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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!

 

Kill Decision

Killer drones menace the USA in this military technothriller

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Over the past two centuries, industrial technology has played an increasingly critical role in warfare. From the telegraph, ironclad steamships, and Gatling guns of the 19th century to the supersonic aircraft, computer-directed artillery fire, and drones of the...
Cover image of "Remnant Population," a novel about alien encounters

Alien encounters of the strange kind in a captivating sci-fi novel

Stephen Spielberg's iconic film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, appeared in 1977, starring Richard Dreyfuss and François Truffaut. Nearly forty years later, in 2016, Arrival covered similar territory with a cast headed by Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. Both films featured uniquely original...
Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders, in which the comedian solves two murders

Groucho Marx solves two baffling murders

For most Americans who recognize the name, Groucho Marx was one of the three Marx Brothers who headlined a series of 1930s Hollywood comedies, most famously Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, and A Night at the Opera. Yet to me he was the hilarious host of the radio and, later, television...
Maelstrom

Worlds collide with Earth in an entertaining First Contact story

The Bermuda Triangle. Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster. The Mary Celeste. Legends like these never seem to die. But is there a common thread that links them other than what how unlikely they seem? You'll never find a more colorful answer than in Maelstrom, the eleventh novel in Peter Cawdron's...
King of Spies reveals the shameful reality of America's role in the Korean War.

The shameful reality of America’s role in the Korean War

We know very little about America's role in the Korean War. History books relate how Kim Il-Sung's North Korean army invaded the South. They tell us that the invasion succeeded in driving US and South Korean troops down the length of the peninsula. Then, we learn, General Douglas MacArthur saved...
Cover image of "The Best of Our Spies," a superb World War II spy story.

An extraordinary World War II spy story grounded in historical fact

A number of excellent nonfiction books have been written about the exploits of British Intelligence in World War II, some of them by the practitioners themselves. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben McIntyre stands out among recent examples. The title refers to what was...
Cover image of "Falling in Love," the 24th book in a long-running series

No excuse for this latest in a long-running series of detective novels

By all accounts, Donna Leon's long-running series of detective novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti is widely popular, even loved. I wish I could understand why. Falling in Love, the 24th installment in Leon's series, is an insipid tale of an opera diva and her violence-prone stalker. I...
Cover image of "The War Widow,"

An Australian private eye stumbles into a big mystery

What we've got here is an effort to launch a new Australian private eye series. Fair enough. It's set in Sydney in 1946. Billie Walker is now the proprietor of B. Walker Private Inquiries, established by her late father. Billie had reported from Europe during World War II. She married a fellow...
The Colonel's Mistake

A spellbinding MIddle Eastern spy story

Mark Sava's long tenure as the CIA Station Chief in oil-rich Azerbaijan has made him one of America's leading experts on the country's next-door neighbor, Iran. Now retired but still living in Baku, he is teaching at a local university and working on a book. He can't help but continue to take a...
Noumenon is a great example of visionary science fiction.

A visionary science fiction novel with hard science at its core

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes At its best, science fiction stretches the mind to its limits and beyond. Classic works such as Olaf Stapledon's Starmaker and Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy roam throughout the universe, spanning millions or even billions of years and offering a glimpse of...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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