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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A young police detective pursues an escaped Nazi spy

A young police detective pursues an escaped Nazi spy

Nazi Germany reportedly dispatched as many as 135 spies to Britain during World War II. And, according to numerous historical accounts, every single one of them was either captured or turned themselves in to authorities. (At least one didn't fit the pattern, though. He...

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NONFICTION

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.

Check out our rotating random selection here, culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Nightwings is set on a far future Earth.

A science fiction master imagines a far future Earth

Robert Silverberg has been writing science fiction since he was fourteen years old, and that was a long time ago. (1949, actually.) He's written hundreds of books and scores of short story collections and been richly rewarded for his work: four Hugo Awards, five Nebulas, and recognition as a Grand...
Cover image of "Doors Open" by Ian Rankin, a novel about a motley collection of misfits who plan a perfect crime

A motley collection of heroes and misfits and the “perfect crime”

Consider this cast of characters: a burned-out 37-year-old retired software millionaire, a gorgeous art gallery owner with a taste for retired software millionaires, a sleazy professor of art, a divorced and self-pitying banker facing up to the emptiness of his life, a bitter young art student...
Cover image of "The Purity of Vengeance," a novel about forced sterilization

Forced sterilization, fascists, and serial murder—in Denmark

Many Americans harbor an image of Denmark as one of the most progressive and livable countries in the world. That may well be the case—the country's rankings on global indexes support it—but you might well gain a different impression of Denmark if you read the crime thrillers written by Jussi...
Cover image of "The Pusher,"

Cops of the 87th Precinct search for a homicidal drug pusher

Ed McBain's long-running series of police procedurals, published from 1956 to 2005, influenced two generations of mystery writers. The cops of the 87th Precinct in the fictional city of Isola pursued their investigations using the most sophisticated forensic technology available at the time. And...
Cover image of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," exposing an episode on the dark side of medical history

Exposing the dark side of medical history

Henrietta Lacks was thirty-one years old when she entered Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore early in 1951. She was Catholic, the mother of five children, and African-American. Hopkins was one of the nation's most prestigious medical schools—and the only hospital in the area that admitted Black...
Cover image of "Machines of Loving Grace," a book about robots

Will robots seize the day?

In 1967, Richard Brautigan, the patron saint of hippiedom, published a poem in a collection under a title copied for this book. In the poem's final stanza, he envisioned a world run by robots that to so many readers then must have seemed entirely fanciful: I like to think(it has to...
Cover image of "Just One Damned Thing After Another"

Historians blunder around in the past in this time travel story

You think you know what you're in for after the first 29 words in the book. First, the author writes, "I made all this up. Historians and physicists—please do not spit on me in the street." Then she quotes Arnold Toynbee, who was not the first to express the sentiment (and didn't actually mean...
Cover image of "An Unquiet Peace," a historical private eye novel

WWII espionage echoes in post-war L.A.

During the year 1948 American history took a sharp turn into the future. The Soviet Union had imposed the Berlin Blockade, triggering the monumental, 11-month Berlin Airlift. Harry Truman won election outright as President, defying the pollsters. The CIA, founded only the year before, was filling...
rural Minnesota: Mad River by John Sandford

John Sandford’s latest bestseller: Murder on the run in rural Minnesota

A review of Mad River, by John Sandford. @@@ (3 out of 5). Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension follows up on a brutal and seemingly senseless murder in a small rural town and finds himself in competition with an unsavory local Sheriff to end a murder spree.

Cover image of "Keeping the Faith,"

When the debate over evolution divided America

Most of us, at least in the United States, learned a little about the famous "Monkey Trial" early in our schooling. It was, in fact, a milestone in the national debate over whether science or religion should dominate in considering Charles Darwin's monumental breakthrough in our understanding of...

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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