Book Reviews Archive

Ian MacKenzie's promising, but ultimately flawed, debut novel follows Paul Metzger as he attempts to salvage something from his collapsing relationships with his estranged brother, his ex-wife, and his dying father. This futile existence takes a turn when he gets involved in a street fight, and finds himself being stalked by a violent stranger... >>

In Sum, a compact and attractive new book from Canongate, neuroscientist David Eagleman presents us with forty vignettes that imagine variations on the afterlife. >>

Talk of the Town is the first novel from poet Jacob Polley, a coming-of-age tale set in Carlisle during the summer of 1986, and narrated in vernacular by schoolboy Chris Hearsey. His friend Arthur—never the most stable of kids—has gone missing, and Chris sets out to try and find him... >>

Following an abortion and her break-up with a no-good boyfriend, nightclub singer and mother of two Maria begins receiving death threats. As the situation escalates, she begins to doubt her own sanity, and flees to her childhood home on the coast... Bitter Lemon Press published this fast-moving thriller from Dutch author Saskia Noort. >>

Postscripts is the flagship speculative fiction quarterly from PS Publishing. Issue #18 marks its transition from a magazine to a full-fledged anthology, and is dedicated to new writers. So what does it have to offer? >>

Far North, Marcel Theroux's fourth novel, treads well-worn paths of post-apocalyptic wastelands and the ease with which morality breaks down... but does it add anything new to the mix? >>

Rhyming Life and Death, the latest book from Israeli author Amos Oz, is that gem of the literary world: a novella that takes an idea, explores it with conciseness and wit, and then wraps up before it's outstayed its welcome. >>

The Last Dickens, Matthew Pearl's thriller about a hunt for the missing installments of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, suffers from similar problems to his previous Poe Shadow: an overabundance of background trivia in place of story. >>

In Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel, author Edmund White examines the relationship between the legendary hell-raiser's life and his work, with asides on the impact of Rimbaud's story on White's own life. >>

Now released in paperback by Picador, Little Monsters by Charles Lambert is an insightful and observant novel about different kinds of refugees, from a broken home in 1960s England to immigration in contemporary Italy. >>

Arctic Chill, the fifth novel from Icelandic crime author Arnaldur Indridason, displays the author's abilities at character and his use of Iceland as a setting, but is weighed down by an overabundance of story and characters. >>

The basic facts of Arthur Conan Doyle's life are pretty well known by now, from the creation of Sherlock Holmes to his obsession with spiritualism. Russell Miller's biography helps to link these different aspects of the man into a cohesive whole. >>

This double-review takes a look at Burial, the new novel from author Neil Cross, and compares it to Always The Sun, an earlier novel by the same author—especially in terms of the way Cross uses suspense and horror conventions in the two books. >>

CB Editions have produced another gem in Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl, the final novel from German author Gert Hofmann. The story of a love affair between Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and Maria Stechard has been translated by the author's son Michael Hofmann, who also contributes an afterword. >>

The Maze of Cadiz, the debut novel from Aly Monroe, is a wartime thriller set in Spain and introducing "economic warfare" agent Peter Cotton. The first of a planned series of novels, it's a flawed but engaging story that's low on thrills but showcases its author's eye for character and setting. >>

In Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain, a debut collection of short stories from Kirsten Menger-Anderson, the author uses compact, unsettling prose to follow the strains of madness and obsession across a dozen generations of American doctors. >>

Salon and New York Times critic Louis Bayard has spent the last few years carving out a niche for himself as a writer of historical crime stories featuring real-life individuals and characters from classic fiction. In The Black Tower, he turns his attention to the French Restoration and the exploits of Eugène François Vidocq. >>

In The Minutes of the Lazarus Club, archaeologist and TV presenter Tony Pollard tells a story of murder and espionage in nineteenth-century London. The supporting cast is drawn from famous figures of the day, with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Florence Nightingale, and even Charles Darwin putting in appearances. Pollard's credentials as a historian are solid, but how well does he fare when he brings the historical elements into a work of fiction? >>

In The Lazarus Project, Aleksandar Hemon begins to write about the controversial killing of Lazarus Averbuch in 1908 Chicago, but soon goes off course with the story of a self-absorbed author and a purposeless road trip across the Balkans. >>

In The Cellist of Sarajevo, Canadian author Steven Galloway follows the lives of a handful of citizens of the besieged Bosnian city, tying them together with the story of a sniper charged with protecting the life of an enigmatic cellist who plays adagios for the victims of a recent shelling. >>