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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I seem to be flipping back and forth this summer between fiction and non-fiction, all of it dealing in some fashion with crime. I usually try to mix other types and genres of books into my reading diet, but the last couple of months have left me craving exclusively works that either imagine mysteries and malefactors, or revisit historical lawbreakers. Below are two of my favorite new books along those lines. Lady of the Lake, […]
Time is running down on The Rap Sheet’s 10th Best Crime Fiction Cover of the Year contest. Editor J. Kingston Pierce says he has “been collecting prospective nominees for the last 12 months now, browsing bookstores and book-oriented Web sites in search of qualified contenders, and watching design-attentive blogs such as The Casual Optimist and Spine Magazine to see what they showcase.” The resulting bouquet of covers is a thing of beauty. And which one […]
Today brings the seventh and final installment in The Rap Sheet’s “Favorite Crime Fiction of 2016” series—just in time for any last-minute shoppers desperate to purchase books for their mystery-loving loved ones. This year, the blog’s well-read critics chose a total of 33 books, including three non-fiction works of particular interest to crime-fiction enthusiasts. The seven posts can be found here: • Part I, by Jim Napier • Part II, by Steven Nester • Part […]
Hard as this might be to believe, 2016 will mark 45 years since the 1971 debut of Shaft, the Richard Roundtree crime-thriller film based on Ernest Tidyman’s novel of the same name. In anticipation of that anniversary, British banker-turned-writer Steve Aldous has composed The World of Shaft: A Complete Guide to the Novels, Comic Strip, Films, and Television Series (McFarland). It represents a nostalgic feast for longtime John Shaft fans and an invitation to others […]
This is patently ridiculous! The Guardian reports today that a small bookshop in Traverse City, a town in northern Michigan that’s known for its cherry crops, has decided to refund the price of Harper Lee’s novel Go Set a Watchman (Harper) to any reader who’s dissatisfied with their purchase of said work. The store states on its Web site: We at Brilliant Books want to be sure that our customers are aware that Go Set […]
So it’s Halloween. That means not only that children are likely to show up on your doorstep this evening, begging for candy (and future dental work), but that Killer Covers’ month-long tribute to American artist-illustrator Robert McGinnis has come to an end. Written by J. Kingston Pierce (who also edits our sister blog, The Rap Sheet), Killer Covers is a site devoted to the demanding art of book design. On October 1, Pierce began posting […]
Like many readers, I expect, I first heard of Kevin Baker following the publication of his 1998 novel, Dreamland. That book, set in New York City in 1910, was “a wild amusement-park ride on a continuous loop,” to quote from Thomas Mallon’s review in The New York Times. Dreamland, he continued, “is historical fiction at its most entertaining and, in a number of spots, most high-handed.” Kirkus Reviews, meanwhile, focused on the book’s “generous display” […]
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