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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Fact vs fiction in the story of an outrageous WWII deception

Fact vs fiction in the story of an outrageous WWII deception

When we think of Allied operations in World War II designed to fool the Nazis, most of us think "Normandy." After all, the elaborate efforts to conceal the time and place of D-Day famously included a fake army and hundreds of inflatable tanks, airplanes, and artillery pieces....

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NONFICTION

Fact vs fiction in the story of an outrageous WWII deception

Fact vs fiction in the story of an outrageous WWII deception

When we think of Allied operations in World War II designed to fool the Nazis, most of us think "Normandy." After all, the elaborate efforts to conceal the time and place of D-Day famously included a fake army and hundreds of inflatable tanks, airplanes, and artillery pieces....

read more

Popular Fiction

Ken Follett’s monumental saga of the First World War

Ken Follett’s monumental saga of the First World War

No one is still alive with any adult memory of World War I, which ended a century ago. So when we think of the events that have shaped the world we live in today it's likely World War II looms large. But its antecedent three decades earlier may have had greater long-term...

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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!

 

Benjamin Black brings back Philip Marlowe

I've never been a fan of books written by contemporary writers using legendary characters created by someone long dead -- but I'm such a big fan of Benjamin Black's Quirke series set in Dublin that I couldn't resist grabbing up his recreation of Raymond Chandler's legendary detective, Philip...
Cover image of "The Wrong Side of Goodbye," a Harry Bosch novel

An aging Harry Bosch is still in fine form

In The Wrong Side of Goodbye, former LAPD detective Harry Bosch is hired as a private eye to find out whether a reclusive billionaire has an heir related to him by blood. Now well into his 80s, the man had left behind a pregnant underage Mexican girl "on the wrong side of goodbye" when he was a...
Nightmare Scenario

America’s nightmarish response to COVID

The phrase "nightmare scenario" in the title of this rushed exposé of the Trump Administration's response to COVID-19 has a double meaning. It refers, of course, to the pandemic itself. Not the worst case scenario like the 1918 influenza epidemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people, but...
Transmission is a childish sci-fi novel.

A YA novel about first contact that’s . . . well, childish

Some of the very best science fiction novels I've read have been marketed for young adults. After all, there's nothing inherently wrong with a 13-or 14-year-old protagonist. You know it's unlikely there'll be any smoldering sex scenes or extravagant use of profanity. But otherwise there's no...
Cover image of "Logan's Run," a dystopian classic

A dystopian classic packed with action

Sometimes it's hard to tell why any Hollywood producer would adapt a novel to film. Usually, however, it's perfectly clear what the attraction is. And that is most certainly the case with the classic science fiction thriller, Logan's Run. Authors William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, both...
Cover image of "The Investigator," a bestselling crime novel

Taking down a sinister Right-Wing militia

John Sandford has been writing bestselling crime novels since 1989. Three dozen chronicle the amazing career of Lucas Davenport in law enforcement, a tech millionaire who began on the Minneapolis police, continued as a top executive in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and then moved...
Cover image of "The Great Hippopotamus Hotel,"

Those lady detectives rise to the challenge again

Right from the beginning, the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had been about helping people with the problems in their lives." And there's no more succinct statement of the agency's mission statement. Mma Precious Ramotswe, the founder, and Mma Grace Makutsi, her would-be partner, poke into other...
Cover image of "Secrets Typed in Blood," a 1940s noir novel

Pentecost and Parker are on the case

Think 1940s noir, and what comes to mind? Tough-guy private eyes and corrupt cops. Fistfights in dark alleys. Beautiful dames with murder in their eyes. But that's not what Stephen Spotswood has in store for you in his 21st-century take on the period. Because only in the mood they convey do the...
China Mountain Zhang

A forgotten 30-year-old science fiction classic

Every year, the publishing industry pours out a torrent of new books. Some 275,000 in the United States alone last year, according to the International Publishers Association. And that doesn't count hundreds of thousands of self-published works. The total reported elsewhere is one million titles....
The Eyes of the Queen is about a lot to assassinate the queen.

They’re trying to assassinate the queen!

What is it with superheroes? Why have so many of us become obsessed with characters who transcend the boundaries of human ability? And why would an author of what might otherwise be a perfectly good spy thriller set in the Elizabethan era spoil it by endowing his protagonist with superhuman...

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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