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The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn – review
Ah, what a pleasure to re-enter the world of Chet, the canine narrator and K-9 school dropout, and his human companion, Bernie. In the midst of a plethora of dark books and novels featuring...
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Poison Flower by Thomas Perry – review
Thomas Perry has brought back his wonderful protagonist, Jane Whitefield, in his 19th novel, and the seventh featuring the part-Seneca woman whose credo has always been that “to save innocent people...
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Damage Control by Denise Hamilton – review
On the very first page of the prologue to “Damage Control,” the terrific new book by Denise Hamilton, the reader meets high school student Maggie Weinstock. Fast forward sixteen years: Maggie is now...
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Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin – review
Whether this novel is a mystery, or a story about two men, or a tale about the Deep South, it is a riveting look into the characters, their development and their environment. Larry and Silas, one white...
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Pocket-47 by Jude Hardin – review
I’m not sure the world needs another hard-boiled PI, but that is what we have in this debut effort, which has a hard time finding a consistent voice, and from time to time lapses into trite asides, for...
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Bleeding Through by Sandra Parshall – review
This suspense-filled novel is built around characters you care about, especially its protagonist, Dr. Rachel Goddard, veterinarian extraordinaire. The book opens when Rachel and her significant other,...
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Port Vila Blues by Garry Disher – review
Although I had heard of this Australian author, before picking up “Port Vila Blues,” I had not read any of his previous novels. He has written over 40 books, including most conspicuously the Inspector...
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Available Dark By Elizabeth Hand – review
This novel isn’t one that defies description, exactly, but it does make it difficult. Its tone is bleak throughout, perhaps in keeping with the geographical landscape, made palpable by the author’s...
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A Pimp’s Notes By Giorgio Faletti – review
This new novel by Giorgio Faletti takes place, naturally, in Italy, Milan to be precise. The era is the late ‘70’s, made evident by asides dealing with rotary telephones and cigarettes being smoked on...
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Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain – review
Archie Sheridan, a detective at the Major Case Task Force in Portland, Oregon, for years had headed what was termed the Beauty Killer Task Force, dedicated to tracking down and bringing to justice a...
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Drift By Jon McGoran – review
Three years after Philadelphia narcotics detective Doyle Carrick’s mother and stepfather move to what he’d always thought of as the sleepy countryside of Dunston, Pennsylvania, he finds himself driving...
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After I’m Gone by Laura Lippman – review
Laura Lippman is known for her wonderful series featuring p.i. Tess Monaghan, among other terrific books. So I started this book believing it to be a murder mystery, especially as it begins with the...
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Bear is Broken By Lachlan Smith – review
Leo Maxwell has just formally become a member of California State Bar. He is a man who does not think “ethical criminal defense attorney” is an oxymoron, perhaps putting him in the minority, certainly...
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Sudden Impact by William P. Wood – review
The opening line of this new book by this former Deputy District Attorney in California immediately explains the title, and propels the reader into the book: “Officer Bob Quintana did not see the car...
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Chance By Kem Nunn – review
The page before the first page by Ken Nunn contains a definition of the word “chance,” which concludes with the sentence “Sometimes granted agency, as in Chance governs all.” “Chance” is also the name...
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The Good Boy by Theresa Schwegel – review
This newest novel from Theresa Schewegel is at its heart a tale about a boy and his dog, either (or both) of which could be the eponymous Good Boy. The boy is 11-year-old Joel Murphy; the dog is his...
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Murder at Cape Three Points by Kwei Quartey – review
Described by the author as “the land nearest nowhere,” Cape Three Points appears to be a place of unspoiled beauty on the Ghanaian coast in West Africa where two bays form the three peninsulas which...
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In the Morning I’ll Be Gone by Adrian McKinty – review
The final book of The Troubles Trilogy brings back Sean Duffy, a Catholic cop in the Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). As the book opens, in Belfast in the early ‘80’s, there is “a mass...
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The Sun is God by Adrian McKinty – review
Having just read the latest in this author’s Detective Sean Duffy novels, and loved it, I was greatly looking forward to his most recent book, and was not in the least disappointed. Although the...
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Moving Day by Jonathan Stone – review
Stanley Peke (born Stanislaw Shmuel Pecoskowitz in Poland during the Nazi regime) is a 72-year-old survivor; Rose, his wife of over 50 years, is 70. After moving from their Greenwich Village apartment,...
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