BIOGRAPHY

Australian gospel by Lech Blaine

In a quiet moment at the end of the first act of Australian Gospel, Lech Blaine’s mother, Lenore, a “saviour of the small details”, sits at her desk and types up that day’s diary entry about life with her husband, Tom, and their three foster kids, Steve, John and Trent. Hannah, the biological sister of Steve and John, hasn’t yet arrived on the scene, nor has another foster daughter, Rebecca. Lech, Lenore and Tom’s only biological offspring, hasn’t been conceived. The household hasn’t yet been upended by the violent harassment of Michael and Mary Shelley, the biological parents of Steve, John and Hannah. Australian Gospel tracks the relationship between the Shelleys and the Blaines over several tumultuous decades. Lenore told her family that one day she’d be the one to write the story of the “Shelley Gang”. She didn’t live to do so, and Australian Gospel is dedicated to her. Fair enough, as Lenore’s records of family life provide Blaine (the author of 2021’s Car Crash: A Memoir) with a rich fund of small details to draw on. As well as working through his mother’s files, Blaine interviewed hundreds of people whose paths crossed the Shelleys’, including his siblings and parents. He sifted through court records, foster care reports and newspaper archives to understand the events and relationships that form the narrative arc of Australian Gospel. What a sensational story it is, and hard to summarise without making the book sound like a crass potboiler overstuffed with colourful characters and melodrama. The bare bones go something like this: the Shelleys are itinerant missionaries who renounce their posh upbringings to crusade against contemporary decadence, losing custody of their children along the way. Their various court appearances – to answer charges of vagrancy, harassment, stalking and trespass – were tabloid fodder during the 1980s and 90s. The Blaines are working-class publicans who move around regional Queensland with their growing family of foster kids and dalmatians, accompanied by a huge crowd of cousins, comrades and friends. In their atheist egalitarianism, joie de vivre and love of sport, they epitomise everything the Shelleys despise about Australian culture. When the Shelleys discover their kids are living with the Blaines, they terrorise the family in a campaign to regain custody of their children. The Guardian, October 2024

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COOKING

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GENERAL FICTION

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Poet Akbar (Calling a Wolf a Wolf) explores the allure of martyrdom in this electrifying story of a Midwestern poet struggling with addiction and grief. Cyrus Shams, an orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, is fixated on finding meaning in the deaths of his parents—his mother in a plane that was accidentally shot down by the U.S. Navy over the Persian Gulf, his father from a stroke. His obsession strains his relationships, particularly with his closest friend and roommate Zee Novak, as does his heavy drinking and drug use. Immersed in the study of martyrs throughout history, Cyrus finds focus for his project when he meets Orkideh, an older painter foregoing treatment for her terminal breast cancer, and he realizes he has an opportunity to interview a living martyr. More details would spoil the plot, which thickens when connections are revealed between Cyrus and Orkideh as well as secrets about Cyrus’s family history that inform his conflicted feelings about pursuing a queer romance with Zee. Akbar deploys a range of styles with equal flair, from funny wordplay (“Maybe it was that Cyrus had done the right drugs in the wrong order, or the wrong drugs in the right order”) to incisive lyricism (“An alphabet, like a life, is a finite set of shapes”). This wondrous novel will linger in readers’ minds long after the final page. Publisher’s Weekly, January 2024

To Die For by David Baldacci

The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl. Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who’s awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who’s a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she’s 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he’s convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called “12/24/65,” as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She’s not necessary to the plot, but she’s a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead. Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish. Kirkus Reviews, September 2024.

In Too Deep by Lee Child

Lee Child hands the Jack Reacher franchise over to his brother, Andrew, with this solid series entry (following The Secret). Former military policeman Reacher wakes up shackled to a steel table with a broken right arm and no memory of where he is or how he got there. During a visit from one of his captors, Reacher manages to get free. He soon learns he was kidnapped by a gang that’s wrapped up in a complex art forgery scheme. Their motives, as far as Reacher can tell, involve the pursuit of a safe holding $2.2 million, a bag of gold bullion, and something called “the Russian job.” As he tries to stay out of the group’s crosshairs and figure out what, exactly, they want from him, Reacher teams up with a detective named Jenny Knight who has a personal vendetta against one of the gang members. Together, they resolve to bring the whole syndicate down—provided their explosive romantic chemistry doesn’t distract them from the task at hand. Though the plot is too busy by half, Reacher fans old and new will be perfectly satisfied by the familiar bone-crunching and world-saving in this fast-paced adventure. The series is in good hands. Publishers Weekly, October 2024.

The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale

A writer’s life takes a turn for the metafictional in this glossy neo-noir from Drysdale (The Paris Affair). Zoe Weiss moves to L.A. after the manuscript for her debut thriller, Fractured, earns her a million-dollar two-book deal. When the novel is published, however, it bombs, shattering Zoe’s self-confidence. Two years later, her advance is gone, her second book is long overdue, and she fears it’s only a matter of time until her publisher demands its money back. When her agent requests an update, Zoe panics and claims she’s writing a high-concept thriller based on a celebrity she knows. While it’s true that Zoe has recently reconnected with Zach, a former fling who’s now a movie star, his manager has made her sign a nondisclosure agreement, taking their time together off the table as literary inspiration. Then Zoe and Zach’s rekindled relationship makes the tabloids, and Zoe gets violent threats resembling the ones received by Fractured’s protagonist. It’s perfect thriller fodder—provided she can skirt the NDA and stay alive. Drysdale’s tale takes the form of an after the fact tell-all written by Zoe, characterized by clever foreshadowing and an intoxicating Hollywood buzz. This offers plenty of frothy fun. Publishers Weekly, September 2024.

