Reviews 
Whether it be a book, movie, or something else, here’s a critique.
The Bone Collector
“Everybody’s nightmare … you get into a cab and turns out there’s a psycho behind the wheel.” That’s how The Bone Collector begins. A man and woman fly into JFK. Weary from their travels, they get in a yellow cab. Their intention was to share the ride home to their respective addresses. Instead, they’ll share a… Read More ›
The Old Man in the Corner
“There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation.” An old man sits down at a table beside news reporter Polly and makes this startling observation at the beginning of this collection of twelve short stories. Throughout one may wonder what kind… Read More ›
The Purloined Letter
“He had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble.” The shortest of the Dupin tales, The Purloined Letter is perhaps the most ingenious. The Prefect of the Parisian police pays a visit to Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin… Read More ›
Mystery of Marie Roget
“The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make public, will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, the primary branch of a series of scarcely intelligible coincidences, whose secondary or concluding branch will be recognized by all readers in the late murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, at New York.” In… Read More ›
Murders in the Rue Morgue
“The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis.” Thus begins “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, which first appeared in Graham’s Magazine in 1841 and is widely considered the first true detective story. Although its solution might appear fantastical, Poe’s first Dupin tale lays out the foundation… Read More ›
Vera Caspary’s Laura
“Near the door, a few feet from the spot where the body had fallen, hung Stuart Jacoby’s portrait of Laura.” Imagine falling in love with the portrait of a woman who is presumed dead. The life-like representation, however accurate, draws the interest of the detective investigating the case. His job is to learn everything… Read More ›
Discord’s Apple
Evie Walker’s father has long held a secret that she is aware of, but doesn’t understand. In the storeroom beneath her family home in a small Colorado town, a myriad of objects lay waiting to be claimed or kept from falling into the wrong hands. Glass slippers, a golden fleece, Excalibur… Now Evie’s father is… Read More ›
Second Helping of Murder
A missing girl’s body surfaces in the second book of the Comfort Food Mystery series. Trixie Matkowski “fondly remembers summers as a child spent visiting the shores of Lake Ontario.” Now, Trixie owns the Silver Bullet Diner and the cottages once owned by her aunt and uncle and where she had spent those summers. Unfortunately,… Read More ›
Tequila Mockingbird
Give a literary spin to your favorite cocktails. Author Tim Federle takes his love of cocktails and combines them with a love of literature. What might some of the most famous books inspire? “Pay proper homage to the world’s greatest stories and storytellers” with these inspired cocktails. There’s “drinks for dames”, “gulps for guys”, “bevvies… Read More ›
Black Dog
The title of Stephen Booth’s debut mystery comes from an expression in “some country places” where a person suffering melancholy is described as having “the black dog on his back.” For much of the novel, several characters could be said to have the black dog weighing them down. The story begins ominously. A granddaughter tells… Read More ›
The Poisoned Martini 