The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Travis McGee wades into a sordid case of group sex and murder

Travis McGee wades into a sordid case of group sex and murder

Before there was Jack Reacher, there was Travis McGee. Lee Child, who created Reacher, has never been shy about the debt he owes. Neither have Carl Hiaasen, Dean Koontz, and a long list of other bestselling writers. Between 1964 and 1985, John D. MacDonald wrote 21 novels about...

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NONFICTION

The man who taught Donald Trump everything he knows

The man who taught Donald Trump everything he knows

It's difficult to imagine how any single American over the past 100 years could have done more damage to our country than Roy Cohn. Even Senator Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump may bear less responsibility for the harm they've done to millions of lives, because to a great...

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Popular Fiction

The man behind the throne of Rome’s first Emperor

The man behind the throne of Rome’s first Emperor

Ancient history, especially that of Greece and Rome, continues to fascinate many of us even in the 21st century. Many observers continue to find parallels to events in our own time. "Cautionary tales" supposedly abound in the behavior of the Caesars and in the unraveling of the...

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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!

 

The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin

A very odd couple solves murders in this historical novel

It's 1840. A eunuch in service to the Ottoman sultan is, improbably, an accomplished detective, a gifted hand-to-hand fighter, and even a lover of women (or, at least, one woman) in this fanciful but flawed mystery story. Dr. Watson to Yashim's Sherlock Holmes is a Polish Count ejected from his...
Diplomatic Immunity is the 13th book in the amazing Vorkosigan Saga.

Babies occupy center stage in the 13th book of the amazing Vorkosigan Saga

There is something magical about the amazing Vorkosigan Saga. Somehow, after a dozen other novels in the series as well as numerous novellas and short stories, Lois McMaster Bujold has managed to make the thirteenth Vorkosigan novel as engaging and enjoyable as the first. (It's no wonder she has...
Cover image of "The Shape of Water," a novel by Andrea Camilleri

Andrea Camilleri writes about murder in Sicily. What else is new?

There's little of that celebrated Italian charm in The Shape of Water, the first novel by Andrea Camilleri in his widely-read series of crime stories featuring Inspector Salvo Montalbano. The book is set in the town of Vigata in Sicily, where corruption reigns supreme and murder is nothing out of...
Victim 2117 is a Department Q police procedural.

The latest Department Q police procedural takes on terrorists

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes In the previous seven books in the series of Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q police procedurals, we've gotten to know the three, and eventually four, principals in that basement office in Copenhagen Police HQ. There's Inspector Carl Mørck, ostensibly the boss but...
Cover image of "Secret Service," the first in a series of British spy novels

Is Britain about to elect a Russian spy as Prime Minister?

Spy novels are full of stories about the hunt for moles in the CIA, MI6, and other intelligence agencies. It's less common to come across a tale in which the mole is embedded in the uppermost reaches of the political establishment. And perhaps that's no coincidence. Authors of spy literature are...
Cover image of "Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous,"

An entertaining spoof of the right wing Indian government

On May 26, 2014, Narendra Modi assumed office as Prime Minister, heading up a new right wing Indian government. The 64-year-old bachelor represented a sea change in the country’s politics, shifting India from a secular democracy to an increasingly autocratic Hindu nationalist nation. But none of...
Cover image of "The Purity of Vengeance," a novel about forced sterilization

Forced sterilization, fascists, and serial murder—in Denmark

Many Americans harbor an image of Denmark as one of the most progressive and livable countries in the world. That may well be the case—the country's rankings on global indexes support it—but you might well gain a different impression of Denmark if you read the crime thrillers written by Jussi...
Brain Wave

How would you behave if your IQ suddenly doubled?

Just as history books often tell us more about historians than they do about history, genre fiction can reveal a great deal about its authors and the times during which they write. History books fall into disfavor as new information comes to light, making way for new interpretations of the facts....

These novels won both Hugo and Nebula Awards

Most literary awards celebrate a mixed bag of fiction that runs the gamut from pretentious and unreadable to spellbinding. But that tends not to be the case with science fiction. The Hugo Award, conferred annually by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”),...
Cover image of "Americanah," a book about race without blinders on.

Race, without blinders on

Like practically everyone I know, I'm uncomfortable talking about race. Given the unsteady dynamics of relations between Jews and African-Americans, the subject has been particularly fraught with tension for me. From the time in eighth grade when I was ridiculed for befriending a black classmate,...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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