Reviews

I have long said the New Zealand-based crime writer Paul Cleave is one of the most under-appreciated authors in the crime fiction community. From his first book to the latest, every entry in his oeuvre is worthy of bestseller status and critical acclaim. And yet while...

As usual, I have taken this task of selecting my Top Reads List very seriously and really struggled to make sure the list commemorates my favorite books of the year. Simply put, sometimes this means splitting hairs and having to leave off books that I truly loved but...

Sarah Strohmeyer amassed many loyal fans years ago with her quirky and unique mystery series starring Bubbles Yablonsky, so when it was announced that she was returning to the crime fiction fold with a new suspense novel, much rejoicing ensued. That book, Do I Know...

Fans of Cathy Ace’s Cait Morgan Mystery Series will be delighted that for the eleventh book in this series, the author has provided readers with a holiday outing called The Corpse with the Granite Heart. That is, as long as one do not mind their festive mood tempered...

After writing nine novels featuring Inspector Erlendur, Arnaldur Indriðason took an unexpected detour with Reykjavik Nights and gave readers a glimpse back at the origins of his now iconic lead character. As Reykjavik Nights opens, it is the late sixties or early...

Everyone knows that Iceland is a nation that has a very low crime rate and homicides are the rarest of all, but as readers have seen through their excellent crime fiction output, that does not mean that there are not mysteries to be solved. One of the true dangers of...

Following the success of diverse writers coming out of smaller presses, it is so refreshing to see that the bigger publishing houses are now opening their doors to more diverse authors as well. It is a shame to think that just a few years ago, Wanda M. Morris might...

Crime fiction readers who have experienced the works of Arnaldur Indridason, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, Ragnar Jónasson, and/or Eva Björg Ægisdóttir will have noticed that these Icelanders seem to have an innate ability to write about the darkest of subject matters without...

Readers of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings know the legend of the “One Ring” and its destruction on Mordor, but what if those legends were inspired by actual events? What if they were based on the lore of a long-lost Icelandic Saga? That is the premise of Where...

In Gallows Rock, the fourth book in Yrsa Sigurdardoittir’s "Children’s House" series, a traditional site for executions during ancient times becomes the harrowing location for a modern-day Icelandic murder. For this outing, the main character is Detective Huldar, but...

A former music journalist (and musician, for that matter), Clea Simon successfully wove that milieu into her 2017 stand-alone crime novel, World Enough, set in Boston’s underground club scene. Now four years later, Simon is releasing Hold Me Down, another stand-alone...

Like all corners of the crime fiction community, the cozy mystery sub-genre has recently seen an influx of new, diverse voices creating a sense of vitality and freshness that will hopefully bring more readers to the entire breadth of this incredibly multi-faceted...

With The Mother Next Door, a novel of suburban suspense, Tara Laskowski has gifted readers with the most addictively readable book of the season. It is virtually impossible to stop reading The Mother Next Door until the entirety of it has been consumed, and even then,...

     “A metaphor walks into a bookstore…” “State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny is like a traditional Robert Ludlum political thriller crossed with a John le Carré character study only with women at the center of the...

When it comes to dependable writers, Lisa Unger is very near the top of the list. While it is impossible to predict what she will write next, readers can always count on it being a gripping narrative with complex characters and plenty of unexpected developments. Her...

Writers take risks every time they put pen to paper – or well, fingers to keyboard. Balancing reader expectations with the desire to grow as an artist can be tricky. Lori Rader-Day has never been an author who was content with the status quo – each of her books is...

John Copenhaver follows up the critically-acclaimed Dodging and Burning with another inimitable historical crime novel in what is becoming his signature style. For years now, noir crime fiction through the eyes of adolescent girls has been the domain of the legendary...

Every so often a book comes along that is problematic to classify, difficult to summarize, and impossible to forget. The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward is just such a novel. It has been called a thriller, horror, psychological suspense, crime fiction,...

Val McDermid is a legend in the crime fiction world. She has written ground-breaking books, such as the Lindsay Gordon series featuring a lesbian lead character; the Wire in the Blood novels (her criminal profiler series that is often imitated but never duplicated);...

By now most readers know that Hank Phillippi Ryan was an Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter long before she was a multi-award-winning crime fiction author, so it only makes sense that reporters in various forms have populated almost all of her fiction work....