You are browsing the archive for December2012
December 22, 2012
SWEET FABLE ABOUT love, loss, and neighborhood from Sandra Cisneros, with charming art by Ester Hernández.
Grade: SOLID B
HAVE YOU SEEN MARIE?
Knopf
2012
Tags: Art Books, Fiction, Latino and Latina Artists, Latino and Latina Writers, Solid B Reviews
December 21, 2012
THE INTERTWINED LIVES of several generations in a small Turkish seaside town—luminous early Orhan Pamuk.
Grade: B PLUS
SILENT HOUSE
Knopf Doubleday
2012
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Novels
December 20, 2012
BLEAK, COMPLEX POLICE procedural from Swedish crime fiction star Håkan Nesser. Atmospheric, if dour, puzzler!
Grade: SOLID B
MUNSTER'S CASE (AN INSPECTOR VAN VEETEREN MYSTERY)
Pantheon
2012
Tags: Mystery, Novels, Solid B Reviews
December 19, 2012
THE CLASH OF CULTURES dramatized in this sharply witty picaresque novel of Spaniard vs. Arawak in 1520 Jamaica.
Grade: B PLUS
GOD CARLOS
Akashic Books
2012
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Historical Fiction, Jamaica, Novels
December 18, 2012
TOPICAL TECHNO-THRILLER FEATURES drones, hackers, “black ops”–ripped-from-the-headlines Crichtonesque chills!
Grade: SOLID B
KILL DECISION
Penguin
2012
Tags: Novels, Solid B Reviews, Spy Fiction, Thriller
December 16, 2012
A GRIM MURDER TRIAL from 1938 New Jersey highlights the despair of the Depression and the impact of corruption.
Grade: B PLUS
KILLING THE POORMASTER: A SAGA OF POVERTY, CORRUPTION, AND MURDER IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Chicago Review Press
2012
Tags: B Plus Reviews, History, Non-Fiction, True Crime
December 15, 2012
AFTER HER DEATH, an English writer’s children and grandchildren discover her secrets. Well done family drama.
Grade: SOLID B
THE AFFAIR
St. Martin's Press
2012
Tags: Historical Fiction, Novels, Solid B Reviews
December 14, 2012
ROLLICKING COMIC NOVEL about the misadventures of a larger-than-life country girl in a snooty beach resort.
Grade: SOLID B
HAPPILY EVER MADDER
Penguin
2012
Tags: Humor, Novels, Solid B Reviews, Women's Fiction
December 13, 2012
COMPLEX, SATISFYING MYSTERY set in Margaret Maron’s truer-than-life Colleton County, North Carolina. Absorbing!
Grade: B PLUS
THE BUZZARD TABLE: A DEBORAH KNOTT MYSTERY
Grand Central Publishing
2012
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Mystery, Novels