Casey Barrett

A Psychopath You Can Root For in Thrilling Debut “Never Saw Me Coming”

They’ve become so popular, they now have their own podcast. The latest episode featured Megan Abbott — perhaps crime fiction’s ultimate authority on the subject. Except, the term “unlikeable” isn’t exactly accurate — not for Abbott’s characters and certainly not for Vera Kurian’s, um, “protagonist” in her twisted debut novel…

Casey BarrettSeptember 7, 2021

Fiction

Tune In, Drop Out, Read Tao Lin

"No one writes like Tao Lin." — Tommy Orange, author of There There —∞— "Warm, funny, hearteningly nonconformist." — Melissa Broder, author of Milk Fed —∞— As I write this, I am on a couple prescribed pharmaceuticals and a cannabis-infused espresso bean. In the bag next to me, there is…

Casey BarrettAugust 5, 2021

Fiction Thrillers Thrillers - Featured

Bachelorette Fling Haunts Newlyweds’ Idyllic Honeymoon in “Every Vow You Break”

“ pulse-pounding not-so-happily-ever-after thriller.” — The Big Thrill —∞— In human history, is there anything more dangerous than the fragile male ego? At root, it can be blamed for a majority of war and suffering across the ages. Closer to home, it’s also the foundation of plenty of marital misery, which…

Casey BarrettMarch 23, 2021

Miscellany

When a Pen Name Surpasses the Author’s

The curious case of John Banville versus his alter ego, Benjamin Black ... The man writes perfect sentences. Of this, it's difficult to dispute. There's a reason there is perennial chatter about him winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. That hasn't happened yet, but odds are he will win within the decade. …

Casey BarrettJanuary 13, 2021

Fiction Thrillers

“Squeeze Me:” Widow-Eating Pythons Invade Palm Beach

"Scabrous and unrelentingly hilarious ... the Trump era is truly Carl Hiaasen’s moment." —Richard Lipez, The Washington Post I needed this book. You probably do too. It’s been six months and counting of apocalyptic anxiety and stress. The coming months do not promise to be much better. If you are in…

Casey BarrettSeptember 1, 2020

Thrillers

“The Bright Lands” Harbor Dark Secrets About Missing Teen

Because comparisons to other A-list writers are often irresistible when describing a debut novel, here you go: It’s Bret Easton Ellis meets Stephen King, with setting by Buzz Bissinger. When pitching John Fram’s The Bright Lands (Hanover Square Press), perhaps the author’s agent described it along those lines when it…

Casey BarrettJuly 6, 2020

Miscellany

Romancing the Drunk: On the Enduring Allure of the Dissipated Writer

I blame Hunter Thompson. Has there ever been a man who wrote more seductively of the mad intensity and unhinged fun brought on by a life of drugs and drink? His sentences were among the most eloquent ever composed in the English language. The example he set with his prose…

Casey BarrettJune 11, 2020

Fiction Thrillers

Corruption and Cover-Ups Prove Deadly in “Fire and Vengeance”

So much of mystery fiction turns on individual tragedy and obsession. A single murder, a search for a missing child, a cold case that a cop just can’t let go. Less often is the igniting crime one of macro evil. Robert McCaw’s latest novel, Fire and Vengeance (Oceanview), does just…

Casey BarrettMay 26, 2020

Thrillers

A Serial Killer Stalks Victims Via DNA Data in Connelly’s “Fair Warning”

The cover blurb on Michael Connelly’s latest novel, Fair Warning (Little, Brown and Company) is one hell of an anointment. Beneath the title, the Associated Press proclaims: “Connelly is the Raymond Chandler of this generation.” As in: Here be the heir to crime fiction’s mightiest throne. This comparison to Chandler is…

Casey BarrettMay 25, 2020

Thrillers

Moral Dilemmas in Search for the Truth About Missing Co-Eds in “The Secrets They Left Behind”

