

Review of Harmattan Season by Tochi Onyebuchi
I was taken with the premise of conflicts and mystery in a post-colonial West African city, but I didn't feel very connected to or...
Jun 10


Review of The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker
Walker offers an unreliable main protagonist, her dedicated new psychiatrist, increasingly inexplicable and complicated occurrences, and...
May 27


Review of I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Harpman's slim novel poses a mysterious situation without promising concrete explanations. Our main protagonist knows little about her...
May 22


Review of Murder by Memory (Dorothy Gentleman #1) by Olivia Waite
The playful tone and clever main protagonist in Olivia Waite's science-fiction novella make for an appealing mystery and lay the...
May 13


Review of Saltwater by Katy Hays
The glamorous setting of Capri is the star of Saltwater . I struggled to care about the characters' sense of life-and-death stakes...
Apr 17


Review of The Life We Bury (Joe Talbert #1) by Allen Eskens
The pacing of The Life We Bury built from slow and steady to a whirlwind. It always seemed clear that we would have clean resolutions to...
Apr 16


Review of The Child Finder (Naomi Cottle #1) by Rene Denfeld
I love a frigid setting, and Rene Denfeld's The Child Finder immerses the reader in an icy, wild forest as instinctive, savvy, and...
Apr 10


Review of Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch
Pony Confidential is a cute story of a bond between a pony and its long-ago owner. It's nominally a mystery, but it's mainly a...
Apr 9


Review of Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
In Hall's Broken Country , characters do their duties, find wondrous love, feel heartbreak, suffer tragedies, sometimes act impulsively,...
Apr 1


Review of Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
The author of the fantastic Wrong Place, Wrong Time is back with a smart, twisty mystery that's wonderfully heavy on character...
Mar 20


Six of My Favorite Mystery Reads of the Year
Six Great Bossy Mystery Reads I didn't read as many mysteries last year as I typically do, but here are six of my favorites. I'm hoping...
Feb 21


Review of Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie #6) by Kate Atkinson
Atkinson's cozy, Agatha Christie-style novel features former lawman Jackson Brodie, a mystery within a mystery, a real-life killer who...
Jan 16


Review of Pines (Wayward Pines #1) by Blake Crouch
In the first book of Blake Crouch's haunting mystery trilogy, secret agent Ethan Burke tries to grasp the shifts in time, widespread...
Nov 21, 2024


Review of The Trap (Alias Emma #3) by Ava Glass
In the third Emma Makepeace novel, British spy Emma goes rogue in order to save world leaders and prevent an assassination at the hands...
Sep 19, 2024


Review of The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett
A leviathan lurks in the ocean, threatening destruction on a grand scale, while an unorthodox, brilliant investigator and her stalwart...
Aug 22, 2024


Review of A Tempest of Tea (Blood and Tea #1) by Hafsah Faizal
The first installment in Faizal's Blood and Tea series offers intriguing secrets, a swirling mystery, terrible betrayal, heartwarming...
Aug 21, 2024


Review of The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby is a historical fiction art-focused mystery told in two timelines. I found the story immensely...
Aug 13, 2024


Review of All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
Whitaker offers several interconnected storylines, and while each one individually appealed to me, I felt a growing lack of connection to...
Jul 23, 2024


Review of Sleeping Giants by Rene Denfeld
I was taken with the main characters of the past storyline here: a young boy at a children's home and his unlikely best friend. When his...
May 15, 2024


Review of King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis
The gothic story King Nyx offers haunting imagery, sinister mysteries, unreliable memories, resurfacing past trauma, missing persons,...
Mar 12, 2024