Reviews

The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Deborah Blum tells the tale of the birth of modern forensic medicine. Set against the backdrop of Prohibition, moonshine and corruption, this nonfiction offering reads like a crime thriller. The science of the book is accessible without being condescending.

Historical Fiction is set in the past, either before the author’s birth or at least 50 years in the past. The main characters are generally fictional but the settings are usually real and attempt to accurately capture the history, manners and social conditions of the times. Attention to historical facts and detail is imperative.

On a day like any other day, the Others arrived. Their mothership lit up the sky and the human race was forever changed. The Others came in waves taking away electricity, bringing upon the world a plague, sending out evil drones to take care of the survivors, and now, they have taken on the form of humans.

Before reading Doc by Mary Doria Russell, the only thing I knew about the famous Doc Holiday was that he looked remarkably like Val Kilmer and often suggested his peers might be Daisies. What a delight to read about this fascinating and complex gentleman. Russell tells Doc’s story from the very beginning; John Henry Holiday’s birth. His hold on life was tenuous from the start, as he was born with a hare-lip.

“Today I moved to a twelve acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water.”  Al Capone Does My Shirts is set in 1935 on Alcatraz where Capone is an inmate working in the prison laundry.

When Thomas Avery’s son, Daniel, is killed in the Pyrenees, Thomas leaves California to retrieve Daniel’s body.  Once he gets to France, Thomas discovers that Daniel was walking the Camino de Santiago, which is a pilgrimage that is, at its roots, spiritual but is taken for many other reasons.  For his own personal motives, which are both glaringly obvious and maddening

Skulduggery Pleasant is an ace detective and master of elemental magic.

I was looking for a mystery for this month’s Mystery Boot Camp, and I came across Alpha, the kind of book I love to read—suspense/thriller. Jad Bell, an expe

In Eden Valley, Alberta, Canada, in July of 1882, Grace Eileen Henderson finds herself in a situation that may end up killing her and her little sister, Belle.  Alone in the world, they listen to Thornton Winch, a man who calls himself a travelling preacher, when he promises them protection and safety.  Instead, he holds Belle hostage in order to for

This story is really three stories woven into one, spanning the entire existence of time itself. That is not to say the story begins with the creation of the universe, but rather the creation of time.