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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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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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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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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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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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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Sasha Johnson is a trainee doctor walking home from the hospital when someone brushes past her. She stumbles, and falls dead to the ground, the victim of a knife wound. And tony Russell Square, the site of the murder, is on Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid’s patch. He rushes to the...
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Shortly before the turn of the twenty-first century, Chinese interests began investing in the mining industry in Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Soon, Chinese money and people started showing up wherever in the continent minerals were abundant. And in Ghana the mineral in question was gold....
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For the fourth year in a row, Chicago is America’s most corrupt city, and Illinois is the third-most corrupt state, according to a new report from the University of Illinois at Chicago.” This, from a 2023 article online from Chicago’s PBS station, WTTW. “’Political and...
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Corruption plagues all authoritarian systems no matter how idealistic their origins may be. The absence of checks on the supreme ruler radiates downward throughout the system. Opportunities open for officials high and low to abuse their authority for personal gain. And by the 1990s that pattern...
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As a history buff, I turn to historical fiction with relish. And even though I’m familiar with Soviet and later Russian history, I find that the Stuart Kaminsky mystery novels invariably bring me new information and new insight. His series of Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov police procedurals...
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Erez Brown mostly deals with divorces. He’s what you might call a low-rent PI, running a firm that consists only of himself, a secretary, and an apprentice. And, unsurprisingly, there’s a sameness to the cases that come to him. He knows exactly what has happened as soon as a client...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes When Martin Cruz Smith published the first of the Arkady Renko detective novels in 1981, no one could foresee that the series would still be going strong more than forty years later. But so it is. The resilient Russian detective has survived a decade of tussles...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes Sara Paretsky was a pioneer in portraying women in detective fiction as strong and capable. In 1982, when she published Indemnity Only, the first of the V. I. Warshawski novels, her feisty protagonist was a revelation to many readers. Her battles against crime and...
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Early in 1964 two aging men lie dead of gunshots in the back. They’re sprawled on the pavement in an alley in a seedy uptown neighborhood. One is J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary Director of the FBI. The other is Assistant Director Clyde A. Tolson, Hoover’s lover. But when police rush to...
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Kwei Quartey is a retired physician with the mind and eye of an anthropologist. In two series of detective novels set in his native Ghana, he portrays crime investigations against the backdrop of Ghana’s rich ancient culture and its often dysfunctional society. Revealing entrenched...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Just imagine: three enormous bombs explode almost simultaneously, destroying the three largest American-owned hotels on Singapore’s busiest thoroughfare. The heart of the city now lies in ruins. And Inspector Samuel Tay of the Singapore police lies in the...
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So, here’s Jackson, handing over a stack of money. “Hank was going to turn Jackson’s hundred and fifty ten-dollar bills into a hundred and fifty hundred-dollar bills.” He was “the only man in the world who possessed the chemically treated paper that was capable of raising...
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Inspector Samuel Tay has been with the Singapore police for nearly twenty years, much of that time as a homicide detective in the elite Special Investigations Section of CID. But he is squeamish and can’t stand the sight of mangled flesh and blood. So, when the body of a woman turns up...
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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.