Book Review: Something to Die For (Ryan Drake, Book 9), by Will Jordan In Something to Die For, Will Jordan demonstrates two important yet sadly, rare attributes. First, he illustrates that he has deep love and enthusiasm for the genre in which he writes. Second, he understands what works and what doesn’t, and knows […]
Author Archives: Christopher Chan
Book Review: Three Books from Stark House Press
Book Review: Three Books from Stark House Press Stark House Press’s recent releases include both new fiction and rereleases of classic works. The following three books provide widely different plots and themes, but all are worth a look. The Thing Beyond Reason/Echo of a Careless Voice/Blotted Out is a collection of three novellas […]
Book Review: More Sherlock Holmes Pastiches
Book Review: More Sherlock Holmes Pastiches New entries in the Sherlock Holmes saga have become a subgenre in themselves in crime fiction, and this review will cover some interesting new releases. Liese Sherwood-Fabre has released three books in a series of the early years of Sherlock Holmes. In her works, Sherlock is still […]
DVD Review: Big Little Lies: The Complete Second Season
DVD Review: Big Little Lies: The Complete Second Season (Warning: Significant spoilers for the first and second seasons will be featured here, though I will try to do so as obliquely as possible.) The second season of Big Little Lies isn’t a murder mystery like the first season was, but instead is an […]
Book Review: Hellfire, by John Gilstrap
Book Review: Hellfire, by John Gilstrap This is one page-turner of a thriller. There’s so much testosterone in it that holding the book while I read it caused hair to grow on the palms of my hands. I would have finished the novel a lot earlier, but I had to stop reading every three […]
DVD Review: Quiz
DVD Review: Quiz Quiz is based on the true story of the biggest game show scandal since Twenty-One in the 1950’s. Many Americans are unaware that Who Wants to be A Millionaire? was originally a British series, which was imported to the United States, where pounds were converted into dollars. Quiz begins with the network, […]
Book Review: The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe
Book Review: The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe The surest proof that something has become a genuine part of the popular culture is when it can be parodied. How many fictional characters of the twenty-first century (strictly from books, not from television or movies) are sufficiently recognizable to the average person that a good-natured riff […]
Book Review: The Potato Masher Murder
Book Review: The Potato Masher Murder Decades after the fact, it’s disturbing to discover that a member of your family was murdered. It’s even more shocking to discover that another family member was responsible for that violent death. This scenario actually happened to Gary Sosniecki, a journalist who discovered that in 1906, his great-grandmother Cecilia […]
BOOK REVIEW: Further MX Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
BOOK REVIEW: Further MX Adventures of Sherlock Holmes MX Publishing continues to release new Sherlock Holmes stories, bringing new perspectives and approaches to familiar figures and settings. The Last Confession of Sherlock Holmes by Kieran Lyne is a new edition to a popular subgenre of Sherlock Holmes literature: Holmes’ investigation of the Jack […]
DVD Review: Blue Bloods: The Ninth Season and Blue Bloods: The Tenth Season
DVD Review: Blue Bloods: The Ninth Season and Blue Bloods: The Tenth Season The police procedural has been a staple of television screens for nearly seventy years, and for just as long, viewers and critics have critiqued how dramatic descriptions of police. In the early 1950s, Dragnet (a continuation of the radio series of the same name) was […]
Book Review: Clean Hands
Book Review: Clean Hands Clean Hands is a slick, fast-moving thriller, written with skill and aplomb by a talented writer who knows how to keep action flowing swiftly. It’s very neatly crafted, and reads like a taut suspense movie. Patrick Hoffman does a lot really well with his novel, but there are a few shortcomings that […]
Book Review: Five More American Mystery Classics
Book Review: Five More American Mystery Classics The American Mystery Classics series continues to republish some great crime novels of the past, featuring some of the greatest talents in the genre, including some legends who have unfortunately fallen into undeserved obscurity. John Dickson Carr made his name with the “locked room” mysteries and impossible crimes […]