-
2 weeks ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
Domenic Stansberry’s new noir mystery takes it slow, unravelling in beautiful prose the confounding situation of its protagonist, political ghostwriter SE Reynolds. Stansberry – who hasn’t published a novel in almost a decade – has won numerous prizes including an Edgar Award and a Hammett Prize for his past books, and authored one of CrimeFictionLover reviewer PulpCurry’s top books in 2011, Manifesto for the Dead.
-
3 weeks ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
Translated by Amy Bojang — Fifteen years since it was published, German author Leonie Swann’s detective thriller Big Bad Wool has finally been translated into English. It’s the follow-up to Swann’s popular mystery Three Bags Full, which itself has appeared in over 30 languages and is currently being made into a movie starring Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson and Bryan Cranston.
-
1 month ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
Author Matt Goldman is part of that tribe of television writers who have made a successful jump into print. These authors have in common their ability to establish steadily rising action with no lulls and visual imaginations that let them describe scenes so that readers can easily picture them too. And they aren’t reluctant to deploy a little authentic humour. Goldman’s first book, Gone to Dust, was nominated for a number of awards. The Murder Show, will likely garner equal attention.
-
1 month ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
Translated by Astrid Freuler — We’ve been reviewing Hansjörg Schneider’s entertaining stories about the frustrations of Peter Hunkeler, an aging and cynical detective (now retired) of the police force of Basel, Switzerland, ever since The Basel Killings was translated into English in 2021. Basel is located so close to Germany and France that Hunkeler has a second home in Alsace, and the area is almost another character in the stories.
-
1 month ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
Second in this talented team’s genre mashup, The Railway Conspiracy builds on the characters so expertly introduced in last year’s The Murder of Mr Ma. Set in London in the mid-1920s, the series’ main character is Judge Dee Ren Jie, inspired by not only on a real-life Tang Dynasty jurist but also on the traditions of Sherlock Holmes.You’ll also meet Lao She, a university professor who plays Watson to Dee’s Holmes; Sergeant Hoong, owner of a shop selling Chinese goods and a handy presence when...
-
2 months ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
If you’re a fan of stories set in an earthly paradise, you might enjoy Douglas Corleone’s new thriller, Falls to Pieces, about a woman and her teenage daughter living off the grid in Hawai`i. Kati Dawes (her new name) fled from New England with her daughter Zoe (ditto) to the island of Maui two years before the story starts. She fled not only to escape her abusive husband, Jeremy, but also because she had reason to fear she’d be a suspect in the death of her wealthy and tyrannical mother-in-law.
-
2 months ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
This third crime thriller by Wm Stage is a refreshing change of pace in both setting and characters, with a strong feel of gritty reality. Contemporary society’s schisms and Americans’ careless assumptions and prejudices are on full display in this well-paced thriller, which puts St Louis special process server Francis Lenihan in the precarious position of having to break the law if he wants a devious serial killer to get justice.
-
2 months ago | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
Hannah Deitch’s debut, Killer Potential, is one of those stories that sneaks up on you and before too many pages have turned has its claws in you good and solid. The story is a first-person narrative in the voice of Evie Gordon, a 20-something whose early academic promise has fizzled out, leaving her with a part-time, barely-keeping-the-wolf-from-the-door job. She’s a tutor for high schoolers whose wealthy parents can’t see the possibility of failure as something that will work for them.
-
Feb 27, 2025 | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
No doubt many crime fiction readers have eagerly anticipated Presumed Guilty, Scott Turow’s new legal thriller. I know I looked forward to seeing what his character, Rusty Sabich, is up to, now that he’s in his 70s. Rusty, you may recall, was the protagonist of Turow’s first mega-hit, Presumed Innocent, the 1987 bestseller that became a film starring Harrison Ford in 1990.
-
Feb 20, 2025 | 
crimefictionlover.com | Vicki Weisfeld
Virginia Feito’s new gothic thriller, Victorian Psycho, has attracted the attention of readers and commentators not only for its originality, but for its in-your-face macabre violence. It’s graphic. It’s bloody. And in this book, the first-person narrator is the serial killer. She doesn’t murder at a discreet distance, either. No poison here. When toward the end of this 190-page book she tells you she’s holding a cleaver, well, you know . . .
