What is magical realism? Born in Latin American fiction during the late 1940s and 1950s, it unites the real and the mythical to reveal the fantastical elements of everyday life. Sometimes it will leave you wondering if an event in the story could really have happened. While this ambiguity is not for everyone, magical realism […]

Road trips are great-the open road, the junk food consumed while driving, the abundance of country music stations in this fine land of ours. Road trips are supposed to teach us something; what I learned was not to freak out when the tire pressure indicator comes on, if two gas stations have already told you […]

Agatha Christie, born September 15, 1890, was a best-selling writer, the best-selling novelist of all time, but she was also a surfer when young, a world traveler, a poison expert, and enthusiastic archaeology buff. Talent and imagination took her to the top, and her hospital pharmacy work in World Wars I and II gave her the poison […]

The Amber Shadows, by Lucy Ribchester, begins in the cold winter of 1942 at Bletchley Park, the site for British codebreakers during World War II. Honey Deschamps, who transcribes coded messages, meets a man while walking home in the dark who gives her a package with Russian postal marks. Inside is a small amber block, mysteriously […]

Gone to Dust, a fast-paced and funny private eye novel by Matt Goldman, is set in wintry Minnesota. A woman is found murdered in her home, the entire crime scene obscured by thick layers of vacuum cleaner bag dust.  This detail, unsurprisingly, is an obstacle to the investigation.  When the police call in private investigator […]