Ironic, isn’t it? Some of the best English mystery novels are written by people who aren’t British. Consider the work of Elizabeth George, an American born in Ohio, and the Texan Deborah Crombie. To my mind, they’re easily the equal of Ian Rankin and Kate Atkinson, among the...
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Russia holds the Crimea. But Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is nine months in the future as the tenth in the series of Arkady Renko novels opens in Moscow. The long-suffering police detective has been confined to make-work desk duty by his seemingly all-powerful boss, Prosecutor Zurin....
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Quirke’s beloved wife, Evelyn, is dead. Shot in Spain by an assassin targeting someone else, and before Quirke’s eyes. Now, six months later as the new Quirke mystery opens, the pathologist is back in Dublin. Not on a nonstop bender, as everyone expects, but drinking heavily...
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Here’s a murder mystery with an implausible plot and an unlikely heroine that’s fun and rewarding to read despite the flaws. Harini Nagendra’s Murder Under a Red Moon, her second effort about the Bangalore Detectives Club, stars nineteen-year-old Kaveri Murthy. Because she...
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A review of The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville. @@@@ (4 out of 5). You may never have read a murder mystery like this one. The protagonist, Gerry Fegan, is a former hit man for the IRA responsible for the deaths of twelve people (the “ghosts” of the title), and it’s never much of a mystery when he begins killing again. The mystery lies deeper.
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Those were heady times for the West as the old Soviet Union crumbled before our eyes. Gorbachev’s reforms. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The old guard coup that failed. Then the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, the rise of Boris Yeltsin, and the free market reforms. For us, the changes...
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Think 1940s noir, and what comes to mind? Tough-guy private eyes and corrupt cops. Fistfights in dark alleys. Beautiful dames with murder in their eyes. But that’s not what Stephen Spotswood has in store for you in his 21st-century take on the period. Because only in the mood they convey do...
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Many of the eighty percent of Americans who live in cities are unaware of the demographic revolution underway in the vast rural stretches of our country. The Immigration Act of 1965 ushered in a flood of racial or ethnic minorities to rural America over the past half-century. They now account for...
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Since 2000, the prolific Scottish novelist Alexander McCall Smith has been writing another new novel about those lady detectives in Botswana on an annual basis. Mma Precious Ramotswe and Mma Grace Makutsi of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency now appear once again, twenty-three novels after the...
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Soon after Mikhail Gorbachev rose to supreme power in the old Soviet Union in 1985, he forced two new words onto the world’s consciousness. Glasnost, meaning more open consultative government and wider dissemination of information, usually dumbed down to...
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Why would anyone in their right mind want to read a 1,400-page detective novel about a video game? For that matter, why would anyone ever choose to write such a doorstopper? Wouldn’t the publisher push back and have an editor cut it down by half? Well, no. Not when the author is J. K....
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Murder is serious enough, of course. Many deem the taking of another’s life the greatest of all crimes an individual may commit. But when a group of people get together to plot a series of murders—a murder conspiracy—surely that’s even worse. And that is exactly why Lucas Davenport and...
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Some of the most compelling new mystery series have been coming out of India in recent years. They’re arriving thick and fast these days. Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry novels about the first woman lawyer in Bombay. The Wyndham and Banerjee novels by Abir Mukherjee, about an odd couple...
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Most authors of mystery and suspense fiction have long since learned that their only hope to make a living from their craft is to launch a new detective series. The field abounds with them, some numbering in the dozens of novels. Believe it or not, the Remo Williams series of thrillers by Warren...
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A respected Indian attorney has been framed in a sensational murder case. An idealistic crusader for justice in the face of a corrupt system, he turns for help to the incorruptible Indian private eye Vish Puri. Depending on the mood he’s in, Vish Puri is either India’s #1 private...
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Since his early days as a patrolman in the 1970s, Detective Inspector John Rebus has “bent every rule to breaking point in pursuit of results, regarding every unsolved case as an affront.” He’s earned more than his share of attention from “the Complaints,” as Police...
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Harini Nagendra’s debut in crime fiction, The Bangalore Detectives Club, opens in the South Indian city of Bangalore in 1921. It’s a gripping historical murder mystery but also well worth reading for its close observation of class and caste dynamics in India a century ago. Estimated...
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Karin Slaughter has gained a worldwide reputation for intense and often shocking thrillers. She’s sold more than 40 million copies of them. But none to date has gotten her wider recognition than Pieces of Her, the bestselling 2018 novel in which she introduced Andrea Oliver. The novel...
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For any reader looking for respite from the unrelenting violence of the world we live in, The Double Comfort Safari Club is a worthy antidote. It’s nominally a novel about two African detectives who are women, but author Alexander McCall Smith’s subject is Africa as he knows it. The...
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A Review of The Troubled Man: A Kurt Wallender Novel, by Henning Mankell. @@@@ (4 out of 5). All good things come to an end, and for Kurt Wallender, this is it. The Troubled Man is aptly titled. The book tells the story of Wallender’s last big case, taking him deeply into Sweden’s politically complex past and arousing self-doubt that is more profound than ever.
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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.