Watch Us Fall – The BOLO Books Review

Christina Kovac, a former journalist, used her background knowledge of the political news industry to propel her debut novel, The Cutaway, onto reader and critic radars several years ago. She now returns with Watch Us Fall—a incisive look at friendship and love that...

The Wasp Trap – The BOLO Books Review

With The Wasp Trap, Mark Edwards takes two very common crime fiction tropes, merges them, and then turns them on their heads—creating one gripping read in the process. The first trope is the closed circle of suspects: a group of people in an isolated locale who are...

The Burning Grounds – The BOLO Books Review

One of the risks of series fiction is that characters can become stagnant. In an effort to give readers more of what they want, authors often default to giving them too much of the same. Think of your favorite series where the lead character has barely changed across...

The Last Death of the Year – The BOLO Books Review

Sophie Hannah has now written six novels in her series continuing the adventures of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. The latest—The Last Death of the Year—begins on New Year’s Eve 1932 in an exotic locale with a quirky collection of suspects. Following on directly...

A Night at the Shore – A BOLO Books Cold Case Review

The old adage, “good things come in small packages,” can also be true as it relates to books. Tony Knighton’s A Night at the Shore clocks in at just 168 pages, but in that space, the author manages to tell a fresh, exciting, and wholly entertaining story. A Night at...

The Black Wolf – The BOLO Books Review

Readers of series crime fiction treat each new book as a type of family reunion—a chance to revisit characters they love within a location they have come to cherish. That has certainly been the case with Louise Penny fans and their annual return to Three Pines. Always...

Birds, Strangers, and Psychos – The BOLO Books Review

With the continually diminishing short story marketplace, “Inspired By” anthologies remain all the rage in the crime fiction community. The latest to be released from the UK, Birds, Strangers, and Psychos, turns the focus in an obvious direction—the legendary works of...

Wild Animal – The BOLO Books Review

Joël Dicker is a Swiss crime novelist who first came onto the radar of US readers when his highly acclaimed novel, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, was published in translation (2012). Since that time, he has established himself as a must-read for fans of...

The Killing Stones – The BOLO Books Review

Ann Cleeves can’t seem to quit Jimmy Perez and that is music to the ears of her legion of fans. The original Shetland series was intended to be a quartet of novels, each with a different color in their title. The final book in that sequence left Jimmy Perez at a bit...