Jack Batten’s first Whodunit column in the Toronto Star ran on March 7, 1999. It wasn’t the first time he’d written reviews for the paper — a quick search in our archives shows his byline…
The Star’s Whodunit columnist Jack Batten has reviewed dozens of crime fiction books over the year. Here, his top five best books of 2022, and the reviews he wrote. City On Fire, by Don…
Unlikely detective figures have been known to lend a sheen of originality to crime plots dealing with murder, missing persons and inheritance schemes. Doc Sportello, the paranoiac…
“Shrines of Gaiety,” the breathtaking new book by Scottish writer Kate Atkinson, is a sprawling kaleidoscope of a novel — both giddy and glamorous, despite being rooted in squalor and…
Long ShadowsBy David BaldacciGrand Central, 432 pages, $37This is David Baldacci’s 51st crime book overall, his seventh featuring Amos Decker, the FBI agent with the spookily phenomenal…
Celebrated historical mystery writer Deanna Raybourn (Veronica Speedwell Mystery series, The Lady Julia Grey series) returns with “Killers of a Certain Age,” a stand-alone retirement romp…
Please Join UsBy Catherine McKenzieAtria Books, 320 pages, $24.99Sooner or later, a talented writer was bound to conceive a superior crime novel that depended on #MeToo as one of the plot…
ReputationBy Sarah VaughanAtria Books, 336 pages, $36Well into this solid English courtroom drama, Emma Webster finds herself in the dock at the Old Bailey. Until now, life has been going…
OutsideBy Ragnar JonassonMinotaur, 363 pages, $36.99In the latest of the Icelandic writer Ragnar Jonasson’s chilling novels, four friends — one woman and three men — set out on an early…
Linwood Barclay. Adrian McKinty. Val McDermid. Ian Rankin. Shari Lapena. Walter Mosley. Donna Leon. The lineup reads like a who’s who of Canadian and international crime fiction writers.…