Should we be surprised that Hollywood has been the subject of so much satire? Frankly, it’s hard to imagine that it wouldn’t be. The place is soaked in money, it’s a magnet for people seeking fame and fortune, and it’s virtually infested with ambitious writers. So, when another one of their number comes up with […]
Continue readingThe Kellerman family is a writing phenomenon. Papa Jonathan has written 33 thrillers in his Alex Delaware series as well as at least 14 other novels and five nonfiction books. Mama Faye is the author of 25 Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus mysteries plus eight other novels. Their son, Jesse, has written a total of […]
Continue readingOlen Steinhauer has gained a reputation as one of the most compelling authors of espionage fiction writing today. He is best known for the Milo Weaver Trilogy (The Tourist, The Nearest Exit, An American Spy) and the five-book Yalta Boulevard Cycle in addition to three standalone novels. All these books have appeared since 2003. He […]
Continue reading1979 was a watershed year in world affairs: Islamic forces led by the Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran and imprisoned 90 hostages in the US embassy in Tehran. At the White House, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel signed a peace treaty. Civil war broke out in El Salvador, and the Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew […]
Continue readingOn the first page of the latest Virgil Flowers novel we learn that David Birkmann is a killer. “He’d gotten away with it, he thought.” Naturally, since we also know that Virgil will be called on to investigate the murder, we’re perfectly well aware that David most certainly will not get away with it. However, […]
Continue readingIf there had been a detective in medieval times, he might well have looked a lot like the Dominican monk of the venerable Chronicles of Brother Cadfael. A medieval detective could have depended only on his five senses, his experience of life, and his knowledge of the natural world. Brother Cadfael’s expertise as an herbalist […]
Continue readingWhen a young British man turns up among a boatload of captured Somali pirates, Liz Carlyle rushes to France to interview him. Amir Khan holds a driver’s license from Birmingham. He’s of Pakistani descent and, as soon becomes clear, he had previously traveled to Pakistan at the urging of a radical cleric in his home […]
Continue readingWhat can explain the success of a #1 bestselling psychological thriller? In The Woman in Cabin 10, British author Ruth Ware demonstrates one likely explanation with consummate skill. She combines elements of a whodunnit, a locked-room mystery, and an unreliable narrator without falling victim to the sins of any one of the three formulas. The novel […]
Continue readingA blurb on the cover of the Kindle edition reads, “You don’t have a self until you have a secret.” It’s well chosen. This statement is repeated like a mantra throughout the book. Give Me Your Hand is, in fact, a novel about a secret and its corrosive effect on the people it involves. That secret […]
Continue readingThe magic of place and time leaps from the pages of the best mystery novels: James Lee Burke celebrates the misty charms of rural Louisiana in his Dave Robicheaux series. Donna Leon brings Venice into the bright light of the sun in her tales of Commissario Guido Brunetti. Cara Black whisks readers around the arrondissements […]
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