Reviews

The best way to describe Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack is as a delightfully engaging mystery that provides countless laughs and unexpected detours. While this is a debut for the penname, the author behind the novel is a seasoned veteran...

The fusion when the correct author finds the perfect subject matter is much like an alchemical reaction—a bond that is immediately felt and virtually undeniable. If it happens with a debut novel, it’s almost like magic. Case in point, You Know What You Did by K. T....

There is some truth to the old adage that there is nothing new under the sun, however, this simplistic view tends to discount innovations that can serve to make something familiar feel fresh in execution. Take for example, the second thriller soon to be released by...

Writing in collaboration can be a challenging endeavor, but when done successfully, it can add a new level of excitement to the resulting work. There is power in two minds navigating the tangle of paths, working towards the common goal of satisfying the reader. With...

SJ Rozan has never been the type of writer who turns away from a challenge. Along with her excellent Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mysteries and a plethora of short stories—both of which have won her countless awards, nominations, and accolades—Rozan has written non-fiction...

When readers encounter the perfect match between book and author, they can immediately feel the palpable connection. Such is the case with Leslie Karst and her new series debut, Molten Death. This was a novel that Karst was destined to write, and all the pieces of her...

Roughly ten years ago, Mary Kubica burst onto the domestic suspense landscape with her debut novel, The Good Girl. Releasing almost a book a year since then, Kubica has established herself as one of the premier authors tackling the psychological suspense sub-genre....

If the name Dervla McTiernan is not familiar to you, hopefully that is all about to change. With the release of her fifth novel—the stand-alone, What Happened to Nina?—McTiernan should be on the threshold of breakthrough status. Many would agree that What Happened to...

The Busy Body is a traditional, play fair mystery from Kemper Donovan—host of the All About Agatha podcast. Given his knowledge of Agatha Christie, it’s little surprise that The Busy Body will appeal to fans of the Golden Age of crime fiction. The story is very...

There is a long and storied history of the “Murder Ballad” within country music. From Lefty Frizzell’s “Long Black Veil” to “The Nights the Lights Went Out in Georgia by Vicki Lawrence (and eventually, Reba McEntire) to the Chicks saying “Goodbye Earl,” every era of...

Heather Gudenkauf is one of the most consistent crime novelists working today. For over a decade she has been steadily releasing excellent books that feature strong, relatable characters (mostly women) thrust into compelling mysteries that always seem of-the-moment....

Fans of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Jane Ryland series and Christina Kovac's The Cutaway will want to grab a copy of Off The Air, the debut novel by Christina Estes. Like those other novels, Estes makes her reporter—Jolene Garcia—the voice of the narrative, but in many...

King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis is one of the strangest and most unclassifiable novels readers are likely to stumble upon. Every time you think you have a grasp on what you think it might be, Bakis subverts that expectation and King Nyx becomes something completely...

Continuing his quozy (queer cozy) series that began with the critically-acclaimed and quadruple crime fiction award-nominated Devil’s Chew Toy, Rob Osler’s latest—Cirque Du Slay—proves that his winning combination of lovably-relatable characters, play-fair mysteries,...

Last year, K. B. Jackson launched her middle-grade Sasquatch Hunters series with The Sasquatch of Hawthorne Elementary. That book is now an Agatha Award Nominee for Best Children’s/YA Mystery, which makes the release of the sequel—The Sasquatch of Harriman Lake—all...

Readers would be forgiven for having burn-out from the proliferation of destination mysteries. There have certainly been more than a few of them in the past few years, often without much variation. The trouble with this type of fatigue is that sometimes there really...

From the Booking Desk: In case you haven’t heard, Crippen & Landru are celebrating their 30th anniversary this week. To celebrate the milestone, they are offering 30% off until tomorrow (February 15th). I decided to mark the occasion with a review of Elaine Viets’...

Jenny Hollander’s debut—Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead—is generating a fair amount of buzz, for good reason. This is an impeccably plotted example of psychological suspense destined to convert casual readers into lifelong fans. “Scarlet Christmas” is the moniker...

With social media, movies, television, and more vying for readers attention, the days of those massively long epic novels are mostly a thing of the past, and yet, occasionally, a work that defies the odds comes along, determined to remind us that there is nothing like...

Readers picking up a Freida McFadden novel should go in knowing they are going to have to suspend disbelief—as this is an author who loves to craft the most twisted plots—but should also prepare to be glued to the page until the final moments of the book. In some...