This book, shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, is very hard to categorise. It begins as a kind of police procedural, though one that is at times laugh-out-loud funny. It has elements of horror. And…

This is the first of a series of sci-fi thrillers starring Travis Chase, ex-con and ex-cop. It is unimaginably silly, with a death count to rival actual wars, and yet … I was somewhat intrigued….

I grew up with bialys in New York City. Places that sold bagels sold bialys. When you got bored of bagels, you had a bialy. But fast forward several decades, and I can barely remember…

Peter Hollins has written a good, short, clear book explaining how all us can learn to be more self-disciplined (and get things done). He’s not the first to have done so, but I liked his…

The murder of the former Georgian Interior Minister Noe Ramishvili on a Paris street in 1930 would make a great thriller. It’s an incredible story and it involves a true villain, Lavrenty Beria, who publicly…

Every new book from British author Mick Herron is a cause for celebration. Even when the book isn’t actually a book. This “interlude” is more of a short story — a story in which appear…

I first came across Tim Spector because of COVID. His company, ZOE, launched an app which I and millions of others used to report daily on symptoms, vaccines, etc. Since then I’ve read one of…

A dead junkie is found in an Edinburgh squat, the victim of an overdose. To most cops, that’s barely worth a mention. To John Rebus, it looks like a crime. I didn’t love the first…

This novella (or short story) is the first thing I’ve read by Henry James and it was … interesting. At first the style is a bit heavy, with very long sentences, but over time one…

This is a superb book – well-written and compelling. It tells the little-known (or little-remembered) story of the relationship between the man known as the ‘Pope of Marxism’ and the Russian revolutionaries. Karl Kautsky was…