Jaq Walker is an aspiring filmmaker whose subject is her hometown of Savannah, Georgia, a “town out of a fable.” Many of Savannah’s denizens agree – the city does resemble a fairy tale, with its lush beauty, storied history, and high society trappings. But Jaq knows that fairy tales and fables are two very different…
I'm fascinated by Australian mysteries. Something about the Australian landscape lends itself well to crime fiction: the bleak, drought-ridden outback serves as the perfect setting for murder. Dirt Creek fits right into this, as the book is named for the town in which it's set (also called "Dirt Town" by its residents). This small, rural place is slowly dying,…
A couple of months ago, at my son’s baseball game, I was asked to help settle an argument between some good friends of mine. Because we were at a sporting event, you might assume that the dispute in question was about a rule of the game or a play that had just occurred. You would…
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore is a lovely, time-bending novel that explores what it's like to truly live life in the moment. At first, this book eluded me. I don’t mean in a literary sense. I mean literally eluded me. I lost this book so many times, it really felt like Oona herself…
Her red torso, decorated with tattoos, is attached to a large powerful tail covered with shimmering black and silver scales. Her head is covered in black dreadlocks infested with various types of sea creatures. When Black fisherman David sees her peeking from the waves near the rocks off Murder Bay, he has no idea of…
Young Mungo begins with a camping trip from Hell, launching a gripping story of the dysfunctional, fascinating Hamilton family. Author Douglas Stuart, who won the 2020 Booker Prize for his literary debut, Shuggie Bain, returns with another coming-of-age story set in the 1990s among the working poor of Glasgow, Scotland. The matriarch of the family, Maureen, gives birth to Hamish as an…
At first glance, The Return of Faraz Ali reads like noir fiction: A police inspector in 1960s Pakistan is sent to the Mohalla, Lahore’s red light district, to cover up the murder of a child prostitute, but his conscience urges him to investigate instead. That is the central mystery of Aamina Ahmad's novel: who killed…
This pulse-pounding thriller grabbed me from the first page and did not let go! Ariel Pryce, middle-aged wife and mother from New York, wakes up in her Lisbon hotel room one morning to find her husband, John Wright, unexpectedly missing. Almost immediately, she goes to the police and to the American embassy, but neither takes her concerns…
Nonfiction books can sometimes get a bad rap for being inaccessible, uninspiring, or uninteresting, but in the hands of the right author, subjects you never knew you had an interest in can come alive. I would be hard-pressed to think of an author and researcher more capable of bringing a subject to life than Candice…
For seven weeks the internet was deluged with news of a famous defamation trial which started after accusations of domestic abuse. Regardless of the verdict, it is clear that domestic abuse can be a difficult crime to prove or unprove. Who is to be believed, the accused or accuser? It may seem baffling that…
