Category: FICTION

January 2, 2024

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah **** (of 4)

Gurnah won the 2022 Nobel Prize for literature and it is evident why in Afterlives, a vision of life on the ground in East Africa...

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December 11, 2023

A Line in the Sand by Kevin Powers ** (of 4)

A recently executed body shows up on a beach in Norfolk, Virginia, home to military bases and private military contractors. As the police and a...

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November 23, 2023

Birnham Wood by Eleanor Catton *** (of 4)

The premise is simple enough. A guerilla environmental group in New Zealand, calling itself Birnham Wood, illegally plants gardens on vacant properties. As you would...

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October 27, 2023

All the Sinners Bleed *** (of 4)

Nobody captures underlying racial tension in the contemporary south, wrapped in a crime thriller, as well as S.A. Cosby. His leads–this is Cosby’s fourth in...

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October 27, 2023

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman *** (of 4)

In this fourth installation of the Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman’s four 80-year-old residents (plus or minus, but who can keep track at that age...

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September 21, 2023

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

On the plus side there are very few writers who can match JK Rowling’s (writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) ability to capture personality, dialogue,...

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September 19, 2023

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride **** (of 4)

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a one-room general store owned by Moshe, but run, at a loss, by his warm-hearted, open-minded, club-footed (polio),...

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September 19, 2023

Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins *** (of 4)

An ambitious book that centers the Owen’s Valley in California, the valley’s desertification following rerouting all of the valley’s water to Los Angeles, and the...

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August 2, 2023

Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne **** (of 4)

In 1939, Raymond Chandler wroteThe Big Sleep featuring, Private Investigator Philip Marlowe. Marlowe was the original world weary, cynical PI: hard drinking, self-mocking, and a...

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July 18, 2023

The Poison Machine *** (of 4)

Some authors of historical fiction (see Geraldine Brooks) are so caught up by their research that plot and characters are afterthoughts or cliches applied to...

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