Mark Billingham has earned his reputation as one of Britain’s best crime writers due to his series featuring Tom Thorne, a detective serving with the Metropolitan Police. From time to time, he writes books that…
Gabriel Allon has gotten older since the last time I read a Daniel Silva novel. The legendary art restorer / assassin is now the head of the Mossad (not called the Mossad in the book)…
Jay Lovestone, who is largely forgotten today, led an extraordinary life – much of it in the shadows. He was one of the founders of the Communist Party in the US, and rose to become…
Mermaids are lovely, aren’t they? I’m thinking the 1989 Walt Disney cartoon or Daryl Hannah in the 1984 comedy ‘Splash’. Well, Mira Grant, the author of staggering number of horror novels, some of which I’ve…
First of all, they don’t. It’s a provocative title for a book, but ultimately a silly one — and it’s not what the book is really about. John Kampfner offers a wide-ranging view of Germany…
This is the second book I’ve read by this Icelandic author, the first being Moonstone: The boy who never was (2016). These are both very short books (novellas, actually) and both tell the stories of…
As I write this, Atomic Habits has spent 85 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list in the category ‘Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous’. This is extraordinary, and out of curiosity I decided to…
Ben Macintyre is a great storyteller, but to be fair, this is a great story just waiting to be told. Kim Philby is certainly a contender for the title of ‘most successful spy of all…
Three German soldiers — all middle-aged reservists — set out from their base in occupied Poland during the Second World War. Their job is to capture a Jew, any Jew, and return him to their…
Thomas Frank is best known as the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, which was a brilliant analysis of why working class people in America — and not only in Kansas — so often…