The cover of Killing Moon, the most recent of the Harry Hole novels by Jo NesbØ, features a large black dot. It’s a reference to the killing moon of the title, but this black hole could be a stand in for this nearly 500-page time sink. Not that it’s a bad book, but...
A Stolen Child, by Sarah Stewart Taylor, is part of the author’s Maggie D’arcy Mystery series. Maggie is an experienced American homicide detective who has immigrated to Ireland after her husband’s death. Living in Dublin with her daughter and boyfriend (Maybe...
Sleepless City, by Reed Farrel Coleman, belongs to the sub-genre of cop thrillers featuring burned out, morally ambiguous, but otherwise superhuman Irish American detectives. I was reminded of the work of Don Winslow, who, unsurprisingly has a blurb at the top of the...
I have to admit, I was not expecting much when I picked up Central Park West, by James Comey, the former FBI Director. I felt there was a strong possibility the book would turn out to be yet another celebrity author gimmick. (Talking to you Marcia Clark and any number...
Harlan Coben is a great master of suspense, and his most recent book, I Will Find You, does not disappoint. As with any fast-paced thriller, it’s always hard to determine which plot points to reveal in a review. Ten pages in, you’re already in spoiler territory. But,...
Believe it not, Your Book Hound is not always up on the latest from every bestselling author. When I started to read City of Dreams, by Don Winslow, I thought the characters and style seemed familiar. I felt I had met them before in the book, The Force, which told the...
1989, an Allie Burns novel by Val McDermid, is set in (wait for it) the 1989. The cover features the image of a cassette tape, which reminds us (or at least me) that 1989 was a year of technological as well as political and societal change. The book features many...
Crisis, by Felix Francis, is one of a series of novels featuring Dick Francis, a London-based lawyer who works for a crisis management firm. What’s a crisis management firm? The book explains. The firm helps its clients navigate a crisis that could affect their...
If you’re familiar with Linwood Barclay’s work, you’ll recognize the milieu of his 2018 psychological thriller, A Noise Downstairs. Like many of his books, it’s set in suburbia, in this case some small towns on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut. It’s a landscape...
While reading White River Burning: A Dave Gurney Novel, by John Verdon, I came up with an amusing, and almost certainly alse idea of how this series of books came into existence. In my mind, Verdon is telling his agent about his latest book, a literary novel about a...
