Lucy Foley has decided to treat us to yet another instant classic, this time drawing inspiration from the timeless works of Agatha Christie in her latest novel titled The Guest List.
A whodunit murder mystery at heart, it takes us to a remote wedding celebration between a rising television star and a magazine publisher. Everything seemed slated for perfection, until a body suddenly turns up, sparing none from the lens of suspicion.
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The Genetic Storm of the Century
“The Pain Colony” by Shanon Hunt – Experiments of the True Believers
Shanon Hunt Conducts the Genetic Experiment As scientific progress allowed us to manipulate elements on an increasingly smaller scale, somewhere down the line, we've thrown ourselves on the path of genetic research, blowing the door of … [Read More...]
The Decorations Make the Stage
“The Sentence is Death” by Anthony Horowitz – Enemies of the Deceased
Anthony Horowitz Continues Hawthorne's Saga As much as there is a time and place for books which delve deep into misunderstood philosophies and our over-examined … [Read More...]
The Terror of Medicine
“Coma” by Robin Cook – The Hospital without Recovery
Robin Cook Births the Medical Thriller Genre Examining the majority of literary genres, it can be fairly difficult to determine their actual point of origin, to pin-point a specific book by a known author which kicked … [Read More...]
The Magnificent Power of Books
“Ink and Bone” by Rachel Caine – The Pedestal of Knowledge
Rachel Caine Saves the Library of Alexandria Besides the immediate necessities we need to survive, information might be the most valuable commodity available to humankind. At the end of the day, the more accurate knowledge we have on any given … [Read More...]
Familiar Territory
“Thin Air” by Richard K. Morgan – Enhanced Humanity
Richard K. Morgan and The Mars Conspiracy With the recent surge in progress around digital technology, I think we can all understand the correlating rise in science-fiction and cyberpunk literature. After all, humanity has never … [Read More...]
A Saga of Human Insights
“Dune” by Frank Herbert – The Spice of Power
Frank Herbert Opens a Cosmic Saga for the Ages The science-fiction genre has undergone, in my personal observation, more transformation in terms of trends and ideas than anything else in the realm of books. By its … [Read More...]
Explore
“Here and Now and Then” by Mike Chen – The Fickle Rules of our Reality
Mike Chen has certainly done us book readers quite the favour when he finally dedicated himself to publishing his works, namely with one of 2019’s more prominent works of science-fiction, Here and Now and Then.
The story revolves around Kin Stewart, a time-travelling agent stuck in San Francisco in the 1990s, now with a daughter and a life for himself. Suddenly, his rescue team shows up, 18 years too late… but Kin isn’t as keen to come back home as he once would have been.
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“Street Music” by Timothy Hallinan – The End of the Line
Timothy Hallinan has accomplished the great exploit of creating characters many of us have grown attached to over the years with his Poke Rafferty Thriller series, and in the ninth novel, titled Street Music, we’re finally reaching the terminal station.
In this last outing of his, we witness Poke investigating into the disappearance of a cantankerous old gang member, all while contending with the puzzling trials of being a father and seeing his daughter maturing into a woman.
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“Master Class” by Christina Dalcher – Shedding the Pretense of Understanding
Christina Dalcher certainly isn’t content with tackling small and meaningless topics, with her second novel Master Class examining potential extreme our society might yet reach one day.
The story takes place in a society where the worth of individuals is determined by their quotient score (Q), and follows a mother’s efforts to save her daughter who gets transferred to a state boarding school hundreds of miles away after failing a monthly test.
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“The Word is Murder” by Anthony Horowitz – A Partnership with the Morbid
Anthony Horowitz is one of the busiest and most inventive writers in his country, constantly trying the push the boundaries of literary techniques for our amusement.
In The Word is Murder he once again takes a unique path, writing himself into his own novel as the sidekick and chronicler of disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne. Together, they try to unravel the peculiar case of a woman who is found dead six hours after arranging her own funeral service.
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“Last Night in Montreal” by Emily St. John Mandel – Searching for a Vanished Memory
Emily St. John Mandel has made a splash with her recent novels, but the start of her career was no less impressive, when she published Last Night in Montreal. Following a woman by the name of Lilia Albert, we discover she was taken from her mother as a child and is left with no recollection of her childhood.
Determined to somehow find it, she moves from one city to the next looking for any links, shadowed by a private detective… and after a long time searching, she’s on the cusp of making a discovery.
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“The Winter Soldier” by Daniel Mason – The Healer’s Sacrifice
Daniel Mason enjoys taking his readers on grand trips through time and around the world, doing so once again in his novel The Winter Soldier.
Taking us to Vienna in 1914, the story follows a young medical student, Lucius, who dreams of becoming a battlefield surgeon. Instead, he finds himself sent to a remote mountain outpost ravaged by typhus, with only a single nurse remaining. Facing an hour darker and more desperate than he could have ever expected, Lucius is forced to make decisions bound to change the lives of all those touched by his presence.
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“Things in Jars” by Jess Kidd – Child of the Underworld
Jess Kidd is never afraid of pushing her novels in more imaginative directions, and with Things in Jars, her latest novel, she does just this once again, presenting us with Bridie Devine, a female detective extraordinaire finding most of her work in Victorian London’s underbelly.
A case finds its way into her lap, and the repercussions are fated to be larger than anyone can anticipate; a girl with rumoured supernatural powers was kidnapped, and seemingly everyone else wants to get their hands on her.
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“Naked Came the Florida Man” by Tim Dorsey – The Heroic Psychopath
Tim Dorsey has distinguished himself as being one of the more gifted authors today when it comes to writing comedy, being particularly good at exploring the domain of the absurd.
In Naked Came the Florida Man, we embark on just such a wild adventure alongside our returning hero, Serge Storms. This time around, a scenic road trip leads him on the trail of a local boogeyman, whom Serge believes might be the Naked Florida Man who has been causing havoc in the area.
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“Providence” by Max Barry – Alone in the Void
Max Barry has been a distinct voice in the realm of science-fiction ever since he published his first novel over twenty years ago, and he certainly is intent on spreading it further, as he does with his latest novel, Providence.
The premise is quite simple: four people are tasked with manning, but mostly monitoring a space warship sent to wage war against an alien threat to humanity. However, as they travel further into space, the communications are cut off, and the ship becomes less an less reliable, leaving them stranded in the great cosmic void, headed for war all by themselves.
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