Rounding up the month’s best new releases in crime, mystery, and thrillers, via Bookmarks.
Gordon Corera, The Spy in the Archive
(Pegasus)
“More than most Cold War thrillers, this true story offers genuine suspense—and genuine insight into Mitrokhin’s complex motivations … His experience with the material lends weight to a thoroughly engrossing tale.”
–Andrew Nagorski (Wall Street Journal)
Eric Lichtblau, American Reich
(Little Brown and Co.)
“Ambitious, deeply reported … The portrait of Woodward verges on cliché, which speaks more to the simple-mindedness of neo-Nazis than to any fault of Lichtblau’s writing … An admirably vivid job … Queasily of the moment, and evokes our present reality with frightening detail. One can only hope that someday its subject is relegated to the past.”
–Elon Green (New York Times Book Review)
Angela Tomaski, The Infamous Gilberts
(Scribner)
“Can a tragedy be cozy? Follow me, if you will, down the once-grand hallways of Thornwalk, the decrepit manor house of the sprawling, decayed Gilbert family, and we shall see … If you don’t mind a narrator whose manner can shade into that of a Realtor trying to unload a house that needs a new roof (as, indeed, Thornwalk does), an oddly diverting read awaits … Tomaski manages her pastiche with rare control and evident relish. Before embracing a more pragmatic match, the young Lydia engages in an abortive romance with an artistically inclined tutor, who reads her his poem ‘Ode to Tuberculosis.’ Her reaction is not what he wants; she corrects herself. ‘Not funny. I meant sad.’ But when Tomaski flirts with the precious, it is on purpose — and to surprising effect.”
–Sadie Stein (New York Times Book Review)
William J. Mann, Black Dahlia
(Simon and Schuster)
“Admirably researched and generous … Does Mann solve the crime? I think so — or at least he comes as close as one can to finding a plausible solution so many years after the fact.”
–Dennis Drabelle (Washington Post)
