Reviews

“The Woman on the Island” is Ann Cleeves’ most recent short story. While the tale is extremely brief, it does help to fill in some backstory on Vera Stanhope’s past relationship with her father, Hector. Needing a respite from her police duties, Vera takes what she...

Night Shadows is the third book in Eva Björg Ægisdóttir’s Forbidden Iceland series. Following both The Creak on the Stairs and Girls Who Lie, Night Shadows continues the evolution of Detective Elma and her family, friends, and colleagues, while also documenting the...

Lauren Wilkinson’s “A Scandal in Brooklyn” is a clever short story that updates the Sherlockian mythos for a more modern and diverse audience. Here, Irene Adler is a Black woman in the midst of divorcing her tech billionaire husband, when a girlfriend asks Irene to...

Zac Bissonnette is releasing his debut cozy mystery, A Killing in Costumes, at a time when the current publishing marketplace is celebrating diversity of all kinds. Through planned intent or lucky happenstance, Bissonnette’s novel capitalizes on this trend with what...

Carol Goodman is one of those rare authors readers can always rely on to present a gripping story, well told – regardless of each particular novel’s chosen subject matter. As such, many fans will flock to her newest novel eager to see what Goodman has in store this...

Between his underrated Tuva Moodyson series and his critically acclaimed stand-alone The Last Thing to Burn, Scottish author Will Dean has proven himself more than astute at writing from the female perspective. This trend continues in what might be his most powerful...

The innate ability to know how a story needs to be told is a skill that is typically honed over years, but in the case of Jennifer Hillier, this key storytelling tool seems to be part of her DNA. From the start, with the deliciously unsettling Creep (and the follow up...

Simon Toyne burst onto the literary landscape with his unique Sanctus trilogy – a DaVinci Code style narrative with deeper characterization and superlative narrative skills. Toyne followed this with a minor pivot when he released his Solomon Creed duology (The...

After translating all of Agatha Christie’s novels into Icelandic for publication in his home country, Ragnar Jónasson launched his own crime fiction career with two highly-regarded series – the Dark Iceland books, which I dubbed as “cozy noir,” for their unique...

Sandra SG Wong’s first foray into crime fiction was with her alternate-history, semi-paranormal trilogy featuring private investigator Lola Starke. Now she is making a pivot and her new book, In the Dark We Forget, is an unusual blend of mystery, domestic suspense,...

J. M. Miro’s Ordinary Monsters is a debut Fantasy novel from an established author working under a pseudonym. With time Ordinary Monsters will be reflected back upon as the start of an incredible epic fantasy. Dickensian in scope (with the Victorian details of...

From the Booking Desk: Losing my mother this past March really threw my reading schedule for a loop, so I am trying to catch up on some reviews that are overdue. While these reviews are not as long as some I post here on BOLO Books, these novels are no less worthy of...

Genre fiction is too often criticized for producing generic, cookie-cutter works that fail to stretch the boundaries of what can be accomplished via the written word. But if one has any doubt about the vitality of modern crime fiction, a simple look at recent and...

It has been over five years since Chris Holm’s last novel, but clearly with the release of Child Zero readers will see that he hasn’t just been resting on his laurels. Child Zero represents an evolution in Chris Holm’s journey as an author and readers will almost...

A Killing Rain is the second novel in Faye Snowden’s series featuring Raven Burns. The first book, A Killing Fire, left quite a few dangling plot threads, so readers who prefer to follow a series from the beginning will want to start there, but for those that can...

Novels from University Presses have an uphill battle in the general marketplace, largely due to the lack of marketing money thrown in their direction, however quality does tend to rise to the surface as fans recently saw when Erin Flanagan’s Deer Season – a...

Readers can take an international journey with crime novelist Dervla McTiernan. The author is based in Australia and after three novels in her critically-acclaimed Cormac Reilly series – which takes place in Ireland – she now turns her pen to a standalone suspense...

Rob Osler’s debut mystery novel, Devil’s Chew Toy, is a rollicking romp through the tropes of the cozy sub-genre fronted by a gay main character – Hayden McCall – and his clique of diverse sidekicks. Readers will be having so much fun following this gang’s escapades...

After three excellent books in his Hester Thursby series, Edwin Hill is now releasing a tangentially connected standalone novel called The Secrets We Share, which further elevates his storytelling prowess – entrancing readers and leaving them anxious for more. Natalie...

Peter Swanson is one of those writers who can grab a reader’s attention simply with the briefest of plot descriptions. For example: a killer is recreating murders from classic crime novels (Eight Perfect Murders). Or a woman swaps homes with a distant cousin who might...