"The Ninth Circle"

Coming soon from Soho Crime: The Ninth Circle (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery) by James R. Benn.

About the book, from the publisher:

To solve a double murder in Cuba, US Army Captain Billy Boyle will need to build unlikely alliances with Havana’s underworld and British intelligence, including Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, whose naval wartime service would later inspire the James Bond novels.

This installment of James R. Benn’s fan-favorite, critically-acclaimed WWII mystery series marks 20 years of Billy Boyle, an Irish American cop from Boston thrust onto the staff of his “uncle” Ike Eisenhower for sensitive overseas military investigations.

January, 1945: If US Army Captain Billy Boyle thinks a summons to Havana will give him a chance to sip a cold Hatuey under the Caribbean sun, the fantasy is dead on arrival. Within hours of landing, Billy and his partner-in-crime-solving, Lieutenant Piotr Kazimierz, are assigned to investigate the murder of a Navy intelligence officer. But as the men wait for an informant at a beachside bar, a bomb goes off, and they narrowly escape with their lives. Then the informant—a Cuban taxi driver named Hector Díaz—is found dead outside his apartment. What did Hector know? And who was so desperate to silence him?

Thrust into a double-murder investigation, Billy and Kaz team up with the brass at the British Legation in Havana, including none other than Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, to gather intel from sources inside Havana’s criminal underworld. Their search takes them from Havana’s Chinatown to the Gran Casino Nacional, where notorious gangster Meyer Lansky offers his services if it means defeating the suspected common enemy—the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence wing of the Nazi military—and finding out what sort of intelligence they are so hell-bent on keeping top-secret at this late stage in the war.

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Bitter Wind.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Painting Paranoia"

New from the University of Illinois Press: Painting Paranoia: Cold War Art and Anti-Communism by Julia Tatiana Bailey.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the interwar years, as the USSR was emerging as a formidable new power and the United States was asserting its final independence from Europe, Russian art began to appear in the United States, supported by the influx of émigrés escaping revolutionary turmoil. While revolutionary Russia was viewed with trepidation from across the Atlantic, the country’s creative output was initially entertained as an exotic oddity. Yet this sense of cultural alienation, based on the classical orientalizing narratives of the period, gave way to the fear of the Soviet Union as a cultural Other, which defined US-Soviet artistic relations throughout the twentieth century.

Based on extensive archival research conducted in the United States and Russia, this manuscript contributes to the political history of twentieth-century American art and the revisionist history of cultural diplomacy in the Cold War by charting the politicization of myths of Soviet art. It reveals how those with control over the reception of art in the United States built and sustained a strategy of othering towards Socialist Realism, presents the rhetoric of Soviet artistic otherness in the context of debates surrounding the concept of American art, and reclaims the post-war history of American Social Realism.

Follow Julia Bailey on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mortal Enemy Murder Club"

New from Park Row: The Mortal Enemy Murder Club: A Novel (A Hu Done It Mystery, 2) by Gloria Chao.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club is back with a twist in this smart, hilarious mystery by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao.

Kathryn Hu is not getting into the business of solving murders. Yes, she and her friends Olivia and Elle figured out who killed their cheating ex-boyfriend. But now Kat can get back to her usual, murder-free existence.

Then she gets an unexpected plea for help. Mandy Thorne has ruined countless lives through her revenge podcast. She also did her best to frame the girls. Now, she claims, someone is trying to kill her. And the girls are the only ones who can save her.

But can the trio and Mandy put aside their mutual contempt long enough to prevent a murder and solve this case? Can they become…the Mortal Enemy Murder Club?

Filled with humor and shenanigans, The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is a romp of an adventure by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao, perfect for fans of Dial A for Aunties and Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.

Visit Gloria Chao's website.

The Page 69 Test: American Panda.

The Page 69 Test: When You Wish Upon a Lantern.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Real Domestic Product"

New from The MIT Press: The Real Domestic Product: How Birth Control Built Equality (and Why the Future of the Economy and the Planet Depends on It) by Elizabeth Gregory.

About the book, from the publisher:

An urgent and clear-eyed look at the battle over reproductive control in our tipping-point moment—and how to forge a path forward.

