The three sisters’s lives spanned three centuries of Chinese history. Born late in the nineteenth century, the youngest of them died at the age of 105 in 2003. Together, these three extraordinary women helped shape the destiny of the world’s most populous nation from the closing days...
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Something is often lost in the translation of foreign fiction. If the translator has done a poor job, the prose comes across as ragged or word choice sometimes puzzling. Neither of these problems crops up with the translation from the Japanese of Keigo Higashino’s novel, The Devotion of...
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You’ll recognize Google in the eponymous company, Avogadro Corp, which is at the center of this disturbing science fiction novel. The range of products is similar. The company’s cofounder is Sean Leonov and is the son of Russian immigrants. It’s an obvious reference to...
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If there is anything even remotely resembling the “deep state” that Donald Trump and other Right-Wing conspiracy nuts obsess about, it certainly existed from the 1950s to the early 1970s in the heyday of the Central Intelligence Agency. Of course, Allen Dulles (1893-1969), who ran the...
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If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to write a murder mystery, imagine trying to create something like A Bitter Feast, Deborah Crombie’s eighteenth entry in the Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid series. Forget the plot. Just consider the large cast of characters. An epically large cast...
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
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.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
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.