"The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek"

Coming October 13 from Tachyon: The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek by David Liss.

About the book, from the publisher:

A young man with a terrible past finds his unlikely protector: the oddly-altered enforcer of a backwater Florida town. Edgar Award-winner David Liss's latest novel reads like Hiaasen meets Crichton―a razor-sharp allegory pulled straight from today’s headlines.

Who is Iliana Marek? Is she the bully who alongside her foster father police chief Bryce Hillard, controls and terrorizes Tylor, Florida? Or is she the reborn guardian angel of Dan Gibson, a social pariah responsible for the suicide of Faye Kristic, a death which he cannot remember ten years later.

Dan’s once-promising future is in tatters. He lives in an apartment on his estranged parents’ property, works at a convenience store with a terrible boss, and is addicted to prescription drugs. But ten years after Faye’s death, Iliana suddenly takes Dan’s side, and a lot of bad people start dying fast.

As Dan becomes entangled in the ensuing chaos, he needs to finally discover what part he played in the death of Faye Kristic, and why the changes to Iliana make her no longer entirely human.

Visit David Liss's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Twelfth Enchantment.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Order of Business"

New the University of North Carolina Press: Order of Business: The Golden Age of Fraternity and Its Legacy of Inequality by Pamela A. Popielarz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Though the industrial revolution pushed Americans into radically new modes of living, working, and organizing, patriarchy and white supremacy survived in the new institutions of the industrial economy. Fraternal orders flourished so spectacularly between the Civil War and World War I that this era—the peak of the industrial revolution—is known as the Golden Age of Fraternity. In this work of historically informed sociology, Pamela A. Popielarz explores the hidden impact of fraternal orders on systemic inequalities in American business. Most orders welcomed only white men, yet members ranged from capitalist elites to wage workers. Popielarz analyzes the Freemasons and the Knights of Pythias, illuminating who they were, what they aimed to do, and how they adopted novel business practices during the Golden Age. In doing so, she reveals the collective imprint of fraternal orders on business culture and offers new ways to understand contemporary racial and gender inequalities.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Conviction"

New from Grove Atlantic: Conviction by Elizabeth H. Winthrop.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The story of a young, American woman’s misguided journey to join ISIS and the grief of the mother she leaves behind—a gripping and thought-provoking exploration of loss, empathy, and hope from the acclaimed author of The Mercy Seat

Maggie is gone. And her mother, Ann, is reeling.

In the aftermath of 9/11, eleven-year-old Maggie’s first instinct was rage. But when her parents took her to an open house at a mosque, she glimpsed a faith of beauty and peace—and over time came to embrace Islam as her own.

A decade later, Maggie has left Maine for the life in New York she always dreamed of. Yet her joy is shadowed by images from Syria: civilians starving, children buried under rubble. She feels powerless to help. Then she meets Ahmet, the handsome and headstrong son of a neighborhood baker. Ahmet is enraged by all the same things she is—so much that he leaves his life behind to join a new rebel group emerging in Syria, electrified by its sweeping vision to fight Assad and create a Muslim utopia. The group is ISIS.

Driven by love, Maggie follows him into territory from which she can’t return. Trapped without her passport and cut off from home, she slowly gleans the brutal nature of the group she has joined, one that does not share her vision of Islam.

Back in Maine, Ann is left with silence and half-truths, with the hope that one day her daughter will realize her mistake and come home. As ISIS explodes into global infamy, Ann becomes consumed by questions of what she did not see in her daughter and how belief—whether religious, political, or maternal—can turn to conviction, and conviction to ruin.

Told in counterpoint between mother and daughter, America and Syria, Conviction is both intimate and global in scope: a portrait of love during war, and a nuanced dive into the horrors of the modern world and the conditions that beget violence.

Visit Elizabeth H. Winthrop's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When Healing Harms"

Coming October 6 from the University of California Press: When Healing Harms: The Doctor Who Put a Hospital on Trial―and the Case That Shook Psychiatry by Eric Caplan.

About the book, from the publisher:

The legal case that changed psychiatry and forced a reckoning within the profession.

In 1979, Dr. Raphael Osheroff admitted himself to Chestnut Lodge, a prestigious psychiatric hospital, expecting world-class care for his severe depression. Instead, he was confined to a locked ward, denied medication, and subjected to seven months of talk therapy. The experience rendered him physically frail and emotionally devastated before his parents secured his transfer to a hospital willing to prescribe the antidepressants he desperately needed. But the damage was done: his marriage, his practice, and his reputation all lay in tatters.

