BIOGRAPHY

Bailey, Blake	Philip Roth
Heyman, Kathryn	Fury
Isaacson, Walter	The code breaker
Keefe, Patrick Radden	Empire of pain
Kneen, Krissy	The three burials of Lotty Kneen
Russell, Vanessa	The world is not big enough
Sweig, Julia	Hiding in plain sight

The code breaker / Walter Isaacson

The importance of the subject matter in this book cannot be overstated. This is the story of biochemist and structural biologist Jennifer Doudna and her quest to better understand the ‘code’ to the origins of life. Doudna’s research has centred on RNA: the single strand of genetic material (rather than the double helix of DNA). Her curiosity and boldness led to finding that RNA can interpret and alter data in both DNA and viruses. The possibilities are mind-boggling. Treatment for genetic disorders, such as sickle cell anaemia, some cancers and hereditary deafness is now possible. This is not just big news in science – it’s big business. There are intense battles between labs for the kudos and lucrative patents of discovery. Biology has become the new tech. CRISPR is the acronym for the editing device within the strand of RNA. If you haven’t heard of it yet, you will. Doudna’s lab is well known for its collaboration. Patent law and business is marked by competitiveness and confrontation. The dilemma now surrounds the moral and ethical issue of how to use CRISPR. Besides treating genetic disorders, genetic enhancement is also theoretically possible. Should we cross that line? Isaacson treads a very balanced, nuanced course. It also deals with CRISPR’s in the current pandemic. Walter Isaacson comes to this biography with an outstanding pedigree. He has a vibrant writing style and makes complex science very readable. He humanises this story by introducing the leading players in this still-unfolding drama. Part science, part detective story, this is an exceptional biography of both Jennifer Doudna and RNA. (Good Reading Magazine, May 2021 2021)

Empire of pain / Patrick Radden Keefe

History repeats itself and disaster ensues in this sweeping saga of the rise and fall of the family behind OxyContin, the painkiller widely credited with sparking the opioid epidemic in America. New Yorker staff writer Keefe (Say Nothing) brings three generations of the secretive Sacklers into the light, detailing how marketing techniques—including the co-opting of doctors and FDA regulators, the placement of misleading advertisements and articles in medical journals, and the discrediting of evidence of addiction—pioneered by patriarch Arthur Sackler in the 1960s to sell the tranquilizers Librium and Valium were enhanced by his nephew, Richard Sackler, in the ’90s and 2000s to make OxyContin “one of the biggest blockbusters in pharmaceutical history, generating some $35 billion in revenue.” Keefe also delves into the Sacklers’ “mania” for donating millions to “arts and education institutions,” the family’s cover-up of a drug-addled son’s suicide in 1975, their role in a 1995 New Jersey chemical plant explosion that killed five people, and their draining of company funds as lawsuits related to the opioid crisis mounted. It’s an altogether damning portrait (“Unlike a lot of human beings,” Keefe writes, “[the Sacklers] didn’t seem to learn from what they saw transpiring in the world around them”), richly detailed and vividly written. Readers will be outraged and enthralled in equal measure. (Publishers Weekly, April 2021)

The three burials of Lonny Kneen / Krissy Kneen

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a book with such a title is a dark Gothic mystery until you notice that the title and author share a surname. It is a memoir yet also contains Gothic themes: graveyards, secrets and mythical beasts. When Krissy faced the tyranny of the blank page to begin this book, that blankness also represented her knowledge of her family history, made worse by the deliberate obstruction of her grandmother, Lotty. When Krissy interviewed her for a documentary, Lotty was ‘combative and elusive’. Lotty’s past was hers and not discussed. But the manner of the evasion only spurred Krissy on. After her grandmother’s death Krissy was able to venture into this past. She knew that Lotty had roots in Slovenia, but also spent time in Egypt, where her daughter (Krissy’s mother) was born From the weirdness of Lotty’s spectacularly unsuccessful tourist attraction, Dragonhall in central Queensland, Krissy travels to Lotty’s home town, Miren in Slovenia, and on to Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt. Eventually she can piece together a workable family history. Happy coincidences allow Krissy to follow leads and meet unexpected relatives. The greatest revelation is the ‘Aleksandrinke’ movement from the 1920s, when Slovenian women, living in poverty and seemingly abandoned by their conscripted men, moved to Egypt to find work. Adding piquancy to the narrative are Slovenian and Egyptian recipes. The greatest gift Krissy – and the book – received was the genuine warmth and assistance from all she met on her travels. An intriguingly interesting read. (Good Reading Magazine, June 2021)

