Reviews
The Long Drop – The BOLO Books Review
Denise Mina’s The Long Drop is a unique book in the crime fiction genre. Not quite true crime, but also not a fictional tale, The Long Drop is somewhat similar to the method Truman Capote used with In Cold Blood – fiction inspired by actual events. However you...
More Bookshots – The BOLO Books Review(s)
From the Booking Desk: On a recent road trip, my car-mates and I decided to listen to two novellas from James Patterson’s Bookshots output during the journey. My only other experience with Bookshots was reading and reviewing The Witnesses, written in collaboration...
Marathon – The BOLO Books Review
When a writer sets out to tell a very timely story with direct correlation to current events, it can be a tricky endeavor. For most, reading is viewed as a pastime, an entertainment if you will, and being bombarded with depressing current affairs can sometimes alter...
Organizing Crime – Some BOLO Books Thoughts
From the Booking Desk: When you walk through the bookroom at one of the many crime fiction conventions worldwide, you just never know what you might discover. You could stumble upon a first edition of that book you love, a signed copy of a new bestseller, or a book to...
Crime Song – The BOLO Books Review
Crime Song is the second book in David Swinson’s series featuring anti-hero Frank Marr. As with the series debut, The Second Girl, Swinson excels at the policing elements of the plot due to his own history with the occupation. David Swinson’s attitude toward the...
Silent Rain – The BOLO Books Review
By design, most books in a crime fiction series allow readers to follow the lives of the main character and perhaps some of the secondary players over the course of time. However, it is more rare that readers are given access to re-visit with a character who was...
Since We Fell – The BOLO Books Review
When news breaks about the release date of a new Dennis Lehane novel, a buzz justifiably begins to build within the crime fiction community. Things followed that existing standard when Mr. Lehane’s latest novel, Since We Fell, was announced at the beginning of the...
City of Angels – The BOLO Books Review
Los Angeles, California. The self-proclaimed City of Angels, land of facades and facelifts where money and movies dominate, but masks and manipulation are de rigueur. This is the setting for Kristi Belcamino’s new novel, her young adult debut. Appropriately titled...
The Red Hunter – The BOLO Books Review
With her new stand-alone novel, The Red Hunter, Lisa Unger ventures beyond her beloved locale of The Hollows, to present a novel which succinctly and effectively details the long legacy wrought by violence in the lives of two complex women. Claudia Bishop moves with...
The Secret Room – The BOLO Books Review
Dr. Zoe Goldman was first introduced in Sandra Block’s Little Black Lies. This debut was then followed by The Girl Without A Name. And now with The Secret Room, Zoe’s story comes to an end. While each of these books work perfectly well as stand-alone mysteries, the...
One Perfect Lie – The BOLO Books Review
High school is a turbulent time as young people struggle to ascertain who they are, what they want to do with their lives, and a myriad of other huge life-altering decisions. This makes it a perfect backdrop for a Lisa Scottoline novel – she loves nothing better than...
A Simple Favor – The BOLO Books Review
Friends do favors for each other all the time; so when Emily asks Stephanie to pick up her son after school, she thinks nothing of it. After all, she has to pick up her own son and the two boys love to have playtime, so no big deal, right? Except that Emily never...
The Good Byline – The BOLO Books Review
The cozy mystery sub-genre is populated with a plethora of amateur sleuths working a multitude of day-jobs as they solve crimes on the side; but rarely have I encountered such an inspired occupation as that found in Jill Orr’s debut mystery, The Good Byline. Riley...
Betrayed – The BOLO Books Review
Like any good thriller should, Karen E. Olson’s Betrayed starts like a bullet – quickly gaining velocity and smashing through each obstacle in its path – before reaching a tension-filled climax guaranteed to please even the most jaded reader. Through each book in the...
Ragdoll – The BOLO Books Review
Ragdoll is Daniel Cole’s debut novel. From the description, it sounds like another gruesome serial killer novel designed to shock reader’s sensibilities. Please know this couldn’t be further from the reality. Daniel Cole has launched his writing career with a creative...
Conviction – The BOLO Books Review
The dense relationship between Rebekah Roberts and Saul Katz has been one of the cornerstones of Julia Dahl’s series of mystery novels set in and around the Hasidic community of Brooklyn, New York. Through all of their highs and lows, Saul has always been important to...
The Day I Died – The BOLO Books Review
For a woman who cannot be herself, Anna Winger is certainly skilled at knowing about other people from the barest of evidence - all it takes is their handwriting. This simple fact only scratches the surface of the complex lead character in Lori Rader-Day’s absorbing...
A Twist of the Knife – The BOLO Books Review
Sometimes with a series, the author is comfortable giving readers “the same, but different” with each new book release and that is often satisfying. However, with a character as unique as Brigid Quinn, it is fitting that Becky Masterman does not follow that mold. With...
The Cutaway – The BOLO Books Review
Media scrutiny is at an all time high. It seems that no matter where one turns, there is controversy, distrust, and scandal involving our news agencies. Of course, none of this is really "new," but in our social climate, it seems that everyone suddenly has an opinion....
Natchez Burning Trilogy
There are few novels as worthy of being called EPIC as those that make up The Natchez Burning Trilogy. What Greg Iles has crafted in this series likely won't be fully realized until years down the road. The scope of these three novels is bewildering and a true...