Books

The title of the new crime fiction novel by popular author Lee Matthew Goldberg sounds like the name of a circus act. And, indeed, the story includes masks, taking on roles, daring feats and surprising actions – all most definitely like a circus. While in its early stages, you may be inclined to believe –

Maria Hummel’s fifth novel offers the atmospheric story of an old friendship gone awry. As Goldenseal opens in 1990, Edith has arrived in Los Angeles, a city that’s unrecognizable to her after 40 years in Maine. Her destination is a grand hotel she once knew well. Waiting for Edith is Lacey, who has withdrawn not

Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Twitter and Instagram: @rachelsbrittain View All posts by Rachel Brittain Reading Legends and Lattes has

Ten novels. And, an ideal reading list to get you deep into 2024. As in previous years (see the links at the bottom of this article), we’ve prized the new and interesting over the next-in-the-series books to be released over the coming months. It would be easy to select the annual novels due from the

Grief is a devastating stimulus. The manifestations of mental anguish form the subject of Bird Life, Anna Smaill’s elliptical, poetic follow-up to her Booker Prize-longlisted 2015 debut The Chimes. The story centers on two very different women, Dinah and Yasuko. Dinah, a New Zealander, is in Tokyo on a work visa to teach English to

Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Twitter and Instagram: @rachelsbrittain View All posts by Rachel Brittain Despite my dad’s best efforts

In 2023, I was lucky to read quite a few engrossing crime novels, making this year’s top five even harder to select than usual. The list below includes a wide range of types and topics, offering excellent choices, no matter your subgenre preferences. Also, I know books by the leading lights in crime fiction will

In the male-dominated landscape of wartorn 1963 Saigon, Vietnam, Tricia and Charlene are two American wives striving to be the best possible “helpmeets” to their military husbands: sociable, graceful, obedient, obliging. Through author Alice McDermott’s precise, lingering prose, these women otherwise relegated to the margins bloom with agency and empathy. Charlene’s immense business acumen flares

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

Outsiders and othering, control freaks and narcissists, extremes of wealth and poverty – these are some of the themes I picked up on in crime fiction over the course of 2023. A reflection of today’s world? Well, Cosy crime fiction was huge, too, as it usually is when everything feels unstable. However, escapism for me usually

“I’m rooting for, uhmmm, everybody Black,” said actor/writer/producer and “Insecure” creator Issa Rae at the 2017 Emmy Awards. The essential Black TV: Five Decades of Groundbreaking Television from “Soul Train” to “Black-ish” and Beyond, from Washington Post reporter Bethonie Butler, does the same, showcasing prime-time television shows of a “new era in Black television: one

Every year, when I come to write this list, I fret about the books that didn’t quite make my top five. This year, for a change, I’ve found something different to nag at my conscience – the books that I loved but didn’t review. This might have happened for any number of reasons, but I

Ian Ferguson and Will Ferguson are highly regarded Canadian humorists – Leacock Award winners, no less – who now and again joins forces to pen books like How to be a Canadian. Now they’ve turned their satirical eye on cosy crime fiction with a short novel called I Only Read Murder. It is the tale

Over the past year or two we’ve seen a flurry of book titles containing the names of women. These often fall into the quirky and offbeat or cosy categories. The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou is not one of them. Quite the contrary. In 1954, a Greek Cypriot grandmother named Zina Pavlou is in London

It’s been a busy old year, and as a consequence reading has had to take something of a back seat. Which means that I’ve been concentrating on quality over quantity in 2023, while topping up my longing for a cracking good tale by sampling a fair few audiobooks too. But reading is my first love,

Daphne King, trailblazing crime reporter and fledgling amateur sleuth, returns to tackle more Christmas chaos in Ada Moncrieff’s Murder at Maybridge Castle. It’s December 1936 and Charles Howton, black sheep of playwright Veronica Howton’s family, has invited Daphne and Veronica to spend a pre-Christmas weekend in Cumbria to witness the grand opening of his latest

Political corruption, like death and taxes, is always with us, a fact that Chicagoans know better than most. Chicago has long been considered America’s most corrupt city, with one investigation suggesting more than $500 million leaves the system each year to pockets unknown. An incredible number, and the kind of graft that crime fiction authors

It’s been an interesting year for crime fiction trends. We’ve had it all, whether it’s the closed circle mystery novels with hen parties set a remote islands or mountain tops, the return to the gothic crime mystery a la Daphne Du Maurier, or crime fiction with true crime podcasters as the main protagonists. We’ve also

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

Do you watch the news? Does it intrigue you? Or do you avoid it? It’s a tough call. So we’re not sure whether starting our news roundup with a book set in the Middle East is daring or foolhardy. What we do know is that Paul Vidich wrote this before everything kicked off (again) in

It was Hernán Cortés who made the ludicrous claim that Moctezuma voluntarily surrendered sovereignty of the Aztec empire to the Spanish conquistadores. Cortés’ narrative is not easily believed, especially considering that he quotes Moctezuma as referencing the Christian Bible, but certainly there are those who believe that the Aztec people, either out of naiveté or

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

Like gritty noir? If so then indie crime author Martin Ott’s new thriller may be right up your alley. Buddy Rivet has ended several tours in Afghanistan, somewhat – no, a great deal – worse for wear. He just wants to get home to his girlfriend Dierdre in southern Louisiana. But before he’s officially mustered

As I’ve become interested in observing pagan holidays, or sabbats, such as Yule and Mabon, Raechel Henderson’s The Natural Home Wheel of the Year: Crafting, Cooking, Decorating & Magic for Every Sabbat feels right on time. “The sabbats give us a new station roughly every 45 days, at which we can pause and notice the

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

It was a truly impressive year for crime fiction and I got to review some special novels for Crime Fiction Lover – all that in spite of the glut of celebrity novels, some ghost written, which attracted a lot of attention but added little to the genre. This is the time to celebrate, though, and

Written before her death in 2019, and published with the help of her daughter, Katherine Min’s The Fetishist allows Min to pour out something of herself that we might otherwise have sadly missed. Darkly funny, strangely poignant and sometimes startlingly vicious, The Fetishist is a wonderful novel from an author we lost too soon, and

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside

As 2023 draws to a close, it’s comforting to reflect on the fact that, unlike many other aspects of day-to-day life, the crime fiction published this year has been just as good as ever… or, in some cases, even better. From cosy mysteries featuring plucky amateur sleuths to dark and twisted tales of serial killers

A woman seeks refuge in the hot California desert, far away from the pressures of her sick husband and dying father. On a hike, she finds a large cactus with a hole big enough to walk through—which she does, taking her first steps on an adventure of reflection, grief and spirituality. Full of dark humor