One + one = three in Dutch author and Libris Prize winner Tomas Lieske‘s new novel My Sovereign Love about an artisan of arithmetic, his love interest, and a meddling monarch. Born in The Hague in 1528, Marnix de Veer is a mathematician, architect, and instrument-maker extraordinaire. Also a dabbler in foreign languages, he catches…Continue Reading
30-Somethings, Tigers, and the Algerian Liberation Front As if being CEO of a multinational company and founder of the successful business book summary site getAbstract.com weren’t enough, Rolf Dobelli added the title of novelist to his resumé in 2001 when, on his 35th birthday, he began writing fiction. Two years later, the Swiss-born PhD published…Continue Reading
Swede Heads for the Hills, Plato’s PR at the Bar, Ultra-Marathoner Darts Through Europe A long-forgotten hero of speed gets his moment on the proverbial winner’s podium in German author Marc Buhl’s biathlon of fact and fiction, RASHIDA or THE RACE TO THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. Mensen Ernst was born in the late 18th…Continue Reading
Road Rage Hits Spain, the Devil Deals in Sweden, and a Burglary Stumps Denmark A minor fender bender on a Monday morning leads a frazzled female executive named Sonsoles to hop out of her convertible and let loose with a string of insults and profanities that would make even the most grizzled truck driver blush…Continue Reading
Of Love and War Formerly Exiled Korean Writer Revisits Vietnam, While France’s Frèches Hits The Silk Road One of South Korea’s best-known writers, Hwang Sok-Yong, has found a fervent audience in France for his monumental and controversial literary portraits denouncing “both corruption and American imperialism” in the Vietnam and Korean wars. In The Shadow of…Continue Reading
It’s a Wonderful Double Life Hot-Buttered in Finland, Dreyfus Redux in Israel, and Watusi on the Brain in Spain Nouveau-riche restaurateur Brede Ziegler is murdered not once, but twice in No Echo, the sixth in a series of shrewdly executed detective novels from megastar Norwegian author Anne Holt. After Ziegler turns up hot-buttered and trussed,…Continue Reading
