It’s a Mystery: “A Father’s No Shield for His Child”
/A gripping thriller, the debut collaborative work from a duo of Danish writers, is the first in a trilogy you won’t soon forget.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “No person is without a shadow”
/Kurt Wallander’s touching swan song shows why his creator Henning Mankell is an acknowledged master of the police procedural.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “A spy causes far more trouble when he’s caught”
/The premise of this elegantly wrought thriller puts a chilling new spin on the notorious British spy ring, “The Cambridge Five.”
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “As My Whimsy Takes Me”
/"The Attenbury Emeralds" is the third novel by Jill Paton Walsh to bring Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, Harriet Vane, Mervyn Bunter, and their companions back to vividly realized life.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “As we say in the trade, we’re going in barefoot”
/John le Carré’s new work is an elegant espionage novel, part Hitchcock, post-Jack Bauer -- the kind they almost don’t make any more.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “Every kidnapper who ever did a snatch says no cops!”
/In S.J. Rozan’s "On the Line" the irresistible P.I. partners in crime, Bill Smith and Lydia Chin, unwittingly enter into a high stakes game of cat and mouse with a psychopath.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “After all is said and done, we’re just dust”
/James Lee Burke’s 18th novel featuring his slightly crazy, completely charismatic Cajun cop, Dave Robicheaux, may just be his best.
Read MoreIt’s A Mystery: “Death, it seems, is taking her own sweet time”
/Norman Green’s Sick Like That features Alessandra “Al” Martillo, a sassy, sexy, edgy, endearing female P.I. whose turf is the mean streets of Brooklyn.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “Motive is the mercury of any case”
/31 Bond Street, Ellen Horan’s debut novel, is a compelling reconstruction of mid-nineteenth century New York and one of its most sensational murders.
Read MoreIt’s A Mystery: “Sometimes the fake relics are more valuable than the real.”
/Lou Berney in his fast and funny debut novel, Gutshot Straight, owes more than a little to Elmore Leonard, in the best of all possible ways. As for Elmore Leonard’s latest, Road Dogs, the master is in top form.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “Sooner or later, everybody pays”
/Irma Heldman reviews The Ghosts of Belfast, Stuart Neville’s grand Irish thriller debut in which the anti-hero, Gerry Fegan, a former IRA hitman, is “touched” as in crazy, and long ago would have been given the death sentence if they’d had anyone with the moxie to kill him.
Read MoreIt’s A Mystery: Mum’s Always The Word
/Red to Black, reports Irma Heldman, is a superb debut novel of espionage set in post-glasnost Russia. Its author Alex Dryden is a pseudonymous British journalist with many years experience on the Russian scene—a fact that only serves to heighten the chilling reality behind the riveting read.
Read MoreIt’s A Mystery: “Men engaged in warfare are all ghosts in the making”
/From Charles Todd, author of the critically acclaimed Ian Rutledge series, comes A Duty to the Dead, introducing Bess Crawford, a World War I nurse, who is feisty, fearless, and fascinating. Irma Heldman joins Crawford on her inaugural adventure.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: With Caviar Comes Money
/Meet Artie Cohen, a Russian Jewish cop with a conscience. In Reggie Nadelson’s Londongrad, he’s got the weight of the world on one shoulder and New York crime on the other. Irma Heldman follows his travels in the latest “It’s a Mystery.”
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “She has a bag full of gold just like Pippi Longstocking”
/They’re back! Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire marks the return of Mikael Blomkvist, the intrepid investigative journalist, and his sidekick Lisbeth Salander, the world-class punk hacker. Irma Heldman is on their trail.
Read More“You can change your name…your job description… But really, nothing changes.”
/With The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer takes his place in the panoply of classic spy fiction—at the very top with Deighton, Greene, and Le Carré. Irma Heldman is on the inside and tells all.
Read MoreIt’s A Mystery: “Ah, what the stage lost when I opted for the police”
/Donna Leon’s eighteenth Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery About Face has Irma Heldman once again seduced by the witty, erudite Venetian cop with a passion for ancient philosophers, modern women, elegant food, and the constant need to make sense out of the often senseless law.
Read MoreIt’s A Mystery: “Don’t be so sure I’m as crooked as I’m supposed to be”
/Dashiell Hammett’s daughter, Josephine Hammett Marshall, hand picked the very talented, three-time Edgar winner Joe Gores to write Spade & Archer, the prequel to The Maltese Falcon. The result, Irma Heldman says, surely has Hammett smiling among the “angels.”
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: The Trouble with Harry
/Norwegian Jo Nesbø, a musician, songwriter and economist, is also one of Europe’s most acclaimed crime writers who, to date, has given us two thrillers that are beautifully spun and deeply evocative. Veteran mystery maven Irma Heldman explores the latest hit from Scandinavia.
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