The world is not big enough / Vanessa Russell

The World Is Not Big Enough tells the story of Ahmad Shah Abed, an Afghan asylum seeker whom Russell wrote letters to when she was a student. Years later, Russell googled him and discovered he’d been murdered by another refugee. Russell sets out to discover the truth of Ahmad Shah’s story: this book commemorates him while exposing the hidden realities of Australia’s immigration detention system. Julian Burnside advised Russell against writing Ahmad Shah’s story: the tale of one refugee murdering another seemed like bad PR for refugees. Russell ignored him, rightly sensing that hagiographies pander to a polarising political dynamic that weaponises refugee narratives. Her meticulously detailed research into both Ahmad Shah and his murderer’s lives is key to her book’s humanising power. The most compelling parts of the book are Russell’s interviews with immigration officers, activists, aid workers, lawyers, doctors, Ahmad Shah’s friends and his murderer. We also hear Ahmad Shah’s own words via quotes from his original letters, including one where he describes the detention centre as a ‘Refugee Zoo’. In this zoo, refugees have numbers instead of the ‘dignity of a name’. This book exposes the claustrophobic, Kafkaesque ‘circular trap’ of Australia’s immigration detention system, one which seems designed to transform the ‘mourning and trauma’ of refugees ‘into madness.’ Russell shows how nothing explains this (not even economics) except the fact that consecutive governments have learned to use refugees as political pawns. Ahmad Shah once wondered, ‘Why should the busy world waste time remembering me?’ Russell’s book replies that we can’t afford to forget him. Our world is clearly ‘big enough’ for us to help refugees, but no world is big enough to contain the damage, anger and madness that can only result from systemic organised cruelty. (Good Reading Magazine, May 2021)

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GENERAL FICTION

Dave, Laura	The last thing he told me
Fitzek, Sebastian	Seat 7A
Grisham, John	Sooley
Heiss, Anita	Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray
Ishiguro, Naomi	Common ground
Jenoff, Pam	The woman with the blue star
Lau, Jamie Marina	Gunk baby
Leilani, Raven	Luster
MacDonald, Siobhan	Guilty
Makine, Andrea	The archipelago of another life
Mbue, Imbolo	How beautiful we were
Missiroli, Marco	Fidelity
Moleta, Clare	Unsheltered
O’Leary, Beth	The road trip
Purman, Victoria	The women’s pages
Riley, Lucinda	The missing sister
Seymour, Gerald	The crocodile hunter
Shipstead, Maggie	Great circle
Sudjic, Olivi	Asylum road
Swann, Stacey	Olympus, Texas
Timon, Mara	City of spies
Tsujimura, Mizuki	Lonely castle in the mirror
Tyce, Harriet	The lies you told
Vaughan, Laura	The favour
Yoshino, Genzaburo	How do you live?

Passenger 23 / Sebastian Fitzek

German thriller writer, Sebastian Fitzek, is a massive name across Europe. But until recently his mega-selling novels have only sporadically been available in English. Reading Passenger 23, it’s easy to see what all the fuss is about: he takes readers into some dark places and high peril while also offering emotional impact and strong writing. After suffering a huge loss, police psychologist Martin Schwartz is addicted to the most dangerous undercover gigs. Nothing left to lose. He’s lured onto The Sultan of the Seas cruise liner when the missing daughter of a presumed murder-suicide reappears months later. While looking to help the girl and fend off those more concerned with profits and bad publicity than her safety, can Martin also uncover the truth behind his own tragedy? Fitzek drops readers into a chaotic setting: imagine a floating town overflowing with differing cultures, personalities, and vices – all thrust together in a contained space, temporarily living side-by-side, with no law enforcement. A dicey situation. This is a cracking good read that has personality and punch to its prose, elevating its high-concept set-up with well-drawn characters that make you care, fear, and laugh. While the story burrows into some nasty places which may be too dark for readers who prefer their crime cosy, it never feels gratuitous. Recommended! (Good Reading Magazine, May 2021)

