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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

A compelling thriller full of surprises

A compelling thriller full of surprises

Ariel Pryce awakens to a sunny day in Lisbon only to find her new husband, John Wright, missing. After hours waiting for him to turn up, it's clear something's amiss. There's no message, and no sign of him whatsoever. Fearing he's fallen victim to an accident or been kidnapped,...

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NONFICTION

Popular Fiction

A satirical take on British politics at the top

A satirical take on British politics at the top

Meet the Fitzmaurices, a wealthy, aristocratic British family with more than their share of buried secrets. But, like most secrets, they can't remain hidden forever. And as they come to light, the family unravels. But the roots of their exposure lie far in the past at an elite...

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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.

Look to the right for a rotating random selection culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Cover image of "The City and the Stars," fantasy from Arthur C. Clarke

Far-future fantasy from Arthur C. Clarke

Between science fiction and fantasy the line is often blurry. That line is hard and fast when an SF story is firmly grounded in known science. But when a writer ventures far into the future, speculating about the emergence of technologies that bear no recognizable relationship to what is known...

The best spy novelists writing today

The first espionage novels appeared early in the 19th century with the publication of James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy in 1821 and The Bravo in 1831. A few other notable titles were published in the ensuing decades, and Sherlock Holmes got into the act around the turn of the century...
Cover image of "Dark Matter," a novel about the multiverse

A journey into the multiverse

Imagine that every decision you make throughout your life creates a new universe: the old one representing the path you actually take, the new universe conforming to the alternate path. Over the years, then, your life branches into innumerable possible universes. So does the life of everyone else...
Cover image of "Tomorrowville,"

He wakes up to a future dystopian America

For some reason I can't fathom, one of the most vivid fantasies of my childhood was the story of Rip Van Winkle. The celebrated American author Washington Irving published a short story of that title in 1819. His hero is an indolent Dutch-American man in pre-Revolutionary New York who wanders off...
Agincourt

When war was personal and face-to-face

When military historians tick off the greatest battles in world history, the clash between the English and the French at Agincourt in 1415 is invariably on the list. Unlike some other battles, such as Stalingrad and Midway of recent memory, the victory at Agincourt didn't represent a historic...
Cover image of "Dictator," a novel about Cicero

Cicero, witness to history

The Roman empire endured for four centuries as the dominant force throughout the Mediterranean and, in its Eastern manifestation, lasted for another eleven centuries. Yet our picture of ancient Rome is dominated by a few familiar names, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Cato, and Cicero most...
Set in the Everglades, Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

Alligators, pythons, and vampires in the Everglades

A review of Chomp, by Carl Hiaasen. @@@ (3 out of 5). Welcome to the world of Carl Hiaasen, a long-time columnist for the Miami Herald who has written some of the funniest novels ever on environmental themes. This is one of his four novels for young readers.

Cover image of "The Days to Come," a novel about an effort to address climate change

This new President tries to address climate change

People as diverse as Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg, and Paul Hawken, among many others, have advanced scores of ideas about how to address climate change. But is there a single idea that holds the greatest promise of quick, large-scale action? In author Tom Rosenstiel's fast-moving political...

Inside Scientology: set up your own religion, and make a billion dollars

A review of Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion, by Janet Reitman. @@@@@ (5 out of 5). A balanced and objective yet thoroughly damning account of the history of Scientology by an investigative journalist.

Ocean Prey

Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers take on drug smugglers

So, here we go again with our old friend Lucas Davenport, star of thirty previous novels in John Sandford's "Prey" series. Lucas left the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) quite some time ago. He's been a United States Marshal ever since. Still based in the Twin Cities, but he gets...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews to match your taste!

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Mal Warwick

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