Mystery and thriller reviews: crime fiction, detective novels, psychological thrillers, and suspense.
Robert Repino’s For Time and All Eternities sits at an unusual intersection: it is, on its surface, a mystery novel, but it operates in the territory between crime fiction, science fiction, and social satire. Published in 2017 by Soho Crime, the book is a standalone departure from Repino’s War with No Name series and follows…
Ilaria Tuti’s The Sleeping Nymph, published in Italian in 2019 and in English translation in 2020, is the third novel in her Teresa Battaglia series, and it finds the series at the height of its powers. Teresa Battaglia is one of the most distinctive protagonists in contemporary European crime fiction: a criminal profiler in her…
Nilima Rao’s debut novel A Disappearance in Fiji, published by Soho Crime in 2024, is an unusual and compelling entry in the tradition of historical crime fiction. Set in colonial Fiji in 1914, the book follows Sergeant Akal Singh, a Sikh policeman serving under British colonial administration, who is sent to a remote sugar plantation…
Gary Phillips is a Los Angeles writer in the tradition of Chester Himes and Walter Mosley: crime fiction grounded in the specific social geography of Black LA, attentive to the history that shaped the city, and populated with characters who navigate that history with intelligence and without sentimentality. Ash Dark as Night, published by Soho…
Stuart Neville’s Blood Like Mine, published by Soho Crime in 2024, marks the Northern Irish writer’s return to the dark, morally complex territory where he does his best work. This is a standalone novel rather than an entry in one of his series, and the freedom of that choice shows: Neville builds a premise of…
Camilla Trinchieri’s The Road to Murder, published by Soho Crime in 2024, is the fourth entry in her Tuscan Mystery series featuring Nico Doyle, a retired New York homicide detective who relocated to the small Chianti wine town of Gravigna after the death of his wife. The series has built a devoted readership for its…
Timothy Hallinan’s Fools’ River, published by Soho Crime in 2017, is the fifth entry in his Poke Rafferty series, which follows an American travel writer living in Bangkok with his Thai wife Rose and their adopted street child Miaow. The series has built a deserved reputation for combining genuine thriller mechanics with an unusually thoughtful…
Discover
Contribute
© 2026 WritersReview · Independent Literary Criticism