The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A brilliant addition to a long-running thriller series

A brilliant addition to a long-running thriller series

Leonard Summers; his wife, Martha; and son, Bernard, are moving into a remote cabin in Minnesota. But his name isn't Leonard Summers. It's Leonid Sokolov. And "he was in some kind of enforcement branch of the Russian spy agency," Lucas Davenport explains to fellow US Marshal...

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NONFICTION

How Adolf Hitler raised the money to finance his rise

How Adolf Hitler raised the money to finance his rise

From its early days following World War I, what Hitler later renamed the Nazi Party had a powerful political sponsor behind the scenes: the Thule Society. Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw notes that the organization's "membership list ... reads like a Who's Who of early Nazi...

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Popular Fiction

She was a pioneering astronomer. In the 18th century.

She was a pioneering astronomer. In the 18th century.

Women did not begin to gain any measure of equality with men until sometime in the 20th century. So it is always inspiring to read about women whose accomplishments were so outstanding that even under the most egregious pressure of misogyny they made their mark on history. One...

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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!

 

Provisionally Yours is a spy story set in Lithuania.

A fascinating spy story set in Lithuania following World War I

Few Americans could find Lithuania on a map. Yet that little Baltic country has a long, proud history — in fact, for a time it was not little at all — and has borne witness to many of the seminal events of recent centuries. And Lithuanian-Canadian author Antanas Sileika cleverly picks the years...
Cover image of "Wolf on a String," a mystery set in the holy Roman Empire

A murder mystery set in the Holy Roman Empire

Except for the title, which I found unfathomable, I enjoyed this novel immensely. The author, Irish writer and Booker-Prize-winner John Banville, writes murder mysteries under the pen name Benjamin Black. Wolf on a String is indeed a mystery, and a puzzling one at that, though it's more intriguing...

Stanley Milgram showed us humanity’s darker side

So, here's a biography of one academic social psychologist by another one, and guess what? It's fascinating! Most of the credit has to go to the subject of this book, Stanley Milgram, whose experiments without question made him the most famous social psychologist to ever trod the halls of academe....
Cover image of "A Very English Scandal," a novel about a political scandal

The political scandal that roiled the British Establishment

Look around carefully. Find three despicable human beings. Start with a confused and weak-willed young man, a male model with no other marketable skills who is helpless in the face of authority. Then find a lay preacher whose oratorical skills have gotten him a seat in Parliament despite a...
Murder in Old Bombay

A brilliant debut novel based on an unsolved murder

All the elements are here for a gripping mystery. The brutal unsolved murder of two young society ladies. A posh mansion on a hill in the city's most exclusive neighborhood. Military expeditions into territory ruled by violent tribesmen. The devout members of a tiny religious sect. And, yes,...
By the Light of Burning Dreams

Chronicling the incomplete second American Revolution

Americans have short memories. Our failure to read history leads us to believe that nothing in our past could equal the dangers posed by the crises that threaten us today. We forget those times when the nation's very existence hung in the balance. 1776, when the American project might well have...
Cover image of "My Real Children," a novel about alternate universes

A novel about alternate universes?

Jo Walton's My Real Children may be a science fiction novel about alternate universes -- or simply a complicated fantasy in the addled mind of an old woman afflicted with advanced memory loss. Since Walton has written other science fiction novels, it's probably safe to say that she intended this...
Cover image of " Sycamore Row" by John Grisham, one of the great courtroom dramas

Great courtroom dramas

Here are 18 courtroom dramas I’ve read, enjoyed, and reviewed here. You’ll see several familiar names among the authors. Jodi Picoult's name frequently appears on the New York Times bestseller lists. Michael Connelly writes the popular series featuring the Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey Haller, in Los...
well-written novel: Wanna Get Lucky by Deborah Coonts

A funny, sexy, well-written novel about misdeeds and passion in Las Vegas

A review of Wanna Get Lucky? by Deborah Coonts. @@@@ (4 out of 5). Lucky O’Toole is the chief problem-solver at a top-ranked Las Vegas casino and hotel, where a sequinned semblance of life goes on frenetically 24/7. This is a funny, sexy, well-plotted, and well written crime novel that promises a lot of fun in the episodes to come.

The Wrong Stars is a space travel tale.

This space travel tale is just so-so

What sets apart a great science fiction novel from one that's just so-so? By so-so, I mean a story that works reasonably well, smoothly moving from beginning to end and creating suspense along the way. But that so-so novel doesn't stand out in any particular way — not by demonstrating exceptional...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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