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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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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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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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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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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Brother Cadfael is one of the best known characters in historical fiction. But that’s no doubt at least in part a result of the British television adaptation that ran on ITV from 1994 to 1998. Television exposure will do wonders for book sales. However, book sales are a poor guide to...
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By 1997, China was midway between the era of Mao Zedong and that of Xi Jin[ping. Deng Xiaopeng had begun turning the country away in 1978 from the planned, centralized economy dictated by Mao’s Leninist principles to “capitalism with socialist principles.” And Xi’s...
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John Banville has captivated English literary critics for decades. He has garnered the Booker Prize as well as many of the top literary awards on the Continent and is considered a contender for the Nobel Prize. Yet mystery fans know him as the pseudonymous author of the Quirke novels set in 1950s...
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Scotland Yard has received several reports that documents containing secret government telegrams have turned up at several locations around London, balled up as though casually tossed away. Special Constable Paul Deemer, assigned to the case, sets out to learn who is responsible. This is a serious...
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I admit it. I have a special weakness for historical mysteries and thrillers. The following list of more than 200 such novels will certainly prove the point. They’re divided into three sections, beginning with my selection of the top ten novels. Immediately below that section are the 100 books in...
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Both U.S. critics and the British public seem to love Philip Kerr, but I can’t quite figure out why. Oh, Kerr’s good, all right. I can understand why they like him. It’s just that love seems a little over the top. Kerr’s plotting is complex and full of tension and ultimate...
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London reels from increasingly frantic reports that the French are assembling a massive invasion fleet across the Channel. Officers roam the streets in search of young men to press into service for the army. And, to pay for the impending war, the king has debased the currency again, causing havoc...
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On Friday, December 3, 1926, Agatha Christie vanished from her home in Berkshire. Eleven days later, a banjo player entertaining at the hotel in Harrogate where she was staying recognized her from the photos he’d seen in the extensive press coverage of her disappearance. After all, the story...
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On June 20, 1947, someone using a .30 caliber military M1 carbine pumped several bullets into the notorious mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel through a window of his palatial Beverly Hills home. So died the man who has come down through history as the founder of modern Las...
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Oslo, August 2015. An old woman named Turid chances across an entry in an auctioneer’s booklet. It’s a bracelet with a minimum bid of one hundred thousand kroner, or about $10,000 today. “It is forty-eight years since she last saw her bracelet.” So Turid digs out the old...
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A deranged serial killer haunts the precincts of Tudor London in Revelation, the fourth entry in C. J. Sansom’s series of Matthew Shardlake mysteries. And a fellow barrister at Lincoln’s Inn who is Matthew’s best friend is the first victim to come to light. Enraged, Matthew...
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Matthew Shardlake practices law in London in the shadow of King Henry VIII’s court, and from time to time Thomas Cromwell, the Crown’s chief minister, had drafted him with an unwelcome assignment. But it’s now 1541, and Cromwell is dead. Instead, Archbishop Cranmer, the...
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World War I casts a shadow over Maisie Dobbs’s life throughout the three decades that elapse in Jacqueline Winspear’s bestselling historical fiction series. And the ghosts of that war haunt Maisie and many of those close to her even now, after the Second World War has finally staggered...
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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.