Little deaths by Emma Flint

One of New York City’s classic tabloid crime cases—cocktail waitress Alice Crimmins’s controversial conviction for the 1965 murders of her two young children—becomes the springboard for British author Flint’s affecting, achingly beautiful debut. That Ruth Malone, a separated single mom, leads an active sex life, including trysting with married men while her five-year-old Frankie Jr. and four-year-old Cindy remain home alone, locked in their bedroom, makes her the only suspect police seriously look into after her estranged husband reports the youngsters missing. And yet the deeper that fledgling crime reporter Pete Wonicke digs into the story, the more he becomes convinced that while Ruth may be guilty of many things, killing her kids isn’t among them. Eschewing easy answers or Perry Mason miracles, Flint focuses squarely on Ruth’s stiflingly straitened life in working-class Queens, close enough to gaze at the bewitching lights of Manhattan yet distant enough to feel marooned in another galaxy. This stunning novel is less about whodunit than deeper social issues of motherhood, morals, and the kind of rush to judgment that can condemn someone long before the accused sees the inside of a courtroom. Publisher’s Weekly, October 2016

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Six astronauts on a space station orbit the planet over the course of a single Earth day.Two hundred and fifty miles above the Earth, a space station goes round and round. Over the course of 24 hours, the astronauts inside experience sunrise and sunset 16 times. Though they’re supposed to keep their schedules in tune with a normal “daily” routine, they exist in a dream-like liminal space, weightless, out of time, captivated and astonished by the “ringing singing lightness” of the globe always in view. “What would it be to lose this?” is the question that spurs Harvey’s nimble swoops and dives into the minds of the six astronauts (as well as a few of the earthbound characters, past and present). There are gentle eddies of plot: The Japanese astronaut, Chie, has just received word that her elderly mother has died; six other astronauts are currently on their way to a moon landing; a “super-typhoon” barrels toward the Philippines; one of the two cosmonauts, Anton, has discovered a lump on his neck. But overall this book is a meditation, zealously lyrical, about the profundity and precarity of our imperiled planet. It’s surely difficult to write a book in which the main character is a giant rock in space—and the book can feel ponderous at times, especially in the middle—but Harvey’s deliberate slowed-down time and repetitions are entirely the point. Like the astronauts, we are forced to meditate on the notion that “not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s…a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre.” Is this a crisis or an opportunity? Harvey treats this question as both a narrative and an existential dilemma. Elegiac and elliptical, this slim novel is a sobering read. Kirkus Reviews, September 2023.

The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki

Mochizuki dazzles in her beautifully crafted contemporary fantasy debut. Washed up television writer Mizuki Serikawa now pens scripts for supporting characters in a video game dating sim but she’s hoping her last ditch pitch to director Akari Nakayama will result in a better gig. After Akari lets her know the production company’s executives have passed, Mizuki is totally adrift—until two odd-looking strangers invite her to “The Full Moon Coffee Shop.” This turns out to be a very unusual cat café staffed by feline astrologers who pick out celestial desserts like Lunar Chocolate Fondant, Planetary Affogato, and Astral Syrup to aid their customers in their quests for self-knowledge. The coffee shop appears to several other Kyoto residents facing unexpected troubles in their personal and professional lives: director Akari, who’s struggling against an unexpected attraction; actor Satsuki Ayukawa, whose career tanked after her affair with a married costar; hairdresser Megumi Hayakawa, who isn’t satisfied in what she thought was her dream career; and IT startup founder Takashi Mizumoto, who is plagued with inexplicable tech trouble. The stories of all five characters subtly but cleverly intersect, pointing to an act of kindness in their pasts that gets mystically mirrored back to them in the present. Just as sweet and satisfying as the scrumptious desserts served at the eponymous café, this gentle fantasy is not to be missed. Publisher’s Weekly, May 2024

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HISTORICAL FICTION

The Rapture by Emily Maguire

Long a source of conjecture, the myth or legend of a female pope has endured for centuries. Pope John of England was allegedly Pope Joan, and ascended to the throne of Saint Peter after disguising herself as a man in the middle ages, reigning for two years from 855 to 857 AD. She was apparently exposed after giving birth during a procession. From this persistent myth, Emily Maguire has written an enthralling tale following Agnes, the only daughter of a widowed bishop in an isolated part of England. Agnes’s father allows her to listen to his theological and philosophical discussions with visiting priests and clerics. She is also taught to read and questions her father, but only in private as women are not allowed to speak or argue with men. As fervently as she believes in God and all his works, she struggles with her future as wife, widow or nun. When a young Benedictine monk has philosophical discussions with her as they walk in the neighbouring fields and forests, she is torn between a budding and curious affection and her reluctance to accept the options available to her. After a series of unfortunate events, Agnes decides to disguise herself as a man, indeed as a priest, and travel and learn with her lovesick monk. Agnes becomes ‘John the Englishman’, and a novitiate at a prestigious monastery, where she works tirelessly as a scribe. Her deep theological knowledge and intelligence ultimately leads her (him) to the Vatican. Maguire writes in an amazing style that is neither anachronistic nor left moribund in an attempt to seem medieval. This book is awash in mud, ordure, sweat, blood and all bodily fluids. At times you feel as if you are reading this by candlelight in a stable or the back of a church. It’s a powerful and thrilling novel. Readings, September 2024