Then he did something unprecedented. He sued Chestnut Lodge.

When Healing Harms excavates the long-buried story behind one of the most consequential―and most misunderstood―malpractice cases in modern psychiatry and surfaces its impact that persists to this day. Drawing on thousands of pages of court transcripts, medical files, legal archives, hundreds of letters, video testimony, and interviews, Eric Caplan provides the definitive account of how a world-renowned psychiatric hospital failed a patient in crisis, and how the story of that failure has been obscured and misrepresented for more than four decades. The result is a revelatory examination of how psychiatry confronted its limitations―and unwittingly gave rise to a system that has failed seriously ill patients even more than the one Osheroff fought to change.

Visit Eric Caplan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Savvy Summers and the Po'boy Perils"

New from Minotaur Books: Savvy Summers and the Po'boy Perils: A Mystery (Savvy Summers Mysteries, 2) by Sandra Jackson-Opoku.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The next delectable mystery featuring quick-witted, unforgettable Savvy Summers, owner of a soul food café in Chicago.

Savvy has her work cut out when an old friend hires her to cater a company luncheon at a nearby office building on Chicago's South Side. Stepping out of her traditional soul food comfort zone, Savvy whips together a menu of Creole classics, with her own spin, of course―mini po’boys with assorted fillings, sunburst salad, and bread pudding using Great Aunt Essie’s famous buttermilk biscuits.

But when someone is found dead in the company’s conference room, Savvy’s culinary creations are suddenly in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. While the focus should be on their delicious flavors and inventive techniques, Savvy’s beloved café instead becomes the center of a murder investigation once again.

Caught within a messy web of gossip, miscommunication, and fraught coworker relationships, Savvy will have to settle the confusion to clear her name. Somebody’s hiding something, and with the help of her trusty assistant manager, Penny Lopés, Savvy sets out uncover exactly who is to blame. With familiar faces turning up the heat on her investigation and her café still in hot water, will Savvy be able to save her reputation before it’s too late?

Follow Sandra Jackson-Opoku on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The War against Law"

New from Cambridge University Press: The War against Law: What's Wrong with Common Good Constitutionalism by David Dyzenhaus.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the UK, lawyers of the 'Judicial Power Project' – a group largely based at elite universities with close ties to far-right figures in the US and Europe – rail against 'judicial overreach'. In this groundbreaking book, David Dyzenhaus investigates the ideology of this group, contending that their true aim is to establish rule by an illiberal executive under the guise of benefitting the 'common good'. Dyzenhaus makes a powerful argument that this is a fundamentally illiberal ideology with roots in authoritarian thought from the 1930s, one which threatens to take a wrecking ball to the rule of law and democracy. The War against Law offers a fascinating examination of these lawyers' ideas against the backdrop of the 2024 Rwanda Act, which required rendering asylum seekers in the UK to Rwanda. The debates both before and after the Act make concrete profound questions about the nature of the rule of law and its role in a liberal democracy.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You’ve Lost That Livin’ Feelin’"

New from Severn House: You’ve Lost That Livin’ Feelin’ (An Adam Parrall Mystery) by Nicholas George.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Introducing Adam Parrall—retired drummer, vinyl record store owner . . . and amateur sleuth!

Adam Parrall’s wild days as a drummer in a rock band are far behind him. Now semi-retired and running a record store in the sleepy town of Cordoba on the mid-California coast, life is considerably calmer, with pleasant surprises such as winning a lifetime achievement award (which Adam learns, depressingly, is intended for deceased artists).

There’s plenty of life left in Adam yet, though sadly the same can’t be said of Righteous Brother tribute artist Barry Haddon, whose dead body is discovered by Adam outside a nightclub. Suddenly Adam discovers an exciting new hobby—sleuthing! Is a knife-wielding robber terrorizing the locals responsible for Barry’s murder? As panic and confusion sweep through the town, Adam can’t rule anything—or anyone—out. Unfortunately, his meddling may mean that he’ll qualify for that lifetime achievement award sooner than he thought!

