An Antipodean Attraction

I’ve devoted my Kirkus Reviews column this week to a critique of Death on Demand, by Paul Thomas--one of four contenders for New Zealand’s 2013 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. In that column, I include a quote from Craig Sisterson, a Kiwi journalist and the author of Crime Watch, saying this of author Thomas:

“Paul Thomas could well be considered the Godfather of contemporary Kiwi crime writing. It was he who, in the 1990s, dragged the genre here from its Marsh and Christie-esque cozy confines into a more hard-boiled, violent world filled with crisp and satiric prose. Overseas critics have described him as ‘Elmore Leonard on acid,’ and the comparison seems apt. Thomas has an offbeat vitality to his writing that is hard to resist.”

You’ll find my full Kirkus review of Death on Demand here.