The Latest

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...

read more

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...

read more

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...

read more

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 "The Lemur," a mystery by a master stylist

A murder mystery from a master stylist

If you pick up this book expecting to return to Dublin in the 1950s in the company of the pathologist-detective Quirke, as I did, you may find it disorienting to realize that you're in contemporary New York City with a wholly new cast of characters. Yes, this is quite another sort of story from...
high finance

A thriller that explores the intersection of high finance and high crime

A review of Buried Secrets, by Joseph Finder. @@@@ (4 out of 5). This is by no means a typical detective story. As investigator Nick Heller searches for Alexa, the pretty teenaged daughter of hedge fund billionaire Marcus Marshall, Heller soon finds himself enmeshed in a deadly game involving international criminal forces and probably the Russian regime to boot.

Cover image of "James,"

Huckleberry Finn, upside down

When you think about it, slaves in the American South during the 19th century spoke a different language from their masters. Whites could sometimes barely understand them, and the reverse must have proven true at times as well. So novelist Percival Everett turns this insight on its head in James,...
Cover image of "Every Spy a Traitor," an unfunny farce

A farcical story about Soviet moles in MI6

Does a farce need to be funny? Wikipedia defines farce as "comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable." To me, it seems doubtful that Alex Gerlis set out to create a farce when he wrote Every Spy a...
Cover image of "The Fox," a great new spy novel

A great new spy novel from the author of “The Day of the Jackal”

Nearly 50 years ago, Frederick Forsyth vaulted onto bestseller lists around the world with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal. Now, at age 80, he's back in familiar territory with a great new spy novel, The Fox, his 15th work of fiction. Estimated reading time: 3 minutes A great new spy novel...
Cover image of "A Corpse in the Koryo," a novel about murder in North Korea.

A complex tale of corruption and murder in North Korea

Practically nothing works. Government, police protection, buildings, cars, roads, appliances, telephones -- whatever: they're either falling apart, damaged beyond repair, or, if you're lucky, barely functioning. Welcome to North Korea in the 21st century, where nothing gets done without a bribe,...
Cover image of "Dark of the Moon," a novel involving a right-wing preacher

In Virgil Flowers’ debut, arson, multiple murder, and a right-wing preacher

Virgil Flowers is a horndog who feels compelled to chase every pretty woman under the age of 50. Though his own faith rejects Jesus, he's "the son of a Presbyterian minister and a professor of engineering, who saw in God the Great Engineer and believed as devoutly as her husband." He's been...
Cover image of "Golden Hill" by Francis Spufford, a charming historical novel

7,000 people lived in Old New York in this charming historical novel

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes Megacities abound in today's world. With approximately 20 million people, the New York City metropolitan area ranks 15th in the world by some accounts. (The nine largest cities are all in Asia.) It's surprising, then, to think about New York barely more than...
Cover image of "The Human Scale,"

Who murdered the liberal Israeli police chief in Hebron?

Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright is equally adept at both fiction and nonfiction, for which he won the prize. He has explored the history of Al Qaeda and 9/11, the so-called "Church" of Scientology, and other themes in 11 deeply researched factual accounts published from 1979 to 2021. Later...

Joseph Smith: the remarkable man who founded the Mormon church

By any measure, he was a remarkable man. At a time in US history when religious passion was seizing hold of the American imagination, he was "the first prophet . . . to traffic in millenarian predictions, and he wasn't the last. But he was the most successful." It's all laid out in this intriguing...

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

Love mysteries and thrillers? Historical fiction fan? Prefer to read nonfiction? Or, like me, you just love reading? Take your pick of my three weekly newsletters. Just click the Yes! button, and you’re on your way.

Here you can take your pick of the three newsletters I publish each week. They’re all free of ads, and I never share subscribers’ email addresses with anyone. Just make your newsletter selections below.

Feel free to subscribe to any or all of these newsletters. Remember, they’re ad-free, and I won’t share your contact information with anyone.

Enjoy reading!

Mal Warwick

The latest mystery
& thriller book
reviews every Tuesday.

…includes my latest mystery and thriller book reviews, with links to other content in the genre.

The latest nonfiction book reviews every Wednesday.

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

My latest
book reviews,
every Thursday.

…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.

The Latest Book Reviews of the Week

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

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Mystery & Thriller Book
Reviews Every Week

Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Nonfiction Book
Reviews Every Week

Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Book Reviews of the Week

The Weekly 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.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Tuesday's Newsletter

Tuesday's Newsletter

Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Wednesday's Newsletter

Wednesday's Newsletter

Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Weekly Newsletter

Thursday's Newsletter

The Weekly 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.

You have Successfully Subscribed!