Bruce Tierney

Content by Bruce Tierney

A British invasion

Issue: July 2008
Novelist Martina Cole, has rarely been off U.K. bestseller lists for some 17 years now. Read more »
A final summer on the shore

Issue: August, 2002
At the ripe old age of 24, Banana Yoshimoto became the literary critics' darling and an overnight publishing sensation in Japan with the release of her lyrical novella Kitchen. Read more »
A house's history comes alive

Issue: October 2010
It is always difficult to review a Bill Bryson book, since I’m tempted to indulge in sweeping declarations (“Bill Bryson may well be the wittiest man on the planet,” for instance) Read more »
A life of secrecy, fear and flight

Issue: September 2007
The secret to a happy childhood is bonding, so the experts tell us. Read more »
A rediscovered classic

Issue: November, 1998
Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, revered by many as the voice of his generation, is on a roll. Read more »
A rich sampling of Hispanic fiction

Issue: May, 2002
It is only recently that Hispanic fiction has touched the mainstream American reader. Read more »
A rousing return for Robicheaux

Issue: June, 1998
When James Lee Burke's Cimarron Rose came out last year, his hardcore fans (me included) were disappointed that it did not feature Cajun cop Dave Robicheaux. Read more »
Back to school with Bill Bryson

Issue: May, 2003
Think for a moment of the human brain as a computer, albeit a very primitive one, perhaps a Pentium "negative four." There is a finite, and severely limited, amount of permanent memory a Read more »
Bill Bryson strikes again

Issue: October, 2006
Don't ever read a Bill Bryson book while drinking a carbonated soft drink, or (as in my case) draft root beer. Read more »
Boyle's memorable journey to a tuned-in, dropped-out era

Issue: March 2003
You never know what to expect when you pick up the latest T.C. Boyle novel. Read more »
Canada wry

Issue: August, 2004
Canadians have long been regarded as country cousins by their counterparts in the States: Molson-swilling, hockey-watching roughnecks who go inexplicably dewy-eyed at the first acoustic guitar note Read more »
Casting call for a reel mystery

Issue: July, 2005
It is always a pleasure to pick up a new mystery and find out: a) that the book is written in the first person, and b) that it's situated in Los Angeles, where all good murder mysteries should be set Read more »
Celebration anxiety

Issue: September, 1999
In 1995, America witnessed the most publicized real estate transaction since the Oklahoma land rush. Buyers queued up, $1000 checks in hand, to enter a lottery. Read more »
Diamonds and disaster in the sky

Issue: December, 2004
A long-ago plane crash inspires Tony Hillerman's new mysteryThere is a sense of symmetry as I sit in a cozy cabin overlooking the Grand Canyon's Bright Angel Trail and begin collating the notes of m Read more »
Dining with Scarpetta

Issue: December, 1998
Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the City of Richmond, State of Virginia. Read more »
Douglas Preston's latest tracks a fabled Italian serial killer

Issue: June 2008
The Renaissance city of Firenze (Florence to English speakers) figures strongly in this issue of BookPage; in my Whodunit column, I reviewed Magdalen Nabb's Vita Nuova, a contemporary Read more »
Edgy Irish thriller

Issue: June, 2009
Take a look at Declan Hughes' dark thriller, The Price of Blood. Read more »
Enter Meg Gardiner

Issue: July 2008
Shortly after being offered the assignment of reviewing Meg Gardiner's latest book, The Dirty Secrets Club, I was visiting an American friend in Tokyo and discovered the first Gardiner Read more »
Final deadline

Issue: June, 2009
Michael Connelly’s new book, The Scarecrow, hits bookstores this month, having garnered pre-release acclaim from every quarter. Read more »
Hollywood and crime

Issue:
Screenwriter and reluctant sleuth Billy Winnetka returns for an encore performance in Robert Weibezahl’s latest “Hollywood and Crime” mystery, The Dead Don’t Forget< Read more »
Humerus: books to tickle your funny bone

