CLAIRE DeWITT AND THE CITY OF THE DEAD by Sara Gran

 

 

Not your average private investigator, Claire uses some unusual detection methods to solve a crime in atmospheric New Orleans.  A fine mystery, planned as the first in a new series.

813.54 Fox, Paula: NEWS FROM THE WORLD: Stories and Essays

 

 

Memoirist, novelist, essayist, author of short stories and stories for children;  in any form, Fox is a master of concise language and telling details.

KINGS OF COLORADO by David E. Hilton

When young Will finally strikes back at his abusive father, he is sentenced to two years at Colorado’s Swope Ranch Boys Reformatory. He bonds with three other boys, but they cannot defend each other from the evil and corruption around them.  A dark and powerful debut novel.

SPOILED by Caitlin Macy

 

 

This collection of nine stories features privileged young women in New York, whose lives of apparent success mask their insecurities.  Smooth writing and clever variations on the author’s theme.

 

THE POISON TREE by Erin Kelly

 

Conventional, dutiful Karen meets and is mesmerized by free spirit Biba.  They share a bohemian, self-indulgent summer that ends with death.  Ten years later, we see a very different Karen.    A haunting, atmospheric first novel.

WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER by Howard Norman

 

A father writes a (book-length) letter to his estranged daughter, hoping for her understanding and telling her the events of his life: he is orphaned, he falls in love with his adopted cousin,  she falls in love with someone else.  This heartbreaking story is set in Nova Scotia during World War II.   Norman has been nominated twice for the National Book Award.

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CARIBOU ISLAND by David Vann

 

On Caribou Island, on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula,  Gary is building a cabin where he and his wife can live in their retirement.  Thirty years of disappointment and rage surface in this darkly compelling dissection of a doomed marriage.