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Back on the mean streets
Bob Moyer has been reading Walter Mosley’s new series again – with pleasure. By Robert Moyer WHEN THE THRILL IS GONE. By Walter Mosley. Riverhead Books. 368 pages. $26.95 Leonid McGill makes only his third appearance in Walter Mosley’s new series, but we’ve seen his kind before — the hard-boiled kind. Short, stocky and deadly,…
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Intrigue and danger in Victorian England
Anne Perry is one of the best historical novelists writing today. Her books are literate, thoughtful, thought-provoking and intriguing. Obviously, she has done a great deal of research, yet her stories are told so naturally that the reader is immersed within the world she creates without being distracted by too much thinking about how she…
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Kellerman on his game
What has Bob Moyer been reading lately? It’s a mystery. By Robert Moyer MYSTERY. An Alex Delaware Novel. By Jonathan Kellerman. Ballantine Books. 320 pages. $28. Mystery would seem a presumptuous title for a genre all about them. The Mystery here, however, is merely the moniker of an older-than-she-looks bimbo trolling the Internet for an older-than-the-hills sugar…
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If it’s spring, it must be Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie
Spring brings an abundance of new life and activity in the briar patch outside. Two bluebirds, I suppose a pair hoping to nest, have been ferociously attacking the windows of the office (a former screened porch) where I write. I’d love for them to find a home close by, but I just don’t think inside…
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Into Africa
Once his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books became hits, Alexander McCall Smith came out with an impressive number of other series. McCall Smith was born in what is now Zimbabwe, taught law at the University of Botswana and medical law at the University of Edinburgh, and lives in Scotland. Either he’s extremely prolific, or…
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Bricks and bullets
Here’s Bob Moyer again, this time in D.C., taking a look at the second book in a new series. By Robert Moyer AGENT X. By Noah Boyd. William Morrow. 391 pages. $24.99 Take a deep breath before you begin this book. The Bricklayer, a cross between James Bond and Sherlock Holmes (with a touch of…
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Much more than meets the eye
There he goes again. Not long back from the mean streets of L.A., and before that, the Perigord region of France, Bob Moyer is now on a fictional journey to Japan. By Robert Moyer THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X. By Keigo Higashino. Minotaur Books. 298 pages. $24.99 A Japanese police procedural centered around a lunch…
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No. 2 in the spotlight
Bob Moyer is prowling the mean streets again. By Robert Moyer THE SENTRY. By Robert Crais. Putnam. 320 pages. $26.95. For most of his life between the pages, Robert Crais’ Joe Pike has played a terse Tonto to Elvis Coles’ loose-lipped Lone Ranger. Joe has a symbiotic albeit secondary relationship — Elvis detects, Joe protects.…
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Victorian England as you’ve never seen it
If you’re looking for a fictional change of pace, and want a heroine who’s definitely not like the girl next door, Carol K. Carr’s debut novel may be just your cup of tea – or perhaps, more aptly, your glass of whiskey. By Linda C. Brinson INDIA BLACK: A Novel of Espionage Mystery. By Carol…
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A breakout book?
Anne Barnhill, who spends much of her literary time these days in 16th-century England, steps into a different world to review a book by a fellow North Carolina writer. By Anne Barnhill THE BANKER’S GREED. By p.m. terrell and T. Randy Stevens. Drake Valley Press, Palari Publishing. 441 pages. $16.95, paperback. p.m. terrell is a…