Donnybrook by Frank Bill Farrar, Straus and Giroux, PB, $15.00, 240 pages, ISBN 978-0-374-53289-5 Have you ever heard of a place in Ireland called Donnybrook? It’s an area just outside of Dublin, and the site of the legendary Donnybrook Fair. A charter for it was given in the early thirteenth century and it was held annually over the next six hundred years during August and September for fourteen days.
The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell Harper Collins, $25.99, 309 pages, ISBN 978-0-06-220984-9 The novel we’re reviewing this week is one of the most talked about this year. After reading it I understand why. It’s a mystery that concerns itself not with who did it, but instead with How long can they get away with the crime? It’s written by a native of Scotland named Lisa O’Donnell in
Hit Me by Lawrence Block Mulholland Books-Little Brown, $26.99, 337 pages, ISBN 978-0-316-12735-6 The summer reading season is getting underway and this weeks book selection was chosen because it’s ideal for reading in short intervals as time allows. It consists of three novellas, all linked together around two central themes: the first being extraordinary and the second arcane. It’s great crime fiction that transports the reader to another time
A Killer In The Wind by Andrew Klavan Mysterious Press, $25.00, 296 pages, ISBN 978-0-8021-2067-0 Have you ever had a premonition that came true? A dream perhaps, so lifelike and real that you could almost swear it actually happened? Maybe . . . you’re one of the millions of us who did inhale, way back there in college . . . or even one who tried some of the
The Night Ranger by Alex Berenson Putnam, $27.95, 387 pages, ISBN 978-0-399-15972-5 Okay. We admit it . . . this one is special . . . one we’ve been looking forward to for a while. It’s our Double Diamond Jubilee: MBR number 100. That’s right . . . this is our one hundredth book review. And it’s just in time for the start of the summer reading season, so
City of Saints by Andrew Hunt Minotaur Books, $24.99, 321 pages, ISBN 978-1-250-01579-2 I’m willing to bet that most Americans don’t know jack about Mormons, or Mormonism, or Salt Lake City, Utah . . . the heart of the Mormon empire. If they happen to be a little more savvy than their follow citizens, some few might recognize the Mormon Tabernacle choir from their Christmas concerts on television, or
Extinction by Mark Alpert Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, $25.99, 373 pages, ISBN 978-1-250-02134-2 Ever heard about something called the Singularity? It’s an interesting noun with a couple of different meanings. First, according to my Oxford English Language Dictionary, there’s the general definition: The state or condition of being singular. Then there’s the math & physics usage: The point at which something becomes infinite. The third, and for
The Black Box by Michael Connelly Little, Brown, $27.99, 403 pages, ISBN 978-0-316-06943-4 The Black Box by Michael Connelly, is another chapter in the continuing story of one of the best tough guys to ever come along in crime fiction, Detective Sergeant Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch of the Los Angeles Police Department. He’s past mandatory retirement age and still on active duty thanks to a five year extension called the
Ratlines by Stuart Neville SOHO Crime, #26.95, 352 pages, ISBN 978-1-61695-204-4 It’s well known, well documented fact that after World War II in Europe, many National Socialists . . . Nazism tried to avoid answering for their war crimes by fleeing to Argentina and Brazil. Others like Werner Von Braun and his racketeers from Peenemunde; a place that used slave labor from concentration camps in hidden underground factories to
The Collini Case by Ferdinand Von Schirach Penguin/Michael Joseph, $33.00, 190 pages, ISBN 978-0-718-15919-1 Secretly, every writer fantasizes about their book becoming a best seller. Whether it’s fiction or non, every person pecking at a computer keyboard, or scritching away on yellow foolscap late into the night, harbors a dream of being heard: that their words and ideas will be so compelling, great masses of readers will pay attention