As mid-century dawned in Victorian England, Charles Dickens had already reached the summit of literary fame. Author of The Pickwick Papers (1837), Oliver Twist (1838), A Christmas Carol (1843), and several other novels easily recognizable today, he could hardly walk the streets of London without...
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Ed McBain’s long-running series of police procedurals, published from 1956 to 2005, influenced two generations of mystery writers. The cops of the 87th Precinct in the fictional city of Isola pursued their investigations using the most sophisticated forensic technology available at the time....
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Brother Cadfael is one of the best known characters in historical fiction. But that’s no doubt at least in part a result of the British television adaptation that ran on ITV from 1994 to 1998. Television exposure will do wonders for book sales. However, book sales are a poor guide to...
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Journalist Harry Brett had visited Spain in 1931 with a schoolmate, Bernie Piper, and returned six years later. Then, Bernie had gone missing while fighting along with Communist volunteers against Franco’s nationalist forces. It’s now another three years later, 1940-41, and the civil war is...
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By 1997, China was midway between the era of Mao Zedong and that of Xi Jin[ping. Deng Xiaopeng had begun turning the country away in 1978 from the planned, centralized economy dictated by Mao’s Leninist principles to “capitalism with socialist principles.” And Xi’s...
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Offices on the building’s seventh floor feature plush carpets, wood paneling, and other signs of their elite occupants. Because the best appointed of these offices accommodate Finn Gosford, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Deborah Sweet, known as Debs, the agency’s...
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John Banville has captivated English literary critics for decades. He has garnered the Booker Prize as well as many of the top literary awards on the Continent and is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize. Yet mystery fans know him as the pseudonymous author of the Quirke novels set in 1950s...
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Right from the beginning, the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had been about helping people with the problems in their lives.” And there’s no more succinct statement of the agency’s mission statement. Mma Precious Ramotswe, the founder, and Mma Grace Makutsi, her would-be partner,...
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In the dramatic conclusion to John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, British intelligence officer Alec Leamas and the idealistic American Communist Liz Gold die as they climb the Wall toward freedom in the West, machine-gunned on the orders of the British agent they had entered...
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Scotland Yard has received several reports that documents containing secret government telegrams have turned up at several locations around London, balled up as though casually tossed away. Special Constable Paul Deemer, assigned to the case, sets out to learn who is responsible. This is a serious...
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Since 1987, David Ignatius has written a total of a dozen outstanding spy novels. At the Washington Post, where he writes about foreign affairs, he has gained an immense store of knowledge about US activity abroad, both aboveground and below. It shows in every one of his novels. Here, I’m...
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I admit it. I have a special weakness for historical mysteries and thrillers. The following list of more than 200 such novels will certainly prove the point. They’re divided into three sections, beginning with my selection of the top ten novels. Immediately below that section are the 100 books in...
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The 20 detective novels listed below may not be the 20 “best” detective novels, even by my uniquely idiosyncratic criteria. I’d read a lot of work in the genre even before I began writing these reviews in January 2010—and there are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of detective novels...
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Over the past decade, I’ve read and reviewed nearly 200 espionage novels (not counting a great many more I never finished). My 15 favorites—well, make that 16: I couldn’t choose—are listed immediately below. Though my preliminary list included multiple titles by several of the authors...
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Writers from India have garnered a large share of critical attention for their work in recent years, and no wonder. The country has a rich literary tradition, which has animated a new generation of writers to publish in English. And there is no lack of English-speakers on the subcontinent. At a...
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Most Americans have read about “the Russian Mafia.” But organized crime in Russia bears no resemblance to the Mafia as we have come to know it through the Godfather and The Sopranos. Instead, there are mafias. And there are the former Communist apparatchiks dominating the Kremlin, many...
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Novelists have been turning out stories about crime since the early 1800s, and private detectives entered into the picture not long after. But police investigators didn’t gain a firm hold in the mystery and suspense genre until well into the twentieth century. And it wasn’t until the...
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Both U.S. critics and the British public seem to love Philip Kerr, but I can’t quite figure out why. Oh, Kerr’s good, all right. I can understand why they like him. It’s just that love seems a little over the top. Kerr’s plotting is complex and full of tension and ultimate...
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Setting a novel of suspense in a small town offers a writer several advantages. And those advantages multiply when the book is one in a series. Many of those in the cast of characters become familiar over time. They, and not just the investigator, as in an urban-based series, may come across as...
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English-speaking readers and critics are likely to identify the earliest mystery novels in the work of American and British authors Edgar Allan Poe and Willkie Collins. But Chinese scholars might differ. As CrimeReads observes, “The first Chinese proto-mysteries—that is,...
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
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.
Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
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.