This is one hilarious yarn even though bloodshed begins with the first sentence. The initial spurt of gore emanates from Ed Lowry a loathsome San Francisco landlord who has either fallen or been pushed from the top of the building that... Read More

This novel, like the author’s most famous book, Ordinary People, examines the sadness and loss that lurk just beneath the surface of family life. Sheriff Hugh DeWitt and his wife lost their infant son to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.... Read More

What starts out as a grisly case of serial killing quickly turns personal for Li Yan, head of the Beijing serious crime squad. As the bodies pile up, clues prove nearly impossible to collect, and the clues that do surface seem... Read More

Michael Burke’s debut novel, "Swan Dive", is a deft turn into the modern-day hardboiled detective novel. Pay-ing homage to classic crime writers like Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, Burke delivers neo-noir that is a little more... Read More

If youve ever wondered whether the old Charlie Chan books by Earl Derr Biggers were better than the series of B-movies cranked out in the 1930s, "The House Without a Key" (Academy Chicago, 978-0-89733-579-9), first published in 1925,... Read More

Brian Evenson will stump you-one is tempted to say literally-with "Last Days" (Underland Press, 978-0-9802260-0-3), and for that some readers will give him a hand, and maybe a finger or toe as well. In this mystery-horror combo, the... Read More

Tough, you say you want tough? Tough as nails? How about Mike Hammer on steroids tough? In "A Pure Double Cross" (Blue Steel Press, 978-0-9743199-1-9), even tough guy Hal Schroeder’s landlady is tough. When he tracks bloody footprints... Read More

The prolific Swedish novelist Inger Frimansson scores again with "Island of the Naked Women" (Pleasure Boat Studio, 978-1-929355-56-3), a somewhat bleak psychological picture of the relationships and tensions on a milk farm that EXPLODE... Read More