The Stacks

All book reviews

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

Showing 193-216 of 412

The Dog Who Knew Too Much

by Carol Lea Benjamin

The second Rachel Alexander mystery. Carol Lea Benjamin writing a New York dog-trainer turned PI. The dog material is the genuine article.

American Hero

by Larry Beinhart

Larry Beinhart's 1993 satirical thriller. A president faking a war for re-election. The book that became Wag the Dog. Sharper than the film.

Quest for Cthulhu

by August Derleth

Quest for Cthulhu by August Derleth review. A career-spanning omnibus of his Lovecraft Mythos continuation stories. The expansion-tradition's most controversial founder at full strength.

Dark Tide

by Elizabeth Haynes

Dark Tide by Elizabeth Haynes review. A 2012 Kent coast psychological thriller. A woman starting over on a houseboat finds her past has followed her. Carefully structured suspense.

Human Remains

by Elizabeth Haynes

Elizabeth Haynes's 2013 psychological thriller about an epidemic of solitary deaths. Genuinely terrifying, beautifully written, severely underread.

Little Elvises

by Timothy Hallinan

The second Junior Bender novel. A 70s music-industry investigation, a senior-citizen Mafia kingpin, and Hallinan tightening every dial.

Crashed

by Timothy Hallinan

The first Junior Bender novel. Timothy Hallinan writing an LA burglar-turned-investigator with a stolen-art crisis and a teenage daughter. One of the most underread comic-crime debuts of the 2010s.

Death's Excellent Vacation

by Charlaine Harris

The second Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner paranormal anthology. Vacation theme, strong roster, solidly enjoyable.

Emerald Magic : Great Tales of Irish Fantasy

by Andrew M. Greeley

An Andrew Greeley-edited anthology of Irish fantasy stories. Strong roster, careful curation, useful introduction to the Celtic fantasy tradition.

Hunting Season

by Nevada Barr

The 10th Anna Pigeon. Nevada Barr at Natchez Trace, a deer-poaching case that opens into something worse.

Crim on the Coast and No Flowers by Request

by John Dickson Carr

Two collaborative serial novels from the Detection Club. John Dickson Carr, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, and others writing one chapter each.

A Stainless Steel Trio

by Harry Harrison

An omnibus of three Harry Harrison Stainless Steel Rat novels. Comic SF heist work from one of the form's most reliable comic voices.

The Leaning Land

by Rex Burns

A Rex Burns Gabe Wager novel. Colorado high country, an undermined county courthouse, and the kind of regional crime fiction the form rarely delivers.

Centaurus : The Best of Australian Science Fiction

by Damien Broderick

Damien Broderick and David Hartwell's canonical 1999 anthology of Australian SF. Greg Egan, Sean McMullen, George Turner, others. The right entry point.

Blind Date

by Frances Fyfield

Frances Fyfield's 1998 standalone. A traumatized woman ex-cop and the killer who took her sister. One of the British psychological-thriller form's genuine peaks.

Without Consent

by Frances Fyfield

Another Helen West novel. Frances Fyfield writing a serial-rapist prosecution that the Crown Prosecution Service is reluctant to pursue.

Matricide at St. Martha's

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

A Ruth Dudley Edwards Robert Amiss mystery. Cambridge college politics, a poisoned mistress, and Edwards' sharpest satirical voice.

Boy in the Water

by Stephen Dobyns

Stephen Dobyns's 1999 literary thriller. A prep-school psychologist arrives at a new posting and finds the school in slow institutional crisis. Dobyns at his most carefully observed.

Blood on Their Hands

by Lawrence Block

A Lawrence Block-edited anthology with stories from working crime novelists. Block's curatorial instincts at full power.

Like a Charm : A Novel in Voices

by Lee Child

A Karin Slaughter-edited collaborative novel-in-stories with Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Peter Robinson, and a dozen other crime writers. Better than the form usually delivers.