Author page: Patrick T Reardon

Out of Cabrini is a crackerjack police novel that rises above its genre with a subtly nuanced and very human story of crime and punishment from the perspective of cops, victims and criminals on the rough streets of Chicago. First-time author Dave Case, a longtime veteran of the city’s police department, displays deft skill, rare…

There is no getting around it.  William Kent Krueger’s 2013 novel Ordinary Grace has been a huge bestseller for a decade. Not only that, but it’s been honored as a great mystery novel, winning the Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year from the Mystery Writers of America — who should know. So, why…

I read a paperback copy of David Hare’s 1995 play Skylight that I found in one of the dozens of free little book boxes scattered across the neighborhoods I frequent on the Far North Side of Chicago. When I saw it in the book box, I was arrested by the white cover which featured, in…

In Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry, Tom Kettle tells the nightmare story of his life in waves of ever-increasing pain, violence and abuse. It is a novel that features two specific cases of child abuse, two pedophile priests with countless victims, an IRA bombing in Dublin, a sniper’s bleakly efficient killing of 57 “enemies”(each…

The enchanting image of a dancing woman on the cover of Gloria Fossi’s thickly illustrated 1989 Filippo Lippi is more ambiguous than it appears. Ribbons and linen skirts are tossed here and there by the movements of the tall, thin, blonde woman with red shoes and an energetic right leg executing a complicated kick. For…

Anne Kraatz initially published her book Lace: History and Fashion in French in 1988 and then helped with the English version from Rizzoli the next year with a translation by another expert on lace, Pat Earnshaw. The sumptuously illustrated, large format book is filled with 180 illustrations, 92 of which are in color, and most…

“Look out! He’s got a daisy!” That’s what Moist von Lipwig shouts at one point in Terry Pratchett’s Making Money, his 36th Discworld novel, and, even as he does, Moist thinks to himself: I just shouted “Look out! He’s got a daisy,” and I think I’m going to remember forever just how embarrassing this was.…

BettyJoyce Nash’s crackerjack novel Everybody Here Is Kin has been described as a coming-of-age tale, but that’s only half of it.  It’s also a coping-with-PTSD-after-military-service story.  And, really, it’s a lot more. There’s a reason the title is about “everybody.” Nash, a former Chicagoan, builds her novel with alternating perspectives.  One is in the voice…

In the seven stories in Ana Castillo’s new sparkling, gritty and compassionate collection Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home, there are a lot of common themes.  Ghosts, for one, including a beautiful naked woman who walks through a party in a Mexico City home. And cleaning women, as the title of the book and its longest story…