Weirdly, I thought that the final novel in the Red Sparrow Trilogy was at once its most realistic as well as its most wildly fanciful. There are details included that feel so authentic as to be absolutely factual, even if they don’t make for the most appetizing reading; I could honestly have done without the…
Captain Dominika Egorova—the Red Sparrow of the series title—is back at her Moscow desk in the Russian Intelligence Service (SVR) after conspiring with the CIA to cement her role as their high-level informant. Though, after the final events chronicled in the previous book, she’s not too sure about whether she wants to keep feeding them…
I did not watch the recent film based on this book because most popular ballet-related movies make me violently angry. To be fair, I also scoffed at certain of the ballet “details” included here in the novel proper; pop culture in general just has a bad habit of stereotyping ballerinas as hyper-disciplined psychopaths-in-training. That aside,…
I considered titling this post “The Night I Hugged John Connolly,” but that might sound like I’m showing off. So I’ll begin my recap of the 68th annual Edgar Awards gala banquet at the nominees’ cocktail party, the prelude to the grandest evening in the mystery community’s year. In a reception room at the Grand…
After last month's announcement of two new Grandmasters and the Raven Award winner, Mystery Writers of America has announced the rest of the shortlist of award nominees and special winners. The Edgars banquet—an annual black-tie gala celebrating crime fiction, non-fiction, and television writing—will be held on Thursday, May 1st, 2014 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel…
