Author Archives: Bruce DeSilva

About Bruce DeSilva

Crime Novelist

My Review of “The Perfect Liar,” a New Crime Novel by Thomas Christopher Greene

Posted on January 17, 2019

The great thing about being an artist, Max tells his students, is that you can imagine things into being. But only he knows the extremes to which he has taken that. Max lacks the academic credentials for his job as … Continue reading →

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My Review of Joanna Schaffhausen’s New Crime Novel, “No Mercy”

Posted on January 15, 2019

No Mercy is Joanna Schaffhausen’s second compelling novel in a series featuring FBI profiler Reed Markham and Woodbury, MA, police officer Ellery Hathaway, whom Reed once rescued from a serial killer. The story is told in vivid, precise prose, the … Continue reading →

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I Thought He Would Live Forever

Posted on January 2, 2019

At my age, old friends and colleagues die with such frequency that I have almost become numb to it, but somehow I thought that Steve Parisi would live forever. He was a big, boisterous man with a luxurious head of … Continue reading →

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My Review of Carol Potenza’s Debut Crime Novel

Posted on December 4, 2018

Hearts of the Missing, Carol Potenza’s debut novel, is a yarn wrapped in Pueblo Indian mythology, forensic evidence, ancient rituals, DNA tests, evil spirits, greed and violence. The story involves so many characters and such a plethora of twists and … Continue reading →

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Killed by Illegal Abortion: May Burns, My Great Grandmother.

Posted on October 9, 2018

Before Roe v. Wade, untold numbers of America women died from illegal abortions. One of them was May Burns of Middleboro, Massachusetts, shown here in her only surviving photograph. She was my great grandmother. May, an Irish immigrant, was married … Continue reading →

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Proof That I’m a Born Romantic

Posted on September 21, 2018

I’m a born romantic. Take tonight when I asked my wife, the poet Patricia Smith, to join me in watching a scene from The Hitman’s Bodyguard. In it, the hitman (Samuel Jackson) is telling his body guard (Ryan Reynolds) how … Continue reading →

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My Review of Sara Gran’s New Claire DeWitt Mystery

Posted on September 20, 2018

For the uninitiated, Sara Gran’s protagonist, 40-year-old Claire DeWitt, is the woman Nancy Drew might have become if she had been raised by indifferent parents, developed a fierce drug habit, got seduced by the occult, became sexually promiscuous,  suffered with … Continue reading →

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My Review of “Colorblind,” the Latest Jesse Stone Novel by Reed Farrel Coleman

Posted on September 14, 2018

When a young black police officer hired by Chief Stone guns down an apparently unarmed white suspect in a cross burning, tensions run high in the fictional town of Paradise, MA.  As a white nationalist organization from out of town … Continue reading →

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Check Out My Review of T. Jefferson Parker’s “Swift Vengeance”

Posted on August 24, 2018

For the last decade or so, T. Jeffferson Parker has been using the popular form of the thriller to explore the pressing issues of our day. His previous series, an uneven but sometimes brilliant one featuring undercover cop Charlie Hood, … Continue reading →

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A Chilling Tale of Vengeance: My Review of David Joy’s New Novel, “The Line That Held Us.”

Posted on August 24, 2018

“The Line That Held Us” is David Joy’s third crime novel about life in a mountainous region where family roots run deep and where some folks live by a code that puts them outside of the law. The book’s title … Continue reading →

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