The Maid, by Nita Prose, published January 4, 2022, is an absorbing mystery that will engage its readers from the start with its elements of the movie Clue, Agatha Christie-esque puzzle, and satisfying twists. Main character Molly Gray (or, Molly Maid as she is known among acquaintances) narrates the story, letting readers into her […]
Read More »
The Dry is a 2020 film adaptation of the Mystery Crime Thriller debut novel by Jane Harper published in 2016. Investigator Aaron Falk played by Eric Bana gets a note. It says, “Luke lied. You lied. You need to be here for the funeral.” The “funeral” is for Falk’s teenage friend, Luke Hadler, his wife […]
Read More »
In a 2009 Guardian article, award-winning novelist John Banville was questioned about whether his Detective novels deserved to be treated as true literature. “When I get up in the morning,” he said dryly, “I ask my wife whether I should write a Booker Prize winning novel, or another bestselling crime book. And we always come […]
Read More »
Elmore Leonard’s Gold Coast is classified as a fiction crime thriller and opens on Karen Di Cilia recognizing that her husband is having an affair with a real estate woman. Karen’s confrontation over the affair seems minimal enough, other than her act of smashing in her husband’s car with her own vehicle in front of […]
Read More »
Was Sherlock Holmes a real person? What’s the difference between a crime novel and a mystery novel? What really happened to all the TP? Survey mystery fiction and its conventions, from the genre’s 19th-century origins to the classic Golden Age puzzle to its many postmodern manifestations. Writers to be studied will include Edgar Allan Poe, […]
Read More »
Book Review by Bianca Blengino The Lady in the Lake is a noir piece by Laura Lippman. The setting is the city of Baltimore in 1966, a time of shifting societal norms around race and gender. Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz makes her own change by leaving a seemingly happy marriage to create an independent passion […]
Read More »
L.A. Requiem is a detective novel by Robert Crais published in 1999. It is the 8th in the series that centers on Elvis Cole, a private detective of the hard-boiled ilk in Los Angeles, California. Cole is brought into the mysterious death of Karen Garcia by his business partner, long-time friend and former Police Officer, […]
Read More »
A true representation of the unflappable sleuth we’ve known and loved since the first Nancy Drew book was published in 1930.
First published in 1985 (coincidently the year I was born), Bufo & Spallanzani, written by the renowned Brazilian writer Rubem Fonseca, combines different crimes and stories, tangled up by the murderer of Delfina Delamare, the wife of a millionaire. The novel tells the story through Gustavo Flavio’s perspective, a writer in crisis that is struggling […]
Read More »
I am diehard Jason Bourne fan. I have read most of the books and watched each movie few times. Yet I am always on a lookout for ass-kicking untraditional-detective characters. I watched Jack Reacher movies; I didn’t love them. These days, I am reading Jack Reacher books and I like him. In all my reading […]
Read More »
Berkeley Mystery Fiction 