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MYSTERY

The Drowned by John Banville

Irish author Banville brings back characters he originally wrote about under the name Benjamin Black. Banville’s latest 1950s-set crime novel opens with Denton Wymes, a recluse who lives in a caravan in rural Ireland with his dog, stumbling upon an unusual sight: a Mercedes SL idling in a field, its headlamps on and no driver in sight. A man named Armitage accosts Wymes, saying that his wife, who had been driving the car, has gone missing and may have “drowned herself.” Wymes is suspicious of Armitage, whose affect seems off: “It seemed a piece of bad acting, but then, Wymes told himself, that’s mostly how people behave when there’s a crisis and they’re distraught.” DI St John Strafford arrives from Dublin to investigate, quickly sussing out that nothing about the case will be straightforward—Armitage is slippery and unpredictable, Wymes is a convicted child molester, and something seems amiss about the couple whose rental house Armitage and Wymes went to for help. Meanwhile, Strafford has his own problems: His separated wife wants a divorce, and his lover—who happens to be the daughter of his pathologist colleague, Quirke—is pregnant. And when two bodies are discovered, he is faced with an increasing sense of urgency. Strafford and Quirke return as characters from Banville’s previous crime novels, and Armitage played a large role in his most recent book, The Lock-Up (2023). These are compelling people: Strafford with his emotional unavailability (“The fact was, he did not understand himself, or Phoebe, or anyone. The vagaries of the human heart baffled him”) and Quirke with his brooding depression (“He stayed away from people as much as possible. This was a loneliness company couldn’t cure”). As for the mystery at the heart of the book: Banville remains a master of suspense; it’s not easy to stop turning the pages until the novel’s genuinely surprising end. This is yet another fine thriller from an author at the top of his game. Excellent writing and a clever plot make this one stand out. Kirkus Reviews, August 2024

Leave the girls behind by Jacqueline Bublitz

A young woman traumatized by a childhood friend’s murder investigates a similar crime 19 years later. The true crime–loving amateur detective is everywhere in fiction these days, but New Zealand–born writer Bublitz brings a welcome twist to her version. As in her last novel, Before You Knew My Name (2022), she pushes the boundaries of the genre by adding a supernatural element and a sharp feminist sensibility to this thriller about New York City bartender Ruth-Ann Baker. A college dropout in her mid 20s, Ruth has good reason to be obsessed with true-crime stories: She’s still suffering psychological trauma from the abduction and murder of her best friend, Beth Lovely, when they were both children. Local teacher Ethan Oswald was convicted of the crime and died in prison, but when Ruth learns another girl has vanished from her Connecticut hometown all these years later, she wonders if there could be a connection. Did Oswald have a helper still out there? She sounds out her theories with an unusual cohort: Beth’s ghost and the ghosts of other murdered girls. But Ruth is not the most reliable of narrators, and Bublitz keeps the reader guessing about whether or not these ghostly conversations are all in Ruth’s head. As Ruth embarks on an investigation that will take her around the world and into the lives of three different women with connections to Oswald, she reveals more about her own troubled past. With empathy and insight, Bublitz examines the scars violence leaves on its victims and refutes the idea that some deaths are more tragic than others. Kirkus Reviews, July 2024.

Honey drop dead by Laura Childs

Childs invites readers to the latest in her endless stream of cleverly themed tea parties buzzing with potential murder suspects. Charleston, South Carolina, tea shop owner Theodosia Browning; her tea sommelier, Drayton Conneley; and chef Haley Parker are catering an outdoor tea organized around bees and honey. The event is designed to promote Holly Burns’ Imago Gallery, which has recently been given a boost by a much-needed influx of money from investor Jeremy Slade. The wealthy crowd is annoyed by an impromptu speech from pushy politician Osgood Claxton III and shocked when a beekeeper caring for nearby hives walks over, sprays Claxton and the crowd with an unknown substance from his smoker, then takes out a gun and shoots the politician. Without a thought for her safety, Theodosia takes off after the killer, who, despite the clumsy moves required by his protective suit, still gets away after shooting at her. Her boyfriend, detective Pete Riley, and his boss, Burt Tidwell, are upset but know from long experience that once Theodosia’s on the track of a killer, she’s not to be deterred, especially now that Holly’s business is circling the drain. There are certainly plenty of suspects, for Claxton, well known in Charleston political circles as a crook, is in the middle of a messy divorce and has made enemies throughout the artistic community. Holly begs for help, and Haley’s boyfriend is a suspect. So how can Theodosia turn down their pleas? Historic Charleston and cream teas are a perfect backdrop for genteel murder and mayhem. Kirkus Reviews, 2023

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson

Though slimmer than its predecessors, Stevenson’s third meta-whodunit featuring Australian golden age mystery expert Ernest Cunningham (after Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect) is every bit as ingenious. Shortly before Ernest’s upcoming wedding, his ex-wife, Erin, is locked up for the murder of her philanthropist partner, Lyle Pearse, after he’s found stabbed to death in their home in the Blue Mountains. Given Ernest’s previous successes solving the murder of a famous writer and the crimes of a serial killer, Erin calls and begs him to help clear her name. After speaking to Erin and poking around Lyle’s offices, Ernest identifies six main suspects, including magician Rylan Blaze; Lyle’s old assistant, Flick; and a pair of teenage twins who attended the rehab program he directed. The clues are doled out in the form of an Advent calendar, with one fair-play puzzle piece revealed at the end of each chapter. As usual, Stevenson hits the sweet spot between self-awareness and sincerity, never allowing the regular fourth-wall breaks to curdle into snark, and the resolution is hugely gratifying. Stevenson’s hot streak shows no signs of cooling. Publisher’s Weekly, May 2024

A deception at Thornecrest by Ashley Weaver

Set in 1934, Weaver’s sprightly seventh outing for Amory Ames (after 2019’s A Dangerous Engagement) finds the heavily pregnant Amory at Thornecrest, the Ames family’s country home in Kent. One morning, while Amory is applying herself to her correspondence, the butler announces an unexpected visitor: a young woman claiming to be the wife of her husband, Milo, who’s away on business. The woman introduces herself as Imogen Prescott, and says she married Milo three months earlier. Amory maintains her aristocratic sangfroid, and assures Imogen that everything will be explained once Milo returns home. No sooner does Milo do so than another unexpected visitor turns up on their doorstep, and it becomes clear how Imogen was deceived. A murder amid the annual village Springtide Festival complicates matters further. The lively give-and-take between Amory and Milo makes up for the minimal sleuthing. Those who enjoy escaping into make-believe English villages in the company of pleasant vicars, mildly eccentric aristocrats, and wily village folk will be satisfied. Publishers Weekly, March 2020

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NON FICTION

The Secret Life of the Universe by Nathalie Cabrol

We are on the cusp of a new wave of exploration, according to a leading astrobiologist. Some people are in the enviable position of loving their work. Cabrol is one of them, and it shows in this wonderfully sweeping book. As director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, the author leads projects in planetary science and research, spending much of her time thinking about life beyond Earth. With the invention of advanced telescopes and exploratory spacecraft, “we are living in a golden age in astrobiology, the beginning of a fantastic odyssey.” Cabrol is not a starry-eyed dreamer, and she readily admits that the first life we find outside of Earth is likely to be microbial. There are various theories about how life developed on Earth, and she examines them to establish where the chemical ingredients and environmental conditions for life might exist in our solar system. Planets long thought to be completely inhospitable are now being reconsidered, she notes. Mars, Venus, and the dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres are new possibilities. Cabrol is particularly excited by the moons Europa and Titan, which will be the subjects of unmanned explorations in the foreseeable future. Looking further afield, there are also intriguing prospects among the thousands of other planets discovered in the rest of the galaxy. In the concluding chapters of the book, Cabrol discusses the likelihood of encountering intelligent life and explains the Drake equation, used to estimate “the number of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.” Along the way, the author also speculates about entirely new types of organisms. This is a book for anyone with an interest in scientific discovery and a perfect choice for any budding astronomer or astrobiologist. Combining enthusiasm and knowledge, Cabrol gives a lovely guided tour of the possibilities of the cosmos. Kirkus Reviews, April 2024

The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing

The award-winning author pens a fascinating and personal journey of paradise. When Laing, author of Everybody, Funny Weather, and other acclaimed books, bought a house in Suffolk, she did so mostly for the garden. Especially during the early pandemic, the dilapidated yet lush yard became her personal project. Spending hours with her hands in the dirt, she became enraptured not just with her own garden, but with the history of gardens and their association with paradise. The result is this intellectually stimulating, vibrant book. Laing describes gardens of her own acquaintance in sensuous, compelling detail, allowing readers to see, smell, and touch them alongside her. Similarly, the author moves through fascinating currents of thought, ranging from Paradise Lost to the history of enslavement in plantations, with tactile dexterity. “The lockdown made it painfully apparent that the garden, that supposed sanctuary from the world, was inescapably political,” she writes. As the author unpacks the fraught history of colonialism and class inequality in relation to gardens, she offers intriguing examinations of utopias. Laing describes the version of utopia espoused by 19th-century landscaper and socialist William Morris as a place where “people work because they want to, as gardeners do, out of sheer love of making something. The capitalist system of alienated labor has melted into air.” Gardens, therefore, might be historical as well as contemporary sites of inequality, but they can also allow us to imagine a more buoyant and radical future. Suffused with Laing’s distinctively skillful prose, this book is an impressive achievement. “One of the most interesting aspects of gardens: that they exist on the threshold between artifice and nature, conscious decision and wild happenstance,” Laing writes, and the author’s fascinating research and well-honed writing are a testament to the beauty of that threshold. An intellectually verdant and emotionally rich narrative journey. Kirkus Reviews, May 2024

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POETRY

Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd

In Mohammed El-Kurd’s remarkable debut, Rifqa, the Jerusalem-based poet writes of longing: for a childhood uninterrupted, for home, for laughter. These longings are, of course, wrapped up in that ever-present burn for liberation that settles in the stomachs of Palestinians, both in the region and across the globe. Rifqa beautifully explores the ways colonialism alters our navigation of time and space — a few miles of travel can take a lifetime, an event that occurred 73 years ago is happening for the first time tomorrow, and the city from which you fled can be recreated where you land. In El-Kurd’s work, there are reverberations of Palestinian visionaries that came before him. Suheir Hammad’s cadence, in particular, is resonant. It appears both textually in subtitles marked “after Suheir Hammad,” and in the body of poems, but her influence is present even when she goes unmentioned. In her poem “post Zionism” as it appears in ZaatarDiva, she writes: “This is nothing new / I have always we have / always been,” with the refrain of “we have always been” repeating continuously throughout the stanzas. The poem is an assertion and a rejection; the title is both the acknowledgment of a current era, the state after Zionism, but also a wish — the state after Zionism. El-Kurd, too, holds this simultaneity — in the title poem, “Rifqa,” El-Kurd writes of his grandmother, “Rifqa left Haifa to go to Haifa / to go to Haifa.” In the poem “1998/1948,” he writes, “It is the same killing / they do it in whispers,” “It’s the same killing / everywhere. Seventy-some years later / we haven’t lived a day.” This recursiveness is apt, perhaps the most appropriate form in order to capture the Nakba. Los Angeles Review of Books, December 2021.

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ROMANCE

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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

By turning the themes of chosen-one fantasy on their head, this sardonic romp from Wexler (the Burningblade & Silvereye series) brings out the smiles. Davi, an exile from the human world, has been reborn 238 times over the 10 centuries she’s spent trapped in the fantasy land known as the Kingdom. She’s tired of trying and failing to stop the Dark Lord from conquering the land—so this time around, she switches teams. (“We have an expression back home concerning what course of action to take if you find yourself under no circumstances able to beat ’em. I intend to follow its advice.”) Using her past-lives’ knowledge, she convinces her former foes that she is destined to be the next Dark Lord. Events snowball, and soon Davi has her own horde of orcs, stone monsters, and shark-toothed dwarves marching off to the Convocation that anoints the next Dark Lord. (“I don’t know exactly how they pick the Dark Lord, but a major factor is personal charisma as measured in armed henchpersons.”) Wexler balances the snarky asides with the angst of Davi’s repeating existence and evolving awareness that her actions have consequences. Under the flippancy, a truly touching grimdark story lurks, complete with hilarious footnotes. Readers will be wowed. Publisher’s Weekly, February 2024

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EBOOKS

Central Park West by James Comey

Former FBI director Comey (A Higher Loyalty) makes a sturdy crime fiction debut with this twisting account of the murder of a disgraced former New York governor. The novel opens as Tony Burke, who left office tainted by a #MeToo scandal, is murdered in his Central Park West apartment. With the assassin having dressed up like Tony’s estranged wife, Kyra, to gain access to the building, Kyra herself is soon hauled up on murder charges. Meanwhile, assistant U.S. attorney Nora Carleton is prosecuting a mob case that gets derailed after her star witness tells her the mafia was involved in Burke’s death—shortly before turning up dead himself. The stakes climb as the wheels of justice churn, with Kyra’s case hanging in the balance while a team of investigators works to identify the killer who framed her. Comey draws on his vast experience in the criminal justice world to bring a sense of authenticity to the setting and plot machinations, though he’s occasionally guilty of leaning a bit too much toward education over entertainment. A sequel would be welcome. Publisher’s Weekly, March 2023

Kala by Colin Walsh

Walsh’s engrossing if overstuffed story of lifelong friends revolves around a mysterious death in the tourist town of Kinlough, Ireland. In 2003, a group of teenage friends is shattered when one of the six, Kala Lannan, disappears amid circumstances that are only revealed near the end of the novel. Three of the others reunite 15 years later after Kala’s bones are discovered at a local building site. Joe Brennan, once Kala’s boyfriend and now a famous rock star, has recently returned to open a bar. Helen Laughlin, who was Kala’s best friend and is now a struggling investigative reporter in Canada, learns of the discovery while home for a wedding and determines to solve the mystery of Kala’s death. Mush, the glue of the group, still works at his mother’s café, and after Kala’s remains are found, his two teenage cousins go missing. Walsh unpacks individual events through multiple perspectives, and the novel thrives when Joe, Helen, and Mush grapple with conflicting memories of the past. There are a few too many red herrings, and some woolly hints of a temporal reality in which the characters see versions of themselves at different ages, yet the emotional pull of Walsh’s core trio steadies the ship. Despite some wobbles, this is hard to put down. Publisher’s Weekly, May 2023

The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar

Molnar (Broslin Creek, as Dana Marton) offers a delightful story about an American woman’s possible connection to the family of Vincent Van Gogh. Emsley Watson is struggling to keep her niche L.A. auction house afloat and hasn’t been able to raise the money needed to buy out her cheating boyfriend partner. After her grandmother Violet has a stroke, Emsley visits her in New York City, and then inherits the contents of Violet’s brownstone upon her death. There, Emsley uncovers a diary from 1887 Amsterdam by someone named Clara. The book chronicles the life of Johanna (née Bonger) Van Gogh, who married the painter Vincent’s brother Theo, and whose story emerges in a parallel narrative. After moving to Paris with Theo, Johanna encounters the erratic Vincent. Theo explained to her how “Sunflowers mean gratitude to Vincent. He never loses faith,” and after Vincent’s death, Johanna determines to protect the Van Gogh legacy. Shifting between Emsley and Johanna, Molnar unfurls a gripping set of mysteries: Who is Clara? Could Emsley be related to the Van Goghs? And who painted the picture of an ugly baby Emsley found in Violet’s house? Molar effectively portrays Emsley and Johanna as strong, dauntless women determined to rebuild their lives after setbacks. This is a delight. Publisher’s Weekly, January 2023

Murder in Highbury by Vanessa Kelly

Jane Austen’s nosiest protagonist turns out to be an excellent amateur sleuth in this buoyant series launch from romance author Kelly (the Clan Kendrick series). Emma Knightley (née Woodhouse) is socializing with her best friend, Harriet Martin, one afternoon when the pair stumble on the dead body of Augusta Elton, the vicar’s wife. Harriet panics, but Emma surprises herself by keeping calm and searching the premises while they wait for the authorities to arrive. As word of the sanctimonious Augusta’s death spreads across the sleepy village of Highbury, there’s no shortage of suspects, but the bumbling coroner and constable are slow to investigate. Emma grows impatient, and sets off on her own to ferret out the killer, much to the dismay of her husband, George Knightley. Kelly makes good use of the most memorable characters from Emma, including the impoverished Miss Bates and Emma’s dim-witted father, folding them neatly into a well-executed mystery plot. The real draw, however, is the way Kelly effortlessly transforms Emma into a successful gumshoe by exploiting the same qualities Austen gave her heroine. Readers will be charmed. Publisher’s Weekly, September 2024

