{"id":500635,"date":"2025-10-15T05:05:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500635\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T05:05:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:05:18","slug":"from-museum-heists-to-global-family-sagas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500635\/","title":{"rendered":"From museum heists to global family sagas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From a globetrotting family saga to Australia\u2019s greatest museum heist, here are 10 new books to add to your reading pile.<\/p>\n

FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Vulture<\/strong>
Phoebe Greenwood<\/strong>
Europa, $39.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

This mordant satire on journalists in conflict zones has been penned by an author who\u2019s worked in the field. Phoebe Greenwood\u2019s Vulture opens in Gaza in 2012, where ambitious correspondent Sara has been sent to a four-star hotel called The Beach. It\u2019s the local hub for international media, and Sara\u2019s description of it \u2013 \u201ca fussy, calcified chocolate cake on display at a sad village bakery\u201d \u2013 gives some indication of her weirdly off-kilter jocularity and self-absorbed frame of reference. Some of the cynicism is gallows humour, a coping mechanism in the face of horrors witnessed every day. But Sara\u2019s emotional vacancy is so sustained that it eventually becomes menacing and absurd, especially when the hunt for a scoop leads to unintended harm. A quest for an exclusive \u2013 a tour of terror tunnels built by Hamas \u2013 leads to trouble that brings into sharp focus the ethics of war reporting. Given the appalling number of journalists killed in Gaza since the latest war began, the novel also serves as a kind of antiwar burlesque \u2013 a Catch-22 for the media, rather than the military \u2013 and neither Greenwood\u2019s antiheroine, nor anyone else, gets let off the hook.<\/p>\n

The Bolthole<\/strong>
Peter Papathanasiou<\/strong>
MacLehose, $34.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Does it count as outback noir if it\u2019s set on Kangaroo Island? Probably not, I should imagine, though it doesn\u2019t matter much if it\u2019s good crime fiction. And The Bolthole is certainly that. Local islanders have become wary of encroachment. Kangaroo Island is a remote and fragile place, and there are those who dislike the fact that it has become a bolthole for cashed-up mainlanders. So, when a rich newcomer, Richard Marlowe, vanishes one morning, there might be more to the disappearance than meets the eye. Admittedly, the man was last seen walking into the ocean for a dawn swim. He\u2019s presumed at first to have been taken by a great white shark. When two cops arrive at the island hoping to locate Marlowe and rule out foul play, however, they\u2019re given a frosty reception. Detective Sergeant Manolis and Senior Constable Sparrow soon find themselves thrust into the depths of an island on the verge, where locals and wealthy getaway seekers are waging a covert war against one another. Papathanasiou\u2019s detective fiction draws a striking contrast between the fragile beauty of the unique island landscape, and the ugliness and desperation of humans who would despoil it.<\/p>\n

Fierceland<\/strong>
Omar Musa<\/strong>
Penguin, $34.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The complexities of inheritance pattern Fierceland, a globetrotting family saga and the second book from Australian-Malaysian rapper and poet Omar Musa. Two adult siblings return to their childhood home in Sabah to mourn their father\u2019s death, and to grapple with a legacy darker than most people know. And what most people know is dark enough \u2013 their father Yusuf was a palm oil magnate, building an empire from the wanton destruction of pristine rainforest in Malaysian Borneo. As his children grow up, they discover that their comfortable lives have been built upon ecological destruction on a vast scale. Their paths in life diverge in response \u2013 Harun becomes a tech entrepreneur in the US; Roz a struggling artist in Australia \u2013 and their reunion brings with it a reckoning with their father\u2019s history and contradictions, and a chance at reflection, if not redemption. From the forests of Malaysia to fantasy video games, Musa weaves a picaresque narrative that slides between profusion and desolation, belonging and alienation. The structure plays with an appealing, game-like fabulism, weakened slightly by some of the author\u2019s looser digressions.<\/p>\n

The Impossible Fortune<\/strong>
Richard Osman<\/strong>
Viking, $34.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Richard Osman was inspired by Agatha Christie when he penned the first of the Thursday Murder Club books. He may never rival Christie (few could), and yet Osman\u2019s \u201ccosy crime\u201d series continues to grow in popularity, especially with the Netflix film starring Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley released this year. In The Impossible Fortune, the gang of four retirees who solve crimes for their own amusement \u2013 Elizabeth, Ron, Joyce, and Ibrahim \u2013 have been having a quiet time of it. Crime has a way of seeking them out, however, and although Elizabeth is still grieving (and not quite herself) after the events of The Last Devil to Die, that gives the others a chance to step centre stage for a bit. The mystery itself involves a missing fortune in cryptocurrency, and a villain who\u2019ll stop at nothing to crack an unbreakable code. As with Osman\u2019s other Thursday Murder Club efforts, a large part of its appeal lies in the complex characters and the struggles they face getting older. It\u2019s deservedly popular comic crime, and fans hungry for the next episode should happily devour it whole.<\/p>\n

The Forsaken<\/strong>
Matt Rogers<\/strong>
Simon & Schuster, $34.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Action thrillers often have antiheroes who are up against it, graduates of the school of hard knocks, and Matt Rogers\u2019 The Forsaken doubles down on the trope. Near the end of his career as a hitman, Logan Booth discovers he has been manipulated all along. Far from the vigilante he thought himself to be, he learns he has been working for the CIA, unawares. The revelation causes a spiral of self-loathing, alcoholism, suicidal ideation. Logan is saved by his rage. When his only friend Jorge, an investigative journalist, is brutally murdered, possibly in response to a corruption expose he was planning to write, he comes out of retirement to track down those responsible. Logan teams with Alice, a homeless crack addict (and an eyewitness with a target on her back) to get justice for his friend, vigilante-style. Along the way, his old handler at the CIA reappears with an offer of assistance, and Logan is torn between bitterness and resentment and loyalty to his newfound purpose. A slick and propulsive noir thriller with damaged characters, tense action sequences, and the stench of corruption never far away.<\/p>\n

NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Under the Influence of Salmon<\/strong>
Steve Harris<\/strong>
Melbourne Books, $39.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

One might debate Steve Harris\u2019 claim that Atlantic salmon is the \u201cnumero uno\u201d of all animal species in the eyes of humans. But, in the best possible sense, he is a writer \u201cunder the influence\u201d of his subject, which is both the fish and the man who brought salmon to the southern hemisphere. In the mid-1800s, as word spread that two Frenchmen had successfully propagated wild salmon and that an attempt to bring salmon ova to Australia had failed, Tasmanian James Arndell Youl made it his life\u2019s mission to succeed in such a venture \u2013 even though he knew no more about this fish \u201cthan a wagon horse\u201d. While there were no shortage of naysayers in the press and science disparaging the dream as folly, Youl refused to give up. When fertilised eggs finally survived the journey from Britain, their arrival was heralded as a \u201cnational event\u201d. Harris deftly captures the dramatic tension of the enterprise and the mood of the colony at this time, showing how this charismatic fish took hold of the public imagination as both a symbol of antipodean perseverance against the odds and as an emblem of \u201chome\u201d.<\/p>\n

A Short History of the Gaza Strip<\/strong>
Anne Irfan<\/strong>
Simon & Schuster, $29.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Back in 2012, the UN warned that Gaza would soon be \u201cunliveable\u201d. Palestinians organised campaigns and marches, looking for ways to end the \u201cdeadlock of blockade, bombardment and disunity\u201d. Resourceful young people came up with innovations to address the problem of blackouts and the urgent need for construction materials as Palestinians sought to wrest back control of their lives in the face of overwhelming events. Anne Irfan stresses that only history \u2013 rather than theology or geography \u2013 can account for the current catastrophe, identifying six key episodes from the expulsion and displacement of Palestinians when the state of Israel was created in 1948 to Hamas\u2019s electoral victory in Gaza in 2006. But it\u2019s the stories of Palestinians, whose existence has been shaped by these impersonal forces, that flesh out this account and bring it alive. The restrained clarity of this work provides a much-needed perspective on this fraught and bloody moment in history.<\/p>\n

The Butterfly Thief<\/strong>
Walter Marsh<\/strong>
Scribe, $36.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov, who was also a dedicated lepidopterist, wrote that collecting butterflies induced a kind of ecstasy, \u201ca sense of oneness with sun and stone.\u201d This taste of ecstasy, it seems, also drove Englishman Colin Wyatt to travel the world in pursuit of rare butterfly specimens. The great puzzle of the enigmatic Wyatt is why, given his experience of the thrill of the chase in the field, he went on to conduct daylight robbery of dead butterflies from three Australian museums and then hoard them away. He claimed, when New Scotland Yard caught up with him, that the stress of his marriage breakdown \u201csparked his year-long spree\u201d. In this nuanced and detailed account of Wyatt\u2019s adventures and the world of entomology in Australia in the first half of the 20th century, Walter Marsh speculates that as the celebrated son of an establishment family, he believed he was untouchable. A further dimension of mystery is provided by the story of one particularly rare butterfly and a fake specimen that bookends this intriguing tale.<\/p>\n

When Australia Became A Republic<\/strong>
Esther Anatolitis<\/strong>
Monash University Publishing, $19.95<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s a clever way of reframing and re-igniting the debate on the republic. Show how Australia \u201cbecame\u201d a republic at key moments in the past when we charted our path away from the monarchy. Then highlight just how fusty and laughable it is that our Constitution gives the Crown a final veto. It began with the British government insisting, when it saw the last draft of the Constitution, that the monarch\u2019s \u201cpleasure\u201d must trump the will of the people on certain legal matters. But since then, says Esther Anatolitis, we\u2019ve been gradually cutting the ties that bind. In 1930, the Australian Prime Minister defied the King and recommended an Australian-born governor general. In 1941, having been abandoned by Britain during the war, we put our own defence above the Empire. Anatolitis offers up instance after instance from trade to First Nations sovereignty when \u201cwe\u2019ve done democracy our way\u201d. The effect of this punchy essay is to reveal the process as inexorable, the true expression of who we are.<\/p>\n

Average At Best<\/strong>
Astrid Jorgensen<\/strong>
Simon & Schuster, $34.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As a teenager, Astrid Jorgensen wanted to be a nun. When she realised she wasn\u2019t cut out for it, her religion became \u201cseeking out deeply felt, communal experiences\u201d through her invention of Pub Choir. Those who think \u201cinvention\u201d too grand a word for getting hundreds or thousands of people singing together in three-part harmony in a one-off experience of aural exhilaration would do well to read this memoir. While Jorgensen is a talented singer, she understands that many of us feel seriously challenged in the vocal department. Through her method, which uses improvised comedy, her own vocal arrangements and her own musical notation, she helps participants discover how the \u201cordinary human body can become a manifestation of music\u201d. Jorgensen\u2019s story fizzes with the out-there energy of her public persona while capturing the other Astrid who, ironically, suffers from \u201cmisophonia\u201d and has a deep need for silence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size From a globetrotting family saga to Australia\u2019s greatest museum heist,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-500635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115376445102031480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}