Articles by J. Kingston Pierce

Aussie Women in the Spotlight

August 1, 2021 J. Kingston Pierce 0

First came the finalists for this year’s Ned Kelly Awards. Now we have what’s being billed as the “rather long shortlist” of contenders for the 2021 Davitt Awards, organized by Sisters in Crime Australia and intended to recognize to “the best crime and mystery books by Australian women.” The Davitt Awards take their name from Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), Australia’s first crime novelist. From a total of 127 books in contention, 25—including a dozen debut novels—have […]

Two Can Play at That (Spy) Game!

July 21, 2021 J. Kingston Pierce 0

It’s not easy keeping up with Max Allan Collins’ literary production. Over the last nine months alone, that Iowa-based author has come out with Skim Deep, his ninth novel starring a professional thief known only as Nolan; what I believe is the 15th “Trash ’n’ Treasures mystery,” Antiques Carry On, penned by Collins and his wife under the joint pseudonym Barbara Allan; his sixth Caleb York western adventure, Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek (on which the […]

Crime Fiction: Moonflower Murders
by Anthony Horowitz

November 19, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

Three years ago, author-screenwriter Anthony Horowitz’s Golden Age-style whodunit, Magpie Murders, won critical applause on both sides of the Atlantic. And not without ample justification. The novel introduced us to Susan Ryeland, one of the editors at a minor London publishing house, who was busily working her way through the manuscript of the ninth, and apparently concluding, entry in author Alan Conway’s best-selling mystery series starring Atticus Pünd, a 65-year-old half-Greek, half-German concentration camp survivor […]

Non-Fiction: Scoundrels and Spitballers by Philippe Garnier

November 4, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a writer based in San Francisco, California, whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay View, In These Times, CounterPunch, and Noir City. Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen.) Given the scary nature of pretty much everything these days (a raging pandemic amidst widespread disbelief in science; a ruling U.S. oligarchy dead set on destroying anything […]

Crime Fiction: Toward a Final Judgment

October 5, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

Every fall, I start to look back more critically at the many books I’ve read over the preceding months, with an eye toward choosing the top-quality crime-fiction releases of that particular year. Although 2020 has—with its pandemic, its lockdowns and social separations, its economic woes, and its destructive deceptions spread by high political officials—been a time we’d prefer to forget, for the most part, it has at least provided diversions in the form of consuming […]

Non-Fiction: Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen

September 28, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a writer based in San Francisco, California, whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay View, In These Times, CounterPunch, and Noir City. Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about The Deep End by Jason Boog.) Enough books have been published about the D.J. Trump Crime Family to fill a studio apartment. Ace investigative reporters Wayne Barrett and David Cay Johnston have […]

Non-Fiction: The Deep End by Jason Boog

September 16, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a writer based in San Francisco, California, whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay View, In These Times, CounterPunch, and Noir City. Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about No Fascist USA! by Hilary Moore and James Tracy.) In The Deep End: The Literary Scene in the Great Depression and Today (OR Books), journalist Jason Boog writes about the plight of […]

Non-Fiction: No Fascist USA! by Hilary Moore and James Tracy

July 3, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a writer based in San Francisco, California, whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay View, In These Times, CounterPunch, and Noir City. Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about Seth Donnelly’s The Lie of Global Prosperity.) No Fascist USA!: The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements (City Lights) is an important addition to histories of 20th-century anti-racist movements […]

Non-Fiction: The Lie of Global Prosperity by Seth Donnelly

January 21, 2020 J. Kingston Pierce 0

(Editor’s note: This review comes from Ben Terrall, a writer based in San Francisco, California, whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay View, In These Times, CounterPunch, and Noir City. Terrall last wrote for January Magazine about Colin Asher’s Never a Lovely So Read: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren.) Seth Donnelly’s The Lie of Global Prosperity: How Neoliberals Distort Data to Mask Poverty and Exploitation (Monthly Review […]

Investigating Crime for the Holidays

December 17, 2019 J. Kingston Pierce 1

Among the changes I made in my life during these last 12 months was to accept an invitation to join the staff of an independent bookshop serving one of Seattle, Washington’s more upscale neighborhoods. This has succeeded in getting me out of my often lonely office, increasing my contacts with other human beings, and further enlarging my reading tastes beyond crime, mystery and thriller fiction. Nonetheless, my interest in tales of criminality and espionage has […]