The 35th Stone Barrington novel takes the peripatetic New York lawyer, playboy, and investor to Rome, where the Arrington Group, of which he is a board member, is planning to build a palatial new hotel.
On Stone’s last-minute flight from JFK, he meets Hedy Kiesler, a beautiful artist, with whom he shares an upgrade to first class—and later a bed in Rome.
Meanwhile, Leonardo Casselli, a relocated New York Mafia don, makes it clear that the hotel won’t go up peacefully until he gets his share of the action.
Stone calls on old friends Dino Bacchetti of the NYPD and Mike Freeman of Strategic Services for aid in his fight with Casselli, who has plenty of goons at his disposal.
When Hedy becomes a pawn in the conflict, Stone devises a dangerous plan to infiltrate Casselli’s stronghold on the Amalfi coast.
Helen Mirren as Elizabeth Best, a retired MI6 officer
Pierce Brosnan as Ron Ritchie, a retired twice-divorced union leader
Ben Kingsley as Professor Ibrahim Arif, a retired psychiatrist
Celia Imrie as Joyce Meadowcroft, a retired trauma nurse
Ibrahim is my favourite, for sure.
Four pensioners, friends at a retirement village in Kent, England decide to solve murders as a retirement hobby.
This book is a little different. They investigate a crypto scheme. Not a bad plot.
In her Library Journal review, Liz French wrote, “The crime, though ingeniously plotted, with many red herrings, is not the main attraction. It’s the growing love and respect among the Thursdays and their kith and kin, including a few criminals and cops, that is the biggest draw.”
In the latest instalment, NAKED GREED (2016), the narrative begins when Stone helps a man who is being beaten up by two thugs who turn out to be former police officers. After the fight is over and the victim has a chance to talk, he and Stone become fast friends.
Stone learns that the man’s name is Jose Perado, but he wants to be called “Pepe.” He says he is a beer brewer from San Antonio, Texas, and wants to open a brewery, which would bring his business to New York City. …
The love interest in this one is Pat Frank, a blond, slight and attractive young woman who is assigned to check whether he is ready to fly his new plane.
They fall into bed. All good — until her jealous former lover/partner shows up.
Two subplots unfold to move the story along.
The first is a search for Middle Eastern terrorists intent on launching a plot against the U.S. run by Holly and her enthusiastic young assistant, Millicent Martindale, with help from the FBI.
In Dead Aim, an unsuspecting man tries to help a young woman on the edge, and finds himself drawn into a lethal struggle with a deadly adversary–and then another, and another, and another.
The plot is driven by an ex-mercenary soldier who has set up a camp where he trains wealthy people (the only kind who can afford his fees) to hunt and kill other people. The body count is very high. The innocent hero becomes a target.
Translation of My Friends (2025) is excellent, so far as I can tell.
Always interesting and original, this time the author wrote mostly a philosophical look at friendship:
Ted and the painter(KimKim)
Louisa and Fish
Ted and Louisa
4 teenage friends (Ted, Joar, Ali, and KimKim)
It’s dark with far too many deaths. Poverty, abuse, hatred and ugliness of humanity. But very funny, as well.
Mouthy Louisa is an outrageous teenager. Very believable. I wonder if Backman modelled her on some young person he knows. 😀
A story that alternates between two timelines: the present-day journey of an 18-year-old named Louisa, who is grieving the loss of her best friend, and the past, 25 years earlier, when four teenage friends—Joar, Ted, Ali, and the artist C.J. Jat—spent a transformative summer together.
Their friendship and shared secrets lead to the creation of a world-famous painting, which Louisa discovers and becomes obsessed with. Louisa’s journey to learn the story behind the painting connects her own grief to the past lives of the four friends, exploring themes of friendship, loss, trauma, and the healing power of art and human connection.
A.I. summary
“This is Fredrik Backman at the height of his empathy and resonance. . . I frequently paused to marvel at the way Backman captured the rebellion of joy, the ferocity of devotion, and the cruelty of indifference. Every Backman book should come with the warning that your heart will be split in two, but also, more importantly, with the assurance that it will be repaired with restored faith in the small miracles of being human.” —NPR, Favorite Fiction Reads of 2025
Part 1 of an intriguing story. I’m looking forward to the sequel to be published 2026.
I’ve always considered Baldacci to be a lightweight pop fiction writer, cranking them out. BUT his recent books have been much more serious writing.
Walter Nash is a happy, wealthy, boring business executive.
However, following his estranged Vietnam-veteran father’s funeral, Nash is unexpectedly approached by the FBI in the middle of the night.
They have an important request: become their inside man to expose an enterprise that is laundering large sums of money ….
At the top of this illegal operation is Victoria Steers, an international criminal mastermind that the FBI has been trying to bring down for years.
Nash has little choice but to accept the FBI’s demands …
But when Steers discovers that Nash is working with the FBI, she turns the tables on him in a way he never could have contemplated. And that forces Nash to take the ultimate step both to survive and to take his revenge: He must become the exact opposite of who he has always been.
Dead Land (2020) is the first of her books I’ve read.
It’s an odd but entertaining book.
For some reason, V. I. Warshawski investigates this case without getting paid by anyone.
Not much happens plot-wise. BUT that doesn’t stop Vic.
The main reason to read it to follow the first-person narrative of the sarcastic, funny, and fiercely self-reliant character.
Chicago is the city of broad shoulders, but V.I. Warshawski knows its politics: “Pay to Play.” Money changes hands in the middle of the night; by morning, buildings and parks have been replaced by billion-dollar projects.
Private investigator V.I. gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals when her impetuous goddaughter Bernie tries to rescue a famous singer-songwriter, now living on the streets.
Thanks to Bernie, V.I. finds herself in the path of some developers whose negotiating strategy is simple: they bulldoze – or kill – any obstacle in their way.
Questions pile up almost as fast as the dead bodies. When she tries to answer them, the detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago’s parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in the American government’s interference in South American politics.
BEST was the ending — not always easy to do with novels.
Paul and Sylvie Turner are the bad guys. Hired to murder a woman who knows too much.
Six years ago, Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear. But now her ex-boyfriend and former business partner, Eric Fuller, is being framed for her presumed murder in an effort to smoke her out, and Till must find her before tango-dancing assassins Paul and Sylvie Turner do.
Rick McCharles 