The beauty of time travel stories is that under the tech, or the supernatural, they can be anything. And for me, they are everything. Paradoxes, puzzles, that oh-so-delicate space-time continuum: an infinite blank canvas for exploring human emotion, psychology, and choices. Just like everyone else, I have regrets, big and small, things that I wish I could change, sliding doors that may have taken me down the wrong fork in the road. With these books, each deeply personal and therapeutic in their own way, you may be able to see your own life choices anew, just like I did. Enjoy!
The power of The Psychology of Time Travel is right there in the title.
Instead of dwelling on technology, mechanics, or paradoxes, I love that the novel immediately delves into the emotional and psychological toll of time travel on the individuals who experience it. Framed around a mysterious death, it blends science fiction, mystery, and psychological thriller in a way that remains deeply character-driven. And nearly all of those characters are women—scientists, lovers, rivals—which I found to be a much-needed and refreshing perspective.
'An astonishing debut... Breathtakingly tender and wryly understated' NEW YORK TIMES.
'Genre-defying... Witty and inventive' GUARDIAN.
1967.
Four female scientists invent a time travel machine. But then one of them suffers a breakdown and puts the whole project in peril...
2017.
Ruby knows her Granny Bee was the scientist who went mad, but they never talk about it. Until they receive a message from the future, warning of an elderly woman's violent death...
2018.
Odette found the dead women at work - shot in the head, door bolted from the inside. Now she can't get her out of her mind.…
*THE NO.1 NEW YORK TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER *WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST INTERNATIONAL CRIME FICTION *A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME PICK
'An escapist pleasure' SUNDAY TIMES 'Delightful' GUARDIAN 'An instantly gripping and delightful whodunnit' STYLIST 'Smart, riveting, and deliciously refreshing ' LISA JEWELL
What Happened to Frank? is the first book in the Meg Sheppard Mystery Series. Meg is an amateur sleuth who owns racehorses and lives on a horse farm. Her beloved border collie, Kelly, is usually at Meg's side as she investigates murders and solves other mysteries. The books are action-packed…
I’ve always been fascinated by the Golden Age of science fiction, when a group of young dreamers formed the genre as we know it today. I grew up far away from their world, on a small kibbutz in Israel, and the lives of those god-like beings seemed as remote and as impossible as the moon. I grew up to eventually write stories of my own, and even got to meet some of my childhood heroes, and eventually I thought it would be fun to write a book that was partially about them. I read every book I could get my hands on to try and better understand that time when science fiction was born.
Anthony Boucher straddles the history of both crime fiction and science fiction.
As the founding editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction he has an oversized role in the history of the genre. As a crime writer, he gave his name to the Anthony Awards, which are handed out every year at the annual Bouchercon.
His SF story “The Quest for Saint Aquin” is a classic. None of this, admittedly, has much to do with Rocket to the Morgue, Boucher’s roman-à-clef mystery set in pre-WW2 California in which the emerging world of science fiction comes to glorious life. A young L. Ron Hubbard makes an appearance, as do Robert A. Heinlein and the rocket scientist and occultist Jack Parsons.
The mystery matters less than the characters, who though moving under different names are all very much true to life.
A Golden Age mystery set in the Golden Age of science fiction
Legendary science fiction author Fowler Faulkes may be dead, but his creation, the iconic Dr. Derringer, lives on in popular culture. Or, at least, the character would live on if not for Faulkes’s predatory and greedy heir Hilary, who, during his time as the inflexible guardian of the estate, has created countless enemies in the relatively small community of writers of the genre. So when he is stabbed nearly to death in a room with only one door, which nobody was seen entering or exiting, Foulkes suspects a…
My mother was an avid reader of Agatha Christie, and she gave me my first Nancy Drew book when I was nine, so I’ve loved mysteries all my life—not the ‘true crime’ kind, more the ‘cozy village’ kind, where the focus is on the characters and how they solve the mystery because of who they are and how they understand the people around them. After I wrote an historical novel about John Singer Sargent and his friends, I couldn’t stop thinking about them, even hearing their voices continuing to talk—I missed them! So naturally, I decided I’d turn John and his friend Violet into detectives and write mysteries.
This is the first book in a series that is as witty, complex, charming, and dark as Oscar Wilde himself. (“I can resist everything but temptation.”) The author is steeped in Wilde and his world, quotes him extensively (but appropriately) and also delivers a great mystery set in the fascinating era of Victorian decline and fin de siècle artistic fervor. Arthur Conan Doyle, in a great turnabout, plays “Watson” to Wilde’s “Sherlock” in all the mysteries. A later book in the series takes on Jack the Ripper, with some surprising suspects!
Lovers of historical mysteries will relish this chilling Victorian tale based on real events and cloaked in authenticity. The first in a series of fiendishly clever historical murder mysteries, it casts British literature’s most fascinating and controversial figure as the lead sleuth.
