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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

NONFICTION

Were British double agents the key to the Normandy invasion?

Were British double agents the key to the Normandy invasion?

Americans' views of the Second World War have been dominated by films, books, and television specials about the role that U.S. troops played in the fighting. Even today, more than three-quarters of a century after the war ended, we tend to believe that it was our ingenuity and...

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Popular Fiction

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

Today, Rwanda is one of the brightest lights in Africa. The economy is booming. Corruption is rare. Government delivers services. The streets of Kigali, the capital, are clean. It's even easy to open a business. Thirty years ago the country was in chaos, as this award-winning...

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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!

 

Spies of No Country is about Israeli spies in the 1940s.

An amazing true story of Israeli spies in the country’s War of Independence

When Americans think of Israeli history, we fasten on a handful of names: Chaim Weizmann. David ben Gurion. Golda Meir. We think of kibbutzim, the Israeli Defense Force, the country's great universities, and its legal system. All these people, and many others whose names are prominent in the...
Cover of "Maisie Dobbs"

10 top novels about private detectives

To date, I’ve read and reviewed some 300 detective novels. Most of those involve police investigators. After all, there are 800,000 police officers working in the United States and only about 32,000 private detectives, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The conceit of crime writers...
Cover image of "The Threads Remain,"

A young man in 1957 searches for his birth parents in Nazi Germany

The tagline on the cover is tantalizing. "A young man uncovers a hidden past," it reads, "while another becomes its echo." The resulting dual-timeline story, grounded in 1957 and 1941-45, traces the experiences of two German teenagers and their families. One seeks 12 years after World War II to...
Cover image of "Japantown," a novel that celebrates Japanese culture

A thriller grounded in deep understanding of Japanese culture

It takes a special kind of chutzpah to label your debut novel as the first in a series. On the cover, yet. You've got to know you're good, and your publisher has to agree. Fortunately, this one did. Japantown by Barry Lancet marks the introduction of a remarkable new thriller hero, Jim...
Cover image of "The Bangalore Detectives Club," an historical murder mystery

A murder case crosses class and caste lines in 1921 Bangalore

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Harini Nagendra's debut in crime fiction, The Bangalore Detectives Club, opens in the South Indian city of Bangalore in 1921. It's a gripping historical murder mystery but also well worth reading for its close observation of class and caste dynamics in India a...
Cover image of "Anarchy and Other Lies," a novel about a work in which there aren’t enough jobs

There aren’t enough jobs, and anarchy reigns

Here's what we've gotten ourselves into . . . "When the rationing first started the stipends were handed out for free, but as food became scarcer the government required a matching contribution. The amount seems to go up almost every month. There aren’t enough jobs anymore for everyone to afford...
Cover image of "The Everything Store," a book that tells the Jeff Bezos story

The Jeff Bezos story, or why I hate Amazon.com

I confess: I read this book on my Kindle—my eighth Kindle, no less!—and of course I bought the book from Amazon.com. As I have practically every other book I've read over the past dozen years. And I have to admit that I've bought lots of other stuff from the company over the years, including some...
Cover image of "Razorblade Tears,"

Two ex-cons team up to avenge their sons’ murder

Since Intruder in the Dust (1948) by William Faulkner and James Dickey's Deliverance (1970) pioneered the genre, Southern noir has attracted a wide following. Scores of other authors have rushed to create works that evoke the grim atmospherics of the rural American South. But in recent years no...
Cover image of "Crook Manifesto," the second book of Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy

Colson Whitehead’s Harlem trilogy continues

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Ray Carney owns and operates a successful furniture store in Harlem. But the luxurious house where he lives with his wife and children in Strivers' Row didn't come from the store's earnings. Because, for years, Ray was a fence for diamonds and other high-end...
Cover image of "The Covenant of Water," a multi-generational saga set in 20th century India

A deeply moving tale of life, love, and loss in 20th-century India

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Demography is destiny. Viewed from the broadest perspective, history chronicles the growth and spread of the human race throughout the most distant points on the globe. Over time, we observe the shifting ethnic boundaries, the accretion of knowledge, the building...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

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Mal Warwick

The latest mystery
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…includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.

My latest
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…includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.

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