Category Archives: Mysteries/Crime

Pleasantville

Posted on April 12, 2017 by

It’s 1996, 15 years after the events of Black Water Rising, and Jay Porter is still an attorney in Houston. Now a widower and a father of two, he’s made a career of helping people fight big corporations, usually involving environmental regulations, … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 3 Comments

Out

Posted on March 11, 2017 by

When I picked up this novel by Natsuo Kirino (translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder), I thought it was a feminist revenge fantasy—a group of women banding together to fight back against the men who hurt them. Although I … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 7 Comments

The Poisoned Chocolates Case

Posted on March 1, 2017 by

Roger Sheringham is feeling rather smug. He has achieved his goal: he has formed a Crimes Circle. This is a group of intelligent people who are interested in crime (a lawyer, a few brilliant writers, Roger himself, and Mr. Ambrose … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 4 Comments

Proof

Posted on February 25, 2017 by

Dick Francis has been one of my favorite mystery authors for nearly thirty years. He’s most famous for the mysteries that take place in the racing world, like Break In and Bolt or Whip Hand and Come to Grief (all … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 5 Comments

Peacekeeper

Posted on January 19, 2017 by

It’s often easiest to review books when they stay inside generic boundaries, and the smaller the box, the better. This is a cozy mystery, this is a thriller, this is a western. If you like what goes in this box, … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime, Religion, Speculative Fiction | 2 Comments

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

Posted on January 17, 2017 by

A couple of years ago, I watched the Grantchester mysteries on PBS Masterpiece. I enjoyed them thoroughly (I would enjoy anything with Robson Green in it!) and didn’t think much more about it. But when I discovered that the show … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 10 Comments

The Cornish Coast Murder

Posted on January 5, 2017 by

I read about the British Library Crime Classics on Litlove’s site a couple of years ago. They are reprints of lesser-known crime fiction, put out by the Poisoned Pen Press, with titles like A Scream in Soho, Sergeant Cluff Stands … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics, Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 6 Comments

Bury Your Dead

Posted on December 3, 2016 by

Bury Your Dead is the sixth of Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache novels (and the third I’ve read this year.) It follows closely on The Brutal Telling, revisiting events from that book and following through on the heavy foreshadowing Penny did … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime, Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Still Life

Posted on November 22, 2016 by

So. This is going to be a difficult review to write. So many people I know are fond of Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series. Jenny even put this first book from the series on my list of books to … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime, Uncategorized | 17 Comments

The Murder of Mary Russell

Posted on November 17, 2016 by

I’m a long-time fan of Laurie King’s Holmes/Russell series, so the title of this, the fourteenth, is calculated to make me shiver. (I did wonder, though — “of” is such a two-edged preposition.) King has done a lot of different … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 2 Comments