Guilt and Ginataan by Mia P. Manansala

Café owner Lila Macapagal attempts to clear her best friend and business partner’s name in Manansala’s diverting fifth cozy set in Shady Pines, Ill. (after Murder and Mamon). The town’s annual harvest festival takes a chilling turn when Yvonne Reyes, wife of the mayor of nearby Shelbyville, winds up dead in the corn maze. Suspect number one is Lila’s bestie, Adeena Awan, who wakes up next to Yvonne’s corpse with a bloody knife and a case of amnesia. Lila, convinced of Adeena’s innocence, investigates alongside her boyfriend, hunky dentist Dr. Jae Park, and Jae’s older brother, a former cop. The trio’s chief suspects include the mayor’s jealous assistant, a crooked state politician, and even the mayor herself. While the mystery plot is a bit paint-by-numbers, Manansala brightens the proceedings with mouthwatering Filipino recipes and winsome check-ins with Lila’s extended network of aunts, grandmothers, and female mentors. It’s a good bet for fireside reading on a fall night. Publisher’s Weekly, October 2024

This Girl’s a Killer by Emma C. Wells

Wells debuts with a fast, funny look at the travails of Cordelia Black, a Baton Rouge, La., pharmaceutical rep who moonlights as a serial killer. Cordelia’s life is carefully constructed: she makes sales by day and dispenses with men who’ve gotten away with violent crimes by night. In her off hours, she hangs out with her college best friend, Diane, and Diane’s 13-year-old daughter, Samantha. But when the company Cordelia works for is threatened with a class-action lawsuit related to a medication’s dangerous side effects, her life begins to unravel. While she frets about potential layoffs triggered by the suit, the local news starts using the term “serial killer” when reporting on the missing men she’s murdered. To make matters worse, she senses that Diane’s smarmy new boyfriend may be cheating on her. Cracking under the pressure, the typically methodical Cordelia commits a murder without much forethought, setting in motion a chain of events that threatens to put her behind bars forever. Wells mines plenty of laughs and thrills from Cordelia’s attempts to claw her way to safety, with the darkness of the premise nicely balanced by the novel’s fizzy first-person narration. Anyone who’s ever wondered what kind of trouble a female Dexter Morgan would get up to is in luck. Publisher’s Weekly, June 2024

Paris in Ruins by Sebastian Smee

Art from chaos. Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic Smee draws on a wealth of historical and biographical sources to examine the birth of impressionism during a time of ferocious political and social upheaval in France. Smee focuses closely on three artists—Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas—who, unlike many of their contemporaries, stayed in Paris during the “military and civic catastrophes of 1870-71,” which Victor Hugo called “The Terrible Year.” A siege by the Prussian army took down Napoleon III and left the city’s population starving, its buildings burned to ruins. Isolated, Parisians depended on hot-air balloons to deliver mail to the rest of the country. Although Napoleon’s scandalous monarchy had ended, France’s Third Republic itself was assailed: the Paris Commune, “a hastily improvised urban government,” was composed of rebels who wanted “to dismantle any structures of power—governmental, financial, religious, military—that held people back.” They were quashed in a bloody rout that left the city reduced to rubble. Smee vividly conveys the terror of the times, the tense military standoffs and plotting, and the inflamed passions. The aftermath of the terrible year left the nation deeply unsettled. For the artists Smee portrays, the future seemed bleak, portending “the imminent death of the republic, the likely restoration of a monarchy, and a conservative Catholic revival.” Impressionism, he argues, was the aesthetic response to their heightened perception of the “existential fragility” of life. The paintings in the first impressionist exhibition of 1874 “idealized transitions and contingency, even as it attempted to dispel grief.” Despite being illustrated with color plates, Smee’s work devotes less space to the history of artistic creation than to war, but his depiction of impressionists’ works is discerning, as is his sensitivity to the complicated relationships among the artists. Deft, vibrant cultural history. Kirkus Reviews, July 2024

Outrageous by Minerva Spencer

The kidnapper becomes the kidnapped in Spencer’s rowdy second Rebels of the Ton historical romance (after Notorious). Godric Fleming, Earl of Visel, is moments away from kidnapping the wife of his nemesis, Gabriel, as part of his ever-escalating schemes against the couple—but it’s he who ends up bound and gagged in a carriage bound for Scotland. His abductor is Eva de Courtney, Gabriel’s sister, who hopes to put an end to Godric’s bad behavior. But Godric turns the tables on Eva, pointing out she’s put herself in a compromising situation and insisting that they marry. As they match wits, Godric is surprised by Eva’s fiery temper, realizing that, though almost 17 years his junior, she’s a formidable—and attractive—adversary. Eva, too, sees a different side of Godric as threats from highwaymen and a vengeful widow force them to work together. But Godric’s pain and guilt over the loss of his first wife and child have created a wall around his heart that even Eva may not be strong enough to scale. The exciting drama of their road trip only facilitates their individual growth, and returning fans will be especially gratified to see the villainous Godric in a new light. This daring, emotional page-turner is a delight. Publisher’s Weekly, April 2021

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AUDIOBOOKS

Body Friend by Katherine Brabon

A woman convalescing from an operation considers her relationship to her body, in Australian writer Brabon’s meditative U.S. debut. The unnamed narrator, a 20-something graduate student with an unspecified autoimmune disease, has a hip replacement to help her mobility. During hydrotherapy for her recovery, she meets Frida, a woman who is coping with a similar diagnosis, and sees herself in her new friend (“It was sufficient to be a body in pain and to know that about one another”). She begins meeting daily with Frida to swim, pleased with how the water makes movement easier. During a flare-up of her condition, however, she skips swimming and goes to the park. There, she meets Sylvia, another person with chronic pain. In contrast to Frida, Sylvia seems sullen and discourages movement in favor of silent rest. Over the next weeks, the narrator moves between these two extremes, torn between Frida’s rejection of limits and her “soul-level alignment” with Sylvia. The novel’s emotional core is heated by lyrical musings on the body and its relationship to language and narrative (“Often we deny the body its story. We don’t believe it or we ignore it, because the body does not use words”). This is an illuminating reflection on what it means to live with pain. Publisher’s Weekly, March 2024

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

Erpenbeck (Go, Went, Gone) sets the dissolution of a May-December romance against the backdrop of German reunification in her solemn and subtle latest. After a former lover dies in the present day, Katharina receives two boxes of diaries, tapes, and souvenirs that chronicle their relationship from decades earlier. Erpenbeck then flashes back to 1986, when Katharina, as a 19-year-old student in East Berlin, starts an affair with Hans, a married writer. The relationship is intense, physically and emotionally, especially after she admits to a brief fling with a younger man. Now, while listening to Hans’s tapes, Katharina reckons with the depth of Hans’s sexual and psychological control over her life (“So far as I am concerned, your deception is the greatest and most critical defeat of my life,” he says to her on one of the vitriolic recordings). Their relationship is marked by the tension between beginnings and endings, love and hate, truth and deception, freedom and repression. It’s also a struggle of wills between two generations with a very different experience of the crumbling Socialist state. This audacious dissection of unruly forces demonstrates how endings are already present in every personal or political beginning, however promising. Publisher’s Weekly, January 2023

The Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh

This sweet, slice-of-life romance from Walsh (The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley) kicks off when overworked associate book editor Kelsey Worthington is hit by a curb-hopping car and taken to the hospital, where she meets Georgina Tate, the formidable owner of Tate Cosmetics. Kelsey sees herself in Georgina, a fellow workaholic who’s isolated herself from the people she loves. After a day spent sharing a hospital room, she asks Georgina to consider whether her life choices were “worth it.” Georgina, whose failing kidneys force her to confront her mortality, is shaken. The women agree to spend the summer reversing their regrets, returning to opportunities they’ve said no to and this time saying yes. A road trip to North Carolina, where Georgina’s estranged husband and handsome adult son reside, reignites both women’s lust for life—and may lead to love. Walsh delivers just enough introspection to make her heroines’ journeys believable without slowing the pace. The romance, when it comes, is gentle and sincere rather than steamy. Readers looking for G-rated love stories will want to snap this up. Publisher’s Weekly, June 2024

Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick

Prolific historical novelist Chadwick’s latest (after To Defy a King) delves deep into the political intrigue of 12th-century Britain after the death of Henry I, and the contest for the throne between Empress Matilda and Stephen of Blois. After the death of her husband, the Emperor of Germany, Matilda returns to England, where Henry I declares her as his successor. But Matilda’s cousin Stephen, hungry for power and, like others, unhappy with the idea of a female ruler, makes a successful grab for the throne. Now unhappily remarried to the equally greedy and unpleasant Geoffrey of Anjou, Matilda works to reclaim her crown. Partly for her own honor, but also to ensure the succession of her sons, she launches England into a bloody civil war. Chadwick’s depiction of the Middle Ages is sure and subtle, building the reality of daily life with ease, and her skill in imagining the private conversations that led to the great decisions of their time is enjoyable. Though the complexity of the plot drowns what little personality the characters have time to develop, the pace of the story and Chadwick’s solid research will engage fans of heavy historical fiction. Publisher’s Weekly, July 2011

Specters in the Glass House by Jaime Jo Wright

A young research assistant unravels the mystery behind a Milwaukee socialite’s alleged death in this eerie dual-timeline tale from Wright (Night Falls on Predicament Avenue). Remy Crenshaw has just landed a job assisting eccentric author Elton Floyd on his next project—a biography of Marian Arnold, a Prohibition-era socialite rumored to haunt the halls of the manor where she was murdered. When Remy moves into the house and begins scouring it—and the internet—for information, she discovers the Arnolds’ family history includes a bankrupted brewery business and a murder by the so-called “Butterfly Butcher,” who left dead butterflies next to his victims. With the help of her faith and U.S. Marine veteran Tate Arnold, a distant relative of the Arnold clan with secrets of his own, Remy comes to believe that Marian may not have been murdered—and sets out to uncover the truth behind her disappearance. Wright uses the parallel story lines—one in the present, the other in the 1920s—to ratchet up tension as uncanny resonances between Marian’s and Remy’s lives send sinister echoes across time and space. Readers will be eager to take this twisty, suspense-filled ride. Publisher’s Weekly, July 2024