The first in an irresistibly charming cozy mystery series featuring a retired drummer seeking to recapture the excitement of his rock band heyday by solving crime. A page-turning must-read for fans of M.C. Beaton, Richard Osman and J.M. Hall!

Follow Nicholas George on Facebook.

My Book, The Movie: A Lethal Walk in Lakeland.

The Page 69 Test: A Lethal Walk in Lakeland.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Near and Desired Things"

New from Cornell University Press: Near and Desired Things: Shamanism in Late Imperial Local Siberian Museums by Marisa Karyl Franz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Near and Desired Things reveals nineteenth-century Siberian museums, built on Indigenous land and increasingly populated by political exiles, as active sites of ethnographic knowledge-making and centers of scientific research, regional identity, and colonial authority. Rather than collecting from distant colonies, these institutions concentrated on surrounding communities, their tools, beliefs, and everyday lives, to configure ideas about what counted as legitimate knowledge.

Marisa Karyl Franz traces how Siberian museums helped construct shamanism as an ethnographic category. Shamans, while familiar and embedded in local space, were recast as icons of cultural otherness or representatives of an imagined primitive past. Through the evolving languages of science, anthropology, and empire, the local was abstracted and exported, feeding global museum networks and shaping modern anthropology. Yet, the museums held onto the intimacy of place, preserving tensions between familiarity and spectacle, documentation and desire.

By placing Siberia at the center of a broader intellectual and political history, Near and Desired Things challenges assumptions about where modern knowledge is made and redefines provincial spaces as sites of innovation and as forces that reshape the terms of empire.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Bird Tribe"

New from Tor Books: The Bird Tribe: The Dreambird Chronicles, Book Three by Lucinda Roy.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lucinda Roy concludes her explosive speculative fiction trilogy, The Dreambird Chronicles, with the triumphant The Bird Tribe.

Yearning is the only compass you need to fly a way home.

Two years after Ji-ji’s miraculous flight on her own impossible wings, the Dream of Freedom has stalled. The Rising promised by Prophet Dreg has not occurred. Ji-ji’s fellow seeds, living in bondage on plantings, had started to believe the legend of Flying Africans was more than just a myth enslaved people told themselves.

But in a polarized nation, torn apart by a Civil War Sequel, faith is slippery.

Ji-ji’s quest to discover the truth behind her people’s origin story will send her, Afarra, and the men they love on a perilous transatlantic pilgrimage to find answers to questions that haunt her: Were Wingchildren engineered by those who experimented on imported humans? Or is she part of an improbable myth? An ancient tribe of Flying Africans from the Cradle, who etched their own remarkable story into the stuff of dreams.

Visit Lucinda Roy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Empress Matilda"

New from Yale University Press: Empress Matilda: Queen of the Romans, Ruler of the English by Elisabeth van Houts.

About the book, from the publisher:

An authoritative new biography of Empress Matilda

Born in 1102, Empress Matilda combined the blood of two dynasties: the house of Wessex and their conquerors, the dukes of Normandy. As a widowed German empress, she was named as heir successor by her father, Henry I. But, after his death in 1135, Matilda’s place on the English throne was usurped by her cousin, Stephen of Blois. Civil war followed, and she ruled the south-west of England in opposition.

Elisabeth van Houts explores the remarkable life of medieval England’s only queen regnant. Van Houts examines female rulership in the Middle Ages, from Matilda’s relationships with her husbands, to her self-identification as granddaughter of William the Conqueror. Matilda used her persuasiveness effectively with the men who surrounded her, including her father, husbands, half-brothers and cousins.

This is a fascinating account, which reveals Matilda to be an assertive, if on occasion disappointed, woman who made the best of her position with intelligence and stamina.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cloak and Dagger Club"

New from Berkley: The Cloak and Dagger Club (A Cloak and Dagger Club Mystery) by Jackie McMahon.

About the book, from the publisher:

Inspired by Agatha Christie's real-life Detection Club, a murder among a group of golden age mystery writers meets a second chance romance in this debut novel from author Jackie McMahon.

London, 1930. Lucy Hubbard is on the cusp of achieving her dreams. With her first mystery novel debuting with strong sales and glowing reviews, she's been invited by Horace Hazelmoor, the king of crime fiction, to join his elite group of writers—the Cloak and Dagger Club.

