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MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

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They grew the country’s vegetables

They grew the country’s vegetables

If you watched the HBO drama Succession, you'll have a sense of what happened to the once-famous Seabrook frozen-food dynasty. Succession features a tyrannical "self-made" founder, hideous corporate crime, cynical right-wing politics, sibling rivalry, backstabbing, and worse....

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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!

 

Cover image of "Chain of Title," a book about foreclosure fraud

Understanding Wall Street’s great foreclosure fraud

Recent events have made us all aware that police officers sometimes act outside the law, not just in fiction but in reality. But what about their bosses and their bosses' bosses? And the judges, attorneys general, and Justice Department officials who are supposed to oversee the administration of...
Mosaic of head shots of famous authors

Which authors have written the most books?

Classic authors, most of them bestsellers in their time. You’re gonna love this. Once upon a time, back in the distant reaches of the twentieth century—well, actually it was 1984—one of my clients assigned me to ghostwrite a fundraising letter that Isaac Asimov had agreed to sign. I approached the...
Cover image of "Wake Up and Dream," an alternate history of Hollywood

This thriller is an alternate history of Hollywood

Hollywood, June 1944. Europe is still at war, with England about to fall to Hitler's legions. In the United States, FDR readies a run for a third term as the fascist Liberty League gains ground across the land. Everywhere, people are flocking to the theaters to take in the newest "feelies,"...
Cover image of "Measuring the World," a fictionalized joint biography of two scientific geniuses

The greatest scientists of the 19th century

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes Measuring the World was a bestseller on its original publication in Germany, where it sold 2.3 million copies. And that was in a country with a population one-quarter the size of America's. Though they're unfamiliar to many English-speaking readers, the book's...
Cover image of "Deadwood,"

Debunking the myths of the Wild West

For three seasons early in this century, HBO aired Deadwood, which won more than two dozen Emmy Awards. The series starred Timothy Olyphant as businessman and lawman Seth Bullock and Ian McShane as Al Swearengen, the violent criminal proprietor of a saloon and brothel. Other leading characters...
Unputdownable: A Heartbeat Away by Michael Palmer

What makes a thriller unputdownable?

A review of A Heartbeat Away, by Michael Palmer. @@@ (3 out of 5). So, here I am, reading a book that’s written without any special flair for language, about characters who are at best two-dimensional, in circumstances that are about as true to life as a James Bond adventure, and I’m loving the experience! Why is that?

Cover image of "Half American,"

African-Americans in World War II

Histories of the US role in World War II frequently mention the famous Tuskegee Airmen, a segregated African-American fighter squadron that distinguished itself in the European Theater. Sometimes they also cite the 92nd Infantry Division ("Buffalo Soldiers"), which breached the Gothic Line in...
Cover image of "Shadow Prey," a novel about murder in indian country

Serial murder in Indian country

Shadow Prey, the second of John Sandford's Lucas Davenport novels, demonstrates why the long-running series has been reaching bestseller lists for nearly three decades. Sandford first introduces us to a young cop named Lawrence Duberville Clay as we observe him raping a drunken young Indian...
Patricia Cornwell novel: At Risk by Patricia Cornwell

An unsuccessful Patricia Cornwell novel not about Kay Scarpetta

After reading one too many of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta crime novels, I convinced myself that the author had grown tired of her stock characters and would need to strike out in a new direction sometime soon or lose much of her audience. At Risk, which features another brilliant...
Cover image of "Resurrection Day," a novel about the aftermath of nuclear war

If the Cuban Missile Crisis had led to war

Ten years ago millions of Americans and Soviet citizens had died in a nuclear war. Washington DC, Miami, San Diego, and several other cities lie in rubble. The United States is now a second-rate power, dependent on aid from Great Britain. Chafing under martial law, the survivors struggle to feed...

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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