Reviews

Every season or so, there's a book that seemingly comes out of the blue that manages to knock our socks off. Rules for Being Dead is that book for the Summer of 2020. And its author, Kim Powers, is a bona fide breath of fresh air on the literary landscape. Honestly,...

There is no denying it, Hank Phillippi Ryan has a way with words; anytime she puts pen to paper, the resulting prose is guaranteed to provide readers with hours of escapism. Simply put, Hank Phillippi Ryan is a born storyteller, with the skills to transform any tale...

Alice Feeney has wasted no time in establishing herself as one of the preeminent authors of psychological suspense working today. Her debut, Sometimes I Lie, already feels like a touchstone of the genre and she followed that up with the excellent I Know Who You Are....

John Fram’s debut novel, The Bright Lands, has seen a swell of support on social media from many corners of the crime fiction community. Just a brief sampling of this engaging and intelligent book will quickly confirm that this is a work worthy of that attention. If...

With Never Ask Me, Jeff Abbott returns to the exclusive enclave of Lakehaven, Texas – the iconic setting of several of his stand-alone thrillers. Like Blame and the others, Never Ask Me stands on its own with only the fictional setting uniting them. Never Ask Me...

S. A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland is the novel everyone in the crime fiction community is talking about. You could put an image of this book’s cover next to the dictionary definition of buzz and be accurate, although some would say it might be an understatement....

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is the best show on television that you are not watching. Unfortunately, this miniseries is only available on the Showtime premium cable channel, so the reach is not matching the quality of this production. There is no fictional...

When Robin Wasserman released Girls on Fire in 2016, she demonstrated how her style of writing provocative and powerful fiction for younger readers could successfully transition to thought-provoking and complex adult novels. Now with Mother Daughter Widow Wife she...

Kristen Lepionka returns with Once You Go This Far and once again gives Roxane Weary a complex case to tackle in this must-read crime fiction series. Lepionka crafted one of the most unique characters in the genre and once she entered the reader’s consciousness,...

Nasty Woman Press has come out of the gate with an anthology worthy of their moniker. Shattering Glass is a collection of works celebrating female empowerment - this includes short stories, interviews, and non-fiction essays designed to both entertain and educate the...

With the release of Ragnar Jónasson’s The Mist, the original Hidden Iceland trilogy comes to an end, making this the perfect time to discuss this series of novels as a whole. Most fans of crime fiction have probably already heard about the unique sequencing of these...

Sarah Stewart Taylor amassed quite a following for her debut series featuring university professor Sweeney St. George who specialized in art history related to funerals and gravestones. After the last of that four-book series was released, Taylor took an extended...

Truth Be Told is another crime fiction adaptation for Apple+ TV. While the show is based on Kathleen Barber’s popular novel, Are You Sleeping, the miniseries version has been altered in some significant ways to better orient it for television viewing. The most...

If you follow BOLO Books, you no doubt saw the list of my favorite novels from each year of the last decade. On that list, Defending Jacob by William Landay held the top spot for 2012. This is one of those books where I can still describe virtually every twist and...

Occasionally a debut novel comes along that is so unlike anything else that readers struggle with it for various reasons. Catherine House by Elizabeth Thomas is just such a book. No doubt, readers will be divided on it, but there is the sense that history will look...

Sarah Vaughan made quite a splash in the crime fiction community with her 2018 release, Anatomy of a Scandal, in which she did a deep-dive exploration of toxic masculinity and the #metoo movement. Now, 2020 finds her once again tackling a complex and timely issue...

As we all struggle to navigate our new normal, every industry is looking for ways to give back and the crime writing community is no different. Booksellers are suffering – especially our Independent Bookstore Family – so a group of authors have come together to lend a...

It is a tale far too familiar: a child goes missing and the parents become the prime suspects. We’ve seen it in reality with cases like JonBenet Ramsey and in fiction like Mary Higgins Clark’s Where are the Children. Sadly, many of these cases turn out to be much more...

Ivy Pochoda seems incapable of writing the same story twice; and yet every time she puts words down on the page they are distinctly her own and always, always worth reading. Her latest, These Women, is linked to her excellent 2017 stand-out, Wonder Valley, by way of...

Earlier this year, BOLO Books hosted the cover reveal for The Beat of Black Wings: Crime fiction inspired by the songs of Joni Mitchell, so it was clear that a review was forthcoming. Like the songs that provide the titles and serve as their inspiration, each of the...