Thrilled at the opportunity, Lucy finds herself swept up into Horace's glamorous world at the Ritz hotel. She's even willing to put up with the inconvenient presence of her former fiancé, Frank Murray, the club's rising star who is on track to eclipse Horace as Britain's most popular crime writer.

But when Horace is found with a knife in his back, Frank is the police's prime suspect. Despite their complicated history, Lucy knows he's not capable of murder. With suspects galore and the danger rising, these two mystery writers must race to solve the crime—and fight their lingering feelings for each other—before the murderer strikes again.

Visit Jackie McMahon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ganja Matters"

New from the University of California Press: Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India by Utathya Chattopadhyaya.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ganja is the popular name in Hindustani, Bengali, and other South Asian languages for intoxicating substances produced from the plant species Cannabis sativa L. Starting in the eighteenth century, British India's colonial administrators sought ways to systematically tax and govern how ganja circulated from the farms of peasant families in rural Bengal to pipes, plates, and cups elsewhere in the subcontinent. Ganja Matters follows the perpetual incongruity between regulatory efforts to pursue the plant through botanical observation, colonial reportage, and excise statistics and the leisurely, devotional, and creative ganja pursuits among people. Utathya Chattopadhyaya offers a social history of ganja in a multispecies framework that reveals how the cannabis plant co-constituted histories of empire, gender, subalternity, and labor under British rule. Against the weight of the criminalization and "drug-ness" of cannabis, Chattopadhyaya puts the multidirectional and polysemic history of ganja as plant matter at the center of analysis.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Thighs Wide Shut"

New from Dial Press: Thighs Wide Shut: A Novel by Hayley Fleming.

About the book, from the publisher:

A charming second-chance romance about a young woman determined to finally embrace vulnerability—a love letter to anyone who’s ever felt their body is a barrier to their happiness.

Emma thought her late twenties couldn’t get more complicated. But then she quit her teaching job and moved across the country—only to find herself living right below the man she tried for years to avoid.

Emma hasn’t seen Harrison since an explosive fight ended their college friendship and eliminated the possibility of anything more ever happening between them. Now that his apartment is right above hers, Emma is privy to every detail of his active (and noisy) dating life. She knows she has only herself to blame for their estrangement: her inability to be honest with Harrison drove him away. It’s clear he’s moved on; why can’t she?

Presented with an opportunity to reignite the long-smoldering flames of their relationship, Emma realizes that to seize the moment, she will have to finally face the women's health condition holding her back from intimacy and truly open up. But can she let her desires overcome the resistance in her mind and body?

Funny and tender, Thighs Wide Shut is an all-too-relatable story of how terrifying—and freeing—it is when we let our hearts take charge.

Visit Hayley Fleming's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Miami Nation"

New from Indiana University Press: The Miami Nation: A Middle Path for Indigenous Nationhood by Aamaawia John Bickers.

About the book, from the publisher:

As the United States sought to expand its territorial holdings at the start of the nineteenth century into what is now Ohio and Indiana, the Indigenous Myaamia (Miami) peoples of the Wabash River Valley came together to form a united front to protect their lands and their people. The Miami National Council was designed by its founders to allow the Myaamia people and their leaders to engage with the federal government and American culture on their own terms.

The Miami Nation tells the fascinating history of both politics and people. Skillfully weaving together oral narratives, archival research, existing published histories, and his own family's recollections and stories, Aamaawia John Bickers illustrates the broader strategies and forces that affected how the Miami Nation responded to American imperial expansion, illuminating the challenges, achievements, and occasional missteps along the way. Bickers begins with the formation of the Miami National Council in the early nineteenth century, following their political development through two forced removals, the American Civil War, allotment and the Dawes Act, and finally the ratification of the constitution of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma in 1939. But throughout these experiences, the Miami Nation maintained its cultural identity and continued to sustain their community.

As the first academic history of the Myaamia people written by a tribal member, The Miami Nation centers Myaamia voices as it contemplates issues of Indigenous power, settler colonialism, and how a community can charter its own path through history.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Don't Look Away"

New from Scribner: Don't Look Away: A Novel by Daniel Kenitz.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the author of The Perfect Home comes a harrowing domestic crime thriller where a former defense attorney is forced out of retirement to defend her husband—now the prime suspect in the serial murder case terrorizing Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Leslie Woodhouse’s most exciting days should be behind her. In a past life, she was a defense attorney with a reputation for finding loopholes in high-profile cases. Now, she’s enjoying a modest retirement in Florida in a seaside condo with her mild-mannered husband, Robert. The only things that get her heart rate up now are late-night coffees, playful banter with her beloved older sister, and the news: the serial killer ravaging Florida’s Gulf Coast has just made his first mistake. An eight-year-old girl has seen his face and lived.

