The Trees

by Percival Everett

Graywolf Press

    This is an amazing work of art. It is at once horrifying, moving, challenging and funny. It is terribly, sadly, very relevant to our times. The brutal murders, acts of much deserved retribution, confound the racist local police and the Black FBI investigators, as the killings spread. Yet Everett manages at several different points to make you laugh out loud. 

    This should be, and most likely won't be, required reading in high schools.

If you'd like to know more about this book, or own it, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place - bookshop.org .

 This Plague of Souls

by Mike McCormack

Soho Press

Jan. 2024

    The reader is immediately pulled into Nealon's world - a hazy place of loss, secrets and suspense. There is a man who claims to know things that Nealon needs to know, which he will trade for things that Nealon does (maybe) know. Paranoia grows to the climax of a meeting in a hotel lobby where the world waits anxiously to learn what threat has the security forces on high alert.

    Presented in poetic and concise language, this is not your typical noir. But it should not be missed.  If you haven't tried Solar Bones, that is another wonderful and strange novel by McCormack.

If you would like to know more about these books, please check your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org .

 Ilium

by Lea Carpenter

Knopf/ PRH

Jan 2024

    This is a slow-moving, suspenseful story of a young woman coming to know herself and the husband she fell in love with, precipitously married, and the world of espionage the marriage brought her into.

    It is slow because the narrator is thoughtful and observant of the different kinds of people involved in this world, of their personalities, philosophies, loyalties and affections.

    This is a very satisfying look into a world we don't really want to encounter outside fiction.

If you would like to know more about this book, or own it, please check your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org .