Reviews

With Winterkill, Ragnar Jónasson makes a triumphant return to his Dark Iceland series for one final outing featuring fan-favorite Ari Thor Arason. As with the previous novels in the series – Snowblind, Blackout, Rupture, Whiteout, and Nightblind – Jónasson nails the...

While it is true that many crime fiction fans enjoy being surprised during the reading process, this has led to some authors stretching credibility in order to embed the wildest twists possible, which can often have the opposite effect, frustrating the reader....

Heather Gudenkauf has a loyal following of fans and it is easy to see why. Each of her novels feature strong women in challenging situations with plots that grab you by the throat as they simultaneously tear out your heart. Gudenkauf has the unique ability to breathe...

The video game industry is one that is valued at billions of dollars and which remains on an upward trajectory. As such, competition is steep and aspirations high. Sounds like the perfect arena for intrigue, nefarious behavior, and just possibly murder. M. E. Browning...

From the Booking Desk: I hold a BA in English with a concentration on minority literature, so reading widely has never been a challenge for me. However, I have still found myself drawn to diverse writings and #ownvoices stories more in the current socio-political...

Like watching foreign films, experiencing books from other countries – even in translation – exposes readers to different sensibilities which may be prevalent in those regions. For those who expect novels to follow a set trajectory, this can be challenging at times....

When Susi Holliday’s The Last Resort begins, seven strangers board an airplane on their way to a remote island for a mysterious weekend arranged by an elusive host. With that setup, it is impossible for crime fiction genre fans not to immediately think of Dame Agatha...

Invitation to Murder is the ninth anthology in the collection from the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. Previous releases in the Chesapeake Crimes series have contained many award-winning short stories by many of the best writers in the region. This new...

Lisa Unger continues to produce one of the most varied collections of writings in the crime fiction genre. Each of her works – even when they are linked as part of the same series – stand alone in their uniqueness. Her novels never tell the same story twice and refuse...

In his exceptional debut novel, A Line of Blood, Ben McPherson presented a stand-alone domestic suspense novel from the perspective of the husband. He now returns with The Island and once again focuses on a family in crisis, however, unlike the strain in that earlier...

Imagine, if you will, this Venn diagram: the murder mystery is a subset of crime fiction which is both a subset of literature and a subset of social commentary. Or perhaps this diagram: truth and lies are two distinctive sets of data that would seem to be mutually...

Pacing is one of those elusive elements that can make or break a novel. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all optimum pace. Some novels require a slow, methodical storytelling method, while others benefit from having a more frantic tempo serve as a foundation...

There was certainly skepticism when Sophie Hannah published her first Agatha Christie Estate-authorized continuation of the Hercule Poirot series. Many readers were hesitant to pick up The Monogram Murders, fearing that their beloved character would be tarnished. As...

Rachel Howzell Hall continues to prove that she can write anything; and that when she does, she will always knock it out of the park. Whether it’s a touching personal essay like “I Don’t Know This Word” (from the Private Investigations anthology) or a hard-hitting...

To the delight of readers everywhere, Ann Cleeves – and more specifically her beloved creation, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope – return in The Darkest Evening, the most recent novel from this acclaimed practitioner of the traditional procedural mystery. As with all...

Louise Penny’s Three Pines mystery series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has grown from the early books that struggled to find a readership to its current ubiquity where the series is so incredibly beloved and every new entry is almost guaranteed instant...

For quite some time now, it has been clear that the young adult category has been aching for a traditional mystery series. So much writing in that field represents interesting and ground-breaking blends of multiple genres, that while inspiring, also forgets that the...

Susanna Lee’s Detectives in the Shadows examines the topic, trajectory, and transcendence of the “private eye” in crime fiction from its origins through to the present day. While it is a scholarly work from an academic press, the writing here is clear and concise, as...

The cozy mystery sub-genre is an important and too often overlooked corner of the crime fiction world. Anyone who reads them knows how difficult it is to craft and plot an effective one – maybe even harder than some of the other sub-genres. In my opinion, a cozy...

Every season or so, there's a book that seemingly comes out of the blue that manages to knock our socks off. Rules for Being Dead is that book for the Summer of 2020. And its author, Kim Powers, is a bona fide breath of fresh air on the literary landscape. Honestly,...