Author: editor

Since since we launched in April, we’ve published fifty reviews. This month offers a smaller list than usual, but there are some gems. Summer is a perfect time for reading, and we have some titles to recommend.

Zoe B. Wallbrook, History Lessons – “Most invigorating is the author’s defense of the value of history as a noble pursuit of truth, knowing that sometimes the truth hurts… Since this appears to be the beginning of a series, we can hope there are more adventures ahead for this intriguing protagonist.”

Martin Cruz Smith, Hotel Ukraine – “[Arkady Renko is] one of the most intriguing and complex of crime fiction’s heroes, and a thoroughly Russian guide, however ambivalent, to his country through decades of upheaval. He may be retiring, but he’s not slowing down, even if it means following leads into Ukraine in the early months of Putin’s brutal invasion.”

Mark Billingham, What the Night Brings  – “This long and densely-plotted novel hangs on a gripping hook and unfolds with a series of twists and surprises, though there’s time enough to give the characters plenty of space to develop and a meaty enough conflict to add color and complexity to the story.”

Stacey Abrams, Coded Justice – “This novel is as much science fiction as a mystery, using the murder to delve into debates around artificial intelligence: will it enhance our lives immeasurably, or could it grow powerful and destructive? … an impressively inventive and suspenseful novel that is teeming with thought-provoking ideas.”

Jessa Maxwell, Dead of Summer – “… a beach read that has enough complexity in the characters to be interesting and a plot that, once the mystery is revealed and the characters’ stories are wound up, can be set aside with a satisfied sigh and quickly forgotten.”

Jennifer Givhan, Salt Bones – “In a community on the edge of the poisoned, environmentally degraded Salton Sea in southern California, daughters have been disappearing. This haunted place is vividly brought to life in a novel that combines a thrilling plot, deeply developed characters, and a poetic evocation of the borderland.”

Denise Mina, The Good Liar – “Claudia Atkins O’Sheil is preparing to blow up her life. In twenty minutes she’s due to give a speech about her most famous case as a forensic scientist… While uncovering what really happened at Chester Terrace drives the plot, the tension comes from wondering what Claudia will choose to say when she steps up to the podium to give her speech.”

The header illustration, by the by, is from a poster created by our friend Edward Penfield for Harper’s in 1898. It’s now in the collection of the Library of Congress.

 

Mulholland
Published July 29, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

As this short, tense novel opens, Claudia Atkins O’Sheil is preparing to blow up her life. In twenty minutes she’s due to give a speech about her most famous case as a forensic scientist. But it’s not the speech her host and mentor, Sir Philip Ardmore, expects her to give. Rather than celebrate the way her ground-breaking system for analyzing blood spatter evidence solved the infamous Chester Terrace murders, she’s planning to explain how it got the case wrong. This will not only destroy her reputation and Sir Philip’s, it will call into question scores of convictions and will anger some very powerful people. She has to get the truth out in a way that people will find convincing, and she has to do it before she is stopped.

Continue reading “The Good Liar by Denise Mina”

Atria
July 22, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Isolated places are always a good site for a mystery. In this case, the characters are assembled on an island off the coast of New England where, years earlier, a girl disappeared. An awkward loner, Henry, was suspected by the islanders of her murder, but no hard evidence tied him to the crime. Now he lives as a hermit on a rock off the island in a crumbling house he built for himself and his wife, obsessively watching Hadley Island’s residents remotely through a telescope while avoiding them in person. Orla O’Connor, the best friend of the long-missing girl, has returned to clear out her childhood home after her career as an artist ran off the rails. And newcomer Faith has arrived to spend the summer with her fabulously wealthy boyfriend at his family mansion. All three of these lives tangle together when another girl goes missing and rumors begin to swirl.

Continue reading “Dead of Summer by Jessa Maxwell”

Soho
Published August 1, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Daphne Ouverture was elated when she was offered a  job at Harrison University. Though she had earned a PhD in European history, with a focus on French imperialism, and had a contract for a book on Black families in eighteenth-century France, she wasn’t guaranteed any kind of job, much less a tenure-track position at a prestigious private institution. She would like to keep it, despite the frustrations of living in a small town with few dating prospects, an underlying suspicion among many of her colleagues that being Black gave her an edge she didn’t deserve, and a disastrous dean who seems to think it’s time to rein in this diversity thing. It’s a quiet, if demanding life unlike that of her globe-trotting parents – until she gets a strange text message in bad French from Sam Taylor, a sociology professor who is a rising campus star. As she’s puzzling over what it might mean, the police are called to his apartment where his fiancee has found him murdered.

