The Stacks

All book reviews

562 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.

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Showing 529-552 of 562

The Song Is You

by Megan Abbott

Abbott on a real cold case: the 1949 disappearance of Jean Spangler. Hollywood publicist as accidental detective.

The End of Everything

by Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott writing a thirteen-year-old's point of view as her best friend disappears. Quiet, devastating, almost too uncomfortable to recommend.

Pelagia and the Black Monk

by Boris Akunin

The second Sister Pelagia mystery. A ghost on a Volga island, an Athanasian monastery, and Akunin in full Dostoyevsky mode.

The Death of Achilles

by Boris Akunin

The fourth Fandorin novel. Boris Akunin doing the political thriller, with a wonderful villain and the most action-heavy of the early entries.

Last Argument Of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

The final First Law book. Abercrombie sticks every landing he had been setting up for two books, and the result is bleak in the best way.

Double Eagle

by Dan Abnett

Warhammer 40,000 air-combat novel by Dan Abnett. Yes, really. Yes, it is much better than that description suggests.

A Poisoned Season

by Tasha Alexander

The second Lady Emily book. London Season jewel thefts and a Marie-Antoinette obsessive. Alexander hitting her stride.

And Only to Deceive

by Tasha Alexander

The first Lady Emily Ashton mystery. Victorian widow discovers her late husband's secret life among Greek antiquities.

Eliza's Daughter

by Joan Aiken

Joan Aiken's sequel to Sense and Sensibility, told from the point of view of the illegitimate daughter Austen left as an afterthought.

A Perfect Crime

by Peter Abrahams

Peter Abrahams writing the modern Strangers on a Train. A wronged husband and a wronged ex-husband strike a deal.

Remembrance of the Daleks

by Ben Aaronovitch

Aaronovitch novelizing his own Doctor Who script from 1988. Rare case where the novel outperforms the broadcast.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

by Douglas Adams

The Dirk Gently sequel, with Norse gods stranded in modern London. Funnier than its predecessor, slightly less ambitious.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

by Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams writing comic SF detective fiction with time travel, an electric monk, and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

The Turkish Gambit

by Boris Akunin

Fandorin on the Russo-Turkish War. War-correspondent mystery with deep affection for Tolstoy.

Murder on the Leviathan

by Boris Akunin

Akunin doing locked-room mystery on a Suez-bound steamer in 1878. Multiple narrators, a French detective, and Fandorin in supporting position.

The Winter Queen

by Boris Akunin

The first Erast Fandorin novel. A young clerk in 1876 Moscow investigates an apparent suicide and falls down a labyrinth.

Before They Are Hanged

by Joe Abercrombie

The second First Law novel. Three plot threads in three different countries, all going progressively worse. Abercrombie at his peak.

Person or Persons Unknown

by Bruce Alexander

The fourth Sir John Fielding mystery. Bruce Alexander writing 18th century London with a magistrate going blind.

The Absent one

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The second Department Q book. An old boarding-school case the Danish elite would prefer stayed cold.

A Conspiracy of Faith

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The third Department Q novel. Carl Morck investigates a message in a bottle written in blood. The best book in a great series.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

YA semi-memoir about a kid who transfers off the rez to a white school. Funny, brutal, repeatedly banned, deserves to be read.

Reservation Blues

by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie's first novel. Robert Johnson hands his guitar to a kid on the Spokane Reservation. Magic realism with grief in the bones.

Die a Little

by Megan Abbott

Abbott's debut, which announced what her career was going to be about. 1950s LA, two women, and a slow domestic poisoning.

Queenpin

by Megan Abbott

Abbott's noir homage about a young woman apprenticed to an aging mob accountant. Reads like Cain in heels.