Alexander Polikoff’s Cry My Beloved America is a most depressing book, especially in these days before the November 5 presidential election.  But that’s not Polikoff’s fault.  He’s just the messenger. [...]

Steve Carella is the most gentlemanly of detectives, and, in the squad room of the 87th precinct, he is respected by his peers. But, after witnessing Douglas King refuse numerous [...]

The key moment in John William Nelson’s important, original and eye-opening history of the place that became the city of Chicago — Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the [...]

In his novel Man’s Fate, Andre Malraux tells the story of the Communist insurrectionists who took control of Shanghai in March, 1927, and then were massacred a month later by [...]

Towards Zero, published by Agatha Christie in 1944, is a reminder of how creative she was as a mystery writer. Christie was the epitome of what’s called the Golden Age [...]

When Jane Austen wrote The Beautifull Cassandra at the age of 12 in 1788, she added the subtitle: A Novel in Twelve Chapters. That’s a big claim for a work [...]

Barbara Pym wrote Some Tame Gazelle in the mid-1930s, shortly after she graduated from Oxford University, and it was rejected by several publishers.  After World War II, she revised it, [...]