Category: Popular fiction

  • From chaos, violence comes a brilliant novel

    Bob Moyer reviews the latest novel by one of his favorite authors. One note: Despite what Bob writes, not all Southerners called the conflict of the 1860s the War Between the States. Some – I think particularly of an elderly woman who owned a historic house in downtown Charleston that a group of graduate students…

  • Good cop, bad system

    Bob Moyer reviews No. 10 in a popular mystery/international thriller series that provides insights into contemporary Russia along with a gripping story. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer INDEPENDENCE SQUARE. By Martin Cruz Smith. Simon & Schuster. 272 pages. $26.99 Moscow policeman Arkady Renko has been a good cop in a bad system, surviving and fighting…

  • Lee Smith alert!

    Once I get over being envious and annoyed that Bob Moyer got hold of this new Lee Smith novel before I did, I will find it and read it. She’s a bright star of contemporary Southern and North Carolina fiction.    Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer.    SILVER ALERT. By Lee Smith. Algonquin Books. 224…

  • Fighting the invisible monster

    Bob Moyer has produced a review in which he manages to use, correctly,  the word “antepenultimate.” He even spelled it correctly. Impressive. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer. DESERT STAR. By Michael Connelly. Little, Brown. 388 pages $29. “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” A witness being interviewed by…

  • Murder at the salvage yard

    Here’s a remarkably good first novel by the latest addition to my list of outstanding North Carolina authors. Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson IT DIES WITH YOU.  By Scott Blackburn. Crooked Lane Books. 304 pages. $27.99. When Hudson Miller was just a boy, his dad “dismantled” what had been a reasonably happy, church-going, middle class…

  • Soldiers, assassins, music and food – Bruno is on the case again

    What can persuade Bob Moyer to take time out from his busy schedule to read a book and write a review? The answer is simple: a new Bruno, Chief of Police novel by Martin Walker. The Bruno novels are always a delicious treat, and it sounds as though this one keeps the tradition alive. Reviewed…

  • Intricate, believable and gripping

    Paul O’Connor is a relatively new convert to the ranks of fans  who read thrillers involving crime and politics, and he can be a tough reader to impress. This novel impressed him. Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor TWO NIGHTS IN LISBON. By Chris Pavone. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Hardcover. 433 pages. $28. When Ariel Pryce…

  • The hunters and the hunted

    Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer THE LEFT-HANDED TWIN. By Thomas Perry. Mysterious Press. 321 pages. $25.95 She survives. Again. No spoiler alert needed here; Jane Whitefield has withstood every danger Thomas Perry has thrown at her in this successful series. She’s a “loser,” someone who helps people in peril of death disappear. She has lost only…

  • Out of control

    Need a vacation novel, one that’s fun and easy to read? Paul O’Connor has a suggestion.  Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor  CITY ON FIRE. By Don Winslow. William Morrow. 351 pages. $28.99, hardcover. Danny Ryan knows trouble when he sees it.  So, when a beautiful woman emerges from the water along the Rhode Island shore,…

  • Another delicious crime entre’e

    Thanks to Bob Moyer, I have another addition to my already lengthy must-read list. Martin Walker’s Bruno novels are pure pleasure, even if they do make me hungry. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer THE COLDEST CASE. By Martin Walker. Knopf. 315 pages, $27. In a Bruno, Chief of Police novel, the past is never past;…