The Stacks
All book reviews
412 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 217-240 of 412
Blood Lure
by Nevada Barr
The 9th Anna Pigeon. Nevada Barr at Glacier National Park. A grizzly bear, a backcountry camp, and a murder that the bear did not commit.
Sabotage : Alfred Hitchcock Classics
by Lawrence Block
A Lawrence Block-edited Hitchcock Mystery Magazine retrospective. Years of polished short crime fiction with serious editorial selection.
S is for Silence
by Sue Grafton
The 19th Kinsey Millhone. A 1953 cold case investigated in 1987, with extensive flashbacks and a structurally bold approach.
Let's All Kill Constance
by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury's 2003 LA noir. The third novel in his unnamed-narrator LA sequence. Late Bradbury at his strangest and most affectionate.
A Murder in Thebes
by Paul C. Doherty
A Paul Doherty Alexander the Great mystery. Ancient Greek setting, careful research, a puzzle worth your evening.
A Clear Conscience
by Frances Fyfield
A Helen West mystery. Frances Fyfield writing British legal procedural with the moral seriousness the form rarely delivers.
Many Bloody Returns
by Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner's vampire-birthday anthology. A clever theme, a strong roster, and one of the better paranormal anthologies of the 2000s.
Strip Search
by Rex Burns
The sixth Gabe Wager mystery. Rex Burns writing Denver homicide procedural with the kind of patient regional attention the form rarely allows.
The Brave Little Toaster : A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances
by Thomas M. Disch
Thomas M. Disch's 1980 children's novella, eventually adapted as a Disney animated film. Stranger and more melancholy than the film admitted.
Neighboring Lives
by Thomas M. Disch
Thomas M. Disch and Charles Naylor's 1981 literary novel set in 19th-century London's Chelsea district. A small marvel that almost no one reads.
Carnival
by Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear's 2006 SF novel. Diplomats on a matriarchal world, a planet of telepathically suspicious humanity, and the most interestingly compromised first contact in recent SF.
The Wings of Merlin
by T. A. Barron
The fifth and concluding Lost Years of Merlin novel. T. A. Barron giving his YA Arthurian sequence the closing it deserved.
Heartlight
by T. A. Barron
T. A. Barron's 1990 YA SF debut. A girl and her grandfather use light-based physics to travel to a dying star. Genuinely scientifically curious children's fiction.
Papa La-Bas
by John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr's 1968 New Orleans historical mystery. Voodoo, a Creole household, and the master of impossible-crime turning to atmospheric Gothic.
A Song of Stone
by Iain M. Banks
Iain Banks's 1997 literary novel. A castle, a civil war, and a couple whose privilege is unraveling in real time. Bleak and beautifully written.
A Banquet of Consequences
by Elizabeth George
The 19th Inspector Lynley novel. Elizabeth George doing late-period family-secrets and an investigation that genuinely deserves its 700 pages.
Bombshell
by Max Allan Collins
A Max Allan Collins novel about a fictionalized 1962 Marilyn Monroe rescue mission. Pulpy, well-researched, deeply enjoyable.
The Man With the Iron-On Badge
by Lee Goldberg
A Lee Goldberg solo PI novel outside his media-tie-in work. A security-guard turned PI in LA, a missing rich kid, and a sharper book than the cover suggests.
Five Great Novels
by Lawrence Block
A Lawrence Block omnibus collecting Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, and Keller. The form on multiple registers in one volume.
Terminal City
by Linda Fairstein
A Linda Fairstein Alex Cooper novel. Grand Central Station as the case's gravitational center. Fairstein at her most New-York-specific.
Heavenly Pleasures
by Kerry Greenwood
The second Corinna Chapman mystery. Kerry Greenwood deepening the Melbourne baker series with chocolate-shop poisoning.
Even Money
by Dick Francis
Dick Francis (with his son Felix) writing a London-bookmaker mystery. Late Francis in collaborative form, still excellent on the racing world.
Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century
by Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card editing an SF retrospective anthology. His introductions are worth the book on their own.
Magic Street
by Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card writing Black urban fantasy in suburban LA. Risky for him, mostly successful, genuinely strange in the best way.