You can always tell when a pro is clicking on all cylinders. "Smoke and Whispers" (Soho Constable, 978-1-56947-564-5), Mick Herrons fifth novel, crackles from the start as writer Sarah Tucker arrives in northern England to identify the... Read More

Sharon Potts does such a solid job in the first half of "In Their Blood" (Oceanview, 978-1-933515-62-5) that the second half, especially the superheated climax, suffers by comparison. Young, spoiled Jeremy Stroeb returns from Europe and... Read More

Tanguy Viel has been much praised in his native France, where "Beyond Suspicion" (New Press, 978-1-59558-156-3) was a bestseller. Its a lyrical, mesmeric story of KIDNAPPING AND BETRAYAL, more a long short story than a novel, and more of... Read More

You can enjoy Elizabeth Spann Craig’s "Pretty Is as Pretty Dies" (Midnight Ink, 978-0-7387-1480-6) for the mystery, which centers on WHO BLUDGEONED the most hated woman in Bradley, North Carolina. You can also enjoy it for Myrtle... Read More

FOR AN UNUSUAL HEROINE in an unconventional mystery, try "Little Lamb Lost" (Oceanview Publishing, 978-1-933515-51-9) by Margaret Fenton. Her protagonist, social worker Claire Conover, shows herself as smart, human, and maybe too brave... Read More

Only an experienced writer like Malcolm Shuman could write a mystery like "The Levee", because it takes the confidence of experience to strip away the usual conventions and present a coming-of-age story with a dark whodunit at its heart.... Read More

When a fiction writer concocts a plot in which the fate of the world is at stake, the reader becomes a confederate, suspending belief in the expectation that plenty of fun will result. The author has an obligation as well: He or she... Read More

It sounds like the plot for a thriller by someone like Robert Ludlum. In 1931 Germany, Nazi thugs shoot and wound several men at a dance hall. The incident triggers three months of violence. When the suspects are brought to trial, a... Read More