Your gateway to my reviews of my favorite novelists

A casual look at this blog might give you the impression that my reading runs all over the map. There’s considerable variety, of course. But in fact I’m aggressively selective in choosing books to read. For starters, you’ll find a slew of topics I never read about at What I read (and what I don’t). You should also know that I review only those books I’ve actually read from beginning to end — and there are lots of books I start reading but never finish. However, as veteran readers of this blog have discovered, I have a special fondness for fiction, especially detective stories, thrillers, science fiction, and historical novels.

In the list below, you’ll find links to the lists of books I’ve reviewed by some of my favorite novelists in these three categories. They’re arranged in alphabetical order by the authors’s last names. Almost every one is a work in progress: as I read more books by an author, I add the review to that author’s list.

Jussi-Adler Olsen’s captivating Department Q thrillers

5 thrilling science fiction novels by Paolo Bacigalupi (and 3 novelettes)

The 12 novels of Alex Berenson’s thrilling John Wells spy series

The Quirke series of Dublin crime novels from Benjamin Black

The outstanding historical fiction of Geraldine Brooks

Christopher Buckley writes satirical novels that are very, very funny

The pleasures of reading the complete Vorkosigan Saga

Charles Cumming’s first-rate spy thrillers

Reviewing the Dublin Murder Squad novels by Tana French

The evocative Night Soldiers series from Alan Furst

Top-notch spy novels from Alex Gerlis

Timothy Hallinan’s Junior Bender series of comic crime novels

The spellbinding thrillers of Robert Harris

Following Mick Herron’s clever British spies at Slough House

Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels

The Fjällbacka series of Swedish thrillers from Camilla Läckberg

The magical Lisbeth Salander novels

The outstanding Harry Hole thrillers from Jo Nesbo

Dame Stella Rimington’s Liz Carlyle series of top-notch espionage novels

J. K. Rowling’s thrilling Cormoran Strike detective series

John Sandford’s excellent Virgil Flowers novels

Karin Slaughter’s well-crafted series of Grant County thrillers

Olen Steinhauer’s brilliant Yalta Boulevard cycle set in Eastern Europe

Reviewing Ross Thomas – thrillers that stand the test of time

The Maisie Dobbs novels from Jacqueline Winspear

This list is by no means a complete list of my favorite novelists. For one thing, I’ve omitted crime writers such as John Grisham, Michael Connelly, John Sandford (the Prey series), and Karin Slaughter (the Will Trent series), all of whom I’ve been reading for years. I’ve omitted Ross Macdonald and Robert B. Parker, all of whose books I read decades before launching this blog. And I have posts in development for the work of Joseph Kanon, Joseph Finder, and John Lescroart.

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, plus a guide to this whole site, on the Home Page.