Etta Lawrence has staked everything on a year at a prestigious writing academy in the rainy Oregon woods. But truth be told, she’s an indifferent writer. She’s also distracted by her roommate’s distraught behavior and has a crush on the academy’s cook, a Texan named...
The second Dana Hargrove legal thriller is a well paced, polished, and highly enjoyable read. I liked the first Dana Hargrove book, THURSDAY’S LIST, but Kemanis has hit her stride with HOMICIDE CHART. Related post: Book Review: Thursday's List by V.S. Kemanis Dana is...
SOMETHING LIKE A DREAM by Robert Richter is an unusual novel that crosses genres between international mystery and politically oriented literary fiction. It’s the 1980s in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, but the shadow of the 60’s and 70’s still hovers over Cotton Waters, a...
THE DOGS OF ROME is an unusual mystery, in that it has a narrow cast of characters, there's no climax, and the main character is not involved in the ultimate denouement. Does it work? I'll let you know. As soon as I decide. The main character, Alec Blume, is an...
THE ORIGIN OF MURDER by Jerold last is the latest offering in the Roger and Suzanne mystery series. The book is two parts travelogue to one part murder mystery, all with a nod to famed researcher Charles Darwin. You got the title's riff on ORIGIN OF SPECIES, right?...
FEDERALES is a short novel by Christopher Irvin that packs a hefty punch, slugging the reader to the heart with a story about Mexican corruption, violence, but also redemption and hope. It falls into the same "narco noir" literary category as Guillermo Paxton's CARTEL...
BY ITS COVER is Donna Leon's 23rd Commisario Brunetti mystery novel and it follows the series' tradition of immersing the reader in today's Venice. The mystery revolves around a crime rooted in Italy's ancient classics yet the country's modern problems of corruption...
I love writing mysteries and I love reading them, too. The ones that send me to new places around the world are some of my favorites and The Dublin Murder Squad has quickly become a fascination. IN THE WOODS is the first in the series. French, who is from Dublin and...
I have read all of the Harry Hole police procedural mysteries by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, but read them out of order. Which probably was a good thing . . . THE BAT is the first in the series, but was only recently made available in English and for Kindle. I was...
There are various subsets within the crime fiction genre; “tartan noir” for books set in Scotland and “Nordic noir” for those that take place in the Scandinavian countries. If there is a “narco noir” sub-genre for crime fiction set in Mexico, then Paxton is surely the...
Every once in awhile we come across books that we simply can't put down. FOR LOVE OF A CAUSE by Elly Michaels is one of them. In 1970’s Bolivia a small insurgent group is battling an undefined but assumed corrupt and brutal government. American suburbanite Annie...
THE REDEEMER by Jo Nesbo is the midpoint novel in the Harry Hole series set in Norway, picking up where the last left off and priming the reader for another just as fast as Nesbo can write it. I’ve been reading them out of sequence and this one both filled in some...
I wasn't the first to buy much-hyped thriller INFERNO by THE DA VINCI CODE author Dan Brown but I'm glad I eventually did. But you'll be surprised why. The Kindle verson of the book was pricey these days when great books can be had for $2.99. So I waited to read some...
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth is the eighth novel in the charming Isabel Dalhousie series by the prolific Alexander McCall Smith. Better known for the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series set in Botswana, the Isabel Dalhousie series is set in Edinburgh and has a...
BLOOD OF THE WICKED is the first book in the Chief Inspector Mario Silva series by Leighton Gage. I’d never heard of the series before stumbling upon a reference to it in a Goodreads group. I was trying to see if I was the only one writing a mystery series set in the...