If You like Mystery and Suspense, You'll Love Michael Robotham

Australian author Michael Robotham has published two of the best mystery/psychological thriller novels I've ever had the pleasure of reading. His third book, due out in the US in June, should be just as enjoyable.

I'll admit, I caught onto Robotham only recently. I am a readers' advisor for the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library, and as part of my job, I help determine how many copies of braille and cassette books produced by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS/BPH) we want to receive. Also, being blind myself, I have to wait until a book becomes available in either an audio or braille format before I can get my hands on it. I recall thinking to myself when I first saw "Suspect", Robotham's first novel, on our copy allotment, that it definitely looked like something I'd want to read. Recently, both Suspect and Lost (also published as Drowning Man) were made available via NLS's Web Braille program, a service which allows users to download braille books to portable braille devices or to their computers, similar to your public library's ebook programs. After reading both novels, I have to say that Michael Robotham is the best non-British writer of British-setting mysteries since Elizabeth George and her Inspector Thomas Lynley series.

Robotham has done something fairly unique in his novels. Though the players are basically the same in both Suspect and Lost, he changes the protagonist/narrator from one book to the next, and will also be doing the same with his upcoming release, The Night Ferry. Many mystery fans and publishers tned to enjoy reading books in a series, but Robotham wanted to create stand-alone novels, so that a reader could pick any of them up and start with later material, and not feel lost as to what's happening in the book. With these books, Michael Robotham has satisfied both his desire to write stand-alone novels and the mystery readers' desire to follow a set of characters through a series.