A Bookseller’s Lament

As you may know, I walk a thin line between being an online bookseller for AbeBooks and Alibris and being a book reviewer for the Chicago Tribune (at least through yesterday) and the Barnes & Noble Web site (a piece of mine about Derek Haas’ The Silver Bear was just posted there). I usually only recommend books I’ve read and liked, and readers and buyers seem to respond to that.

But a pair of recent excellent books have never caught fire, with readers or buyers, so I’m tossing on a couple of logs.

Siren of the Waters, by Michael Genelin. Olen Steinhauer, an American, has written many books about the police in a country very much like Romania. Now comes Genelin, whose Jana Matinova has risen to the rank of Commander in the Czechoslovak police. Her rise to her present position cost her a lot, and now she’s in charge of an investigation into a dangerous human trafficking ring. One of my favorite books of recent years.

In the Dark, by Mark Billingham. “Billingham’s depiction of the daily lives of the youthful gang members, especially the boy who fired the gun, is believable and utterly depressing and he produces an astonishing final twist to complete his most ambitious and most accomplished book,” said one UK reviewer of this standalone thriller from the highly praised author of the Detective Inspector Tom Thorne series (Buried, Sleepyhead). Again, marvelous stuff.