Reviews

Last year, it seemed as though everyone who picked up Benjamin Stevenson’s debut, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, came away from the experience calling themselves a devoted fan. They will be happy to know that the second novel featuring Ernest Cunningham,...

The Gilded Age is currently all the rage, so it is to be expected that this vibrant historical time would find its way into crime fiction. Readers should be delighted that their guide for this latest foray will be celebrated and award-winning author Mariah Fredericks....

Under the right set of circumstances, perhaps anyone is capable of murder. Or maybe the truth is, everyone is capable of murder. With his new book, Who to Believe, Edwin Hill uses a creative structure to expose readers to the idea that point of view is the key element...

With the release of The Commandments—his first book to be translated into English—Oskar Gudmundsson came out of the gate swinging, making it clear that he was an author who would not shy away from challenging subject matter, writing in a style that is brutal and...

With her first two novels—One Night Gone and The Mother Next Door—Tara Laskowski uncovered the secrets behind the façade of suburban families going about their daily lives, but with her latest release—The Weekend Retreat—she is exposing the problems faced by the...

When Sophie Hannah first began her continuation of the Hercule Poirot series with The Monogram Murders, there were many skeptical readers wondering both why and if it could ever be successful. Never one to back down from a challenge—and spurred on by the Christie...

Six books into Catriona McPherson’s Last Ditch Mystery series and the books just keep getting better—which is saying something, when Scot Free started as such a success. But it is true that Hop Scot is the best in the series to date. One of the complete joys of this...

Lisa Unger continues to mine the depths of psychological suspense to extend her impressive oeuvre with a holiday-themed novella, Christmas Presents. Bookstore owner Madeline Martin anticipated that the biggest stresses of the holiday season would be staffing her...

From the Booking Desk: When I post my Top Reads list each year, I never actually rank the books and I rarely used to mention what my very favorite book is for any given year. This is largely because it is never as cut and dried as it might seem. There are so many...

If you like your Christmas tales to be wholesome and filled with happiness and joy, Peter Swanson’s The Christmas Guest is not the book for you. With this novella, Swanson casts a hypnotizing spell over the reader with a plot that is equal parts gripping narrative and...

As usual, I have taken this task of selecting my Top Reads List very seriously and really struggled to make sure the list commemorates my favorite books of the year. Simply put, sometimes this means splitting hairs and having to leave off books that I truly loved but...

With her debut, Lest She Forget, Lisa Malice manages to achieve the holy grail of thriller writing—a narrative that readers desperately want to race through to find out what’s going to happen next, written so stylishly that those same readers wish to slow down to...

Last Spring, Amanda Flower won the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel for Because I Could Not Stop for Death, the first book in her new Emily Dickinson Mystery series. This was an auspicious start to what is growing into a beloved historical series. The second...

From the Booking Desk: As I explained on social media, with my own creative writing flourishing, I am struggling to find a balance with the reading and reviewing I love so much. My fans have begged me not to stop reviewing completely, so I am working to find a way to...

Picking up a debut novel is always an exciting gamble. Readers are hoping to discover their next favorite author at the inception of their career or a book they can confidently recommend to all their friends. When that happens, it is almost like magic. Based on...

City of Vengeance launches D. V. Bishop’s series set in sixteenth century Florence. With this first case, his main character—Cesare Aldo—instantly joins the ranks of iconic historical crime fiction protagonists. Aldo is a former soldier and is now an officer in the...

Janice Hallett’s The Christmas Appeal is a holiday-themed novella that returns readers to Lower Lockwood and updates them on the goings-on with The Fairway Players roughly three years after the action of Hallett’s debut novel, The Appeal. First it must be said that...

You are likely thinking "Do we really need another version of Murder on the Orient Express?" And the answer to this question is yes, and maybe no. Murder on the Orient Express The Graphic Novel adapted and illustrated by Bob Al-Greene is a beautiful and faithful...

There is a feeling readers get when they know they are in the hands of one of their favorite consummate storytellers. It is a bond built on trust influenced by past success. So even if the current novel is quite different from what has come before, the end result of a...

It is rare when a novel that is virtually impossible to classify succeeds on all levels, but that is exactly what Ashley Winstead accomplishes with Midnight is the Darkest Hour. This book works as a mystery, as a thriller, as a romance, as a serial killer exposé, as a...