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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A clever whodunit author outdoes himself

A clever whodunit author outdoes himself

In A Deadly Episode, the sixth book in his Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Anthony Horowitz delivers a belated sequel to the novel that launched the series, The Word is Murder. And, true to form, he delivers a baffling story with a devilishly clever premise. Yes, Horowitz does...

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NONFICTION

How the Occupied nations helped win World War II

How the Occupied nations helped win World War II

Thousands of books memorialize the story of World War II in Europe. Every aspect of the conflict has received its due, from the fighting itself, to the deprivations on the home front, to the role of intelligence and the personalities of the civilian and military leadership on...

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Popular Fiction

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

The legendary English humorist Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975), known to readers as P. G., wrote about 100 books in a career that spanned much of the 20th century. His output included 71 novels, 24 collections of short stories, 42 plays, three memoirs, and a lot...

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Explore My “BEST OF the category” selections

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?

When people ask me that question, I never know what to say. In a lifetime of reading, I’ve read many thousands of books. And I’ve reviewed well over 2,000 of them on this site. Picking just one as a “favorite,” or even a handful of them, makes no sense to me.

The problem is, I read for many different reasons. Perhaps you do, too. And I read many different sorts of books. Mysteries and thrillers. Popular fiction, especially historical fiction. Science fiction.

And nonfiction, history in particular. You’ll find hundreds of reviews in every one of those categories on this site.

Look to the right for a rotating random selection culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Pieces of Her is Karin Slaughter's latest novel.

Karin Slaughter’s latest novel is unlike her previous work

Karin Slaughter is best known for the Grant County and Will Trent series of crime novels and her bestselling standalone thrillers, Cop Town, Pretty Girls, and The Good Daughter. All fall neatly within the mystery and suspense genre. With Pieces of Her, Slaughter's most recent standalone effort,...
Cover image of "Autonomous," one of the top dystopian novels reviewed here

The top 10 dystopian novels reviewed here

Dystopian novels figure prominently in the work of some of the world’s best science fiction writers. When Donald Trump entered the White House, and a fearful public began to contemplate the possibility of disastrous consequences from his erratic and authoritarian behavior, dystopian novels such as...
Cover image of "Nicked,"

A satirical 11th century heist story

M. T. Anderson won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for one novel and was a finalist for two others. But he writes for adults too, and brilliantly, as his most recent work makes clear. Nicked is historical fiction. But it's also fantasy. And it blurs the line into folk tales...
Cover image of "The Janus Stone," a novel about druids

Druids, ancient Romans, and a nosy forensic archaeologist

Chances are, you've never encountered a forensic archaeologist. Before I came across Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series, I hadn't. The closest I'd come was the character Temperance Brennan in Kathy Reichs' long-running television series, Bones, and the novels on which it was based. But Brennan...
Cover image of "Hollywood Moon," a novel about the Hollywood police

These Hollywood police procedurals launched serious police drama

Joseph Wambaugh, who recently passed away at the age of 88, wrote both novels and nonfiction about police and crime in Los Angeles for more than 50 years. While still at work as an LAPD detective sergeant in 1971, he wrote his first novel, The New Centurions. Two years later I read The Onion...
Cover image of "The Other Side of Silence," a novel in the Bernie Gunther saga

An exciting chapter in the Bernie Gunther saga

The Other Side of Silence is the 11th novel in Philip Kerr's bestselling detective stories in the Bernie Gunther saga. However, unlike the books that precede it in the series, this suspenseful and well-crafted tale is primarily a post-war spy story. MI6, the East German Stasi, and the Soviet NKVD...
Cover image of "The Scarred Woman" by Jussi Adler-Olsen, a Department Q novel

The latest addition to Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q series

The Scarred Woman is the seventh novel in Jussi Adler-Olsen's series about Danish detectives holed up in the basement of Copenhagen's police headquarters, ostensibly to work on cold cases. Like the six books that preceded it, it tells the story of how the small team in Department Q takes on...
Cover image of "Seven Days Dead," a sophisticated thriller

A sophisticated thriller from Canada

Seven Days Dead is the second of three novels by the Canadian novelist John Farrow featuring retired Detective-Sergeant Emile Cinq-Mars of the Montreal city police. The common thread that ran through the first book, The Storm Murders, was that each in a series of murders took place after a natural...
Cover image of "Dead Irish," an example of San Francisco noir

John Lescroart: The joy of San Francisco noir

San Francisco bartender Dismas Hardy was briefly a patrol officer in the SFPD while he worked toward a law degree. He left the law shortly after the death of an infant son and divorce from his wife. But when his boss and best friend learns that his popular brother-in-law has mysteriously died,...
A Bitter Feast features a large cast of characters.

Deborah Crombie shows her chops with a large cast of characters

If you've ever wondered what it takes to write a murder mystery, imagine trying to create something like A Bitter Feast, Deborah Crombie's eighteenth entry in the Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid series. Forget the plot. Just consider the large cast of characters. An epically large cast of...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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