There are periods in life when five years pass like a wave. One day you’re thirty-eight, the next you’re forty-three, and nothing much seems to have changed. The span between age eighteen and twenty-three is not one of those periods. Time has a way of changing speeds. That half-decade, in…

Casey BarrettMay 1, 2020

Thrillers

“The Boy from the Woods” Driven by Signature Coben Plot Twists

The twist is the thing. Harlan Coben has become a cottage industry unto himself, not just with a long string of bestsellers and over 70 million books in print, but, more recently, as a rising force in international television. (He currently has no less than 14 projects in development with…

Casey BarrettMarch 17, 2020

Thrillers

Peter Swanson’s Latest Thriller Rediscovers the “Eight Perfect Murders” in Mystery Fiction

Oh, the guilt of the books we haven’t read. The classics, the bestsellers, the touchstones of a genre … and then there’s that ever-increasing stack of newer releases that you’ll get to, one of these days. You’ll love these books, or at least admire them, but great ones will forever…

Casey BarrettMarch 3, 2020

Thrillers

Haunted Heroine Rushes “Toward the Light” in Debut Thriller

There’s nothing quite like discovering a new, exotic city through the pages of a thriller. Through fast-paced fiction, the sights and sounds and smells of a place come through in technicolor. A city feels so much more, well, thrilling. It beats any guidebook. Bonnar Spring’s beautifully executed first novel Toward…

Casey BarrettJanuary 16, 2020

Thrillers

Ancestry Data Aids Search for Killer in Robin Cook’s Latest Thriller

Everyone knows the cliché not to judge a book by its cover, but to judge one by its first page? We do that all the time. Browsing in bookstores, I’ve opened countless novels, read page one and placed it back on the shelf. For literary agents and editors, this is…

Casey BarrettDecember 11, 2019

Thrillers

Jack Taylor is Back and Breaking All the Rules in “Galway Girl”

There are rules in crime fiction. They say you must learn them before you break them. Some, regarding story structure or point of view, may be bent every which way. The genre is better for it. Others, however, mustn’t be broken. You are not allowed to hurt certain innocent beings.…

Casey BarrettDecember 2, 2019

Thrillers

Tatiana Returns in Martin Cruz Smith’s Latest Arkady Renko Installment

https://booktrib.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/The-Siberian-Dilemma-Martin-Cruz-Smith.jpg I want to go to Siberia. Words I never thought I’d write. That is the power of a first-rate crime novel. It immerses you in its surroundings with visceral immediacy. It makes you want to see for yourself. Perhaps more than any other genre, crime fiction is often defined…

Casey BarrettNovember 1, 2019

Casey Barrett

A Psychopath You Can Root For in Thrilling Debut “Never Saw Me Coming”

Tune In, Drop Out, Read Tao Lin

Bachelorette Fling Haunts Newlyweds’ Idyllic Honeymoon in “Every Vow You Break”

When a Pen Name Surpasses the Author’s

“Squeeze Me:” Widow-Eating Pythons Invade Palm Beach

“The Bright Lands” Harbor Dark Secrets About Missing Teen

Romancing the Drunk: On the Enduring Allure of the Dissipated Writer

Corruption and Cover-Ups Prove Deadly in “Fire and Vengeance”

A Serial Killer Stalks Victims Via DNA Data in Connelly’s “Fair Warning”

Moral Dilemmas in Search for the Truth About Missing Co-Eds in “The Secrets They Left Behind”

“The Boy from the Woods” Driven by Signature Coben Plot Twists

Peter Swanson’s Latest Thriller Rediscovers the “Eight Perfect Murders” in Mystery Fiction

Haunted Heroine Rushes “Toward the Light” in Debut Thriller

Ancestry Data Aids Search for Killer in Robin Cook’s Latest Thriller

Jack Taylor is Back and Breaking All the Rules in “Galway Girl”

Tatiana Returns in Martin Cruz Smith’s Latest Arkady Renko Installment

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