Category: Reviews

St. Martin’s
Published April 7, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

A wolver, according to dictionaries, has two meanings: a person who hunts wolves, and a person who behaves like a wolf. The four main characters in this novel include three wolvers who meet both definitions and One-Eleven – a wolf.

Trace Temple is hunting One-Eleven in the Gila Wilderness as the novel opens,  hired by a shady, secretive militia opposed to the reintroduction of the species. Trace is broke and angry at the government after losing his family ranch, reduced to living in his truck. He’s a gifted hunter, familiar with the back country and a crack shot, but the wolf who leads the pack is wily and skilled. So is a mysterious figure who is on the alpha wolf’s side. It’s only after he nearly dies, dragging himself painfully out of a canyon with a bear trap anchored in his ankle, that Trace decides to forgo the money, wanting the wolf and her cubs to survive.

Continue reading “Wolvers by Taylor Brown”

This has been a wild month for weather: heat waves, blizzards, high winds, and a dust storm that turned the sky red in Australia. It’s a bit like our bookshelves this month for wide-ranging readers. A cozy followed by a tense thriller, followed by a historical, followed by something so original it can’t be classified. We hope there will be something for you here among the books we reviewed in March, even if the weather outside is frightful.

Frances Crawford, A Bad, Bad Place– “… an impressive debut by an author who knows how to bring this particular time and place to life through two endearing, complex women.” Barbara Fister

Tim Sullivan, The Politician – “… a fun series that offers traditional puzzles and a familiar cast of detectives without being either too twee or too realistically grim.” Barbara Fister

Gin Phillips, Ruby Falls – “This sounds like a mashup of an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery with a survival thriller, but Phillips doesn’t lean into either of those genres. She’s more interested in the interactions of Ada with the other characters in a setting of surpassing beauty.” Barbara Fister

Sujata Massey, The Star from Calcutta– “…readers who haven’t become acquainted with Perveen Mistry would do themselves a favor by starting at the beginning.” Barbara Fister

Elizabeth Arnott, The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives – “…this novel inverts the standard serial killer storyline. While the three have insights into the psychology of men who kill women, they are more interested in uncovering the lives of their victims and insisting on their worth in the face of an indifferent police force.” Barbara Fister

T Kira Madden, Whidbey – “a deeply disturbing, fascinating, constantly surprising, beautifully written psychological exploration that will both make you uncomfortable and be impossible to put down.” Meredith Frazier

Elizabth Day, One of Us – “Brilliantly plotted and acutely observed, One of Us is a smart political thriller wrapped inside a family drama that skewers privilege while treating its characters with insight and compassion.” Barbara Fister

E. A. Jackson, Missing – “…the plot of this novel is that of a high-concept thriller, but the execution fits more into the procedural subgenre, with careful and thorough attention to the steps it takes to get to the truth.” Barbara Fister

Stacy Hackney, The Primrose Murder Society -“a fun, fast read that will appeal to cozy lovers.” Barbara Fister

Tana French, The Keeper – “Few writers approach crime fiction with such subtle character development and lyrical imagery as French.” Barbara Fister

 

William Morrow
Published March 3, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Lila Shaw and her ten-year-old daughter Bea desperately need a place to live after her husband is indicted for fraud and goes on the run. Her comfortable suburban existence has been demolished, with their assets seized and her friends all suddenly giving her the cold shoulder. She reluctantly takes up her mother-in-law’s offer to temporarily move into a deceased relative’s apartment at the Primrose, a luxury senior residence, if she will clear out the jam-packed rooms and get it ready for sale. When the owner of the building’s penthouse apartment announces a contest to solve a decades old mystery – the murder of his granddaughter – Bea is eager to investigate. She’s obsessed with true crime, the gorier the better.

Continue reading “The Primrose Murder Society by Stacy Hackney”

Atria
Published March 17, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

During the hot and humid summer of 1990, Detective Inspector Martha Allen of the Met catches a high-profile case. Someone has taken the baby of a couple visiting London from their hotel room. Martha sets the wheels in motion, desperate to find the infant quickly, though there are few clues and no ransom note. Her team is working flat out when the unexpected happens: A young woman brings baby Bella to the police station, claiming to have found her lying on a park bench. Something about the story doesn’t fit, but the powers that be are happy to close a case that was getting so much attention.

Continue reading “Missing by E. A. Jackson”

Viking
Published February 24, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Ben Fitzmaurice is blessed with money, charm, and the confidence that comes of being part of the ruling class. Revolving around his path toward being Prime Minister are his wife Serena, who is discovering that being a wealthy and attractive helpmeet for her husband’s ambitions is not all she hoped for as she enters middle age; Martin, a former schoolmate who did not come from money and never really fit in; and Jarvis who has enough money to buy his way in and a savage appetite, but lacks Ben’s polish. Ben and Serena’s eldest child has always rebelled against her class and has become an activist in a radical protest movement (modeled on Extinction Rebellion). Likewise, Ben’s sister Fliss has chosen a different path but has fallen into addiction. It’s her funeral, after drowning in Bali, that brings them all together just as Ben’s ambitions propel him to the top. But there is a family secret that will derail everything, and it all pivots on a horrific crime.

Continue reading “One of Us by Elizabeth Day”

Mariner 
Published March 10, 2026
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier

Whidbey by T Kira Madden is a tough read. It is also compelling and so beautifully written some passages border on poetry, making you almost forget the horrors you’re reading about as you pause to admire the sheer artistry of the sentences.

And you will want to pause. This is not a fast read, although the plot is constantly propelling you forward and making you want to find answers. But you will need to come up for air periodically, bring yourself out of the dark worlds of the characters and reconnect with “real” life. But an added disturbing layer of it all is that this work of fiction is very, very real–even more so in light of current events.

Continue reading “Whidbey by T Kira Madden”

Berkley 
Published March 3, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Elsie, Margot, and Beverly are friends with only one thing in common: Their husbands are all in prison, charged with murdering women. Living in 1960s Los Angeles, they have bonded largely because they had lived with men, not knowing they were committing horrific crimes. Though they have different backgrounds and distinct personalities, they find common cause when women who are on the fringes of society begin to turn up dead. The authorities assume the murders are unrelated, just the usual fate that sex workers should expect, but they don’t have the insights into serial killers that these ex-wives have.

Continue reading “The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott”

Soho
Published March 3, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

In 1922 Perveen Mistry, India’s first woman lawyer, is hired along with her father to represent an early film star who is being sued by a studio she left for breach of contract. Rochana is a glamorous and powerful figure, but Perveen worries she is being exploited by her husband, who is secretly having financial difficulties funding his new studio. But his troubles grow worse when, the morning after a raucous party celebrating the screening of a new film, one of the guests is found dead. The murder victim was not only stalking Rochana, he was in the British military, responsible for censoring the film that was about to go into theatres.

Continue reading “The Star from Calcutta by Sujata Massey”

Atlantic Crime 
Published March 3, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Ada is fascinated by caves. Her friend Ruby’s husband Leo is, too. When exploring a series of caves under Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga in 1928, he discovers a massive waterfall that he names after his wife. He sets about developing it as a tourist attraction, building a castle and constructing an elevator to take visitors to the falls and deeper, to another series of caverns and crawl spaces. After her first visit, Ada finds herself so drawn to the underground world, she starts sneaking in to explore on our own. After the Great Depression puts a dent in business,  Leo concocts a scheme to bring a “mind reader” to the caves in a stunt that should bring journalists and press attention, hopefully turning into more ticket sales. He doesn’t expect the event to turn his geologic wonder into a crime scene.

Continue reading “Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips”