Murder, They Wrote

Red Verdict is the fourth book in former F.B.I. director James Comey’s Nora Carleton series.

This month in mysteries: James Comey’s new espionage thriller and the latest installment in Anthony Horowitz’s meta-mystery series

By Lisa Henricksson

There’s a lot of cool tradecraft in James Comey’s new espionage thriller, Red Verdict: notes hidden inside fake rivets on subway-platform pillars, deluxe surveillance strollers equipped with listening devices, dust-dispensing machines that return a searched room to its original state. It’s hard to believe that an author so sophisticated about super-secret things would send a murderous message to the president via a sinister Instagram photo of… seashells?

Given the weakness of the Department of Justice’s case against Comey, I hope the former F.B.I. director will be able to continue his thriving career as a fiction writer, because he’s quite adept at it and shouldn’t become another victim of Trump’s retribution tour. READ ON