Media

Interviews with Nick, reviews of Roll With It and other media.

April 22:

A nice review of ‘Roll With It’ by Bookdout.

And A Book Between said: ‘Roll With It is not your typical crime novel. It took me a little while to get into this one, but once it started to pick up speed it rolled along at a nice pace. It was a refreshing read with a light smattering of humour and a wonderful mixture of colourful characters.
I recommend this book to someone looking for a light-hearted, fun, crime novel.’

And this turned out to be a review of Nick’s Place, in Winthrop, Minnesota, USA. (This is a hazard of having my name.) Sounds like the drive-thru menu is pretty good.

April 19:

Another really positive review of ‘Roll With It‘ by the blog, All The Books I Can Read.

What I really loved about this review is that she tapped into the deeper rivers of the book, as well as enjoying the jokes. Laver’s lack of support from the Force and his family, after doing his job, is a key element that I’m glad the reviewer felt moved by.

April 8:

It’s been a good few days for ‘Roll With It‘.

Another blog, Australian Crime Fiction, published a really positive review. I figure anybody who is into crime fiction enough to start a blog dedicated to that genre is going to be a tough/genuine critic, so love seeing good reviews on those sites.

ABC Radio 774’s Richard Stubbs gave me a shout-out on Twitter too, enthusing about the book, which was very much appreciated.

And Hardie-Grant, the book’s publisher, has made ‘Roll With It‘ the book of the month for April. Thank you, Hardie-Granters.

Finally, I’ve had several people contact me, saying Book Clubs have chosen ‘Roll With It‘, which is brilliant.

April 4:

I’m still floating, after reading this review on a site called Fair Dinkum Crime. The reviewer has managed to pick out and enjoy almost every aspect of ‘Roll With It’ that I thought was important, such as making Laver a different hero to the usual lone wolf detective characters, having friends etc. Even the cleaning of the dishes was noted, in exactly the right way. I swear I did not write this review under a pseudonym (and thank you, reviewer Bernadette, if you ever happen to read this)

Read the review on their site here.

March 30:
The Herald Sun ran an awesome review today.

ROLLICKING TIME WORTH THE WAIT
ROLL WITH IT
BY NICK PLACE, HARDIE GRANT BOOKS, RRP $24.95
It’s difficult to imagine a journalist taking 25 years to write a book . . . but that’s how long it took Nick Place to produce Roll With It. Luckily, the comedy crime-fiction novel was worth the wait. Nick is a former newspaper reporter who cut his teeth working the police round, where men are men and women are too. He got to know detectives, beat police and members of the Special Operations Group. So while it isn’t true crime by any means, genuine anecdotes are liberally sprinkled throughout.
Character development is great. People such as Stig and Wild Man are introduced early and by the end of the book the reader feels they know what makes them tick. As for the have-a-go hero, major crime cop Tony Laver, who gets busted down to the pushbike squad after shooting dead a dirt-bag crim, you must empathise with him. Any book that can get shoot-outs, taut flat stomachs, breasts that fill your dreams, losing your crim-killing virginity, a rapist freezing and falling over and characters such as Wasted Wes in the first few chapters is worth completing. This is it.

KM (Keith Moor)

Verdict: roll with it

The Melbourne Times Weekly ran an interview: click here.

The Leader newspaper group syndicated this review:

And just before the Roll With It reviews and interviews started, there was this: a Herald Sun feature which included Nicko’s dog, Fly.