Paula L. Woods
A member of the National Book Critics Circle, Paula L Woods is an author, editor, and contributor to Alta Journal, as well as a crime fiction columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
City of Kings
Naomi Hirahara sets her latest Japantown mystery in 1903 Pasadena, well before World War II.
Long Con in the New West
In Only Way Out, Tod Goldberg leaves the desert for the Oregon coast, unspooling a hilarious, violent noir that redefines the meaning of hustle.
Playing with Matches
In What Fire Brings, Rachel Howzell Hall creates a Topanga Canyon where little is what it seems.
Playback
Denise Mina’s The Second Murderer reimagines Philip Marlowe, again.
Breaking Genre
Samantha Allen’s Patricia Wants to Cuddle is a novel that draws outside the lines.
Eye of the Beholder
In Gary Phillips’s One-Shot Harry, a photographer reframes 1963 Los Angeles.
Watching the Detectives
Michael Connelly’s The Dark Hours is a new kind of police procedural.
A Death in the Family
In Clark and Division, Naomi Hirahara brings the past to life.
