Reviews

Say goodbye to the gangbanger girls. This week, we've lost Snoop as well as Margaret B. Jones. Both were fictional, but only one was a work of art.

Well, it's that time of the evening here in lovely Cambridge, Mass., when the day's wet snow/freezing rain storm has begun to glaze the sidewalks, turning our charming brick sidewalks into so many uneven picturesque death traps. But even though I learned, yet again,...

That's my take on Michael Stanley's new "A Carrion Death," the first in a proposed series featuring the absolutely cuddly Detective Kubu. But even if Kubu (a nickname that means "hippo" in his native Setswana) loves opera, good food, and his wife, a la Donna Leon's...

Has anyone else out there thought that the lyrics to the Foo Fighters' song "The Pretender" go: "One of these things is not like the other"? Dave Grohl as Cookie Monster?I mean, as we used to say in lit class, contrast and compare. Am I right, people?

I know I'm associated with cats, and I do love me some felines. But when I was much younger, I also had a serious thing for toads and lizards (not snakes, I like legs). I still remember my pet toad, Dyatt (pronounced "Dwight") fondly. And so, for the hidden...

Jennifer Ryser of Wetumpka, Alabama, won the right to name a cat in the upcoming Theda Krakow mystery #4 at the Murder on the Menu silent auction, sponsored by Friends of Wetumpka Library, by making a donation to the Crime Lab Project. Thank you, Jennifer! And here's...

Think Falco crossed with the old "Meow Mix" commercial...

In her Annie Seymour mysteries, Karen E. Olson gets the world of contemporary newspapers right. (Though she is gentler than the brilliant "The Wire.") Guess that's why it was such a pleasure to read this piece about her in the Connecticut Post.Oh, and speaking of...

After a very long day in airports, I am back home and not in Birmingham. In brief, I was supposed to fly out of Boston at 2 and, after an hour's layover, make a connection in DC for Birmingham at 4:45. I have the beginnings of a cold, but it's not that bad and I'm...

This Friday, I'll get to escape dreary New England and all the post-Superbowl sadness and head to Alabama! Two smaller events have joined forces to make up a weekend. On Saturday, Murder in the Magic City in Birmingham (that's the "magic city," the website explains)...