The Latest

SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A supersecret US spy sets out to prevent a biowar attack

A supersecret US spy sets out to prevent a biowar attack

Few things pose a greater threat to our peace of mind than the prospect of a terrorist attack with a biological weapon. That theme has powered several high-profile thrillers over recent years, including Richard Preston's The Cobra Event, Stephen King's The Stand, and Spasm by...

read more

NONFICTION

The far-reaching and surprising impact of World War II

The far-reaching and surprising impact of World War II

Is it too much to say that World War II "changed everything?" In The Fear and the Freedom, author Keith Lowe makes a strong case to justify the claim. As many as 80 million people died of a global population barely 30 times that number in 1939. Perhaps an equal number became...

read more

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...

read more

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 culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

The Dark Hours

Harry Bosch teams up with Renée Ballard again

Harry Bosch is getting old. Years earlier, he was forced to retire from the LAPD. After a stint with a small police force in the San Fernando Valley, he obtained a P.I. license as a way to continue following up discreetly on the cold cases that eluded him while he was on the job. Though aging, he...
Labyrinth is one of four novellas in the long-running Vorkosigan Saga.

A missing chapter in the long-running Vorkosigan Saga

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949-) has won six Hugo and two Nebula Awards for the long-running Vorkosigan Saga. She deserves them all. At this writing, the series consists of sixteen novels, four novellas, and two short stories. They explore the lives of Lord Miles Vorkosigan and his family over the...
The decline of local journalism is one theme in this hilarious novel.

Carl Hiaasen on religious scam artists, Florida’s natural wonders, and the decline of local journalism

Carl Hiaasen can show you the dark side of life in Florida and make you laugh in the process. In Lucky You, published in 1997, he proves the point again and again. The novel shines a light on religious nuts, redneck scumbags, money-laundering gangsters, and the decline of local journalism as well...
Cover image of "Barrayar" by Lois McMaster Bujold, a novel that is more than a space opera

The Vorkosigan Saga: much more than a space opera

Captain Cordelia Naismith is one of the most compelling characters I've ever come across in science fiction: empathetic but tough, brilliant but self-effacing, loving mother and coldblooded soldier. In Barrayar, the third book in the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, she is now married...
Maisie Dobbs review of To Die But Once

Maisie Dobbs, Dunkirk, and the war at home in England

In the spring of 1940, World War II had been underway in Europe for more than half a year, but the violence had yet to come home to England. Suddenly, on May 10, Hitler's legions rumbled across the borders of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and, finally, France. The 300,000-man British Expeditionary...
Cover image of "The Fourth Durango" by Ross Thomas, a novel about skullduggery

From Ross Thomas, another take on small-town skullduggery

The late Ross Thomas wrote twenty-five novels about crime, espionage, politics, and corruption between 1966 and his death at age sixty-nine in 1995. No two are alike, and every one of them is a gem. Many revel in skullduggery. They brim over with wit, insight, brilliant characterization, and...
Cover image of "Logan's Run," a dystopian classic

A dystopian classic packed with action

Sometimes it's hard to tell why any Hollywood producer would adapt a novel to film. Usually, however, it's perfectly clear what the attraction is. And that is most certainly the case with the classic science fiction thriller, Logan's Run. Authors William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, both...
Cover image of "Sucker," novel about a Silicon Valley scandal

A comic send-up of a Silicon Valley scandal

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Humor is a funny thing. What you find hilarious might leave me cold or even offend me deeply. And my own sense of humor, which some have found quirky, can make me laugh when no one else does. So, I'm prepared to believe that you'll think Daniel Hornsby's Sucker, a...
Cover image of "Gleanings," a novel with a hopeful view of the future

Humanity begins to recover from the Apocalypse

All too often dystopian fiction paints the future all in black and gray. But Alice Sabo's inventive Changed World series is full of life and color. After a killer pandemic late in what seems to be the twenty-first century, one community—presumably among many—painstakingly crawls its way back into...
Cover image of "In the Garden of Beasts," a book about American anti-semitism during the rise of Hitler's Germany

Why the U.S. failed to speak out against Hitler’s rise

In the years 1933-41, a passion for isolationism gripped the American psyche, keeping President Roosevelt from speaking out against the growth of Nazism and the ever-tightening vise of oppression and violence directed at Germany's tiny Jewish minority (less than one percent of the population)....

My Most Popular Reviews

Weekly Reviews Delivered to You!

Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

Love mysteries and thrillers? Historical fiction fan? Prefer to read nonfiction? Or, like me, you just love reading? Take your pick of my three weekly newsletters. Just click the Yes! button, and you’re on your way.

Here you can take your pick of the three newsletters I publish each week. They’re all free of ads, and I never share subscribers’ email addresses with anyone. Just make your newsletter selections below.

Feel free to subscribe to any or all of these newsletters. Remember, they’re ad-free, and I won’t share your contact information with anyone.

Enjoy reading!

Mal Warwick

The latest mystery
& thriller book
reviews every Tuesday.

…includes my latest mystery and thriller book reviews, with links to other content in the genre.

The latest nonfiction book reviews every Wednesday.

…includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.

My latest
book reviews,
every Thursday.

…includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.

The Latest Book Reviews of the Week

...includes summaries and links to all of the week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in the other newsletters.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Mystery & Thriller Book
Reviews Every Week

Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Nonfiction Book
Reviews Every Week

Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Latest Book Reviews of the Week

The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Tuesday's Newsletter

Tuesday's Newsletter

Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Wednesday's Newsletter

Wednesday's Newsletter

Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

The Weekly Newsletter

Thursday's Newsletter

The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.

You have Successfully Subscribed!