NY: HarperCollins, 2003.
Spokane police detective Caroline Mabry is back, but it’s not so much her story this time as that of the one-eyed Clark Mason, haunted by his past. He turns up in Caroline’s life one swing shift, having been picked up in an empty hotel that’s undergoing reconstruction. In the interview room, he insists he has a homicide to confess to — but only in his own way.
Berkeley: Image Comics, 2012.
I’ve read a fair quantity of graphic novels over the years and I guess I’ve reached the point where I’m usually satisfied to find either a good story rendered in merely competent, minimalist art, or interesting art used to relate a merely passable story. Because I seldom find both. King City is a blazing exception.
(Warrior of Rome, Book 3) NY: Overlook Press, 2010.
I take my history seriously so it’s always nice to find a writer of historical novels who cares enough about his craft to include another thirty-odd pages of commentary, context, discussion of original sources, and glossary at the back.
NY: Random House, 1956.
This was the first of Renault’s historical novels set in the classical Greek world, and it’s still arguably her best, encompassing life in Athens and in the Aegean during the latter stages of the Peloponnesian War.
NY: Berkeley, 2010.
Okay, so it’s late in 1932 and Lady Georgiana, living on tea and toast because her family’s broke and she has no way to earn a living, gets drafted by her cousin, Queen Mary, to go and represent the family at a royal wedding in a castle in Transylvania.
NY: Pantheon, 1958.
I first got hooked on history, and therefore on historical fiction, as a highly imaginative and rather geeky kid living in Europe in the ‘50s. Anywhere we went, I could look around and see buildings and street scenes that were ancient before the United States was even invented, and it affected me on a deep level.
NY: St. Martin, 1992.
Detective Inspector John Rebus of the Borders and Lothian Police (i.e., Edinburgh) is as thorough a Scot as you can find, but in this quite mature third novel in the series he has to go and deal with those foreigners down in London, and it’s not a pleasant experience for him.
NY: Signet, 1982.
Early in his career, King, the modern master of suspense and horror fiction, felt the need for an alter ego through whom he could tell stories of a content and in a style he didn’t feel comfortable doing under his own name, and so he created “Richard Bachman.”
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1973.
Once upon a time, short-form science fiction nearly always made its first appearance in the pulp magazines, of which there were many. The best stories generally were republished in book form, often in thematic collections. The theme this time is just what it says: Deep space, far, far away from Earth and even from the solar system we know and love.
NY: Berkeley, 2009.
As Bowen’s fans know by now, Lady Georgiana of Glen Garry and Ranoch, half-sister of the Duke of Ranoch, is trying to live in the family’s London townhouse on beans, tea, and toast. She’s a granddaughter of Victoria and 34th in the line of succession, but she’s still basically penniless.
As a retired public librarian (very large system in a very large city), I've been writing book reviews for the consumption of other people for more than 40 years. Since 1999, I've been posting my reviews to a personal website, but I'm now shifting my reviewing jones to this blog.
I have been a semi-professional genealogist since the 1960s and I have another blog of book reviews in the field of family research! To read those, go to BookSmith's Genealogy Book Reviews.
