The Beige Man
The Beige Man by Helen Tursten In a departure from most Scandinavian crime novels which feature gloomy, hard drinking, isolated detectives of the male persuasion, Tursten’s Swedish Inspector Irene Huss […]
The Arc of the Swallow
The Arc of the Swallow by S.J. Gazan The Arc of the Swallow is the second in Danish author S.J. Gazan’s series featuring Deputy Chief Superintendent Søren Marhauge of Copenhagen’s […]
The Light in the Ruins
The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian In the summer of 1955, Serafina Bettini, the only female detective in the Florence (Italy!)Police Department’s Homicide unit, is assigned the grisly […]
Children of the Revolution
Children of the Revolution by Peter Robinson The death of reclusive Gavin Miller on an abandoned railway line seems inexplicable until Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks rummages through the former […]
The Sound of Broken Glass
The Sound of Broken Glass by Deborah Crombie. Book 15 Detective Inspector Gemma James and her husband are back on the case. Or rather Gemma is back; hubby Detective Superintendent […]
Watching the Dark
Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson Former policeman Bill Quinn is shot with a crossbow arrow on the grounds of his retirement community. Six years earlier, nineteen-year-old Rachel Hewitt went […]
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon What if we made a different choice? What if we attended another college, turned left instead of right, called him back, told the […]
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 (Book 5) and Munster’s Case (Book 6) by Hakan Nesser Ever since the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, publishers are translating Nordic crime […]