Category: Mysteries

  • The unkindest cut?

    Apologies for the headline, but Bob Moyer so often toys with puns and literary allusions that he incites others to try the same. In this review, the inimitable Bob amuses us by commenting wryly (?) upon our nation’s capital while reviewing a “gritty, atmospheric” novel set in that city’s “sleazy streets.” More good news: George…

  • Of crime and the river

    Ah, happiness. Hardly had I finished listening to Elizabeth George’s latest as an audio book when I started reading Deborah Crombie’s new mystery novel starring Scotland Yard’s Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. Inevitably, because they are both women writers who live in America and write British police mystery/suspense fiction, George and Crombie are often compared.…

  • Annapolis and beyond – a mystery

    I’ve stayed on the Naval Academy parents’ e-mail list-serve even though my son graduated in 2010. I stay because I hope that occasionally I can help some parent of a current midshipman, plus I enjoy reliving (some of) the memories. My unwillingness to let go paid off recently when another parent gave a heads-up about…

  • Lynley, lies and secrets

    Elizabeth George is one of a handful of women whom, as I’ve said more than once, I’d like to BE. She’s an American who’s made a grand success of writing British police/suspense novels. That means she gets to spend lots of time in England doing research and write it off as a business expense. As…

  • Different landscape, same allegory

    Bob Moyer reviews James Lee Burke’s latest offering, featuring Dave Robichaux, evil and fools. By Robert Moyer FEAST DAY OF FOOLS. By James Lee Burke. Simon and Schuster. 463 pages. $26.99 In a James Lee Burke novel, the landscape always comes alive. The Louisiana bayous where Deputy Sheriff Dave Robichaux parlays justice reek of the evil…

  • Wexford is still Wexford

    I’ll be tidying up from 2011 for a while. Somehow, life intervened, and I got behind with reviews toward the end of the year. Here’s a review of a book that Bob Moyer read during his trip to Germany, a review that somehow did not get posted in a timely fashion. But hey, the book’s…

  • H Is for Happy New Year

    When it comes to mysteries, I usually like cozy, village-type mysteries better than ones featuring hard-boiled detectives and on-page violence. But there are exceptions. I enjoyed Sue Grafton’s series starring P.I. Kinsey Millhone way back when she was working through the early letters of the alphabet. Then somehow I lost touch with Kinsey around “M”…

  • Not really a Christmas book – but who cares?

    This book arrived at the same time as several Christmas-themed volumes, so naturally I thought it was another holiday story. After all, its title is Twelve Drummers Drumming. So I put it on the stack right under Anne Perry’s annual Christmas mystery. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the action takes place in the…

  • Back to the beginning

    Bob Moyer has kindly sent me an early Christmas present: a new review for Briar Patch Books. I’m most grateful, as always. By Robert Moyer THE AFFAIR. By Lee Child. Delacorte Press. 405 pages. $28. REACHER: THE PREQUEL.  How about REACHER BEFORE HE WAS REACHER?  Whatever you call it, this adventure is proto-Reacher. Lee Child takes…

  • Need Christmas spirit? Read (or listen to) this book

    Talk about getting into the Christmas spirit: In the past couple of weeks, I’ve read two enjoyable novels in which a murder is committed at Christmastime in a large English country house where lots of people (i.e., suspects) are snowbound. Save from those details I’ve just listed, the two books could hardly be more different.…