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

For a century, the spy next door has been a reality

For a century, the spy next door has been a reality

Every self-respecting spy service equips agents with false credentials and dispatches them to conduct espionage illegally in other nations. But one country has been doing so for far longer and on a dramatically bigger scale than all the others. And the practice started more...

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!

 

The Rest of Us is about Jews in America.

Start here to understand Jews in America

Some of the most remarkable figures in the history of the United States during the first half of the twentieth century were first- or second-generation Jews who had emigrated from the Russian Empire. The social historian Stephen Birmingham (1929-2015) told their colorful story in "The Rest of Us"...
Cover image of "Police," a novel about an alcoholic detective

An alcoholic detective in a compelling murder mystery set in Oslo

What is it about Scandinavian thriller writers? Is it just that they've got nothing better to do on all those cold nights than dream up more and more diabolical means to mislead readers? It's tempting to think so. Among the many other things he's done in his still-young life, Jo Nesbo has written...
The Testaments is the Handmaid's Tale sequel.

The Handmaid’s Tale sequel follows the Hulu streaming adaptation

Sometimes a screen adaptation veers far from the trajectory of the novel on which it's based. That's not the case with Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale sequel, The Testaments. Instead, Atwood takes up the story of the women of Gilead following events seen on the screen. She had consulted closely...
Cover image of "Siberian Dilemma," a novel about a Russian detective

Arkady Renko in Siberia: bears, billionaires, and death

When Martin Cruz Smith published the first of the Arkady Renko detective novels in 1981, no one could foresee that the series would still be going strong more than forty years later. But so it is. The resilient Russian detective has survived a decade of tussles with the KGB under Leonid Brezhnev...
Cover image of "And So It Goes," a Kurt Vonnegut biography

And so it goes: The sad life of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The face that peers out at you from the cover is immeasurably sad. It's the face of a man in middle age weighed down by lifetimes of tragedy. The man -- one of the most remarkable novelists of the 20th century -- is Kurt Vonnegut, known throughout much of his adult life as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. In...
German businessmen

The German businessmen who bankrolled Hitler and made World War II possible

In 1965, just twenty years after the collapse of the Nazi regime, I visited Auschwitz. Even though that was nearly half a century ago, my memory of that shattering experience remains vivid: the mountains of human hair, eyeglasses, and gold dental fillings; the photographs of skeletal prisoners...
Cover image of "The Incendium Plot,"

A spy uncovers a nefarious plot on the life of Elizabeth I

Henry VIII and his daughter, Elizabeth I, ruled England for nearly a century (1509-1603). Together, they and the ambitious men and women surrounding them have furnished historians and novelists alike with unmatched opportunities for dramatic stories of passion, intrigue, and betrayal. The Matthew...
Cover image of "206 Bones," one of the Kathy Reichs novels

Bones on TV and the Kathy Reichs novels: don’t expect similarities

OK, so I won't pretend that the long-running TV series Bones is the best that television has to offer. Far from it. But I confess that I watched the silly thing. All of it. (My excuse is that my wife is a scientist and found it interesting. Lame, I know.) Now, belatedly, I've picked up one of the...
Cover image of "The Ratcatcher of Berlin,"

US Special Forces and the CIA collide in Cold War Berlin

Veterans of intelligence agencies and the special forces crowd the ranks of spy novelists. Some have rightfully been hailed as masters of the craft—John le Carré, for example. Or, more recently, David McCloskey. Others have written worthy and suspenseful novels that illuminate the world of...
From Warsaw With Love

The colorful alliance between Polish spies and the CIA

Poland today appears to be evolving into fascism. But it's not the mirror image of what it was for more than four decades under the iron thumb of the Soviet Union. The country is no longer a police state. Democracy of a sort is in place, and capitalism reigns. The country's membership in the...

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!