Birth control, which includes contraception, abortion access and more, has not only enabled women to enter civic life in significant numbers for the first time, but it has also expanded our democracy and grown our economy. While many embrace these changes, which aim to share the nation’s economic bounty among all Americans, those who see themselves as benefiting from the old hierarchies do not. They resist this progress with divisive rhetoric condemning “woke”-ness in anything they find threatening.

In The Real Domestic Product, fertility researcher Elizabeth Gregory argues that our battles over abortion and LGBTQ bans and pronatalism are economic at base—that conservatives seek to push women out of civic life through forced childbearing. Their goal? To maintain their discount on domestic labor and a steady supply of low-wage workers. But, she contends, this shortsighted approach overlooks the huge benefits that a caring democracy can engender for our economy and for our fragile planet.

By connecting the dots among fertility patterns, economics, climate change, equitable work, expanding longevity, and the rising status of formerly excluded groups, the author counters reactionary narratives, adding depth and perspective to the incomplete national conversations we’ve had to date. Never more urgently needed, The Real Domestic Product envisions the way forward to an economy of care for our planet and our people.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Shadow Friends"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Shadow Friends: A Thriller (The Martini Club) by Tess Gerritsen.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a harrowing and emotional thriller where ghosts of the Cold War return with a vengeance―and cannot be outrun.

When a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine, the tight-knit band of former spies in the Martini Club once again sees their quiet coastal retirement interrupted by international intrigue. And when a waitress at the conference hotel is found murdered, Ingrid Slocum sees chilling links to a disastrous mission that nearly killed her three decades ago.

Desperate to uncover the truth, Ingrid’s drawn back into the game by a magnetic ex-CIA colleague―and former lover―who was with her on the long-ago doomed mission. He convinces her to join him, and together they head to Amsterdam to track down her would-be killer.

Ingrid’s frantic husband Lloyd and Maggie Bird are close behind, but a clandestine network of assassins is intent on stopping them. Forced to question every allegiance, the Martini Club must rely on the skills they tried to leave behind. Because in this game of revenge and deception, the past never dies―it just hides in the shadows.

Visit Tess Gerritsen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The New Believers"

New from Cambridge University Press: The New Believers: Religion and the Contemporary Novel by Jack Dudley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The New Believers identifies a group of today's most important novelists, Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Junot Díaz, and George Saunders, who have challenged the trend of depressing and defeatist novelistic endings by turning to spiritual beliefs, powers, and presences. Through spiritual belief, these writers use the novel to imagine more hopeful and caring ways of being in the world, ones that can challenge Christian Nationalism and neoliberal capitalism and empower leftist and liberal causes, such as women's rights, migrant rights, animal rights, and care for the environment. Through a survey of the current state of novel studies, close readings of key works by each writer, and new archival research on Margaret Atwood and J. M. Coetzee, The New Believers shows how these writers transform novelistic realism through spiritual realism and reshape the current debate about religion, secularization, and literature.

Visit Jack Dudley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Something of a Calling"

Coming soon from Blackstone Publishing: Something of a Calling by Zoje Stage.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the brilliant Zoje Stage, Bram Stoker Award finalist and author of Baby Teeth, Something of a Calling is an unsettling look at a woman—and a world—on the brink of change.

Detective Andy Cooper is about to retire. She isn’t sure what’s next … perhaps traveling in the RV she has yet to buy, with a dog she doesn’t currently own. Perhaps gardening near the ever-shrinking patch of woods behind her house—once the cable company’s backhoe is removed.

She’ll need to do something, if only to distract herself from how empty her life has become. After the murder of her young daughter by a drunk driver. After the divorce. After the realization that all she has is her job and that she’s about to lose that, too.

Everything changes when bodies begin to turn up. Murdered, but how? Not by knife, gun, or any obvious weapon. Instead: teethmarks. Chunks missing. Like they’d been chewed on. And not by humans.

