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 […]
Category Archives: Reviews
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 […]
Book Review of the Week: Parting Shot by Linwood Barclay
Book Review of the Week: Parting Shot by Linwood Barclay Parting Shot is Linwood Barclay’s seventeenth novel. Among them is the chilling Promise Falls trilogy—Broken Promise (2015), Far From True (2016), and The Twenty–three (2016). Though technically not a sequel to that trilogy, this is a worthy standalone follow-up novel. It brings back many of […]
Book Review of the Week: Unquiet Spirits by Bonnie MacBird
Book Review of the Week: Unquiet Spirits by Bonnie MacBird In October 2015, Bonnie MacBird published her first Sherlock Holmes pastiche, Art in the Blood (not to be confused with the similarly named 2008 Holmes novel by Rainer Jaeger). It was an intriguing tale of Holmes’s investigation into missing children and missing art, and […]
The Strand Magazine’s Top 25 Books of 2017
The Strand Magazine’s Top 25 Books of 2017 These are the Strand Magazine’s pick for the Top 25 Books of 2017, amongst many others. 1. The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry (Crown) 2. Two Days Gone by Randall Silvis (Sourcebooks Landmark) 3. Follow Me Down by Sherri Smith (Forge Books) 4. Where Dead Men Meet […]
Review of the Week: The Ways of Wolfe: A Border Noir By James Carlos Blake
Review of the Week: The Ways of Wolfe: A Border Noir By James Carlos Blake Mysterious Press 2017 $25.00 Fans of Rex Stout should be forewarned: this book is not about the legendary orchid-loving detective who weighed one-seventh of a ton. Instead, this book is part of a family saga (the earlier books are as, […]
Book Review of the Week: The Last Hack: A Jack Parlabane Thriller
Book Review of the Week: The Last Hack: A Jack Parlabane Thriller By Christopher Brookmyre Atlantic Monthly Press 2017 $25.00 The Last Hack is the latest in the Jack Parlabane series. Beginning in 1996, they focus on an investigative journalist’s digging into mysteries and the ensuing misadventures. At this point in the series, Parlabane […]