Miles Roby is the manager of the Empire Grill on the main street of Empire Falls, a small Maine factory town whose time has passed. A quin­tes­sen­tial nice guy (i.e., con­gen­i­tal­ly unable to say 'no'), his life is about to undergo huge changes as his wife, Janine, is divorcing him. Janine has already taken up with an obnoxious gym owner, known as the Silver Fox. The diner is owned by Mrs. Francine Whiting, whose husband's family owned the mills that once brought prosperity to Empire Falls. Most of the town still dances …continue.

This is the tenth of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, and it provides much of the basis for the film Master and Commander.

During the War of 1812, Captain Jack Aubrey is sent in pursuit of an American frigate, which has sailed around Cape Horn into the Pacific to seize British whalers in the South Seas. Aubrey and his good friend, the surgeon Stephen Maturin, overcome many obstacles during the pursuit: the ship is badly damaged at one point, crew members are murdered, and Aubrey and Maturin …continue.

In 1912, Henry MacAlpine is a well-known British painter, living in self-imposed exile on a small island off the coast of Brittany. His old friend, William Naysmith, the renowned art critic has come to see him and have his portrait painted. Over the course of several sittings, we come to learn why MacAlpine has left London and why he has lured Naysmith to see him. Naysmith has misused his great influence as an art critic to destroy several painters.

It's extremely rare to see an entire novel written in the …continue.

Henry Perowne undergoes a long, stressful day on Saturday, February 15th, 2003–the day of the giant anti-Iraq war march in London. Perowne is a middle-aged neu­ro­sur­geon, happily married to Rosalind, a lawyer, and father of Theo, a rising blues musician, and Daisy, a newly published poet living in Paris.

His day begins very early when he sees a flaming plane in the sky (not an attack but an engine fire); a morning drive turns nasty when his car is sideswiped by a thug known as Baxter; his normally friendly squash match …continue.

Nobody expects the Spanish In­qui­si­tion!

—Monty Python

They certainly do in the Madrid of 1623. The Spanish Empire is at its peak, ruling much of the Americas as well as the Low Countries. The Spanish In­qui­si­tion functions as an ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal secret police, defending the Faith against heretic­s—and Jews—and ensuring orthodoxy by keeping an iron grip on the hearts and minds of the Spanish people.

This book is the second in a series of novels about Captain Alatriste, a sword-for-hire. The novels are related in flashback by Íñigo, a 13-year-old at the time of …continue.

This book is not a Sher­lock­ian pastiche, although Mycroft Holmes does appear in two short stories within the story.

Damien March is a 30ish researcher at the BBC, who un­ex­pect­ed­ly inherits a house on a remote island off Cape Cod, from his late uncle Patrick, a once-successful novelist. He moves to Ionia and slowly starts inhabiting the life of Patrick. Brothers are a recurring theme throughout this book: Patrick and Damien's father; Damien and his brother Vivian; Mycroft and Sherlock; and others. Damien comes to an un­der­stand­ing and a …continue.

Brigadier-General Sir Harry Flashman returns in the twelfth volume of the Flashman Papers. Flashy is a cad, a rogue, a lecher, a toady, and a bully. His reputation for bravery is wholly undeserved, but he has suc­cess­ful­ly concealed that through an extremely long career, spanning much of the nineteenth century. Flashman reveals all in a series of extremely frank memoirs written in his old age, published long after his death by his "editor", Fraser.

Flashman has many un­de­sir­able qualities, but he has a knack for finding himself in …continue.

The first of three equally long volumes of historical fiction by Neal Stephenson, who is better known for his spec­u­la­tive fiction. This is a prequel of sorts to Crypto­nom­i­con, featuring the distant ancestors of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe characters.

Quick­sil­ver primarily takes place in late 17th century Europe, the baroque era where giants such as Newton, Leibniz, Hooke, and Huygens brought about a new un­der­stand­ing of the world. Daniel Waterhouse, a Puritan scholar, moves among them, knowing that he is not a good enough …continue.