The Bangkok Asset (Sonchai Jitpleecheep #6) by John Burdett (2015) 322 pages @@@ (3 out of 5) There are five previous novels in John Burdett‘s Royal Thai series featuring Bangkok police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and every one of them is strange. The detective is a devout Buddhist (a former monk) and prey to the supernatural fantasies […]
Continue readingThe twenty novels of the celebrated Brother Cadfael series are grounded in the harsh reality of medieval Britain. A Morbid Taste for Bones (Cadfael Chronicles #1) by Ellis Peters (1977) 213 pages @@@@@ (5 out of 5) In the first of the 20 mystery novels in the Brother Cadfael series, Edith Pargeter (writing under the name […]
Continue readingThe Man on the Balcony (Martin Beck #3) by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (1965) 194 pages @@@@@ (5 out of 5) Since 1841, when Edgar Allen Poe published “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the field of mystery and suspense fiction has grown to staggering proportions. Amazon lists more than 700,000 titles in the […]
Continue readingJourney to Munich (Maisie Dobbs #12) by Jacqueline Winspear (2016) 320 pages @@@@ (4 out of 5) Few Americans have any appreciation for the complicated relationship between Britain and Germany in the run-up to World War II. The British royal family was German, having changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in World War I. […]
Continue readingGreeks Bearing Gifts (Bernie Gunther #13) by Philip Kerr (2018) 522 pages @@@ (3 out of 5) Historical fiction has many virtues. It can help us understand how our lives have been shaped by the past. It can highlight the common threads in the human experience. And it can remind us of events in the […]
Continue readingGroucho Marx Master Detective (Groucho Marx Mysteries #1) by Ron Goulart (1998) 262 pages @@@@ (4 out of 5) Here’s the ultimate wisecracking detective, and, yes, it’s Groucho Marx, in person. If you’re a fan of the Marx Brothers classics of the 1930s—Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, Horsefeathers, Animal Crackers, and the others—you’ll […]
Continue readingBad Blood (Virgil Flowers #4) by John Sandford (2011) 434 pages @@@@@ (5 out of 5) Any aspiring mystery and thriller writer would do well to study John Sandford‘s Virgil Flowers novels. The ten books Sandford has written to date (as of March 2018) display several of the characteristics that make them all candidates for […]
Continue readingDance Hall of the Dead (Leaphorn and Chee #2) by Tony Hillerman (2009) 272 pages @@@@ (4 out of 5) In Dance Hall of the Dead, celebrated Southwestern author Tony Hillerman will introduce you to the people of the Four Corners. There, four Native American nations sprawl across the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. The […]
Continue readingThe Thirst (Harry Hole #11) by Jo Nesbø (2017) 480 pages @@@@ (4 out of 5) If you read Scandinavian noir, you’ve probably encountered a large number of psychopathic serial killers. I know I have. So, when I came across another one in The Thirst, the new Harry Hole detective novel, I decided to do a […]
Continue readingAn Accidental Death (DC Smith #1) by Peter Grainger (2013) 234 pages @@@ (3 out of 5) Reading a police procedural typically demands a great deal of patience on the part of the reader. That’s natural enough. Police work itself is said to be mostly drudgery. Some police-centric novels avoid the tedium of unrelieved digging […]
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