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HISTORICAL FICTION

Follett, Ken	The evening and the morning
Rutherfurd, Edward	China

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MYSTERY

Bannalec, Jean-Luc	The Granite Coast murders
Carofiglio, Gianrico	The measure of time
Clark, Amy Suiter	Girl, 11
Deaver, Jeffery	The final twist
Firkin, Katherine	The girl remains
Gardner, Lisa	Touch & go
Gilmore, Ged	Headland
James, Peter	Left you dead
Jonasson, Ragnar	The girl who died
Jonasson, Ragnar	Winterkill
MacRae, Molly	Thistles and thieves
Manansala, Mia P.	Arsenic and adobo
McCall Smith, Alexander	The man with the silver Saab
Nable, Matt	Still
Roslund, Anders	Knock knock
Sandford, John	Ocean prey
Spain, Jo	The perfect lie
Thompson, Victoria	Murder on Pleasant Avenue
Todd, Charles	A fatal lie
Tope, Rebecca	The Patterdale plot
Walker, Martin	The coldest case
Winspear, Jacqueline	The consequences of fear

Sixteen horses / Greg Buchanan

This book generated some buzz for the debut author when the first five chapters were released as a preview sampler. When I settled down to read the book in its entirety, I could understand why. Set in the dying English seaside town, long-term residents are eking out a living on run-down farms and in the town’s few remaining businesses. The story opens with the grisly discovery at Wells Farm of 16 horses’ heads, partially buried, with one eye facing the sky and their tails piled up in a plot nearby. Widowed local policeman, Detective Sergeant Alec Nichols is called out to the scene and soon after, forensic veterinarian and outsider, Dr Cooper Allen is brought in to assist with the investigation. The horses’ owners are tracked down and, as more evidence comes to light, it doesn’t take long before the story takes an even darker and more twisted turn. The opening chapters were merely a prequel to the more ominous events that begin to unfold. At times, I found the unrelenting bleakness and grim atmosphere almost too much to bear, as everyone struggles their own secrets, grief, trauma and mental illness. There will be readers who find the themes of animal cruelty and family violence very confronting and there is an underlying sense of evil that pervades the narrative throughout. The way the narrative is chopped up into small chunks and the shifting points of view aids in building tension but can create a sense of confusion. For this reason, it is a book best read in longer sittings. I can understand the pre-pub buzz. It is a bold and daring debut and it will definitely garner an audience who likes their reading with a hefty dose of unsettled nerves. (Good Reading Magazine, June 2021)

The girl remains / Katherine Firkin

Twenty years ago in Blairgowrie, on the Mornington Peninsula, three young girls weaved their way along a sandy track during a dark night. They passed the fork in the track that led down to the beach but kept walking to the bluff where there was a clearing. ‘We’ve arrived. Welcome back to Devil’s Bluff’, said Scarlett. The circle of stones they had made was still there. Cecilia’s lips trembled, ‘I don’t think we’re alone.’ Gypsy pulled out the beers. Scarlett opened a plastic sleeve with white pills, winking at Gypsy. They decided to start a fire and they split up looking for kindling. What happened next is not clear, but 15-year-old Cecelia May was never found again. When a young girl’s bones turn up on a beach, could it be Cecelia? After 20 years how did they get there? Detective Emmett Corban is sent in with his team to investigate. Fans of the first book in the series, Sticks and Stones, will very much enjoy The Girl Remains. New readers do not have to have read the first book to enjoy this one. Firkin provides a strong sense of place and characters that you connect with. The pace is constant and after the last page I felt satisfied. (Good Reading Magazine, June 2021)