To Leslie, the murderer is little more than a morbid fascination—until she comes home to flashing police lights. Robert is arrested, accused of being the Gulf Coast Killer. Leslie is convinced of his innocence, and despite warnings not to represent her husband, she starts work on his defense. But as she unravels the facts, she can’t shake the unanswered questions. What was Robert’s DNA doing at the scene of the crime? And if she’s right to defend Robert, then who is the real Gulf Coast Killer, and why is he framing her husband?

Don’t Look Away is a twisty, compulsively readable thriller that asks: what do we owe one another— and what are the consequences of ignoring the truth?

Visit Daniel Kenitz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"We the Platform"

New from Columbia University Press: We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature by Aarthi Vadde.

About the book, from the publisher:

Web 2.0 gave us the online world as we know it today. Popularized in 2004, it redefined the internet as social, a “platform” for self-expression and data gathering. The ensuing proliferation of user-generated content such as social media posts, fan fiction, self-published novels, and Instagram poetry has spurred a host of anxieties about the end of literature. Yet contemporary literary fiction is deeply indebted to the folk forms that Web 2.0 cultivated, even when it is sharply critical of the platform business models behind them.

We the Platform is a groundbreaking account of mass writing in the twenty-first century, identifying rarely recognized forms of literary possibility amid the profound upheavals in traditional publishing. Aarthi Vadde examines the explosion of textuality across digital platforms: countless writers, diverse publishing formats, and vast communities of readers responding to stories publicly and instantly. Countering ubiquitous decline narratives, she offers powerful examples of literary innovation, adaptation, and survival. Among them are Jonathan Lethem and Lauren Oyler’s challenges to individualist ideas of authorship, the Twitter fiction of Jennifer Egan and Teju Cole, Margaret Atwood and Naomi Alderman’s collaborative writing on Wattpad, conceptual projects like Book from the Ground, and the experimental use of chatbots by authors including Sheila Heti. Through nuanced and illuminating readings, this book shows how platform-based writing has altered cornerstone concepts of authorship, aesthetic form, and craft, delivering a bold new understanding of literature now.

Visit Aarthi Vadde's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kill to Keep"

New from Severn House: Kill to Keep (A Sheriff Bet Rivers Mystery, 3) by Elena Taylor.

About the book, from the publisher:

A female sheriff races against time to solve a murder at a carnival that puts her whole town at risk. Thrilling, romantic, and full of suspense!

Sheriff Bet Rivers' inspection of the carnival grounds should have been routine. Murder is certainly the last thing on anyone's mind. Then comes the sound of a gunshot. And a dead body with no signs of trauma, no witnesses and no obvious motive for the killing.

But solving the unexplained death is only part of the challenge. Bet is still grappling with her on-off relationship with town owner Rob Collier, while dealing with her feelings about her late father, the beloved town sheriff she had to replace.

As Bet launches her homicide investigation, she soon discovers the carnival is a place of whispers, rumours, resentments and lie after lie. And as the stakes build, it quickly becomes clear that protecting a deadly secret is something that someone is willing to kill to keep.

Fans of Julia Keller and Sheena Kamal will love this riveting suspense.

Visit Elena Taylor's website.

Q&A with Elena Taylor.

The Page 69 Test: A Cold, Cold World.

My Book, The Movie: A Cold, Cold World.

Writers Read: Elena Taylor (December 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Haunting of Emily Grace.

--Marshal Zeringue

"In Contagion's Wake"

New from the University of Massachusetts Press: In Contagion's Wake: Black Writers and the Development of Modern Outbreak Narratives by Kelly L. Bezio.

About the book, from the publisher:

An examination of early American literature that highlights how racial divides exacerbated—and were exacerbated by—the spread of infection

In April of 1721, the HMS Seahorse arrived in Boston from the West Indies, causing a smallpox epidemic that would plague the city for the next year. Of its 12,000 inhabitants, nearly fifty percent were infected, and 900 people died. Like the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020, the outbreak also brought to the surface deep divides in the social fabric of colonial New England and laid the groundwork for racialized political inequities that we continue to grapple with today.