A Bitter End by Alexa Donne

In this closed-circle thriller, a group of teens become stranded on a Colorado mountain during a snowstorm while a killer picks them off. After all their original preferences for the Senior Excursion trips offered by moneyed Warner Prep fall through, a group with a history of bad blood find themselves stuck in a remote cabin with their hard-nosed guidance counselor, Ms. Silva, for an enforced technology-free weekend. The students smuggle in illicit booze, and the very first night, they drug Ms. Silva with Ambien so they can party. By the following morning, someone is dead. A volley of first-person narration alternates among the perspectives of Piper, Willa, and Delaney; third-person interludes focus on each of the other teens—Eden, Camille, Liam, Wyatt, and Declan. The multiple voices make for an intricate setup. Donne also switches the narrative back and forth in time between the present and another night of alcohol- and drug-induced chaos three years earlier—one that resulted in tragedy—further contributing to an unsettled feeling. Many in the large cast of lightly developed characters are image focused, self-involved, and not particularly likable, and this element works in favor of this plot-driven thriller. Readers will be kept guessing until the end about which of the duplicitous, secretive people in question may be the murderer. Most cast members present white, Liam is cued as having some East Asian ancestry, and Piper is asexual. A twisty whodunit filled with unreliable narrators. Kirkus Reviews, July 2024

That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally

Skillfully employing dual POVs, debut author Lally combines an amnesia plot with a missing girl mystery to deliver a suspenseful thrill ride. When a teenage girl is found in a ditch, bruised and unable to remember her name or the events that led to her predicament, Oregon police bring her to the station. A distraught man named Wayne soon arrives, claiming that the girl is his daughter Mary and brandishing as proof her birth certificate, Social Security card, and cell phone photos of the two of them. In Wayne’s custody, Mary acclimates to her new normal; still, she harbors doubts about Wayne’s truthfulness, especially as her memories start returning. Meanwhile, Andrew “Drew” Carter-Diaz is putting up missing girl posters, hoping to find his girlfriend, 17-year-old Lola Scott, who disappeared from Washington City five weeks earlier. Though most people assume that Drew killed her, Drew—aided by his cousin Max, and Max’s girlfriend and local sheriff’s daughter Autumn—seeks the truth. Drew and Mary’s evocatively rendered alternating perspectives persuasively build tension and slowly dispense information amid the twisting, shock-filled plot, all the way up to a gratifying resolution. Main characters read as white; one of Drew’s fathers is Guatemalan. Publisher’s Weekly, October 2023

A Quiet Teacher by Adam Oyebanji

Greg Abimbola, the protagonist of this labyrinthine mystery from Oyebanji (Braking Day), teaches languages at Pittsburgh’s elite Calderhill Academy. A Black teacher at a very white school, Greg focuses on conversational Russian and prefers reading Pushkin novels to socializing. Then the murder of a student’s mother on school grounds shreds Greg’s protective bubble of culture and literature. Unprepared for the attention the murder case brings to Calderhill, Greg is dismayed to see the academy’s racist tendencies and administrative inefficiencies come to the fore. But those revelations are nothing compared to Greg’s secrets, such as the personal vice that he refers to as the Devil. The more he tries to help, the less private his life becomes. When Greg’s closest friend is arrested for the murder, he decides he must draw on his experiences in his dangerous former life to prove her innocence. The tension rises as the action enters espionage territory, though the surfeit of characters and the initially slow pace will frustrate some. Along the way to the satisfying ending, Oyebanji smoothly inserts commentary on topical social and political issues. Readers will eagerly await his next mystery. Publisher’s Weekly, October 2022

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Hugo Award winner Chambers (the Wayfarers series) launches the Monk and Robot series with this contemplative, bite-size novel. Hundreds of years ago, when the robots of Panga first gained sentience, they chose to retreat from human society rather than live in it as free citizens—and they haven’t been seen since. When Sibling Dex, a tea monk, leaves The City, Panga’s only metropolis, to travel the countryside offering tea and a listening ear to anyone who needs it, they are forced to acknowledge a deep sense of dissatisfaction with their life. Seeking solitude, they venture into the protected wilderness zone, where no human has set foot in centuries. Their plans quickly go awry when they are approached by Mosscap, an inquisitive robot elected by its fellows to make first contact with humanity and find the answer to the question: what do humans need? Written with all of Chambers’ characteristic nuance and careful thought, this is a cozy, wholesome meditation on the nature of consciousness and its place in the natural world. Fans of gentle, smart, and hopeful science fiction will delight in this promising series starter. Publisher’s Weekly, January 2021

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Kingfisher (What Moves the Dead) continues her hot streak with this equally haunting, heartfelt, and darkly humorous horror riff on “Sleeping Beauty.” The fairy Toadling is “neither beautiful nor made of malice, as many of the Fair Folk are said to be,” but instead “fretful and often tired” due to her exhausting efforts to keep a certain princess confined within a tower surrounded by a wall of thorns. It would be an easier job if tales of the princess did not keep spreading, unabated even by an early medieval outbreak of the Black Death. These stories draw Halim, a curious and courteous Muslim knight in search of a good quest. Halim is not put off by Toadling’s habit of turning into a toad when overwhelmed or frightened, and befriends her, helping Toadling to move past 200 years of dread to explain just who—or rather what—is in the tower, and how the fairy came to be responsible for keeping it there. The slow reveal of Toadling’s connection to the princess, and what the princess actually is, fashions a subtle and satisfying horror story, while Kingfisher’s trademark wit and compassion transforms “Sleeping Beauty” into a moving meditation on guilt, grief, and duty, as well as a surprisingly sweet romance between outsiders. There are no false notes here. Publisher’s Weekly, April 2023

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