Chris Flynn was an out-of-control teenager who spent time in a youth prison, but he’s kept his nose clean since then. He’s laying carpet one day when he finds $50,000 in cash under some floor­boards. He knows it’s trouble and leaves it there–but someone else takes it. Then the original owners reappear and kill one of Chris’s friends.

Pelecanos is known for both characters and plot, and examining how cir­cum­stances can lead flawed people to make decisions that cause events to spiral out of control. Chris and his father …continue.

Every year when the snow first arrives in Norway, a woman disappears and there’s a snowman in the vicinity. No one’s noticed the pattern until now. Harry Hole, the alcoholic detective inspector, starts seeking the links between the cases.

Nesbø’s novels are gripping but over the top.

Tucker may be a white guy but he’s been cooking Chinese food since he was a child, and he’s good at it—good enough to get a job at a Chinese restaurant as a cook. Then there’s Corinne, trying to avoid the Chinese gangsters who are convinced she has their diamonds.

Lowry shows a light touch in this quirky and en­ter­tain­ing boy-meets-girl story.

Allergies kick in strongly for me at this time of year. Usually a daily an­ti­his­t­a­mine is enough. This morning, I woke up from a poor night’s sleep with crusty eyes, itchy nose, and explosive sneezes. I lasted at work until early afternoon, then came home to take to my bed.

An Irish newspaper magnate has been found with his head blown off by a shotgun. Quirke, the pathol­o­gist, looks into it and realizes that it’s not suicide but murder. As he digs deeper, he finds secrets that the wealthy elite of 1950s Dublin do not want revealed, and he finds himself drawn to the dead man’s French widow.

Benjamin Black (aka John Banville) deftly recreates 1950s Ireland through the eyes of Quirke, who, though well placed, is more of an observer than an insider, and of his …continue.

It’s 1592 and Elizabeth I has ruled England for nearly 35 years. The Virgin Queen has never named her heir, creating both un­cer­tain­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty. John Shake­speare used to be an "in­tel­li­gencer" for the late Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster. With reluctance, Shake­speare is drawn back into that life when the Earl of Essex insists upon com­mi­sion­ing him to find a woman who should be dead—a survivor of the lost Roanoke settlement has been sighted in London. Essex wants her as does his mysterious ally, a …continue.

Eighth and penul­ti­mate book in the Temeraire series, which began with His Majesty’s Dragon. It’s a delightful take on the Napoleonic wars with in­tel­li­gent dragons.

The book opens with William Laurence awaking ship­wrecked and amnesiac on the shores of Japan, where European foreigners are strictly forbidden. His dragon Temeraire fran­ti­cal­ly seeks him, while the rest of the crew think him dead. After being reunited in Nagasaki, they travel on to the Chinese court in Peking and enlist the help of the emperor’s dragons in fighting Napoleon, who has …continue.

India has split apart by 2047, into a dozen competing states desperate for the life-giving monsoon rains. New castes have appeared, as have the new gender of nutes. Aeais (artificial in­tel­li­gences) abound but are strictly proscribed from attaining full sentience. And an asteroid with seven-billion-year-old images of now-living people has been discovered.

McDonald draws together nine people from different walks of life, weaving their tales into one tapestry. India, ancient yet up-to-the-minute, is the vibrant backdrop for this explosion of ideas.

Three years ago, we visited our friends Louise and Melissa in South Florida, and we drove down Highway 1 through the Florida Keys to Key West—the south­ern­most city in the United States. Recently, they sent me a copy of this book.

Henry Flagler was well-known in his own time as one of the Robber Barons of the Golden Age. He founded Standard Oil with John D. Rock­e­feller and became fabulously wealthy. In …continue.

It’s the fiftieth an­niver­sary of the death of my maternal grand­fa­ther, George Victor Clery, on 3rd March 1965. It did not come as a shock to the family. His health was often poor and he had been ill for some time. He was born a month premature on 30th March 1900 and his mother was told she would never rear him. Nev­er­the­less, he grew up to become an avid golfer and tennis player, to marry and father five children, and to live all the way to a brief retirement, though not quite long enough to see any of his grand­chil­dren. Both I and my cousin Siobhán were born in the …continue.