In Contagion’s Wake examines a range of American outbreak narratives, both historical and fictional, written between the early 1700s and the early 1900s—from the rise of inoculation through the advent of germ theory. Author Kelly L. Bezio argues that during this period, literature about communicable disease was dominated by white authors, such as Cotton Mather and Edgar Allen Poe, who tended to privilege white suffering and survival while obscuring Black suffering and vulnerability. Black authors, however, such as Olaudah Equiano and Frances E.W. Harper, developed variations on plot structures, metaphors, and imagery that drew upon contagion to represent racial injustice and further the cause of Black liberation.

The diverse texts Bezio analyzes vary extensively in genre and geographical location, and in the illnesses that feature in their pages. Significant disorders from the era, including yellow fever, smallpox, consumption, and cholera, make frequent appearances, as do less culturally dominant diseases such as St. Anthony’s Fire. In Contagion’s Wake contends that representations of communicable disease should not be understood only as within their own historical moment; rather, they function more like a DNA code for our present time.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Forest Becomes Her"

New from St. Martin's Press: The Forest Becomes Her: A Novel by Julie Carrick Dalton.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The perfect choice for your next book club: Julie Carrick Dalton's The Forest Becomes Her is a timely, unforgettable novel about three women from different generations navigating the complexities of family, grief, the impacts of our choices, and our deep connections to the natural world beneath our feet.

In historic, bucolic Concord, Massachusetts, a centuries-old forest has been removed to make way for a new, eco-friendly housing development. The locals are upset by the destruction, but out-of-towners like Hazel Stoddard are flocking to put down roots in their new guilt-free dream homes.

Soon a tragedy leaves Hazel unmoored in her new life, and she begins to feel the pull of the absent forest. Hazel is not alone―her neighbors, real estate agent Stella Flint and teenage environmentalist Polly Bauer, each have their own trauma and relationship to the land. The three women are drawn together to save the last remaining oak tree, or they risk losing themselves to lingering shadows that only they can see.

In The Forest Becomes Her, Julie Carrick Dalton evocatively explores the power of multigenerational female relationships, the ever-evolving female form, humanity’s connection to our changing world, and the unexpected mysteries of nature.

Visit Julie Carrick Dalton's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mary Wollstonecraft Against Modernity"

New from Stanford University Press: Mary Wollstonecraft Against Modernity by Julie Murray.

About the book, from the publisher:

For many, Mary Wollstonecraft functions as Western feminism's indisputable origin point and anchor. Once scorned as scandalous, later rehabilitated by the Victorians as a figure of hardworking traditional femininity, Wollstonecraft is today incorporated into a story of feminism as the West's cherished export to the rest of the world.

With Wollstonecraft as its guide, this book argues that Western feminism and global modernity are not the natural intellectual and political allies they have long been made out to be, but have in fact been at odds for over two centuries. Julie Murray explores those aspects of Wollstonecraft's work that call us to understand modernity, and the form of white womanhood it celebrates, as a problem with which feminism must contend.

Refracting the history of feminism through the reception of Wollstonecraft's life and thought by contemporaries such as Mary Hays and Elizabeth Hamilton, as well as by twentieth-century thinkers like Hannah Arendt, Betty Friedan, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead, Murray offers a potent critique of how liberal feminism tells celebratory tales of extraordinary women in part to manage its own contradictions. Reclaiming Wollstonecraft from the genre of female biography, this book ultimately finds her an astute critic of Western feminism itself.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Time Of My Heist"

New from Severn House: The Time Of My Heist by S.K. Golden.

About the novel, from the publsher:

A fast-moving action comedy blending crime and romance, with all the thrills of a blockbuster.

Fake dating can be murder!

All Shepherd wants is to live a quiet life as a single dad and owner of a successful pizza restaurant while managing his ever-present anxiety. But against his better judgment, he's somehow found himself agreeing to become the fake boyfriend of Ginny—the employee he's definitely not in love with—in order to appease her terrifying mother.

When her mother gets kidnapped from a murder scene, Shepherd finds himself in way over his head. Now he must navigate Ginny's massively dysfunctional family, several organized crime syndicates, pull off a heist, and solve the crime—or risk being implicated in a murder he might accidentally have committed.

