Articles tagged "Vietnam"
Booklist Mystery Month 2017!
May is Mystery Month at Booklist! Check out our recent mystery award winners (plus Talia’s “Spring the Trap: Mysteries That Won’t Let Go” webinar titles) and see which Macmillan titles made Booklist‘s “Best of” reading lists for 2017.
The Year’s Best Crime Novels: 2017 (full list) — Top 10 Crime Novels & Best Crime Fiction Debuts
LET THE DEVIL OUT by Bill Loehfelm
New Orleans rookie cop and loose cannon Maureen Coughlin is tasked with helping the FBI track a white supremacist group. Will Maureen go rogue again, or will she channel what she calls her “killing feeling” into doing good police work? Not only has Loehfelm created the most compelling, complex patrol cop in the genre; he has also reenergized New Orleans as a setting for the best in crime fiction, edgy, dangerous, but pulsing with life.
THE DRY by Jane Harper
Harper’s small-town, big-secrets page-turner tells the story of Aaron Falk, who returns to his Australian hometown to attend the funeral of a friend believed to have shot his wife and son and then killed himself. Falk begins to question the details of the crime and, together with the town’s police sergeant, undertakes an investigation that unearths secrets new and old, some involving Falk’s father. A stunning debut reminiscent of Peter Corliss’ Cliff Hardy series.
Find out what inspired Jane Harper to write THE DRY in Booklist Reader’s “Clues to My Crime” column!
THREE YEARS WITH THE RAT by Jay Hosking
Neuroscientist Hosking turns in a startlingly fine performance with his first novel, about a man so determined to find his missing sister that he risks his own reality to solve the mystery of her disappearance. It’s quickly apparent that this is one of those mind-bending thrillers in which time and space are fluid concepts, but Hosking draws us in completely to his labyrinthine narrative.
For titles reviewed from May 1, 2016 through April 15, 2017.
Top 10 Crime Fiction Audiobooks: 2017 (full list)
BEHIND HER EYES by Sarah Pinborough, read by Bea Holland and others
A fine cast of narrators voices this complex, riveting story of a love triangle based on obsession and deceit.
A GREAT RECKONING by Louise Penny, read by Robert Bathurst
Using realistic voices and impeccable nuances, Bathurst portrays a cast of quirky characters in this atmospheric, multilayered mystery.
For titles reviewed from April 1, 2016 through April 15, 2017.
Plus, Benjamin Black’s EVEN THE DEAD, read by John Keating, is listed as a great listen-alike for Celtic Noir!
Trend Alert: Suburban Suspense (full list)
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS by B. A. Paris
The marriage of Grace Harrington and Jack Angel seemed perfect, except for what went on behind closed doors. On their honeymoon, Grace’s new husband, Jack, reveals his psychopathic nature, using Grace’s deep love for her special-needs sister, Millie, as leverage in concocting a depraved scheme that will ruin both women.
COME SUNDOWN by Nora Roberts
Alice Bodine turns up at her family’s Montana ranch and luxury resort battered, bruised, and with no memory of her old life, 25 years after running away. Her niece puts Alice’s return together with the recent murders of two women and suspects that someone very twisted may be living nearby.
TRULY MADLY GUILTY by Liane Moriarty
Moriarty handles neighborhood secrets, indiscretions, and twists like no one else. A spontaneous barbecue upends the lives of three couples in suburban Sydney. From the start, readers know that something terrible has happened—Erika can’t quite remember the details, Clementine doesn’t want to remember them, and their husbands are struggling with the aftermath. But it’s not until midway through the story that Moriarty shows her hand.
A Hard-Boiled Gazetteer to the Pacific Rim (full list)
AUSTRALIA
THE BROKEN SHORE by Peter Temple
This first in a series stars Melbourne homicide detective Joe Cashin, who has been temporarily reassigned to his hometown in rural Australia while he recovers from injuries only slowly explained. But despite its remote landscape, the little town of Port Munro generates some big-city crime. Evoking a view of the continent that is more Ian Rankin than Crocodile Dundee, Temple tells a troubling tale of race and class conflict—with an even darker crime at the heart of it. This deeply intelligent thriller starts slowly, builds inexorably, and ends unforgettably.
CRUCIFIXION CREEK by Barry Maitland
Sydney homicide detective Harry Belltree is as hard-boiled as they come, a kind of Australian Dirty Harry with a little of Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder, who once said to a killer he was about to dispatch, “I just don’t want you to be alive anymore.” This installment in Maitland’s unsparingly dark series provides backstory, explaining how Harry got to be Harry and how he developed his investigative style: shake the tree, see who falls out, and kill them. So old school you can smell the cordite. readmoreremove
Veteran’s Day!
In honor of Veteran’s Day we’d like to share with you poignant novels and war-time accounts from award-winning authors:
THE GOOD SOLDIERS and THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE by David Finkel
In these companion works, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Finkel chronicles the Iraq War through the eyes of the soldiers of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion. Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and many more, THE GOOD SOLDIERS is a new classic on war. In THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE, Finkel reconnects with the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion and follows them as they returned home and struggle to reintegrate into their family lives and into American society at large. As with THE GOOD SOLDIERS, it's received outstanding reviews and critical attention.
SPARTA by Roxana Robinson
In Robinson's novel, a young man drawn by the appeal of furthering a long tradition of honor, courage, and commitment enlists to serve in the Iraq War. Upon his return home four years later, he finds it nearly impossible to adjust to "normal" life and fears that the bitterness and rage he's festering will cause irreparable damage when it comes out.
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME: An Oral History of New York City's Vietnam Veterans by Philip F. Napoli
In the spirit of Tom Brokaw’s THE GREATEST GENERATION, Napoli’s collection of oral histories from New York’s Vietnam vets humanizes the men and women who sacrificed for our country in a deeply troubling war. "Riveting... BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME crackles with the kind of extraordinary voices Studs Terkel mined from ordinary people." – New York Daily News
MARSHLANDS by Matthew Olshan
In his first novel for adults, Olshan reveals the story of a prisoner who was formerly a doctor in a culture virtually snuffed out under Saddam Hussein. Transcending fiction, MARSHLANDS is a gripping and deeply moral investigation into our own history as occupiers and the myths we spin around it. readmoreremove
A debut to take you back.
Tatjana Soli's debut novel tells the story of an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War as she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two men. The buzz for this title has been huge both in-house and in trade reviews. Not one to miss!
"A visceral story about the powerful and complex bonds that war creates... Moving and memorable." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Soli's poignant work will grab the attention of most readers. A powerful new writer to watch." —Library Journal (starred review)
