RaveThe Washington Independent Review of BooksKlinger’s foreword to this new collection offers a concise but comprehensive history of crime writing—both fiction and nonfiction—in the U.S., England, and beyond ... he puts his role as historian and critic above simply being an enthusiast for these titles ... Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s is a treasure of information and a joy to study or simply read. By gathering these texts together and diving into them with insight and research, Leslie S. Klinger brings them to today’s readers in an accessible, enlightening, and entertaining way.
Keigo Higashino, Trans. by Giles Murray
PositiveWashington Independent Review of Books\"To the author’s great credit, the individual tales stand strong one after another, and the accumulating storyline gains momentum and weight in the process. Structure and character ultimately intertwine nicely with Kaga as the supporting person who connects each tale ... By the end of the journey, Kaga discovers who killed Mineko Mitsui (of course). But the murder, despite being the most serious crime of the book, ironically seems the most mundane in its solution. More fascinating is the detective who brings all the stories together, helps fill them with such intimacy and warmth, and eases the people of Nihonbashi toward their small moments of grace or atonement or relief — not simply with a sense of questions answered, but with some higher order restored, with humanity itself reaffirmed.\
Jason Matthews
RaveThe Washington Post\"Matthews keeps the trouble popping in Red Sparrow, but relentless drama is just one of the high points of this sublime and sophisticated debut ... Red Sparrow may sound like some hodgepodge of the fantastic (seeing emotions?) and the prurient (\'an Upper Volga Kama Sutra\') amid a series of spy vs. spy shenanigans. But the novel is far more grounded. The stakes here are high, with agents on both sides desperately following streams of sensitive information, but Matthews focuses on the people and the intelligence community’s day-to-day routines ... Red Sparrow isn’t just a fast-paced thriller — it’s a first-rate novel as noteworthy for its superior style as for its gripping depiction of a secretive world. While many former CIA agents and MI6 operatives have turned to writing fiction in retirement, Matthews joins a select few who seem as strong at their second careers as at their first.\
Christopher Bollen
RaveThe Washington PostSharp imagery and incisive descriptions bring to life both the Greek island of Patmos and the moneyed class laying claim to it ... violence occasionally punctuates this otherwise leisurely plot. A burst of mayhem closes the tour de force prologue, and another pair of bodies appears nearly 200 pages later. But the tension in Ian’s own story is more existential...The suspense here is less high-speed chases or chapter-ending cliffhangers than something out of Patricia Highsmith — hardly a complaint ... Ultimately, the destroyers aren’t men in balaclavas, but something interior, more insidious: the secrets you carry.
