James Patterson & Howard Roughan: You’ve Been Warned

The Patterson bestseller factory has turned out another high-drama thriller, this time in collaboration with Honeymoon coauthor Howard Roughan. You’ve Been Warned may not be his best, but it is good.
Kristin Burns, a New York City nanny and aspiring photographer, is devoted to the two children under her care, but her desire for [...]

The Return: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery, by Hakan Nesser

Hakan (Håkan) Nesser is another of the brilliant Swede crime writers who have been translated into English recently. He is a skilled writer, with well developed plots in his books, and has written a series of books about Inspector Van Veeteren. As you will see when you read The Return, Van Veeteren is a likable, [...]

The Crime genre - what is hot in crime books?

I suspect this is a great question with a multitude of possible answers. Like beauty, hot-ness most likely resides in the eye of the beholder. Even when the topic is crime books.
Regardless of the pitfalls involved in raising and attempting to answer this question, Maxim Jakubowski of Guardian attempted to do this a few years [...]

The Great Train Robbery, by Michael Crichton

The Great Train Robbery, an old thriller by Michael Crichton (first published in 1975) takes us to the underground world of betrayal and crime in Victorian England.
We witness, first-hand, probably the most intriguing money hoist in history. We travel with Edward Pierce, a criminal mastermind, and discover how he puts together a team of specialists [...]

As The Crow Flies, by Jeffrey Archer

Jeffrey Archer is another of my favorite authors. He is a strange fellow. Made an ultra-rapid political career, had to withdraw. Have recently spent some time in prison. Has been made a baron -  Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare. And much more strange stuff. However, regardless of all that, he is a wonderful writer and a [...]

The Ice Princess, by Camilla Lackberg

(Forthcoming, April 2008 - review based on the Swedish edition.) Camilla Lackberg (Läckberg in Swedish) is a young (born 1974), very talented writer. She was voted Swedish Writer of the Year for 2005. Her books have so far sold 1.5 million copies. She is another of the many talented Swedish crime writers.
The Ice Princess takes [...]

Darkest Evening of the Year, by Dean Koontz

The author of The Darkest Evening of the Year, Dean Koontz, has written several #1 New York Times bestsellers. He is a great storyteller that entertains and enlightens readers with novels that capture the essence of our times even as they bring us to the edge of our seats. The Darkest Evening of the [...]

Last Night at the Lobster, by Steward O’Nan

Last Night at the Lobster is an interesting and enjoyable book written in a quiet mood about life and love in the working world. A tale about ordinary life, with ordinary, real people in it.
The story is about Manny De Leon, manager of a Red Lobster restaurant in a dismal section of Connecticut. The franchise [...]