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!

 

Cover image of "Detour,"

A motley crew sets out on a troubled mission to Saturn’s moon Titan

It's 2031. Tech billionaire John Ward is financing a two-year mission to Saturn's biggest moon, Titan. Convinced that Earth will eventually become unlivable and that Mars is inhospitable and impractical for colonization, he has settled on Titan as the last best hope to ensure the future of our...
Cover image of "The African Equation," a book by one of the best known African writers

African writers aren’t all world-class

Here's a story that could have been worked into a terrific novel in the hands of a writer with a trifle of self-restraint. Unfortunately, Yasmina Khadra, reputedly one of Africa's greatest writers, displays none of that. Every one of his characters, from a German physician to a passel of Somali or...
Cover image of "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" by Donald E. Westlake, a caper novel

Another uncommonly funny caper novel featuring John Dortmunder

If you've never encountered John Dortmunder and you feel a need to cheer up, immerse yourself in the series of fourteen books about the dubious criminal career of this marvelous character. These stories are among the more than one hundred novels and nonfiction books Donald E. Westlake wrote in a...

Vladimir Putin, the KGB, and the restoration of Soviet Russia

A review of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, by Masha Gessen. @@@@ (4 out of 5). A critical biography of the three-term Russian President by a skilled Moscow reporter with personal knowledge of the people and events of the time since the fall of Communism.

Cover image of "Saving Capitalism," a book about how to make capitalism work

Robert Reich explains how to make capitalism work for the middle class

If you've ever been exposed to Robert Reich's "Wealth and Poverty" course at UC Berkeley, perhaps through the film Inequality for All, or heard him speak in public, you know that there are few people alive today who are his equal in the ability to explain complex economic and social issues so...
Cover image of "From a Far and Lovely Country," a novel about the famous African lady detectives

Down home with the lady detectives again

Here we are again, back with Mma Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of Botswana's #1 Ladies' Detective Agency. And of course all the familiar people in her circle are close at hand as well. Mma Grace Makutsi, self-promoted "co-director" of the agency. Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe's husband,...
Cover image of "Red Harvest," a novel about a hard-boiled detective

The original hard-boiled detective?

Maybe he wasn't the original hard-boiled detective. But he was certainly among the first. His creator, Dashiell Hammett, called him "the Continental op." And the New York Times termed Hammett "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction" in its obituary in 1961. The debut of the...
A Share in Death is from Deborah Crombie.

An early effort from Deborah Crombie, a master of detective fiction

A review of A Share in Death, by Deborah Crombie. @@@ (3 out of 5). A Share in Death, set in an isolated timeshare hotel in Yorkshire, reads as little different from the old-school parlor tales of Agatha Christie and her imitators. By comparison, Crombie’s later novels are rich with suspense, historical detail, and characters that are hard to forget.

Guns, Germs, and Steel helps in gaining a global perspective

Gaining a global perspective on the world around us

I’m sure you’ve found this, too: It’s damnably hard to get a handle on things. Every day, we’re inundated by thousands of bits and pieces of information—online, by mail, on our phones and laptops, and everywhere we walk on the streets of a city or the aisles of a grocery store. How does all this...
Cover image of "The Crossing" by Michael Connelly, a clever police procedural

A police procedural and courtroom drama rolled into one excellent novel

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes Among contemporary American crime novelists Michael Connelly stands out for the consistent excellence of his long-running series of police procedurals featuring detective Harry Bosch. His novels about Bosch’s half-brother, Mickey Haller, the “Lincoln Lawyer,”...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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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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