The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht Random House, $25.00, 338 pages, ISBN 978-0-679-60436-5 Mystery fiction is generally classified by the following types, according to William G. Tapply: police procedural, private eye, hard-boiled, soft-boiled and cozy. The last being a term describing amateur detectives such as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. The term 'cozy' is derived from a type of teapot sweater used to keep the tea hot. Those are the
Cold Shot To The Heart by Wallace Stroby Minotaur, $24.99. 289 pages, ISBN 978-0-312-56025-6 I’d like to suggest author Wallace Stroby’s newest, Cold Shot To The Heart, the fourth in a series of blue-collar, tough-guy noir crime fiction novels featuring career criminal Crissa Stone. (Can you say it fast, three times? Nah, me either.) The novel begins in New York City, where Crissa is recruited for an armed robbery
Rizzo’s War by Lou Manfredo (Minotaur, $24.99, 290 pages. ISBN 978-0-312-53805-7) Well dang. Here it is time for The Mysterious Book Report number eleven. I thought, since eleven is supposed to be a lucky number, if you believe in four-leaf clovers or other superstitious . . . black cats and such . . . I’d bring a little bit of the unexpected, some good fortune maybe, and do
The Diviner’s Tale by Bradford Morrow (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26.00, 311 pages, ISBN 978-0-547-38263-0) The Diviner’s Tale is part murder mystery, part ghost story, some paranormal and part literary. It’s now on my personal ‘best-books-of-the-year’ list. The author manages to weave all of the disparate elements into a story that will not only keep you turning the pages; you’ll be sorry there aren’t more of them as you follow
The Ranger by Ace Atkins (Putnam, $25.95, 354 pages, ISBN 978-0-399-15748-6) Some of the best thrillers and mysteries are driven by the idea that an ordinary woman or man is somehow caught up in an extraordinary situation. Time and place, or circumstances and events force the protagonist to act. Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s not, but he or she is inexorably compelled to get involved. The Ranger is just
Field Gray by Philip Kerr (Putnam, $26.95, 435 pages, ISBN 978-0-399-15741-7) Have you ever thought about your dreams, noticed how real they seem when you’re asleep? But then when you awake, it’s just in time to escape, or lose the elusive goal that’s always just out of reach? That’s how mine end anyway. But what if you couldn’t wake up? What if your nightmare never ended? What then? How would
The Shortcut Man by P.G. Sturges (Scribner, $24.00, 207 pages, ISBN 978-1-4391-9417-1) Do you like the old black and white crime dramas from the 1940’s? You know the ones I mean, with John Garfield, Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Robert Mitchum . . . Do you long for just one more from the pen of Raymond Chandler, (Marlowe) or Robert B. Parker (Spenser)? If you answered yes, Yes, YES
The Terror of Living by Urban Waite (Little, Brown, $29.99, 304 pages, ISBN 978-0-316-09789-5) There are exceptions, students and professionals for example, but if you’re like most folks, you read to entertain yourself. I know I do. When selecting my next read, I look for reviews, but if they’re not available, I look at the title, the blurbs, or comments by other authors and read the dust jacket to
Red On Red by Edward Conlon (Spiegel & Grau, $26.00, 442 pages, ISBN 978-0-385-51917-5) If Woody Allen had a Harvard degree and was a New York City detective who wrote a novel, Red on Red by Edward Conlon would be it. Red on Red has more angst than a busload of teen-agers have drama. It’s a police procedural with psychological insights into the daily life of a cop, down
Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane (Harper Collins, $26.99, 325 pages, ISBN # 978-0-06-183692-3) I have to preface this week’s Mysterious Book Report by saying that I’ve never read a novel by Dennis Lehane that I didn’t like. Mystic River, The Given Day and ShutterIsland all grabbed me and never let go. Lehane’s newest, Moonlight Mile (Harper Collins, $26.99, 325 pages, ISBN # 978-0-06-183692-3) is no exception. Highly entertaining and