The author of this brand new London-based thriller is honest enough to tell readers — in the Acknowledgments — of her debt to the book Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, which was made into…

Veteran author Lawrence Block has pulled together 17 of the best short story writers around today and given each one an Edward Hopper painting — that’s the idea. And it works exceptionally well, and not…

I just learned what ‘flash fiction’ is this week – and this is the first anthology of flash fiction that I’ve read. If this is any indication of how good very short stories can be,…

Flash fiction – stories of up to 1,000 words – is a new way of writing, and one that sounds quite appealing. Nancy Stohlman’s book is a short (as you’d expect) introduction to the subject….

Master story-teller Val McDermid here presents a dozen short stories all loosely connected to the Christmas holiday season. The first one features her well-known crime-fighting duo, Dr. Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, but after…

As a fan of Mark Billingham’s crime novels featuring Tom Thorne, I had high hopes for this very short collection of three stories. I was not disappointed. All three are good, and at least one…

Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male, written on the eve of the Second World War, told the story of a British big game hunter who decided on his own to shoot and kill an un-named European…

Despite the title, this is not a book about war, but about friendship. It tells the simple story of four men serving in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, but has almost no…

This book is a masterpiece – and not the only masterpiece that John le Carré ever wrote. Read it now, and then think about all the other books about British spies you’ve ever read. Le…

For anyone looking for a version of Gone Girl set in North London, this is not the book for you. Or maybe it is — the first half, I mean. Because this a clever book…