It’s been too long since I’ve posted but I’ve been busy reading so many good books I couldn’t stop, and now I want to recommend the best of the group. I’m splitting the list between general/contemporary/literary fiction and mystery/suspense thrillers. A recent blog tour for my last book garnered a number of new subscribers, many […]
I don’t read a lot of essays and I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I make an exception when Ann Patchett is reading her own essay collections. The combination is perfect and I savor every word. The essays are so intensely personal and revealing and so honestly delivered that the audiobooks deserve […]
The Vixen I always pick up a Francine Prose novel with trepidation, only because of the commandments in her wonderful 2011 guide, How to Read Like a Writer. Her rules include: read very slowly, assume the author chose every word for a reason, know that every mention of a book or a piece of music […]
I’ve always been skeptical of books released after an author’s death. Too often they turn out to be written by another writer working from an outline or a brief start by the better author, frequently at the greedy pushing of heirs or a publisher. In a few cases, it’s been a novel that the author […]
Nothing is what it seems. Remember that as you romp through Fredrik Backman’s latest gem of a novel, Anxious People. The bank robbery that begins the book isn’t actually a bank robbery, and the resulting hostage situation that follows in an apartment across the street isn’t really a hostage situation, not to mention the rabbit […]
I’ve read a lot of crime fiction over the past couple of years–first because I was writing my own and lately because I’m trying to decide whether to write another. Three that I read recently are very different but all excellent, no doubt because the authors are skilled and experienced. I’m happy to recommend all […]
Soon after my new novel, The Question Is Murder was released, I was invited by Mystery and Suspense magazine to write a feature story examining the history and attraction of political mysteries, with a list of some of my favorites. Here are the first few paragraphs of that story, with a link for those who want […]
When Mystery & Suspense magazine asked me to write an article about political mysteries for July posting, I immediately thought of one of my favorite novels, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré, who died in December. I pulled the novel off my bookshelf, thinking I would skim a few pages to refresh my […]
