It’s a Mystery: “No one is infallible or invisible”
/A rare film is the centerpiece of Syndrome E, a cutting-edge, mesmerizing thriller.
Read MoreArchive
It’s a Mystery is a feature of Open Letters Monthly, where Irma Heldman reviews mystery and crime fiction.
A rare film is the centerpiece of Syndrome E, a cutting-edge, mesmerizing thriller.
Read MoreCop to Corpse, the 12th in Peter Lovesey’s Detective Supt. PeterDiamond series, finds the master at the top of his form.
Read MoreCarsten Stroud’s Niceville is a wildly edgy thriller with the heart of a dark comedy--our resident mystery maven reviews
Read MoreP.D. James takes on Jane Austen: a match made in elite whodunit heaven.
Read MoreCarte Blanche is bestselling author Jeffrey Deaver’s new take on James Bond—bringing Agent 007 into the post-9/11 age.
Read MoreA gripping thriller, the debut collaborative work from a duo of Danish writers, is the first in a trilogy you won’t soon forget.
Read MoreKurt Wallander’s touching swan song shows why his creator Henning Mankell is an acknowledged master of the police procedural.
Read MoreThe premise of this elegantly wrought thriller puts a chilling new spin on the notorious British spy ring, “The Cambridge Five.”
Read More"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 MoreJohn 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 MoreIn 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 MoreJames Lee Burke’s 18th novel featuring his slightly crazy, completely charismatic Cajun cop, Dave Robicheaux, may just be his best.
Read MoreNorman 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 More31 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 MoreLou 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 MoreIrma 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 MoreRed 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 MoreFrom 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 MoreMeet 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 MoreThey’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 MorePowered by Squarespace.