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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A Tang Dynasty judge solves a string of baffling murders

A Tang Dynasty judge solves a string of baffling murders

For readers in the USA or Europe, it can be a challenge to understand law enforcement policies and procedures in countries grounded in non-Western values and assumptions. In China, for example. The Inspector Chen novels of the Chinese expatriate author Qiu Xiaolong show just...

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NONFICTION

A soldier helped build America’s Empire. Then he spoke out.

A soldier helped build America’s Empire. Then he spoke out.

Few know his name today. But over a 34-year military career, Marine officer Smedley Butler (1881-1940) was for long America's most famous soldier. He fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and all of the USA's imperial...

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Popular Fiction

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

Laughs in sci-fi? P. G. Wodehouse did humor better.

The legendary English humorist Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975), known to readers as P. G., wrote about 100 books in a career that spanned much of the 20th century. His output included 71 novels, 24 collections of short stories, 42 plays, three memoirs, and a lot...

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Explore My “BEST OF the category” selections

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?

When people ask me that question, I never know what to say. In a lifetime of reading, I’ve read many thousands of books. And I’ve reviewed well over 2,000 of them on this site. Picking just one as a “favorite,” or even a handful of them, makes no sense to me.

The problem is, I read for many different reasons. Perhaps you do, too. And I read many different sorts of books. Mysteries and thrillers. Popular fiction, especially historical fiction. Science fiction. And nonfiction, history in particular. You’ll find hundreds of reviews in every one of those categories on this site.

Check out our rotating random selection here, culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

A former CIA officer recounts her life in 16 countries in Life Undercover.

Life undercover in the CIA chasing suitcase nukes

Most of us know what little we know about the work of the CIA from novels. Of course, much of that, perhaps most of it, is fanciful. Former CIA officers do write memoirs from time to time, but often, as the Washington Post noted (June 4, 2012), they write to "settle scores about spies." And, as...
The Eye of the Needle is a classic WWII spy novel.

The 40th anniversary edition of Ken Follett’s classic WWII spy novel

British author Ken Follett is best known to a wide public these days for the Kingsbridge Trilogy, his mammoth multi-generational account of an English cathedral town. Together, the three books run to nearly 3,000 pages (and a fourth, a more recent prequel, takes the total to nearly 4,000). They've...
Cover image of "The Reckoning," a John Madden procedural

A terrific John Madden procedural from Rennie Airth

Every five years now the former South African journalist Rennie Airth brings out another police procedural about John Madden, an English police detective whose life spans the two World Wars. In The Reckoning, Airth's fourth book, Madden has long since retired to his farm in the south of England...
The Monkey's Raincoat introduces Elvis Cole and Joe Pike.

Introducing Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, odd-couple private eyes

So, here we've got two guys, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. They're partners in an odd-couple sort of way in a detective agency. Both are Vietnam vets, and they're both as tough as they come. Yet there's little else they have in common. Pike, an ex-marine, owns and runs a gun store in Culver City and...
The Black Dahlia murder is the centerpiece of this novel.

A classic crime novel about LA’s unsolved Black Dahlia murder

No history of Los Angeles is complete without at least a passing reference to the Black Dahlia murder in 1947, when a young woman named Elizabeth Short was brutally tortured, murdered, and mutilated. The case dominated the press for weeks and left a lasting imprint on the city's image of itself. A...
Cover image of "Tightrope," a novel of World War II British espionage

A well-written novel about World War II British espionage

World War II, which was clearly the most consequential event of the last century, is an endless source of rich material for novelists. Here now is Simon Mawer with Tightrope, a tautly written novel about World War II British espionage that spans the time from the run-up to the war to the years...
Cover image of "Pogrom, a book about the shocking event before the Holocaust that highlighted anti-Semitism

Before the Holocaust, the Kishinev pogrom shocked the world

It was the event that introduced the word "pogrom" to the world outside Russia. Its name is little known elsewhere today, but among generations of Israelis and in the homes of many older Jews around the world, the murderous rampage that took place in the Eastern European city of Kishinev on...
Cover image of "Faithful Place" by Tana French, one of the Dublin Murder Squad novels

Reviewing the Dublin Murder Squad novels by Tana French

Tana French's first novel in the six-book Dublin Murder Squad series was In the Woods, which won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards for best first novel. She followed that bestseller with The Likeness (2008). I read both books shortly after their publication. That was before I...
Cover image of "Midnight at Malabar House," the first book in one of the best historical mystery series

A compelling murder mystery set in India after Partition

Some historical mysteries use history as a stage set, with the events and fashions of the time as no more than exotic stage sets. In others, the action serves as a gateway to the history of the period. Vaseem Khan's intriguing debut, Midnight at Malabar House, is among the latter. The novel delves...
D-Day Girls is about the women in the world's first special forces.

The women who parachuted behind German lines and helped secure the Normandy landing

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes In The Secret War, his revisionist history of intelligence in World War II, British historian Max Hastings insists that spies, special forces, and resistance fighters had little impact on the outcome of the war. He makes the case that the Allies's decoding of...

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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