Still / Matt Nable

It’s 1963. The setting is Darwin. It’s a bit rough, full of character and hot. The humidity so thick in the air you could almost cut it with a knife. To the east of Darwin a man is on his knees. ‘Stand him up!’ Someone reefs him up by the armpits. ‘You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Two punches strick and he sways, his knees buckle and he falls onto his back. ‘Your troubles are over, mate’. A gunshot rings out. Senior Constable Ned Potter is driving slowly on the unsealed road to Tabletop Swamp. His old Land Rover was 20 years old and the terrain is harsh. He was almost at his destination when he sees two men standing by the side of the track. He pulls over and they look up at him as he approaches. ‘Dead,’ One of the men says before Ned could utter a word. Ned knows the dead man. But this is not the only corpse that Ned discovers in the next weeks. Charlotte is 23 and is married to Bobby. She has fallen pregnant twice but miscarried both times. Somewhere in the tragedy she loses her connection with her husband. She now feels trapped and no longer in love. When Bobby heads to the pub she stands on the veranda, smoking and perspiring from the humidity. One night while out driving she stops the car, getting out to clear her head. Suddenly a hand goes over her mouth. She is frightened but it becomes clear he is injured. He needs her help. Matt Nable’s writing is very descriptive. To begin with I was almost distracted as every line packs a punch. But I soon found myself engrossed in the storyline as Ned Potter tries to run a murder investigation while being stymied at every turn. What he and Charlotte might discover is that there are secrets in the town that no-one wants discovered and that they might do anything to keep it that way. Nable’s vivid depictions of ’60s Darwin, the bars, the town’s atmosphere, the rugged and challenging landscape and the sticky sultry weather leap off the page. This is tightly blended with a solid plot that keeps you engaged until the end. It’s compelling. Highly recommended. (Good Reading, June 2021)

The perfect lie / Jo Spain

Internationally bestselling Irish novelist and screenwriter, Jo Spain, keeps readers off-balance in her compulsive new thriller set among the beachside communities east of New York City. The Perfect Lie opens with Erin Kennedy waking early on a Tuesday to sea air and sex with her detective husband Danny, in their Long Island apartment. Erin is an Irishwoman who’s put an ocean between herself and past tragedy. With a day of publishing work ahead, she’s looking forward to an upcoming romantic weekend away with Danny: the pair of them need some downtime. Work has been stressful. Then her husband’s partner knocks on the door, flanked by uniformed officers. Bad news. It gets worse: Danny sizes up the situation, then leaps out the window to his death. Erin’s seemingly perfect life is torn asunder. Eighteen months later, even worse: she’s on trial for killing her husband. And has found out plenty of horrible things in between. Spain adeptly sets the hook then reels readers in through multiple timelines leading up to and through Erin’s trial. Like Erin, our heads spin as we try to make sense of just what the hell is going on. Unsurprisingly cinematic, Spain’s latest is a one-sitting kind of read that is full of twists and red herrings, of fragmented incidents that later mesh in ways not always expected. The Perfect Lie is perfect weekend reading, beachside or not.

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NON FICTION

Balint, Ruth	Smuggled	364.1372 BALL
Bren, Paulina	The Barbizon	305.409 BREN
Cooper, Sarah	How to be successful without hurting men’s feelings	650.1082 COOP
De Waal, Edmund	Letters to Camondo	707.5 DEWA
Didion, Joan	Let me tell you what I mean	814.6 DIDI
Genova, Lisa	Remember	153.12 GENO
Grant, Stan	On Thomas Keneally	823.3 GRAN
Higgins, Eliot	We are Bellingcat	070.43 HIGG
Holden, Kate	The winter road	364.152 HOLD
Karskens, Grace	People of the river	994.402 KARS
Lanier, Jaron	Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now	302.30285 LANI
Lewis, Michael	The premonition	614.592 LEWI
Mitchell, Bill	Time to breathe	155.9042 MITC
Postrel, Virginia	The fabric of civilization	338.4 POST
Robertson, Geoffrey	Bad people & how to be rid of them	341.48 ROBE
Roy, Arundhati	Azadi	954 ROY
Watson, Trevor	The Beijing bureau	951 WATS

Remembering / Lisa Genova

Each time you misplace your glasses or your car keys, or forget where you parked your car at the shopping centre, do you worry that you might be losing the plot? The good news is that Lisa Genova does all of those things. She goes to great lengths throughout this very interesting book to reassure the reader that these sorts of lapses are not signs of impending dementia. Great news, really, because memory is pivotal. It ‘allows you to have a sense of who you are and who you’ve been’. (Just in case you’re still wondering and worrying, the concern is not that you’ve misplaced your keys, but that you don’t remember you own a car. Feel better now?) This book details the processes of memory, from the encoding of messages, to their consolidation, storage and retrieval when needed, and why that sometimes doesn’t work. The greatest lesson is that ‘we can’t remember what we ignore’. To have a lasting memory, we need to pay attention. Repetition helps as well. There are mentions of the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, but these are messages, explained in simple terms. This is no accident, as she wants this to be digestible and enjoyable. As you’d expect from the author of Still Alice, Alzheimer’s disease gets a chapter. Even here, her message is one of hope, because there is still life and love. The Appendix has helpful hints on improving your memory. A healthy lifestyle is a huge benefit and sleep is vital. Learning new things is an advantage, and here you are, achieving that by reading. (Good Reading Magazine, May 2021)

Azardi / Arundhati Roy

Readers of fiction will no doubt be aware of Roy, the winner of the Booker Prize in 1997, for The God of Small Things. The same readers may wonder why such an impressive writer has only managed one novel since. The reason is that her essays and long-form journalistic features are where her ‘seditious heart’ lies. This book contains nine of her essays from 2018 to 2020 and follows on from her previous 1000 page plus essay collection. If a reader is only aware of her fiction, then the vast majority of her work may unfortunately be invisible. Roy is passionate about – and concerned for – her country, India. There are several themes to which she keeps returning in her essays: the disputed territory of Kashmir; the rise of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its leader Narendra Modi (of whom she is very much not a fan); the influence on that party from the self-proclaimed fascist organisation, Rashtriya Sayamsevak Sangh; and Hindu nationalism and its caste system. These issues are threads interwoven into a formidable tapestry. One cannot be untangled from another. Just as in other parts of the world, India has seen the rise of a right-wing, nationalist party, riding the wave of populist sentiment into power, then using that power to impose the strictures of its values on the populace. There are crossovers with political ploys in the West, with ‘My India Is Great’ on flags and ‘fake news’, which she describes as ‘the skeletal structure, the scaffolding over which the specious wrath that fuels fascism drapes itself’. Her writing, replete with magnificent imagery, is as beautiful as it is powerful. Azadi is a cry for freedom. She is warning us; be aware of its importance. (Good Reading Magazine, May 2021)

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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

Bardugo, Leigh,	Shadow and bone
VanderMeer, Jeff,	Hummingbird salamander

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TRAVEL

Doyle, Sean	Night train to Varanasi	915.4 DOYL
Heaslip, Tanya	Beyond Alice	920.72 HEAS

Night train to Varanasi / Sean Doyle

As I expected yet another variation on the theme of ‘go to India to find yourself ’, it was refreshing to read this candid, personal, exceedingly thoughtful account of a man and his 18-year-old daughter visiting the sub-continent. Doyle, who lives in Northern NSW, regards himself as an old India hand, having travelled to that country many times since his first visit in the 1980s. Whereas for Anna, his daughter, it was her first venture into that maddeningly chaotic, sometimes casually cruel, always vibrant culture. Readers will be intrigued by Doyle’s perceptive decision about future travel with his younger daughter after he and Anna had returned from their two months in India. As an author and book editor, Doyle knows how to grab the reader’s attention, and hold it. The chapter on the duo’s travel on the night train to Varanasi is a delight. Lacking seats, which became sleeping berths, Doyle used all his skill and knowledge of Indian ways … plus a fair modicum of cricket talk … in a charm offensive which eventually ended in the offer of berths for Anna and himself. It’s a study in diplomatic ways to work a room, or railway carriage. While their travels around India are fascinating, particularly Anna’s reaction to what she was experiencing for the first time, it is Doyle’s simple, comprehensive explanations of Hindu spirituality, its gods and its practices that light up this book. Interspersed with travel accounts is information about the influence that India has had on world figures, ranging from Walt Whitman to T S Eliot, Aldous Huxley and even Alfred Deakin. Doyle still has India in his blood, even though he has devised a list showing the differences, good and bad, between the modern nation and the India of his youth. Readers will be grateful that he has shared his deep knowledge and love of that country, not only with his daughter, but also with them. (Good Reading, May 2021)

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New additions to eBooks at SMSA

eBooks & Audiobooks help

EBOOKS

General novels	Heyman, Kathryn	The breaking
General novels	Kubica, Mary	Local woman missing
Mystery	Ægisdóttir, Eva Borg	Girls who lie
Mystery	Buchanan, Greg	Sixteen horses
Mystery	Corrigan, J. A.	The nurse
Mystery	Hart, Pamela	Digging up dirt
Mystery	Hunter, Alice	The serial killer’s wife
Mystery	Jackson, Stina	The last snow
Mystery	McKenzie, Catherine	Six weeks to live
Mystery	Parks, Adele	Both of you

