Some stories are as much about place and people as they are about plot. This is one such story: a love-letter to the Alaskan wilderness and to the people who comprise its variegated population. There’s a genuine threat prowling the backwoods, of course there is, but the author devotes many more words to exploring the…
A dead body found in a sleepy creek in rural Oklahoma – at first glance, this is a city-slicker fisherman, sneaking some fly-time out of season, who’s slipped on the rocks. But tribal policeman Bill Maytubby and country deputy Hannah Bond aren’t so easily fooled. The fish in dead man’s keep-net are all wrong for…
Next week sees the publication of the latest Bond and Maytubby investigation, Butcher Pen Road by Kris Lackey. We can’t wait to read the latest addition to this superb series, set in rural Oklahoma, and featuring First Nations investigator Bill Maytubby and county deputy Hannah Bond. But in case you’ve not been introduced to these…
If you’ve never read any of the Charlie Parker books before then this is a great place to start. Never mind that it appears to be the umpteenth in the series; it might be the new-for-2020 story but it’s set back in the mists of time, in the late 1990s, shortly after the murderous events…
Take a trip to the Chickasaw nation in rural Oklahoma, where mid-winter sleet strafes the washed-out wastelands and where the ancient mountains resemble sleeping bison on the horizon. Meet tribal detective Bill Maytubby and local police officer Hannah Bond, the yang and yin linchpins of this backwoods manhunt. Ostensibly, Greasy Bend is a murder-mystery, a…
This book has ‘swansong’ stamped all the way through it. The latest in a long line of literary crime novels in the Dave Robicheaux series, The New Iberia Blues reads like the author’s valedictory address. It’s an extended farewell to old Louisiana, as the landmass slowly disintegrates into the ocean and the subtle shades of…
Pull together the pulp perfection of John D Macdonald and the grassroots grit of James Lee Burke; mix with one of Stephen Hunter’s alpha male Swagger clan; add the cross-border corruption of Don Winslow – and then you come close to the tales of the Wolfe family. This standalone focuses on Axel, serving hard time…
The first crop of crime-thrillers of the year is a stunning selection… which bodes well for the rest of 2018. So here are the recent arrivals on our reading shelf. Check out the plot-twisting psychological thrillers, slightly sinister Nordic noir, authentic police procedurals, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, hardboiled and hard-edged black humour, Inspector Montalbano, and…
The MMM Christmas survival guide: send everyone else to a party or the pub. Turn off all devices (apart from ereaders, obvs). Light candles. Raid emergency snack stash. Snuggle up on sofa with a brilliant book. And in case you need inspiration for that last item, here’s our round-up of recent releases in the crime/thriller…
This rural American police investigation is a sheer delight, conjouring characters as credible and a situation as intriguing as you’ll find in James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series. Here the hook is somewhat different: we follow Detective Maytubby of the ‘first people’ Chickasaw Nation as he plunges barefoot into a rough and tumble murder manhunt…
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