Syria isn’t the only thing aflame in Damascus Station, David McCloskey’s debut thriller set against the ongoing conflict: McCloskey’s protagonist, CIA officer Sam Joseph, has fallen for a source, strictly forbidden, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Only, when it comes to the CIA “F-ups happen to good officers. Deception does not. You... Read more »

Speaking of Mysteries

Episode 228: David McCloskey

In Road of Bones, James R. Benn’s 16th installment of his Billy Boyle series of World War II mysteries, Billy is off to the USSR, where gaslighting is a way of life, a map cannot be found for love or money, and Night Witches take to the skies to silently rain terror on Germans fighting... Read more »

Episode 227: James R. Benn

From the outside looking in, Paloma’s life in My Sweet Girl—Amanda Jayatissa’s debut thriller—seems charmed. Adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage at age twelve, Paloma has grown up with loving parents surrounded by affluence in San Francisco. Now, at 30, Paloma is grappling with events from her past and dealing with ghosts, some more real than... Read more »

Episode 226: Amanda Jayatissa

In Striking Range, Margaret Mizushima’s seventh installment in her Timber Creek K-9 mystery series, Timber Creek County Deputy Mattie Cobb braves ice storms and murderers while looking into the death of a young woman and the kidnappers of the woman’s newborn        

Episode 225: Margaret Mizushima

At the start of Karen Cleveland’s new thriller, You Can Run, it’s just a normal day for CIA reports officer Jill Bailey, who postpones approving a new intel source to take a break and log into the video stream from her son’s daycare. Only he’s not there. To get him back Jill must do “just... Read more »

Episode 224: Karen Cleveland

Enola Holmes shares many of her much older brother Sherlock’s skills and she brings them to bear in maybe her most challenging case so far, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, the latest installment in Nancy Springer’s delightful series. Because back in the day in Victorian England, a husband, father, or, for that matter, a... Read more »

Episode 223: Nancy Springer

Eight volumes in, Speaking of Mysteries co-founder Les Klinger talks about the astounding series of vintage mysteries that he edited, wrote introductions for and annotated for The Library of Congress Crime Classics. The choices may not be household names—in the homes of crime fiction fans, that is—but all them are significant for the quality of... Read more »

Episode 222: Leslie S. Klinger

When a young Afghani boy survives a massacre, undercover DEA Agent Garrett Kohl—the protagonist in Down Range, former CIA-analyst-turned-operative Taylor Moore’s debut thriller—takes him home to the Texas Panhandle to keep him safe. And while the Taliban may be thin on the ground in Texas, they aren’t the only threat to Kohl, Kohl’s family—and the... Read more »

Episode 221: Taylor Moore

In Jeff Abbott’s aptly-named new crime fiction novel An Ambush of Widows, (ambush is the collective noun for widows) two men with no apparent connection to each other are shot and killed in a warehouse in Austin, Texas. Coming from two different directions—literally, philosophically, and socio-economically—their two widows, Kirsten and Flora, must join forces to find... Read more »

Episode 220: Jeff Abbott

In The Hollywood Spy, the tenth installment in Susan Elia MacNeal’s World War Two-era series featuring spy-code breaker-bomb defuser, Maggie Hope, Maggie has decamped to Hollywood with her close friend Sarah Sanderson, who is going to film a movie choreographed by George Balanchine. It’s a Busman’s Holiday, however, as there are Nazis everywhere. Oh, yes,... Read more »

Episode 219: Susan Elia MacNeal

As if going to the funeral of your sister—someone from whom you are occasionally estranged—isn’t bad enough, getting a posthumous email from her during the service accusing her now widower, Theo—the scion of the wealthy Thraxton family—of murdering her, is certifiably creepy. So opens Her Last Breath, Hilary Davidson’s latest mystery, for Deirdre Crawley. Secrets and... Read more »

Episode 218: Hilary Davidson

In Castle Shade, Laurie R. King’s 17th Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes crime fiction novel, the couple are asked by Queen Marie of Romania to investigate a threat made against her daughter, which requires Russell and Holmes to travel to Castle Bran in Transylvania. What could go wrong?      

Episode 217: Laurie R. King

Early in Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot, protagonist Jacob Finch Bonner encounters a student in his writing class who claims he has a can’t-miss story. The student was right—sort of. Upon learning of the student’s death—and determining that the book was never written—Jacob, um, appropriates the plot. What could be the harm of using an... Read more »

Episode 216: Jean Hanff Korelitz

Being a professional thief with a skill set that includes safecracking and lock picking does not preclude you from being a patriot, or so protagonist Ellie McDonnell finds out in Ashley Weaver’s A Peculiar Combination,  when she’s asked to ply her trade for Britain’s war effort in World War Two     Photo of Ashley Weaver ©Amelia... Read more »

Episode 215: Ashley Weaver

All the World’s a Stage in Death of a Showman, Mariah Fredericks’ fourth installment of her series featuring lady’s maid Jane Prescott. After returning from what can only be called a working trip to Europe with her employers Louise and William Tyler, Jane finds that being involved with a new theatrical production with former beau... Read more »

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