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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

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For a century, the spy next door has been a reality

For a century, the spy next door has been a reality

Every self-respecting spy service equips agents with false credentials and dispatches them to conduct espionage illegally in other nations. But one country has been doing so for far longer and on a dramatically bigger scale than all the others. And the practice started more...

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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.

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

Happy reading!

 

A true-life account of a spectacular WWII prison camp rescue

Early in 1945, as the Nazi regime began to crumble and American soldiers, marines, and sailors relentlessly pushed ever closer toward the Japanese home islands, two thousand civilian prisoners of war, mostly Americans, suffered indescribable deprivation at the hands of a sadistic prison camp...
Cover image of "American Midnight," one of the best books of 2022

The 20 best books of 2022

Fair warning: although the headline promises the “best books of 2022,” what follows is not a list of the best books published during the past year. Instead, I’ve chosen not to challenge the New York Times and every other mainstream publication that each year publishes its own...
Cover image of "How to Rule the World,"

Corruption at the epicenter of Silicon Valley

In 2022, a 17-year-old computer wizard named Theo Baker entered Stanford University. Besotted with idealism, he'd come to California believing that Stanford could enable him to make the world a better place. As a "hobby," he volunteered for the Stanford Daily student newspaper. And over the...
Cover image of "Faithless," a novel about a religious cult

In rural Georgia, a gruesome murder and a religious cult

Dr. Sara Linton and Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver take center stage once again in Faithless, the fifth in Karin Slaughter's excellent Grant County series of bestselling thrillers. It's a novel about a religious cult. They had been married, but Sara ended things when she discovered Jeffrey sleeping...
Cover image of "A Closed and Common Orbit" by Becky Chambers, an off-beat space opera

Lovable characters in this off-beat space opera

Becky Chambers has written three books in her Wayfarers series to date. Each is a uniquely off-beat space opera of a sort you're unlikely to encounter anywhere else. The first, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, appeared in 2015 and met immediate and widespread acclaim. It...
Cover image of "Dark of the Moon," a novel involving a right-wing preacher

In Virgil Flowers’ debut, arson, multiple murder, and a right-wing preacher

Virgil Flowers is a horndog who feels compelled to chase every pretty woman under the age of 50. Though his own faith rejects Jesus, he's "the son of a Presbyterian minister and a professor of engineering, who saw in God the Great Engineer and believed as devoutly as her husband." He's been...
Cover image of "Blood Betrayal," a novel about the response to police shootings

Two young men of color die in police shootings

On a single night, two young men of color die at the hands of white cops in Denver and the adjoining town of Blackwater Falls. One, Mateo Ruiz, a Latino, was studying toward a degree as a metallurgic and materials engineer at the Colorado School of Mines. The other, Duante Young, African American,...
Cover image of "Death by His Grace,"

Is the bishop the killer in this African murder mystery?

The title of this African whodunit implies it. The cover illustration for my Kindle edition of Death by His Grace underlines the hint. And there's a lot of evidence to suggest it. But is it true? Is multimillionaire Bishop Clem Howard-Mills of the Power of God Ministry Church the heartless killer...
Cover image of "Jack 1939," a spy thriller starring a young John F Kennedy

Young John F. Kennedy stars in a spy thriller

Sometimes history is best taught (and learned) through fiction -- but only when the story told is firmly grounded in facts. Jack 1939 -- a spy thriller starring a young John F. Kennedy -- is amusing, and it appears credible in its treatment of Kennedy's persistent illnesses and strained...
Cover image of "The Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe," a novel that sparkles with humor in abundance

Humor in abundance at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

There's humor in abundance in the charming little novels of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, but I have never laughed so much as I did when reading the 15th entry in the series, The Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe.  Here, for example, is a conversation between Mma Precious...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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Mal Warwick

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