Published by Akashic Books and Cassava Republic Press, 2018, 217 pages. “Lagos never sleeps. Ever. It stays awake long after New York has faded in a long drawn-out yawn, matched only by the vigil of Cairo. ... “By the way a man sits smoking on the hood of his burned-out Mercedes-Benz, it is clear he …
Category: Crime / Thriller
The Devil’s Company: David Liss
Published by Ballantine Books, 2009, 369 pages. This is a gripping story set in 18th century London. Thief-taker[1] Benjamin Weaver is asked by a mysterious man called Cobb to carry out a dangerous assignment. When Weaver declines, Cobb resorts to other means. He threatens three people close to Weaver with destitution unless Weaver agrees to …
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: Michael Chabon
Published by HarperCollins, 2007, 432 pages. “Nine months Landsman’s been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered. Now somebody has put a bullet in the brain of the occupant of 208...” The year is 1998. When, after World War II, plans to create a homeland for …
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The Silence of the Rain: Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
Translated from Portuguese by Benjamin MoserPublished by Picador, 2002, 256 pages. Original version published in 1996. Ricardo Carvalho, a well-to-do executive, gets into his car in a multistoried car park in Rio de Janeiro, smokes a cigarette and then shoots himself. He leaves behind a gun, a briefcase, 20,000 dollars and a note to the …
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And Then There Were None: Agatha Christie
Published by William Morrow and Harper Collins, 1939, 256 pages. “Ten little soldiers went out to dine; / One choked his little self and then there were nine.” Ten people are summoned to a weekend on Soldier Island, a rugged piece of rock off the Cornish coast with a single large house. Some have received …
Small World: Martin Suter
Translated from German by Sandra HarperPublished by Vintage, 2002, 256 pages. Original version published in 1997. Konrad Lang is losing his memory to Alzheimer’s. As his recent memories fade, earlier ones come to the fore. This has Elvira Koch worried. There are secrets buried in Konrad’s mind which, if he unearths, could bring down her …
The Almost Wife: Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Published by Harper Avenue, 2021, 304 pages. “What you see in the bush is rarely what’s really there.” Kira is engaged to the handsome and rich Aaron with whom she has a child, Evie. They live in a beautiful house with Olive, Aaron’s 13-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Aaron loves his daughters and seems …
The Widows of Malabar Hill: Sujata Massey
Published by Soho Press, Inc., 2018, 400 pages. This is more than just a crime novel: by setting it in India in the early 1900s, Sujata Massey paints a vivid portrait of the country and especially of the lives of the women at the time. The book starts in Bombay in 1921. The British are …
Snow: John Banville
Published by Faber Books, 2020, 352 pages. “‘The body is in the library,’ Colonel Osborne said. ‘Come this way.’” This book begins like a traditional English whodunit: with a body in the library in a country house. It’s a cliché—except that John Banville doesn’t do clichés. He uses a murder mystery to paint a portrait …
A Madness of Sunshine: Nalini Singh
Published by Gollancz, 2020, 352 pages. “That was the town Anahera remembered, the town that had suffocated her, the town where there were no secrets—and far too many hidden things.” Anahera is from Golden Cove, a small town in New Zealand’s South Island. She left for the UK, became a well-known classical pianist and married …
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