Continue reading “History Lessons by Zoe B. Wallbrook”

Summer is always a good time for reading, and we had plenty to keep us busy in June, from action to cozies to historicals and beyond. There are many more books to look forward to for summer reading: In July, we’ll be reviewing new books by Martin Cruz Smith, Stacey Abrams, Denise Mina and many more. See if there’s something here that makes you want to sit in a rocking chair with a good book.

A. J. Landau, Cold Burn – “The action is fast and furious, in short chapters, moving quickly from one location and event to another. The reader is often put on hold as the action flips between characters, but it cycles back around so quickly that we don’t lose interest but rather read on to find out what happened next. The end result is a book that is hard to put down.” (Sharon Mensing)

Craig Johnson, Return to Sender – “The book is filled with bizarre and kooky characters, including a dangerous cult with a focus on UFOs, the ex-hippie postal worker, a frequently drunk and combative biker, a group of elderly followers of the cult, and many more… Johnson writes with more humor in this book than is usual for the series, and I found myself laughing out loud at times.” (Sharon Mensing)

Mel Pennant, A Murder for Miss Hortense – “It’s interesting to see how the cozy sub-genre has recently become a gateway for diverse voices from marginalized communities that are too often perceived as places of violence, danger, and menacing foreignness… ” (Barbara Fister)

Nilima Rao, A Shipwreck in Fiji – “[The] plot threads are expertly woven together, adding in some humor, a dash of critique of British colonialism and English disparagement of their non-white subjects, a deepening of Akal’s personal background, and a fascinating cultural struggle…” (Barbara Fister)

Jess Walter, So Far Gone – “Told at a gallop, with lots of wry humor, the end result is not so much a portrait of a country riven by insoluble differences as it is about a family split by secrets and betrayals, living in a country where people are hurting and adrift, bombarded by too much information and too few connections, unable to see one another through the drifting smoke of fires set by people who don’t care about the consequences.” (Barbara Fister)

Chris Chibnall, Death at the White Hart – “It’s not cozy – this is not the sort of village you’d want to live in, and the villagers’ eccentricities are not especially heart-warming – but as a traditional mystery it has the familiar elements of a well-produced BritBox drama.” (Barbara Fister)

Laura Lippman, Murder Takes a Vacation – “The book feels like a classic mystery, unique for the characterization, but not really for the plot. It’s more fun than it is an intellectual challenge… it was a pleasure to spend some time in Mrs. Blossom’s company, and I can recommend it as a light mystery novel.” (Sharon Mensing)

Eliza Reid, Death on the Island – “It has a classic locked room feel to it, with no one character being central to the plot, but rather all being under suspicion when a murder takes place. ” (Sharon Mensing)

Mary Anna Evans, The Dark Library  – “Mary Anna Evans has combined a love of old-fashioned Gothic tropes with feminist sensibilities… It’s an original celebration of the Gothic tradition, replete with a brave heroine, dark secrets, and brooding landscapes.” (Barbara Fister)

Christina Dodd, Thus With a Kiss I Die – “… the main characters are strongly portrayed and given some real depth. The mystery itself is convoluted enough to offer a nice puzzle and drive the plot, but the characters are the real stars of this novel.” (Meredith Frazier)

Lori Roy, The Final Episode – “Thrillers that develop characters with deliberation, doling out surprises carefully, are often called “slow burns.” That’s not quite the right metaphor for this novel. It’s more of a gathering thickness in the atmosphere, a heaviness that threatens to pull the characters in…” (Barbara Fister)

The illustration at the top of the page, by the way, is by Edward Penfield, who put a cat on his bookplate. We liked his evocation of June as a time to read on the cover of an 1896 issue of Harper’s, but we can’t resist cats, either. So here is his personal bookplate, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Thomas and Mercer
Published June 24, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Jenny Jones is thrilled to return to the edge of the Big Cyprus swamp with her father, a summer tradition. She’s about to turn eleven, and that’s the age when she will join the women in her lineage by being granted the gift of second sight, as her beloved grandmother Dehlia has explained. She’s also happy to be at their vacation home because she’ll be able to play with her friends, twins Tia and Mandy. She doesn’t have any friends back in town. All the kids think she’s a witch and a weirdo who killed her mother during childbirth. Having friends, even for just a few weeks, means a lot. But a shadow falls over her summer plans when a helicopter flies overhead. It must be looking for Francie Farrow, whose abduction was on the news. Continue reading “The Final Episode by Lori Roy”