Detective Fiction Book Reviews

The death of a rising star in the art world launches a cross-country hunt for dark answers and old secrets in The Haunted Artist by Larry Witham, the fourth installment of the Julian Peale Art-Crime Mystery series.

When reclusive painter Sam Mason is found dead from an apparent overdose, eccentric denizens of the art world mourn the loss of a potential legend gone too soon, but Colleen Mason isn’t sold on the classic tragic ending for her younger brother. She enlists the services of Julian Peale, art crime investigator extraordinaire, who soon discovers a bizarre trail of suspects and clues […]

Relentless in its pace, with brilliant banter that’s a staple of Rich Leder’s writing, and a twisting plot that keeps one turning the pages to the last chapter, Gottiguard is a stellar final entry in the Kate McCall series.

Having already survived three run-ins with her father’s killer – the professional corporate assassin that has been stalking the elite of New York City – Kate McCall is ready for an easy protection gig. The man she’s being paid to protect is a cocky comedian with a stubborn desire to clear his own name of an alleged murder, even if that […]

An intensely suspenseful thriller centering around the investigation of the brutal murder of two young women by a serial killer, Sons of Brutality by Daniel Jeudy is decidedly dark but gripping.

Plumbing the seamy depths, the novel goes underground to find snuff clubs, drug-addled Satanists, occult murder, and the mob. Los Angeles is being bathed in blood as multiple sprees of vicious murders threaten to overwhelm a police department on the brink. Detective Addison Mowbray and his partner Jed are the tenacious sleuths on the hunt for answers, but as they bounce between leads, red herrings, and horrific new crime […]

A spectacular plunge into the dark heart pumping beneath Tokyo’s shining streets, Tokyo Zangyo by Michael Pronko is the fourth stellar installment of his Detective Hiroshi series. From the gripping opening scene that sets a deadly tone, to the breakneck investigation’s dramatic climax, this novel rarely lets up in intensity or intrigue.

Detective Hiroshi Shimizu is once again summoned to the site of a grisly mystery – a bucho businessman named Shigeru Onizuka found splattered on the pavement beneath the building where he’d done his life’s work. However, his work at Senden Infinity also included being a notorious bully and […]