A look at the month’s best reviewed new releases in crime fiction, nonfiction, mystery, and thrillers.
Via Book Marks.
Nick Harkaway, Karla’s Choice
(Viking)
“What a treat it turns out to be to wander anew the fusty, crumbling warren of the Circus … The prose of Karla’s Choice is not an absolutely perfect exercise in ventriloquism of the master, nor does it try to be. There may be a few seeming anachronisms…but there is a satisfyingly cold tone throughout, recalling the way that le Carré’s own furiously tamped-down moralism (in the novels of the 1960s and 70s, at least) could approach nihilism … He demonstrates superbly, too, how suspense can arise from the patient accumulation of detail, and the brilliant climactic scene is nothing so vulgar as an action-movie shootout but rather a sequence of ordinary bureaucratic peril: the attempt to cross a border when one’s papers are not quite in order.”
–Steven Poole (The Guardian)
Mark Haddon, Dogs and Monsters
(Doubleday Books)
“The stories in this splendid new collection are inspired by an eclectic variety of sources … The work of a consummate storyteller, the brilliantly conceived Dogs and Monsters illuminates a variety of species, both real and mythical, including our own.”
–Hilma Wolitzer (New York Times Book Review)
Charles Baxter, Blood Test
(Pantheon Books)
“He’s written something closer to a farce — a story in which every predicament is intentionally absurd … After Baxter has laid out the parade of selfish, money-hungry, blindly tech-admiring elements of contemporary life, the black comedy of the words shines through.”
–Mark Athitakis (Los Angeles Times)
Elyse Graham: Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
(Ecco Press)
“Entertainingly conveyed, with great respect and deep appreciation for their ingenuity and drive, Graham’s history is a powerful symphony for these unsung heroes whose professional skills and personal courage brought down the Nazi state. The modern intelligence community owes its existence to their rigor and resourcefulness.”
–Carol Haggas (Booklist)
Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake
(Scribner)
“Bears all the hallmarks of her inquisitive mind and creative daring … The first satisfying surprise is that Kushner has designed this story as a spy thriller laced with a killer dose of deadpan wit … The story, told in short chapters that feel punchy even when they’re highly cerebral, slides around the labyrinth of Sadie’s mind, which is equally deceptive and deceived … Kushner inhabits the spy’s perspective with such eerie finesse that you feel how much fun she’s having … Bore through this noir posing and wry satire of radical politics, and you feel something vital and profound prowling around in the darkness beneath.”
–Ron Charles (Washington Post)
