. Tina Makereti has chosen to take this situation, and the hopelessness generated hyper-local, with THE MIRES. Into a small community, living on top of a swamp in Kapiti, on the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand which is trying to coexist, and it's in their interactions and responses to threats that we have been given the opportunity to learn something,

The story is centred around three women - all from different countries and different decades, all of whom with children and life experience that vary dramatically. First up is Keri, a Māori woman who lives with the aftermath of domestic violence, struggling to feed her two children - a lively four year old called Walty and her reserved teenage daughter Wairere, who hears the voices of her ancestors and has the gift of sight.

She lives between, on the one side, refugees from ecological breakdown in Europe - Sera, her husband Adam and baby Aliana. On the other Janet, another survivor of domestic violence, she's a white New Zealander woman with very fixed ideas about how everybody else should live. Meanwhile her son, Conor, is becoming increasing radicalised, behaving very secretly and strangely.

These three women - Keri, Sera and Janet - form the core of this novel, but it's Conor who becomes the catalyst, returning home without warning, sporting tattoos and a buzzcut, his behaviour really causing the tension to ramp up. Whilst the older women may not immediately realise just how warped Conor's beliefs have become, Wairere immediately senses the danger.

As with the outstanding and very moving KATARAINA, central to the core of the Māori people is their connection to vital areas of the landscape - in this case, again, a swamp that forms both part of the community and their sensibility for want of a better description. The novel starts out quite deceptively, with the feel of a gentle, domestic styled story about women, families and living in small communities or suburbs. As friendships are formed, and the younger children in particular form initial bridges between them, the novel itself starts to build through the gathering of strangers and the perceived threat of difference to a very particular threat within. Conor and his extremist right-wing connections, isolation, and targeting of women and migrants in particular becomes something that could break this small, almost insulated world apart.

Informed strongly by indigenous sensibilities, beliefs and spiritual connections to Country, and ancestors, THE MIRES also isn't afraid to use the examples of the horror of white supremacy, the massacres that are all too often performed in its name, and attempt to shine a light on that darkest of human behaviour whilst more importantly, providing examples of how the best of humanity can rise above. 

Whilst parts of THE MIRES were devastating, and very discomforting to read, it's message of hope and connection shone through. It has a particularly indigenous sensibility - the things that matter - people / community / connection to those and to place, always to place, feels very much like an answer we could all be looking towards. .

Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and has been a regular judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and Ngaio Marsh Awards. This review was first published on Karen's website; she kindly shares some of her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by New Zealanders adn Australians on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction. 

“Unique, enthralling mystery" - review of THE NANCYS AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING NECKLACE

THE NANCYS AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING NECKLACE by RWR McDonald (Orenda Books, Nov 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

Eleven-year-old Tippy’s uncle and his boyfriend turn up in her small New Zealand town to look after her when his mother is away over Christmas, but when her schoolteacher is found dead and her best friend has a near-fatal accident, the trio turns detective, dubbing themselves The Nancys, and launching a chaotic, hilarious investigation.

I don't know if I've grinned as much reading a crime novel for quite a long time. There's such a lovely sense of exuberance to Melbourne-based Kiwi author RWR McDonald's debut mystery, which is set in a fictional small town in the deep south of New Zealand.

Delightful, charming, heartfelt, exuberant; they're not usually the words that come top of mind when musing on a crime novel, but they absolutely fit for The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace, which has an adolescent heroine but is very much an adult mystery novel (not a young adult or juvenile mystery).

I can certainly see why the then-unpublished manuscript was highly commended in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (a pipeline that has highlighted the likes of The Dry by Jane Harper, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, and The Nowhere Child by Christian White).

There's just something, well, je ne sais quoi, about The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace that makes it quite different to much of the great rural and small-town crime writing coming out of Australia and New Zealand in recent years. While it has some of the quirky local characters and secrets-behind-closed-doors you'd expect with 'rural noir', there's a different energy and tone, delightfully so.

At its heart, and the book has a big one, The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace centres on the misadventures of an unlikely investigating trio and the colourful South Otago townsfolk they encounter. along the way.

Tippy Chan is an eleven-year-old Riverstone local delighted by a visit from her beloved Uncle Pike, a Sydney hairdresser who could body double for Santa Claus. Pike has returned to the riverside town he fled years before - "the town that style forgot", as the blurb aptly describes - with his fashionista boyfriend Devon in tow, to look after Tippy while her mother goes on a cruise.

It's been a tough time for the Chan family, with Tippy's father passing away in the past year and even more stress heaped on her mother, Pike's sister, who could do with a good break away. Tippy loves her uncle’s old Nancy Drew books, and when her best friend falls off a bridge and then her teacher’s body is found near the town's only traffic light, the trio see a chance to solve a mystery for real. At the same time they're juggling other local adventures, including a surprising makeover of a glum teenage neighbour for a local show, and Pike dealing with his past history in the town.

Overall The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace is a real delight, a charming mystery that is much more than charm, packed with lovably unruly characters and chaotic events and perfectly seasoned with humour and heart. First-time novelist McDonald has opened his account with a real belter, a unique and enthralling tale.

[I originally reviewed this book for the New Zealand Listener and this blog on its original Australian and New Zealand release a few years ago. Today a newly edited and updated version, The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace has been published for the first time for UK, USA & global market] 

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.