Issue: December, 2001
Imagine you are sitting down to a late dinner. It's been a hard day at the office, and you're ready for some comfort food. "Ring," says the phone. Read more »
Humerus: books to tickle your funny bone

Issue: December, 2001
Imagine you are sitting down to a late dinner. It's been a hard day at the office, and you're ready for some comfort food. "Ring," says the phone. Read more »
Humerus: books to tickle your funny bone

Issue: December, 2001
Imagine you are sitting down to a late dinner. It's been a hard day at the office, and you're ready for some comfort food. "Ring," says the phone. Read more »
Investigating the mystery genre

Issue: March 2007
Patrick Anderson's The Triumph of the Thriller carries the subtitle How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction. Read more »
Is Cornwell's latest a return to form?

Issue: November, 2007
The pre-release publicity promotes Patricia Cornwell's latest Kay Scarpetta mystery (number 15 in the series), Book of the Dead, as her best in years, a return to the heady days of From P Read more »
Life in the Middle Kingdom

Issue: July 2008
In the dust jacket blurb for Mark Leonard's What Does China Think? rests an important pair of sentences: "Very few things that happen in our lifetime will be remembered after we ar Read more »
Masterful mystery from Llosa

Issue: November, 2001
Whenever a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Death in the Andes) hits the stands, it is cause for celebration among critics and readers alike. Read more »
Murder and memory

Issue: August 2011
The pre-publication hyperbole on S.J. Read more »
Mystery is at home on the range with Wyoming writer C.J. Box

Issue: June, 2002
Tony Hillerman wrote of C.J. Read more »
Mystery maven keeps readers coming back for more

Issue: July, 2000
As we speak, author Janet Evanovich is taking a well-deserved hiatus in her rural New Hampshire home; in a couple of weeks, she embarks on a 15-city North American tour to promote her latest Step Read more »
Off-beat travel guides for those who travel off the beaten path

Issue: February 2000
Each year as the dogwoods come into bloom and the first green peach fuzz of grass sprouts in the front yard, I begin to emerge from the winter-long seasonal affective disorder that plagues my wanin Read more »
On the rails again

Issue: September, 2008
Paul Theroux is one of those writers who needs no introduction. Read more »
Patricia Cornwell ventures off the beaten path in stand-alone thriller

Issue: January, 1999
Pity poor Butner Fluck, improbably named and somewhat inept nemesis of law and order in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. Read more »
Review

Issue: May, 1998
In every city with a major military presence, a district can be found which serves the libidinal cravings of the personnel stationed there. Read more »
Review

Issue: May, 1998
In April, 1963, one of the most renowned and beloved physicists of all time gave a series of three remarkable lectures at the University of Washington. Read more »
Review

Issue: July, 1998
Charlie Bradshaw is no Magnum, PI. Magnum is youngish, fit, trim, handsome. Charlie Bradshaw is middle-aged, balding, paunchy. Read more »
Review

Issue: July, 1998
In the early 1970s, super secret agent Evan Tanner disappeared, not an uncommon fate of international spies in the waning days of the Cold War. Read more »
Review

Issue: September, 1998
Over the past several years, journalist/essayist/satirist P. Read more »
Review

Issue: September, 1998
Kinky Friedman, author, raconteur, country music singer ( They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore ), and private eye is back for his 11th investigative outing in Blast from the Past. Read more »
Review

Issue: October, 1998
On a warm midsummer's night, on the long drive home through rural New England countryside, young Emma Learner tugs urgently at her mother. Ihave to go to the bathroom. Read more »
Review

Issue: March, 1999
Liberty Falling, the latest installment in Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series, finds the park ranger/sleuth in the Big Apple. Read more »
Review

Issue: April, 1999
In a farmhouse in rural New York, retired high-school teacher Billy Bryan tries to come to grips with the death of his wife of 37 years. Read more »
Review

Issue: May, 1999
On a sultry Los Angeles summer night, cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington should have been having the time of his life. Read more »
Review

Issue: June, 1999
Porsches have been an integral part of the American carscape since the death of film idol James Dean at the wheel of a silver 550 Spyder in the mid-'50s. Read more »
Review