As the stakes get higher, every clue brings him close to Ginny, and to the truth. But the biggest crime of all might just be the way she is stealing his heart...

The Time of My Heist is perfect for fans of Sara Desai, Janet Evanovich, and Sarah Fox.

Visit S.K. Golden's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Indignant Liberalism"

New from the University of Texas Press: Indignant Liberalism: Political Protest and Generational Change in El Salvador by Ellen Moodie.

About the book, from the publisher:

Documenting the rise and disillusionment of El Salvador’s postwar activists in the face of populist authoritarian politics.

The conclusion of El Salvador’s long civil war, in 1992, was supposed to bring about equality and political freedom. Leftist insurgents laid down arms, and the government formally embraced liberal ideals. Yet today, El Salvador is ruled by an authoritarian president who was reelected via unconstitutional means. What went wrong?

Anthropologist and journalist Ellen Moodie embedded with indignados―young middle-class protestors, demanding that the government live up to its liberal commitments―to better understand the course of political change since the civil war. Yet the “post-postwar” generation is only the latest demographic disappointed with liberalism in practice. Moodie examines a nineteenth-century “racial liberalism” that saw descendants of colonists “civilizing” Indigenous people while dispossessing them of lands and mobilizing them for labor. Today, the failure to make good on the promises of postwar liberalism has inspired robust support for strongman Nayib Bukele. Moodie argues that El Salvador’s case, though inflected by local concerns, is not unique. Rather, it is another stark demonstration of how liberalism’s imaginary social contract gives rise to populist authoritarianism.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fighting Edge"

Coming September 8 from Crooked Lane Books: Fighting Edge: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima.

About the book, from the publisher:

Major crimes intersect in this nail-biting installment of the Timber Creek K-9 mysteries by award-winning author Margaret Mizushima.

A routine welfare check becomes a nightmare when Deputy Mattie Walker finds a young mother dead and a hysterical toddler, possibly the only witness to a brutal crime. Before the investigative team can start piecing together what happened, Mattie discovers another criminal act in Timber Creek.

During a traffic stop for speeding, Mattie observes a nervous driver and a teenage passenger frozen with fear. A quick sweep of the car with her K-9 partner, Robo, reveals a dangerous mix of drugs and suspected human trafficking, providing Mattie with grounds to arrest the driver. After she places the teenager in protective custody, the sheriff’s department hands the case over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

As the team gathers evidence and information, Mattie’s husband, veterinarian Cole Walker, notices suspicious activity during ambulatory calls at dog kennels, indicating yet a third crime lurking in the shadows. What begins as isolated incidents quickly reveals a chilling truth: Organized crime has infiltrated their rural mountain community.

Every clue leads to more questions, and each answer brings them closer to greater danger. Do Mattie and her law enforcement partners have what it takes to shut down this criminal ring before it claims more victims? And could its next victim be someone Mattie loves?

Visit Margaret Mizushima's website and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah, Bertie, Lily and Tess.

Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah.

My Book, The Movie: Burning Ridge.

The Page 69 Test: Burning Ridge.

The Page 69 Test: Tracking Game.

My Book, The Movie: Hanging Falls.

The Page 69 Test: Hanging Falls.

Q&A with Margaret Mizushima.

The Page 69 Test: Striking Range.

The Page 69 Test: Standing Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Gathering Mist.

Writers Read: Margaret Mizushima (October 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Dying Cry.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bodies of Evidence"

New from the University of California Press: Bodies of Evidence: A History of Rape Kit Protocols in US Emergency Nursing and Global Humanitarian Medicine by Jaimie Morse.

About the book, from the publisher:

Bodies of Evidence disrupts popular understandings of the rape kit by examining it as a complex assemblage of practices and protocols that stands at the uneasy nexus of law and medicine. Jaimie Morse traces how this assemblage was championed as a rights project in medicine, moving from the margins to the center of health care responses to sexual violence through new clinical standards of care, first in the United States and then in global humanitarian medicine. Drawing on archival research, interviews with experts and activists, and fieldwork at international meetings, the book chronicles a novel process of legal mobilization in medicine and interrogates the existential meanings and stakes of rape kits, their associated practices, and their underlying assumptions and expectations for survivors of sexual violence.

