The Woman in the Window by A.J Finn

Child psychologist Dr Anna Fox is suffering from agoraphobia following a trauma, and hasn't left her five storey house in ten months. She spends her days drinking, spying on her neighbours and watching her collection of old black and white movies. When she sees a woman stabbed in the house across the street she needs to work out what happened and who she can trust.

The book was unputdownable from the first page, although about 100 pages in, when she still hadn't seen whatever she was going to see across the street, I started to wonder where the book was heading.  At 425 pages it's a long book, but there are enough events and plot twists that it could have been longer and still been great. Anna often has old movies playing in the background. The incorporation of lines and themes from the movies with the scenes in the book is masterful. I can't wait to see the film version (with Amy Adams) due to be released in May 2020.

What you pay for by Claire Askew

This 2019 crime-fiction novel is the second book in the D.I Birch series. While the first book was all about a mass shooting at an Edinburgh college, this sees the return of Helen Birch's younger brother Charlie who disappeared from university without trace fourteen years earlier.

The chapters alternate between Charlie's perspective (first person) and Helen's (third person). Charlie is caught up in a case Helen is working on and we slowly find out what he's been doing all these years. It's a great read though there's more violence than the previous one. If Askew writes a third book I'll definitely read it.

Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko

I've read a lot of books that include domestic violence but this is the only one that was laugh out loud funny. It tells the story of an Aboriginal family, the Salters. Thirty-five-year-old Kerry Salter returns to her hometown on a Harley because her grandfather is dying. He brother Ken is the same bully she left behind and his teenage son Donny is suffering from anorexia.

The book touches on intergenerational trauma, land rights and loss of culture. It helps the reader develop a better understanding of Aboriginal culture. The writing is witty and concise. I wasn't sure where the story was going for the first 100 pages but the plot twists were great.