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...
Read More
Here is Britain’s World War II as viewed through the perspective of five young people. Their varied and often cruel experiences stand in for the evil and disruption of the war that comes to upend all their lives. The action unfolds month by month from September 1939, when Britain enters the...
Read More
Blind Goddess is the first of nine entries to date in Anne Holt’s series of detective novels featuring Oslo Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen. I don’t plan to read any of the rest of them. Estimated reading time: 2 minutes When Jo Nesbø proclaimed Holt “the godmother of modern...
Read More
Two decades ago a UCLA geography professor named Jared Diamond published Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, a book about economic development and its uneven effect on human society. Diamond hypothesized that the arc of human history was dramatically shifted by geographic,...
Read More
The bestselling Danish thriller writer Jussi Adler-Olsen ranks among Scandinavia’s top literary exports. A Conspiracy of Faith, the third entry in his Department Q series of detective novels, matches the first two books in suspense, intensity, and complexity with a tangled tale of religious...
Read More
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.