by Kristopher | Apr 23, 2021 | Review
Melissa Ginsburg’s debut novel, Sunset City, was released in 2016 to great acclaim and amassed a cult following of fans who can still recall the joys of discovering a skilled wordsmith at the dawn of her crime writing career. It has been a hot minute, but 2021 has...
by Kristopher | Apr 22, 2021 | Review
While it is not the work for which she received the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant for unpublished writers, Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo feels so authentically from her soul, readers will recognize how this is the novel Manansala was destined...
by Kristopher | Apr 16, 2021 | Review
Voracious readers know there are many excellent books released every year, but that finding something that has never been done before is rare. Janice Hallett’s The Appeal may fit that bill. Certainly we have seen epistolary novels and works that incorporate email...
by Kristopher | Apr 13, 2021 | Review
The Last Thing to Burn is not Will Dean’s first novel, but it is likely to be the book that breaks him out to a wider, worldwide audience. This is the type of book that shakes readers to the core and becomes a touchstone reference in the years that follow. Jane – not...
by Kristopher | Apr 10, 2021 | underCOVER
From the Booking Desk: It is no secret that I am a fan of short story anthologies. I have done the cover reveal for quite a few of them over the years and some of my favorites are those that are inspired by the works of a particular musician or group. Josh Pachter has...
by Kristopher | Apr 7, 2021 | Review
Alicia Beckman is a new pseudonym for the successful crime writer Leslie Budewitz. Under her own name Budewitz has proven her talent by receiving nominations and awards for her cozy novels, her short stories (both contemporary and historical), and her non-fiction work...
by Kristopher | Mar 30, 2021 | Review
Erica Ruth Neubauer’s debut novel, Murder at the Mena House, arrived on the scene at possibly the worst moment – late March 2020, as the world was just coming to terms with the pandemic that was before us. Despite this rocky origin, Murder at the Mena House managed to...
by Kristopher | Mar 24, 2021 | Review
There is a ton of social commentary to unpack in Deity, the fifth standalone in Matt Wesolowski’s “Six Stories” series. This may sound like an oxymoron, but Wesolowski has crafted a fascinating way to tell individual stories within the context of an on-going series –...
by Kristopher | Mar 16, 2021 | Review
In his debut novel, Blackout, Marco Carocari takes a number of familiar crime fiction tropes and skews them ever so slightly, thereby breathing new life into each of these familiar constructs, and ultimately leading readers to a fresh and unique conclusion. The...
by Kristopher | Mar 2, 2021 | Review
Alexandra Andrews’ debut novel, Who is Maud Dixon?, is one of those novels that is almost impossible to discuss without spoilers, as readers will discover if/as they read other reviews. This review will attempt to give you a flavor of this book without spoiling it....