In City of Thieves, screenwriter and author David Benioff spins a yarn set during the siege of Leningrad. It's an involving and well-told adventure, but it suffers from a distracting and unnecessarily gimmicky framing device. >>

In The Creator's Map, Spanish author Emilio Calderon combines a wartime thriller with guidebook pedantry. >>

A look at some of the more common mistakes writers make. >>

The Widow's Secret by Brian Thompson, introduces readers to new sleuth Bella Wallis, a writer of Victorian sensation novels who skewers her quarries with damning prose. >>

A Year in the Province, by Christopher Marsh, spoofs the expatriate memoir genre by taking a narrator from rural Spain and sending him to spend a year in Belfast. >>

Some tips for teenagers who are thinking about a career writing fiction. >>