A young artist’s model has been murdered, and legendary wit Oscar Wilde enlists his friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Sherard to help him investigate. But when they arrive at the scene of the crime they find no sign of the gruesome killing—save one small spatter of blood, high on the wall. Set in London, Paris, Oxford, and…
I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan. This was Agatha's sixth novel, written in 1926. (She started her writing career in 1920). It features my favorite Belgian detective, Hercules Poirot! One of my favorite things about reading her books is how she painted the picture of whatever year it was so well, it is like traveling back in time. She is a playful writer who brings her characters to life.
The classic "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", finally at a fair price!The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in June 1926 in the United Kingdom. It is the third novel to feature Hercule Poirot as the lead detective.
In 2013, the British Crime Writers' Association voted it the best crime novel ever.
I had the privilege of meeting D.V. Bishop at Bristol
CrimeFest, and something that inspired me to pick up his book was the interest
he showed in escapism.
It’s so easy in historical fiction for some writers to
dedicate their focus to research that sometimes the story becomes secondary. Not with Bishop’s book. The adventure, tension, and
anticipation are all expertly written.
With a complex hero, Aldo, hiding his
homosexuality at a time when it was illegal, this tension is brought into the
conflict of the narrative as he races to find a killer in Florence in 1536.
This was my favourite read of 2023 because it was an unexpected thrill. I saw
no promotional material beforehand and simply fell on it after seeing the
writer at CrimeFest.
Dr. Power is promoted to a chair of forensic psychiatry at Allminster University and selected by the Vice Chancellor for a key task which stokes the jealousy of the Deans, and he is plunged into a precariously dangerous situation when there is a series of deaths and the deputy Vice…
Five Decembers was a hard-boiled mystery in the style of
Dashiell Hammett that begins just before Pearl Harbor and then was set in Japan
throughout the rest of the war.
In
addition to the mystery itself was an improbable love story between the
American detective and a Japanese woman who harbored and hid him behind enemy
lines. Wonderfully written, it was the book
I quite literally couldn’t put down.
"War, imprisonment, torture, romance...The novel has an almost operatic symmetry, and Kestrel turns a beautiful phrase." -New York Times
Five Decembers is a gripping thriller, a staggering portrait of war, and a heartbreaking love story, as unforgettable as All the Light We Cannot See.
NOMINATED FOR BEST THRILLER IN THE 2022 BARRY AWARDS
FINALIST FOR THE HAMMETT PRIZE 2021
"Read this book for its palpitating story, its perfect emotional and physical detailing and, most of all, for its unforgettable conjuring of a steamy quicksilver world that will be new to almost…
'One of the most interesting detectives in crime fiction' THE TIMES
There is more to solving a crime than following the clues. Welcome to Chief Inspector Gamache's world of facts and feelings.
Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. His boundless sense of adventure and vivid imagination mean he has a tendency to concoct stories so extraordinary and so far-fetched that no one can possibly believe him.
But when Laurent disappears, former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.
I loved the humorous, conversational style of the narration. I also really liked the way the story combined the murder mystery plot, with writing advice and commentary on the "rules" of murder mystery novels.
A SUNDAY TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR Everyone in my family is a killer. Everyone in my family is a suspect. But which of them is a murderer?
'The best thing I've read in ages' STUART MACBRIDE 'An ingenious and hilarious meta-murder mystery' SUNDAY TIMES 'BEST CRIME BOOKS OF 2022' 'I absolutely LOVED it. Engaging, entertaining and charming' MARIAN KEYES 'Clever, unexpected, and not to be missed' KARIN SLAUGHTER 'Utterly original, hugely entertaining, and a must-read for every fan of the mystery genre' JANE HARPER _________
I was dreading the Cunningham family reunion even before the first murder. Before…
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
I’m a nerd by temperament (raised by a psychologist and a librarian, what else could I be?) and by profession (decades working as a U.S. diplomat and an academic administrator honed my people-watching faculties to a fine edge). So, of course, I’ve always been drawn to my opposite: that cynical loner whose pursuit of justice requires hard fists and a bent moral compass. Private eye mysteries are my perfect place. In them, I can exercise my passion for intellectual puzzles and my love for thrilling action. I enjoy the combination of social commentary and sheer entertainment I find when I dive into reading (or writing) a private eye mystery.
Ex-cop August Snow scrabbles through the rubble of his beloved Detroit to solve a twisted murder case no one wants him to pursue. Snow is everything I like in my PIs: witty, empathetic, combat-ready, and damaged by life’s cruel blows. The action is extremely gritty, the social commentary dark and biting. The flavorful descriptions of Snow’s Mexicantown neighborhood and its contrast with the snooty suburbs tugged at my Midwestern heart.
From the wealthy suburbs to the remains of Detroit’s bankrupt factory districts, August Snow is a fast-paced tale of murder, greed, sex, economic cyber-terrorism, race and urban decay.
Tough, smart, and struggling to stay alive, August Snow is the embodiment of Detroit. The son of an African-American father and a Mexican-American mother, August grew up in the city’s Mexicantown and joined the police force only to be drummed out by a conspiracy of corrupt cops and politicians. But August fought back; he took on the city and got himself a $12…