Issue: July, 1999
A favorite spring fever fantasy of mine goes something like this: What if I just walked out of my life and assumed a completely new identity? Read more »
Review

Issue: July, 1999
Most mystery novelists would give their writing hand to have just one successful series. Read more »
Review

Issue: August, 1999
On the streets of a not-too-distant future Los Angeles, a mystery begins to unfold. Read more »
Review

Issue: October, 1999
Hitler's Niece, by National Book Award Finalist Ron Hansen, is troubling for the reader. Read more »
Review

Issue: November, 1999
ÊI am, let it be said, an Eve Babitz devotee. Hooked ever since reading Slow Days, Fast Company many moons ago, I have read every article, book, and snippet I could find in the intervening years. Read more »
Review

Issue: January, 2000
I picked up my review copy of Void Moon expecting another installment in the fine police procedural novels featuring world-weary detective Harry Bosch. Read more »
Review

Issue: January, 2000
I picked up my review copy of Void Moon expecting another installment in the fine police procedural novels featuring world-weary detective Harry Bosch. Read more »
Review

Issue: March, 2000
ÊDeep South, the latest installment in the wildly popular Anna Pigeon series, finds our intrepid park ranger assigned to the Natchez Trace Parkway in rural Mississippi. Read more »
Review

Issue: March, 2000
Standing in front of the reptilium at the London zoo, author Jeremy Seal recalled one of his earliest fears: Years before, as a child, I had stood in this same doorway. Read more »
Review

Issue: March, 2000
Standing in front of the reptilium at the London zoo, author Jeremy Seal recalled one of his earliest fears: Years before, as a child, I had stood in this same doorway. Read more »
Review

Issue: April, 2000
Ray Williams is dead. He is in Heaven as the story opens, in a support group for folks who are not happy with their last words. Read more »
Review

Issue: April, 2000
The latest Robert B. Parker novel, Hugger Mugger, finds our hero Spenser in rural Georgia, far afield from his home turf of Boston. Read more »
Review

Issue: May, 2000
It often seems that certain contemporary mystery writers own a city: Robert Parker owns Boston, J. A. Jance owns Seattle, Robert Crais owns L. Read more »
Review

Issue: June, 2000
For most of his life, Tim Picasso has not had the means to support the lifestyle he feels he richly deserves. Read more »
Review

Issue: May, 2001
n October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik I, into space. It orbited the earth for three months before re-entering the atmosphere and burning up. Read more »
The allure of an elusive fish

Issue: October, 2002
Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee is a man of many and varied interests. Read more »
The bad boys of the Roaring '20s

Issue: October 2012
"Some years later, in a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin’s feet were placed in a tub of cement.” As an opening line guaranteed to pick you up by the scruff of the neck a Read more »
The winding paths of memory

Issue: June 2005
When 60-ish Milanese book dealer Giambattista Bodoni ( Yambo to his friends and family) awakens from a coma, he finds himself in possession of only part of his memory: he has totally forgotten his w Read more »
Thrillers from the reigning king and the crown prince

Issue: February 2000
Jack Higgins has long been regarded as the alpha dog of the thriller genre. Read more »
Thrilling conclusion to a landmark trilogy

Issue: June 2010
The final volume of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, finds neo-punk and genius hacker Lisbeth Salander recuperating from a bul Read more »
Venturing far and wide

Issue: March, 2004
"Overseas guides get you where you want to goUnusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." Thus spake the avatar of post-modern cool, Kurt Vonnegut, in his weirdly prophetic Read more »
When love is put to the test

Issue: April, 2003
Every so often, a novel comes along so electrically charged with atmosphere and eroticism that the reader has to consume it in small morsels, stopping from time to time to digest what has been read. Read more »

Columnist Information

Bio:

Bruce Tierney was weaned on the Hardy Boys and has been writing Whodunit for more than 10 years. He divides his time between Japan and Prince Edward Island.

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Bruce Tierney

Content by Bruce Tierney

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