From the category archives:

Mystery

Post image for The Little Death, P.J. Parrish

The Lit­tle Death [2010] by PJ Par­rish is apart of an ongo­ing mys­tery series fea­tur­ing pri­vate detec­tive Louis Kin­caid and the story is set in Florida. Out of maybe 8 or 9 titles by the writ­ing team that make up the PJ Par­rish pseu­do­nym of Kristy Mon­tee and Kelly Nichol there are only three titles avail­able digitally. […]

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Post image for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson [Millennium Trilogy]

The Girl With the Dragon Tat­too (Vin­tage 2009) by Stieg Larrson (author) and Reg Kee­land (trans­la­tor) is the first book in the Mil­len­nium Tril­ogy, set in Swe­den.
The Girl With the Dragon Tat­too was the biggest best­seller last year. The orig­i­nal, Swedish title was “Män som hatar kvin­nor” which trans­lates to “Men That Hate […]

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Post image for Mission Flats, William Landay {Guest Review}

Mis­sion Flats (Dell 2003) by William Lan­day is a crime fic­tion novel that I read and enjoyed sev­eral years ago. I rec­om­mended this book to Maili some time back and asked her if she read it, would she mind doing a review for me? So, here we are…enjoy.
Mis­sions Flats opens with the narrator’s vivid descrip­tion of a preg­nant woman […]

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The Devil’s Star (Ran­dom House UK) by Jo Nesbø and trans­lated by Don Bartlett, is the third book in the Harry Hole series set in Oslo, Norway.
What can I say? I love this series. For crime fic­tion fans look­ing for some­thing new, this series serves up more than just your typ­i­cal police pro­ce­dural.
“The Devil’s Star” […]

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The Ghosts of Belfast (Soho Crime 2009) by Stu­art Neville which is also known as “The Twelve” in the UK, is the first in a brand new series set post-Troubles.
Mr. Neville’s Irish crime novel debut has been praised all over the place and there’s a rea­son for that. The novel is well plot­ted, taut with tension […]

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The Drama­tist by Ken Bruen (St. Martin’s Press 2007) is the fourth mys­tery fea­tur­ing ex-Garda Síochána Jack Tay­lor. The sto­ries are told through first per­son nar­ra­tive and are set in Gal­way, Ireland.
Jack Tay­lor is your typ­i­cal alco­holic PI with all the usual hang-ups that go with that label. Low self-esteem (check), very arro­gant (check), had […]

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Christa Faust, “Money Shot”

by Avid Reader on November 27, 2009

in Book Reviews, Grade B Reviews, Mystery

Money Shot by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime 2008). Ex-porn star, Angel Dare is hav­ing a really bad day. She arrives at a phony shoot and finds her­self beat up, shot at and then left for dead in the trunk of a car.
To make mat­ters worse, she doesn’t even know what the hell’s going on when she later […]

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Harle­quin has decided to re-release their Vin­tage col­lec­tion of crime nov­els with the orig­i­nal cover art. I had no idea that Har­le­quin, which is syn­ony­mous with romance, pub­lished hard boiled mys­ter­ies.
Any­way, the cov­ers are all quite arrest­ing to look at and made me sali­vate to read one. I didn’t know who to start with first so […]

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Evil at Heart by Chelsea Cain is the third book in the New York Times best­selling series fea­tur­ing “the beauty killer” aka Gretchen Low­ell and the dam­aged cop who is obsessed with her, Archie Sheri­dan. The series is set in Port­land, Ore­gon and the nar­ra­tive is told in third per­son present tense.
I know, ser­ial killers aren’t […]

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THE REDEEMER (Harry Hole No.4) by Jo Nesbø and trans­lated by Don Bartlett is apart of a series and is pub­lished by Ran­dom House (UK).
Nor­we­gian crime nov­el­ist Jo Nesbø has penned another page-turner. This man is sim­ply bril­liant when it comes to plot­ting and char­ac­ter­i­za­tions.
There’s not one bor­ing scene in his books. None. Nada. Nesbø‘s […]

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UNDONE (Grant County) by Karin Slaugh­ter is the follow-up to BEYOND REACH pub­lished by Ban­tam Dell. UNDONE marks the merg­ing of two series by Slaugh­ter — Grant County series and the Will Trent series. Is this the end for the Grant County series?
WARNING: The fol­low­ing review con­tains spoil­ers for the Grant County series so if […]

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The Pusher by Ed McBain (who also wrote as Evan Hunter) is the third book in the 87th Precinct series. The series is told in third per­son and has a large cast and diverse set of char­ac­ters. In the after­word, the author sums up the premise of the series say­ing it is about the “con­glom­er­ate hero […]

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Norwe­gian crime nov­el­ist, Jo Nesbø is a best­selling author who has a var­ied and inter­est­ing back­ground. His vast array of expe­ri­ence is evi­denced in this story which is large in scope and depth as far as police pro­ce­du­rals go.
In the US, there are cur­rently only four of his books trans­lated to Eng­lish in the Harry Hole […]

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Trip­tych by Karin Slaugh­ter is the first book in the mys­tery series fea­tur­ing Will Trent. This is a guest review from a reader friend of mine, Melanie. I plan to read this book soon in antic­i­pa­tion of Undone (2009) com­ing in July.

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Grave Goods (Mis­tress of the Art of Death Series) by Ari­ana Franklin (2009) is the third book in the series fol­lowed by Mis­tress of the Art of Death and The Serpent’s Tale. The series is told in third per­son but fol­lows Adelia Aguilar, a Salerno doc­tor who works as King Henry II’s agent as his mistress […]

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