Do you avoid jumping into the middle of a mystery series and insist on reading the 1st book first? I rarely get the opportunity to read a series in consecutive order, so I have no problem starting halfway through, but I do realize this sets me back in the character development. Keeping this in mind,…
This is the second book about opioid addiction that I’ve read in the past few months. Although that seems a bit strange, we are learning that in the background of the Covid-19 pandemic, an even bigger problem is looming, killing more people than ever before: drug overdoses. Long Bright River by Liz Moore is both…
In 2018 an award called “The Staunch Book Prize” began, and it’s awarded to “ a novel in the thriller genre in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.” Although there was lots of criticism surrounding it, it does raise an interesting point, which is the proliferation of violence against women in…
Are you the type of reader that’s affected by book hype? If an upcoming release is getting a lot of attention, does it make you want to read it even more? It’s ok to admit it affects you, that’s why they call it ‘buzz’, it’s so persuasive! Woman on the Edge by Samantha M. Bailey…
I’ve been on a ‘classical’ streak lately; reading The Haunting of Hill House a few weeks ago whet my appetite for the older stuff, so armed with a recommendation from FictionFan, I went to the library in search of some Arthur Conan Doyle. I picked up the tidy little volume of three of his best-known…
Mystery readers are a picky bunch, and I’m allowed to say that because I count myself as one of them. The pacing needs to be tight but not rushed, the detective needs to be believable but not unlikable, and the solution better be conclusive but not obvious. And don’t get me started on too many…
So I feel quite foolish that this is the first Karin Slaughter book I’ve ever read. She’s an America superstar thriller writer that everyone but me is familiar with, as she’s sold over 35 million books and even has a section of her website dedicated to selling t-shirts with her name on them. Where have…
Are you a fan of ‘noir fiction’ ? Do you even know what ‘noir’ means? There are various definitions for it, but I found this wikipedia listing pretty thorough, and the first sentence does enough for my purposes here: “In its modern form, noir has come to denote a marked darkness in theme and subject…
I think this book may be the most ‘masculine’ thing I have ever read, except for maybe a GQ magazine article about belts. The Plotters by Un-Su Kim, translated into English by Sora Kim-Russell features men, lots of men, and they’re either fighting, drinking, joking around, or doing all three at the same time. There’s…
Gilly Macmillan is a New York Times bestselling author, and her latest book is called Odd Child Out, which I devoured a few weeks ago in anticipation of this interview. Her latest novel features returning detective Jim Clemo who is faced with a difficult case; two young boys were spotted in a remote industrial site…
I recorded my last ‘summer’ book segment for the CBC this past week, so I wanted to focus on a popular genre that lots of people get excited about: the police procedural. Aside from mistakenly referring to the author+book title as the title of the first book (no, Michael Connelly doesn’t use his own name…
Do you watch CSI: Anywhere? Do modern day thrillers with drugs, violence and crime interest you? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, there is no doubt in my mind that you will enjoy Every Man a Menace by Patrick Hoffman. The book is split into five different parts, each focusing on a…