Sixteen horses / Greg Buchanan

Buchanan’s debut, a dark, ambitious, and highly intelligent thriller, opens with an arresting image. In a farmer’s field, Alec Nichols, a policeman in the English seaside town of Ilmarsh, views 16 submerged horse heads, “all apart, all with only the barest strand of skin on display, all with a single eye left exposed to the sun.” Nichols and a forensic veterinarian, Cooper Allen, begin investigating the ritualistic tableau and end up probing the past and present of Ilmarsh, whose residents appear to be dying from environmental and economic disasters. In spare, poetic prose, the story unfolds mostly linearly—people disappearing, more ritualistic animal torture—with occasional flashbacks to illuminate the inner lives of characters and the history of the place itself. Decades of economic activity (fishing, oil, manufacturing, a once-thriving tourism industry) have been killing the town and poisoning the psyches of the locals: “Dying places produced desperate people. Desperate people were not, as a rule, careful or subtle in their actions.” The story line can be serpentine, but its rewards are worth the effort. This complex, often gothic tale is definitely an eye-opener. (Publishers Weekly, 3 May 2021)

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AUDIOBOOKS

General novels	Herron, R. H.	Hush little baby
General novels	Kantra, Virginia	Beth and Amy
General novels	McKinnon, Mary Hannah	You will remember me
General novels	Posey, Rafe	The stars we share
Mystery	Brookmyre, Chris	The cut
Mystery	Hill, Edwin	Watch her
Mystery	Robotham, Michael	Good girl bad girl
Mystery	Stone, Mary	Winter’s curse
Romance	Quinn, Julie	When he was wicked
Science fiction	Wells, Martha	Artificial condition

The cut / Chris Brookmyre

Since jolting readers with his first ‘Jack Parlabane’ tale back in the mid-1990s, Chris Brookmyre has delivered plenty of fresh takes and distinctiveness. From comic crime to Victorian mysteries to space station thrillers, the Scottish storyteller always entertains. In The Cut, Brookmyre delivers plenty of fresh flavour with an unusual tag-team of sleuths, and an intriguing dive into horror movie fandom and behind-the-scenes wizardry. Now in her eighth decade, Millicent Sparks is shuffling through a life she’s ready to end. Once a renowned make-up artist, she created gruesome deaths on film. Then was convicted of one in real life. She proclaimed her innocence, the tabloids dubbed her the ‘Video Nasty Killer’, and she spent 25 years in prison. Jerry is a teenage petty thief turned film-loving first-year at Glasgow University who answers an ad to live with three old ladies. When Millicent is jolted by an old photo, she and Jerry try to uncover a truth from long ago, kickstarting an unlikely and dangerous adventure across Europe. The Cut is a delight: a fast-paced thriller with strong characterisation that takes readers behind the curtain into an industry with a glamorous veneer but a grimy reality. Lots to like: a memorable cast beyond the leads, plenty of tension, and some interesting issues such as violence onscreen and political scapegoating. A thrill ride that makes you think. (Good Reading Magazine, May 2021)

Watch her / Edwin Hill

Hill’s taut third Hester Thursby mystery (after 2019’s The Missing Ones) centers on Boston’s Prescott University, a for-profit art school run by the predatory Matson family. Thirty-something Vanessa Matson acts as president, her husband is CFO, and working-class Maxine Pawlikowski slaves tirelessly as director of admissions. All seems well, until Maxine discovers some dodgy enrollment data. She taps diminutive but dauntless Harvard research librarian Hester, who sleuths on the side, to resolve the discrepancies, which reveal a web of troubles, including the mysterious drowning of a Matson toddler decades ago. When a pregnant Prescott coed is murdered, the scandals burst forth to embroil Hester, the police, and a renegade graffiti artist. This complex case revolves around “mothers and daughters,” as Hester knowingly muses, confronting fissures in her family as well as the Matsons’. Quirky characters complement the suspenseful plot. Readers will agree that a failing school makes a grade-A mystery. (Publishers Weekly, November 2020)

