Townsend Walker’s collection of short fiction, 3 Women 4 Towns 5 Bodies & Other Stories, is a compilation of tales reflecting numerous different women, their lives, their loves, their hates, their crimes, and their plotting. The title story, which composes a third of the book, is a collection of snapshots into the minds and souls of […]
Category Archives: Reviews
DVD Review: The Americans Season 6
DVD Review: The Americans Season 6 (Warning: Oblique spoilers for previous seasons of The Americans follow.) The Americans is a high-concept television series in which the initial premise could have led to any point on the spectrum of quality. In lesser hands, the tale of two Russian spies living undercover as subversives in the United States could […]
Book Review of the week: The Perfect Liar by Thomas Christopher Greene
Book Review: The Perfect Liar by Thomas Christopher Greene By John Valeri Thomas Christopher Greene may be relatively new to the realm of psychological suspense, but he’s got the bonafides to back him up. While The Headmaster’s Wife (2014) and If I Forget You (2016) announced his arrival, Greene wrote three previous novels (Mirror Lake, […]
Book Review of The Week: The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
Book Review of The Week: The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor THE CHALK MAN By C.J. Tudor New York: Crown, 2018. $27.00 C.J. Tudor is something of a Renaissance woman. Before circumstances enabled her to write full-time, she dabbled in professions that included copywriter, television host, voice-over artist, and professional dog walker. Despite whatever creative […]
The Top Twenty Novels of 2018
Must Read Books in 2018 The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Simon & Schuster) (An unlikely book to make it to the top of the list, but Orlean delivers a book so vivid in atmosphere with a detailed plot that will appeal not only to those of us who love books, which makes it a […]
The Verdict on American Mystery Classics: A Treat for Mystery fans…
The Verdict on American Mystery Classics: A Treat for Mystery fans… W.H. Auden once wrote: “Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.” Otto Penzler, the prolific editor of crime fiction and the proprietor of New York City’s “The Mysterious Bookshop,” is bringing back classic mystery novels from the past that have been long […]
Review: The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery By Sophie Hannah HarperCollins 2018 $27.99 “One of these things is not like the others… one of these things just doesn’t belong…” This classic Sesame Street song reflects the puzzle at the center of Sophie Hannah’s new book, the third in her series […]
DVD Review– Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: The Complete Series and Nero Wolfe (Italian language series)
DVD Review– Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: The Complete Series and Nero Wolfe (Italian language series) Alongside Perry Mason, Nero Wolfe is the foremost American fictional detective. Created by Rex Stout, the Wolfe mysteries spanned four decades and have been continued by Robert Goldsborough. Wolfe is larger than life due to his eccentricities. Wolfe loves […]
BOOK OF THE WEEK: The Chalk Man By C.J. Tudor
BOOK OF THE WEEK: THE CHALK MAN By C.J. Tudor New York: Crown, 2018. $27.00 C.J. Tudor is something of a Renaissance woman. Before circumstances enabled her to write full-time, she dabbled in professions that included copywriter, television host, voice-over artist, and professional dog walker. Despite whatever creative inspirations may have come from those jobs, […]
REVIEW OF THE WEEK: Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales By P.D. James
REVIEW OF THE WEEK: Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales By P.D. James New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017, $21.00 The venerable P.D. James died in 2014. In 2016, The Mistletoe Murder and other stories (a total of four) was released. Now there are these six unsettling tales of mischief, mayhem, and murder. The stories […]
Review of the Week: Fever By Deon Meyer.
Fever By Deon Meyer. Translated by K.L. Seefers Atlantic Monthly Press 2017 $26.00 A Review of Fever by Deon Meyer Fever is a lengthy journey into a post-apocalyptic society, where the goal of building a new utopia is marred by lack of understanding into human nature. In this story, a terrible disease has wiped out […]
Book Review of the Week: Beau Death by Peter Lovesey
Book Review of the Week: Beau Death A Peter Diamond Investigation By Peter Lovesey New York: Soho Crime, 2017, $27.95 Beau Death is a doozy. It’s multi-award-winner Peter Lovesey’s seventeenth Peter Diamond novel. The series started in 1991 with the stunning The Last Detective (Anthony Award). Readers addicted to Lovesey’s appealing detective and the […]