Reviews

Time travel has always been a popular subject in our culture. From H.G. Wells' The Time Machine through to current obsessions like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, this plot device has proven its ability to open up all kinds of possibilities. Back to the Future mined it...

From The Booking Desk: You may be seeing countless lists of favorite 2019 books (including BOLO Books' own Top Reads of 2019 rundown), but there are still reviews from the year I haven't yet been able to post. Here are three more for newly released books that are all...

From the Booking Desk: I read so many wonderful books in 2019 that crafting a Top Reads list was especially challenging. As I have always done, I took this task very seriously and really struggled to make sure the list commemorates my favorite books of the year....

Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay is an instant classic: a novel that sets fire to reader expectations thereby igniting a revolution hell-bent on change, using the embers to expose our flawed humanity and the ashes to fuel our souls. No words in this review can do...

Vanessa Lillie is wasting no time in making a name for herself in the crime fiction community. She is active on the social media aspects of the business, attends events for and with our tribe, and her debut novel, Little Voices, from Thomas & Mercer was chosen for...

Cops and lawyers are a mainstay of crime fiction, so when readers discover that Dervla McTeirnan’s new novella, The Sisters – released exclusively as an Audible Original – revolves around siblings in these professions, it is not a shock. Since this is an Ireland-set...

There is a particular joy in watching a writer one admires journey from their initial successes into a new career phase. In the case of Tara Laskowski, her track record with short story publication in literary journals, genre-focused magazines, and a few small-press...

Lisa Unger never writes the same book twice. At this point, hopefully readers know that they can always come to a book by this talented author knowing they will be led by skilled hands and that the journey will be a rewarding one. Yet, this has never been truer than...

It was clear with the publication of Bluebird, Bluebird in 2017 that Attica Locke’s Highway 59 mystery series was going to be something special. This was further confirmed when this overdue author won the Best Novel Edgar Award for that gem of a book the following...

Violent crime in Iceland is an extremely rare thing, so you can imagine the challenge this poses for crime fiction writers wanting to use the country as a setting for their work. Fortunately, plenty of talented Icelanders have managed to navigate this difficulty in...

The last few years have seen a call to action on the diversity front within the crime fiction community. Since change such as this must start at the top in order to be successful, the announcement that Polis Books – a highly respected independent book publisher –...

Crime fiction has a long tradition of embracing the outsider, largely because those excluded – by their very nature of being able to observe free of oversight – are often in a prime position to recognize troubling behavior and potential issues without exposure. With...

Little Comfort, the debut novel from Edwin Hill received much critical acclaim, heralding a new talent on the crime fiction scene. With the release of the follow, The Missing Ones, Hill confirms that this was no fluke and readers should prepare for a long run of...

The Whisper Man by Alex North is an example of a novel that completely blurs genre lines. It is equal parts family drama, serial-killer mystery, and supernatural horror. In a rare feat of undeniable skill, Alex North is able to execute all of these layers flawlessly,...