Book #78 of 2026: Ironwood by Michael Connelly (Catalina #2) Author Michael Connelly could probably write a crime novel like this in his sleep at this point, and occasionally I wonder if he has. His latest volume returns to the setting and characters of last year’s Nightshade, where a detective has been punished for still-murky …
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Book #77 of 2026: The Astral Library by Kate Quinn I struggled a lot with this heroine early on, finding her woe-is-me, not-like-other-girls attitude incredibly childish and off-putting. She’s also the sort of character who bemoans her supposedly plain looks while ignoring how the romantic interest is practically throwing himself at her feet in worship. …
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Book #76 of 2026: All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker This novel carries a strong feeling of True Detective seasons 1 and 3 for me, and not only for the core plot involving a string of unsolved child abductions. It also spends a long time on people processing trauma and obsessing about …
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Book #75 of 2026: Radiant Star by Ann Leckie This latest entry is probably the weakest of the six novels in author Ann Leckie’s extended Imperial Radch saga so far, but it’s still an enjoyable enough time that I’m comfortable giving it three-and-a-half stars (radiant or otherwise), rounded up. It takes place during / after …
Book #74 of 2026: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke A neat premise, a compellingly unlikeable narrator reminiscent of June in Yellowface, and a scathing critique of the tradwife / manosphere / social media influencer ecosystem. What’s not to love? Natalie is one of those women peddling a faux traditional lifestyle to her millions of followers …
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Book #73 of 2026: Fully Loaded by Blake Crouch [Note: I’ve seen some listings of this book under the title Fully Loaded Thrillers, but that seems to be a misreading of the cover. The inside material at the front of the ebook gives the two-word name for it.] This story collection reads like vintage Stephen …
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Book #72 of 2026: Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe #5) [Obligatory.] I have mixed opinions about this fifth Nero Wolfe story. On the one hand, I feel like the series is at least incrementally improving, and author Rex Stout has really settled into the sardonic tone of his narrator Archie Goodwin, who …
Book #71 of 2026: Return to Mars by Ben Bova A largely pointless rehash of a sequel. I really enjoyed Ben Bova’s novel Mars in his loose Grand Tour saga of early space exploration, but there’s little that this second visit to the red planet accomplishes that wasn’t done better in the first. You also …
Book #70 of 2026: Doctor Who: Charles Darwin and the Silurian Survival by L. D. Lapinski (Icons #2) This is one of the better Doctor Who historical celebrity stories, and definitely an improvement over the Thirteen / Frida Kahlo adventure that launched this recent novella series. Here instead it’s the Tenth Doctor meeting a young …
Book #69 of 2026: Platform Decay by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #8) I didn’t care as much for the experimental seventh volume of this series, but I’m happy to report that this next installment finds our misanthropic neurodivergent security cyborg back to its usual exasperated self. The plot is relatively straightforward — rescue and …
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