Reviews

As we all struggle to navigate our new normal, every industry is looking for ways to give back and the crime writing community is no different. Booksellers are suffering – especially our Independent Bookstore Family – so a group of authors have come together to lend a...

It is a tale far too familiar: a child goes missing and the parents become the prime suspects. We’ve seen it in reality with cases like JonBenet Ramsey and in fiction like Mary Higgins Clark’s Where are the Children. Sadly, many of these cases turn out to be much more...

Ivy Pochoda seems incapable of writing the same story twice; and yet every time she puts words down on the page they are distinctly her own and always, always worth reading. Her latest, These Women, is linked to her excellent 2017 stand-out, Wonder Valley, by way of...

Earlier this year, BOLO Books hosted the cover reveal for The Beat of Black Wings: Crime fiction inspired by the songs of Joni Mitchell, so it was clear that a review was forthcoming. Like the songs that provide the titles and serve as their inspiration, each of the...

Over the last few years, Australian-set crime fiction has risen in respect, with authors like Jane Harper, Emma Viskic, and Candice Fox leading the charge. You will note that this surge is largely dominated by female writers and one of the earliest on the scene was...

It is impossible to determine the reason – perhaps it is the isolation, or the unique environment, or maybe it is a credit to the educational systems – but whatever the cause, there is little doubt that the Icelandic people are first-class storytellers and genre...

When Peter May first wrote Lockdown years ago, publishers turned it down because the dystopian scenario was unrealistically bleak and readers would not be able relate to the idea of mandatory quarantine. My how things have changed! With the world in crisis from the...

Picking up a Jennifer Hillier novel is a guaranteed way to ensure a few evenings of missed sleep. This is an author who knows how to put her readers through an emotional wringer in the midst of an anxiety-fueled plot designed to distract and entertain. Hillier’s...

When a long-running and beloved book series takes an unexpected hiatus, there will naturally be some trepidation after a new entry in the series is finally announced. "Will we still feel those bonds to the characters?" "Has the author lost that magical mojo that made...

Probably now more than ever, with the world in crisis, readers are longing for books that bring comfort and familiarity, those novels featuring a sense of nostalgia that soothe and distract without requiring excessive concentration. Unbeknownst to her while writing...

Fans of the escapist entertainment typically associated with Lifetime Television movies, will find much to enjoy in Stephanie Wrobel’s debut novel, Darling Rose Gold. In many ways, the melodramatic moments and carefully-placed twists feel artificially manufactured,...

Peter Swanson has garnered a loyal following of fans by writing unique stand-alones that defy expectations at almost every turn. The only things you can count on when picking up a Peter Swanson novel are that you will be thoroughly entertained, guided by a skilled...

The joy of picking up a book by a new author, or even an author that is just new to the reader, is hard to describe. It is some nebulous mixture of anticipation, wonder, hope, and fear. This is odd given that what the author has done has been completed by multitudes...

If there was ever any question regarding Art Taylor’s talent in relation to short crime fiction, The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense will put those to rest immediately. This anthology demonstrates Art Taylor’s mastery of the skills...

Kathleen Barber’s Follow Me is about an as “of the moment” crime novel as one is likely to find. It’s exploration of the perils of social media will appeal to both those who are addicted to modern connectivity trends as well as those who are justifiably wary of such...

If you take the writings of Mary Higgins Clark, Victoria Holt, the Brontës, and Han Christian Andersen and mix them in a blender, the resulting concoction could serve as the building blocks for Carol Goodman’s oeuvre, the latest of which – The Sea of Lost Girls–...

From the Booking Desk: Continuing my new plan to post mini-reviews together in the hopes of creating cross-over readers in a selection of sub-genres, this week we have 4 short reviews - three historicals and a contemporary police procedural. But these books have links...

Every so often the crime fiction canon welcomes a new character who is instantly iconic. There is no easy formula for making this happen; otherwise it would not be nearly as rare an occurrence as it is. In theory, it is likely some elusive combination of character...

With the release of four novels under her wings – The Black Hour, Little Pretty Things, The Day I Died, and Under a Dark Sky – Lori Rader-Day has established herself as one of the most consistently-excellent and thoroughly-unpredictable writers of crime fiction. Part...

Typically, when a reviewer says a book is cinematic, it is a reference to the fact that the book could easily be adapted to the screen and would probably be successful if that happened. In the case of Elizabeth Little’s second novel, Pretty as a Picture, the term...