What’s your experience when you re-read a novel you loved when you were much younger? Mine is mixed. As often as not, I discover either that the book reflects concerns of mine in a long-past life or that the style comes across as archaic. Very few stories hold up well a century later—even...
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Murder mysteries predominate among the countless novels of suspense that crowd the shelves in bookstores and libraries. The stakes are obvious when a murder takes place. Someone has snuffed out a human life. By contrast, a crime such as counterfeiting represents a lower order of threat—or at...
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Greenland is the setting for one of the most original novels of suspense I’ve come across in many years. As you may be aware, it’s anything but green. And it’s the world’s largest island, more than one-fifth the size of the United States. But Greenland supports fewer than...
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Four times in the less than 80 years of their joint history, India and Pakistan have gone to war. The first erupted when the ink was barely dry on the Indian Independence Act 1947 that resulted in the Partition of India into the two nations. But the cessation of the shooting war in 1948 left the...
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Here’s a story about power and the violence that sustains it. Violence erupts on the page in Jordan Harper’s thriller, Everybody Knows, from its lede (“Los Angeles burns. Some sicko is torching homeless camps.”) to its inevitable conclusion. And the woman at the center of...
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Western readers of suspense fiction look to the work of 19th century authors Wilkie Collins and Edgar Allen Poe for the origins of the detective novel. But in fact there are antecedents in China preceding the two men’s work by hundreds of years. Ming Dynasty stories appeared based on...
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A review of Victory Square, by Olen Steinhauer. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). The conclusion of Steinhauer’s five-novel cycle of thrillers set in Eastern Europe from 1948 to 1990, from the imposition of Communism to its fall.
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After 17 years as an officer in the CIA’s Clandestine Service, Amanda Cole chafes under diplomatic cover in Rome as the economic attaché. She’s bored. And her boss, three decades her senior, frustrates her every attempt to take the initiative. Then a nervous Russian walk-in describes a...
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Kwei Quartey has shined a bright light on life in contemporary Ghana in the ten mysteries and thrillers he has published to date. In his tenth novel, The Whitewashed Tombs, he writes about the persecution of people who identify as LGBTQ, pointing the finger at a massive nationwide campaign for...
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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...
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Nearly 70 years ago, the celebrated author of the bestselling novel The Blackboard Jungle launched America’s first series of realistic police procedurals. Evan Hunter, writing in 1956 under the pseudonym Ed McBain, published the first of what became a series of 52 short crime novels. He...
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Many of the popular thrillers published in the U.S. tend to revolve around the CIA, the KGB, or Nazis. High Crimes is a notable exception. It centers on the neglected topic of U.S. military intervention in Central America under the Reagan Administration. And author Joseph Finder shows no love for...
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Many novels of Cold War espionage, especially those that make their way to television or film—feature hard-boiled spies on dangerous assignments east of the Berlin Wall. But William Boyd’s outstanding new novel of Cold War intrigue is nothing like that. His protagonist, Gabriel Dax, is a...
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A superb suspense novel set in the USSR, Afghanistan, and the U.S. The third book in a trilogy, Agent 6 concludes the story of Leo Demidov, a hero in World War II and later an agent in Stalin’s secret police.
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Over the course of my life four new Popes have been installed by the Catholic Church. Robert Harris’ thriller, Conclave, which was recently released as a motion picture, is about the next election. Set a few years in the future, when a man closely resembling Pope Francis has either retired...
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Ever since Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist BJP party took the reins of India’s central government in 2014, the country has grabbed headlines everywhere. For emerging as the world’s most populous nation. For claiming the fifth spot among the world’s largest economies. And...
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Wherever Europeans established colonies, there was always at least a handful of the local elite who prospered. Europeans rarely learned the local languages or worked with any of the millions of poor people they ruled—except when they hired them as household servants. But there was always a need...
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Some misinformed copywriter produced promotional copy for this novel comparing it to the gentle tales of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency. But it’s nothing of the sort. Shamini Flint’s clever cop, Inspector Singh of the Singapore Police Force, comes across as a comical figure, to be...
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She was just 16 years old, the youngest and newest of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. And when her body turns up in the chapel, posed as though martyred, wild rumors begin flying about “the Jews.” The queen worries that if the murder goes unsolved, insurrection might not be far...
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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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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.