Police Procedural

Close to Death

Close to Death, a Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery by Anthony Horowitz BOOK 5 Anthony Horowitz novels are more sophisticated than silly, but are excellent, engrossing summer reads. In the Hawthorne […]

How to Choose a Murder Mystery

How to Choose a Murder Mystery Those of us who regularly read crime novels know that despite their down-market reputation, writing an engaging page-turner (I bow to you Michael Connelly) […]

Vengeance

Vengeance by Benjamin Black (Book 5) Another atmospheric, literary mystery from Benjamin Black, a/k/a John Banville, the Man Booker Prize-winning Irish novelist. Dour pathologist Quirke and his colleague Detective Inspector […]

Dr. Quirke Novels

Dr. Quirke Novels by Benjamin Black Another new to me is the series by Booker Award-winning novelist John Banville writing under the pen name Benjamin Black.  I’m not a huge […]

Detective Joe Sandilands

Detective Joe Sandilands Novels by Barbara Cleverly While in NYC I ran across the 8th novel in the Detective Joe Sandilands series by Barbara Cleverly (Strange Images of Death-yummy!)  How […]

The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (Book 10) Despite her gothic prose, the new Louise Penny is also reliably gratifying.   (I have forgiven Penny for her transgressions in The […]

The Keeper of Lost Causes

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen I’m always on the lookout for a new mystery series, so I was thrilled when my cousin Harriet suggested the Department Q […]

The Inspector and Silence

The Inspector and Silence and Munster’s Case by Hakan Nesser Ever since the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, publishers are translating Nordic crime novels into English as […]

The Dinosaur Feather

The Dinosaur Feather by S.J. Gazan My friend Paula introduced me to a new Scandinavian murder mystery The Dinosaur Feather, a first novel by Danish author S.J. Gazan which won […]

Bruno, Chief of Police

Bruno, Chief of Police Mystery Series by Martin Walker Reading Martin Walker’s novels set in the Périgord region of France IS almost as good as being there. Although nominally murder […]

Night Watch

Night Watch by Linda Fairstein (Book 14) Fairstein’s well-oiled formula is crime solving amid the historical, political, or cultural landscape of NYC (entertaining and educational.) In Night Watch, Alexandra Cooper, […]

Believing the Lie

Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George I have (almost) forgiven Elizabeth George for killing one of my favorite characters a few books ago. And when I read her latest Inspector […]

Standing in the Shadows

Standing in the Shadows a DCI Banks novel by Peter Robinson Alice Poole was murdered in 1980; the case remains unsolved. Decades later, DCI Banks and his team investigate the […]

Snowdrift

Snowdrift by Helene Tursten In Snowdrift, Embla Nyström, a Detective Inspector with the Gothenburg, Sweden, police force, investigates the deaths of two well-known criminals  and a cold case involving a […]

Snow

Snow by John Banville a/k/a Benjamin Black About a decade ago, acclaimed Irish novelist John Banville wrote the first in a series of literary crime novels under the pseudonym Benjamin […]