As she’s struggling to solve her final case, an unexpected new friendship seems like just what Andy needs. Where she is detached from life, Fiona embraces it. Where she is a homebody, Fiona roams. Yet the women are drawn together by a shared love of nature and wildlife. Until Andy learns the dark truth behind Fiona’s smile. A secret that threatens to unravel the world as she knows it.

Visit Zoje Stage's website.

Writers Read: Zoje Stage (July 2018).

Q&A with Zoje Stage.

Writers Read: Zoje Stage (August 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Chinese Media Improvisations"

New from Stanford University Press: Chinese Media Improvisations: Thriving on Deficits by Xuenan Cao.

About the book, from the publisher:

Xuenan Cao offers an unexpected angle on China's technological rise, spotlighting the role of deficit-driven improvisation. As Cao demonstrates, where printing paper, computers, and microchips have been in shortage, media improvisations and AI gadgetry have filled the gap and become the unlikeliest accelerants of tech imaginaries. Equal parts media-historical and literary analysis, the book connects several moments in Chinese history: Mao's Great Leap Forward that demanded the country produce mountains of books, notwithstanding the shortage of papers and printers; the compressed development that pushed key industries—such as China Railway—to informatize amidst hazards; the information-theoretical explosion in which scientists impersonated computing devices when there were none for them to access; and the ironic present, when municipals have scrambled to update their smart-cities with low-budget AI gadget theatrics, such as facial recognition toilet paper dispensers. These are scenarios in which media practitioners—from print to information technologies and to AI—have had to improvise in response to political pressure and thrive on a deficiency of funding and materials. Drawing on Chinese communist party archival records, China Railway local archives, newspapers, ersatz college reference books, science journals, and AI-related technical documents, each book section combines archival research and literary readings, narrated through personal history with media-theoretical extrapolation. Ultimately, Cao persuades that the critique and deconstruction of the canonicity of Western media theory requires an understanding of media improvisations in China.

Visit Xuenan Cao's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Country House Murders"

Coming soon from Thomas & Mercer: The Country House Murders (Polly Hope Mysteries) by Friday Turner.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Meet Polly Hope: art expert, reluctant dog lover and… amateur detective?

London, 1941. Polly Hope is bravely working as an air raid warden during the Blitz when she saves the life of the charming Freddie Fairbank. Over a thank-you breakfast at the Ritz, he asks Polly to help requisition a sprawling English country house for the war effort.

Petherbridge Hall has grand rooms, lovely views and will be a perfect nursing home for injured troops, if they can only persuade the family to give up their house. But then they find the lord of the manor dead behind the gardener’s shed. With the local police too busy to investigate, Polly and Freddie realise they need to find the culprit, and fast. At least Toby the terrier seems happy to help.

With more suspects than you can shake a ration book at, our intrepid duo are on the hunt for the killer. But when Polly follows a clue down to the cellars, a secret door opens with a bang and her torch goes out… Really, in wartime Britain, couldn’t murderers at least wait until after tea?

Perfect for fans of cosy mysteries and anyone who likes their sleuths witty, their houses stately, and their wartimes adventures served with a dash of danger!

Visit Friday Turner's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Enlightenment in Concert"

New fom Yale University Press: The Enlightenment in Concert: Music, Markets, and Secularization by Andrei Pesic.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new interpretation of the Age of Enlightenment through the lens of music, institutions, and markets

The birth of public concerts changed Europe’s cultural landscape by introducing sacred music to secular spaces. The Concert spirituel in Paris is a landmark in this Enlightenment transition: the first long-lasting concert series, it began in 1725 with performances that mostly featured sacred music composed for the royal chapel in Versailles. By the time the Concert ended, in 1790, it was presenting a variety of musical genres, and its sacred repertoire had declined precipitously. The Concert had evolved from an institution dependent on the church calendar and the court into a business in a competitive market.

Andrei Pesic explores the dynamics of secularization during the Enlightenment, including the unintended consequences of linking music to commerce, social hierarchy, and religious practices. He reveals the role of public concerts in a burgeoning marketplace for entertainment—and the expansion of secular customs and diminishment of religious constraints—in places as varied as Paris, Berlin, and Haiti.

Visit Andrei Pesic's website.

--Marshal Zeringue