Beth and Amy / Virginia Kantra

Kantra (Meg and Jo) continues her delightful 21st-century retelling of Little Women, set in Bunyan, N.C., with characters that hew closely to the versions that inspired them. Meg is the perfect mother to two children; Jo is a bestselling author about to marry a chef; Beth is a budding country star with an eating disorder; Amy is an accessories designer; family friend Trey (inspired by Alcott’s Laurie) owns a luxury car dealership; and the March women’s father, a Civil War soldier in Alcott’s novel, served in Iraq. All reunite for Jo’s wedding, where Amy reflects on the time she’d had sex with Trey three years earlier in Paris, during which Trey had called Amy “Jo,” and on how Jo later broke his heart. Kantra believably heightens the tension around Amy’s regret over violating the “Sisters’ Code” tinged with a renewed desire for Trey at Jo’s wedding. This material, as well as an exploration of s Beth’s anorexia, are mined for maximum emotional effect. For the most part, things proceed apace with Alcott’s novel, with an equally satisfying happy ending. Kantra’s compulsively readable update will attract a whole new group of readers, as well as satisfy Alcott devotees. (Publishers Weekly, March 2021)

The stars we share / Rafe Posey

Posey impresses in his moving debut, a sprawling account of the evolving relationship between two people who first met as children. After eight-year-old Alec Oswin’s parents die in 1927, his uncle takes him from India, where Alec was born, to start a new life in an English village. There, he meets June Attwell, who befriends him. They fall in love at 18, but WWII interferes. Alec becomes a fighter pilot with the RAF and is shot down, becoming a German POW, while June lends her intellect to the war effort as a Bletchley Park code breaker. When they finally reunite in 1946, Alec worries he’s been so transformed by his experiences that he’s no longer deserving of June. The prose sometimes strains a bit (“the letter is too short, a sparrow when he would have liked to send a goshawk”), but overall, Posey displays gifts for crafting realistic dialogue and bringing people and places to life. Though this isn’t at the rarefied level of All the Light We Cannot See, fans of that book are likely to be engrossed. (Publishers Weekly, May 2021)

Good girl bad girl / Michael Robotham

Two major cases preoccupy forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven, the hero of this haunting psychological thriller from Edgar finalist Robotham. First, the Nottingham, England, police have enlisted him in their effort to catch the killer of 15-year-old Jodie Sheehan, British junior figure skating champion. Second, Cyrus has to assess the fitness of a troubled but achingly vulnerable teenage girl for release from a high-security children’s home. Six years earlier, the media dubbed her Angel Face when she was discovered abused and malnourished hiding inside a north London house, where the body of a murder victim had been found a few weeks before. She now goes by the court-given alias of Evie Cormac, since she has steadfastly refused to reveal her true identity or age. Despite Jodie and Evie’s obvious differences, they are sisters under the skin in many respects. Beneath Jodie’s sparkly princess persona, Cyrus learns, were a host of very adult problems. To succeed, Cyrus must tease out the secrets Jodie may have died for—as well as some of those that could still get Evie killed. Robotham expertly raises the tension as the action hurtles toward the devastating climax. Readers will hope the complex Cyrus will return for an encore. (Publishers Weekly, May 2019)

Articifial condition / Martha Wells

Wells follows the classically tight adventure pacing of All Systems Red with a slightly disorienting shift to self-exploration, making intense moments out of data dumps and matter-of-fact narrative out of fights to the death. Murderbot, a sentient artificial intelligence, is on the lam, hopping cargo transports and hacking security cameras on a quest to discover the truth of its own origin story as the villain of a massacre. Sounds like a rollicking time—which it is, but not in the way one might expect. The real discovery is not about the horrific events Murderbot may have participated in some 35,000 hours ago, but the bonds it never intended to form with beings who were no part of its plan. The most endearing is ART, a wacky cross between 2001’s HAL and Mycroft Holmes, who plays to Murderbot’s Sherlock with acerbic and infinite superiority. The broadening of Murderbot’s experience, however mundane, “make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person,” and the dizzying, inarguable plenitude of personhood is what this dense novella most intimately explores. There’s plenty here to entertain the many fans of the first novella. (Publishers Weekly, June 2018)