Mal Warwick on Books: Insightful Reviews and Recommendations

Most citations of awards in the mystery, thriller, and suspense field mention the Edgar, Gold Dagger, Anthony, and International Thriller Writer Awards. But the categories used by these four awards don’t match. And as you’ll see, the awards themselves don’t often, either.

For example, the

Every once in a while I’m shocked to learn anew that the American news media has missed the mark in its reporting of events around the world. Masha Gessen’s portrait of third-term Russian President Vladimir Putin, The Man Without a Face, is an excellent case in point. Now, a decade and a half after Gessen’s meticulous account of Putin’s dark history, we know just...

Anthony Horowitz possesses one of the crime genre’s most original minds. He’s proved it over and over again in scores of novels and several long-running television series. But nowhere is his cunning intelligence more in evidence than in The Word is Murder. It’s the first of what are to date six mystery novels about the odd couple of Hawthorne and Horowitz. Yes, t...

Some of us, schooled in idealized portraits of ancient civilizations such as Rome and Greece and China, jump to conclusions about how history is repeating itself when we see superficial similarities to what we think took place thousands of years ago. Of course, we do know that history doesn’t repeat. But perhaps Mark Twain was wise to observe that it often rhymes, reveali...

Milo Sturgis is not your cookie-cutter homicide detective. He’s gay, for one thing. But there’s more. A lieutenant with the LAPD’s highest close rate, he’s claimed a privileged existence largely insulated from demands by his superiors. Except that this time around an assistant chief is insisting that he take on a 36-year-old cold case because someone influential has gotte...