Reviews

Fatal Crossing by Lone Theils

Reviewed by Ian Lipke He gave a light shrug. “Why not? It’s what they deserved. They were nothing but cockroaches. All we did was clean out the kitchen.”  In such a manner does Lone Theils introduce her readers to a Rwandan mass murderer and through him to Nora Sand, an investigative journalist with the Danish

Read More »

The Essential Paradise Lost by John Carey

Reviewed by Ian Lipke It is tempting to damn a writer who dares to publish just the interesting bits of any classic piece of literature. One would have thought that Paradise Lost is a work beyond the savagery of the vandal’s pen, to gut Milton’s great work seems sacrilegious, something that is just not done.

Read More »

Fear is the Rider by Kenneth Cook

Reviewed by Jill Kenneth Cook’s Fear is the Rider  was originally written as a television series. Cook subsequently rewrote it as a short novel. It does not have the finish, the depth and complexity of his later novel Wake in Fright, but can be just as uncomfortable to read. In the right hands, it would

Read More »

Takedown by Stephen Leather

Reviewed by Ian Lipke He used to stop terrorists…Now he is one. So goes the blurb on the front cover of Stephen Leather’s Takedown. Is there anyone left in doubt about the genre to which this book is likely to belong? It’s in-your-face action all the way. Leather is in the entertainment business and writes

Read More »

A Dangerous Crossing by Rachel Rhys

Reviewed by Ian Lipke ‘…the steel blade took the full force…ending up buried in his chest up to the hilt.’ Tragedy strikes in Rachel Rhys’ novel, A Dangerous Crossing. It is 1939 and the Second World War is about to savage Europe. But this seems to be of little interest to the passengers on board

Read More »

The Darkroom by Jonathan Moore

Reviewed by Ian Lipke Having received a dying man’s confession directing him to a grave-site, Inspector Gavin Cain receives a phone call from his boss to tell him he has been reassigned. A helicopter arrives and Cain finds himself fronting the mayor of San Francisco who has received photographs of a woman he claims he

Read More »

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Reviewed by Jill Water and its ownership are the themes of Paolo Bacigalupi’s speculative fiction, The Water Knife.  Powerful interests are competing for the remaining water rights to be wrung out of the Colorado.  Phoenix needs water to stave off disaster.  Las Vegas wants to maintain its water security.  Thousands of drought, economic and hurricane

Read More »
Scroll to Top