Visit Jaimie Morse's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The 10:12"

Coming October 20 from Harper Perennial: The 10:12: A Novel by Anna Maloney.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A twisty, high-stakes thriller in the breathless, page-turning style of Ruth Ware, Lisa Jewell, and Claire Douglas, in which nothing is as it seems and saving the day is only the beginning.

Claire Fitzroy was on the way home to London when her train from Manchester was hijacked by a group of armed men. In one terrifying moment she faced the starkest of choices: to passively stand back or act and fight back—knowing that with either choice, she could die.

With nothing to lose, the middle-aged art lecturer gathered and led a squad of passengers who, against all odds, overcame the hijackers and saved hundreds of lives. But what at first looks like heroism may play out very differently in the courts of law and public opinion. Especially when you have the blood of two men on your hands.

Opinions are heated and divided. Was she a selfless and quick-thinking hero? Or an attention-seeking vigilante and unrepentant murderer? Until now Claire has remained silent. Now, she’s finally speaking out about what happened that morning on the 10:12.

But is it the whole story?

--Marshal Zeringue

"Undesirable"

New from the University of New Mexico Press: Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father's Battle for Justice by Laura Kalpakian.

About the book, from the publisher:

The powerful true story of a parent’s unflagging battle on behalf of a beloved son struggling with PTSD, mental illness, and addiction and a family who bore the burdens of war for decades.

In January 1969, angry after a fight with his father, nineteen-year-old Doug Johnson—in what will be a fateful choice—decides to enlist in the Army. Once in Vietnam as a point man, Doug becomes addicted to speed and heroin, goes AWOL multiple times, and is court martialed and imprisoned. In order to avoid a second court martial, he agrees to accept an “undesirable” discharge that denies him veterans’ benefits and any recognition of his wartime service. In late August 1970, drugged, malnourished, and clutching the sandal of a dead Viet Cong, Doug staggers off a plane into the arms of his father.

But Doug’s return home is only the beginning of this story. The core of Undesirable recounts another war: Doug’s father against the US Army. For three years, he fights to have his son’s “undesirable” discharge changed to “honorable.” Half a century later Laura Kalpakian—devoted daughter and sister—exhumes the evidence her father collected. From this trove of documents she assembles a heartbreaking story of a father’s love for his son and a son’s experience at war. Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father’s Battle for Justice demands that we ask what we—and our government—owe to our veterans for the physical, psychological, and emotional sacrifices they and their families make.

Visit Laura Kalpakian's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Axe Marks the Spot"

New from Forever: Axe Marks the Spot (Starlight Haven Lumbersnacks, 2) by Kayla Grosse.

About the novel, from the publisher:

One struggling single mom resorts to hiring an online Dom to know what it feels like for someone to take care of her for once—only to realize he’s the rugged lumbersnack leading her kid’s summer camp.

Lindsey Clark is a single mom doing her best to stay afloat. Between nursing shifts and legal bills, she barely has time to breathe—let alone date. One night, after too much wine and social media scrolling, she stumbles on the anonymous account of @DomInTheWoods. His voice? Commanding. His faceless profile? Hot. And Lindsey? Intrigued enough to email him.

Dane Woods is a professional Dom who keeps his identity private and his boundaries firm. He offers structure, discipline, and control—but nothing physical, nothing emotional. No exceptions … even for his tantalizing new sub, Lindsey, who he can’t stop thinking about.

But when Dane steps in to run a kids’ camp as a favor to a friend, the last person he expects to see is Lindsey. Now that their worlds have collided, the lines between professional and personal start to blur.

Maybe some boundaries are meant to be axed.

Visit Kayla Grosse's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Imaginary Realities"

New from Oxford University Press: Imaginary Realities: The Psychology of Everyday Delusions by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why do people believe the unbelievable? Why do fictional ideas so often inspire real-world action-sometimes joyful, sometimes destructive-while the people inspired by them never recognize that they are fictional? In Imaginary Realities, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett explores the psychological and cultural forces that lead people to embrace beliefs that defy logic yet shape lives, societies, and history. From religious and magical thinking to conspiracy theories and superstitions, Arnett reveals how these "imaginary realities" help us make sense of a chaotic world and why we adhere to them even when they mislead us.

This groundbreaking book examines the psychological roots of irrational beliefs and how they soothe anxiety and foster social cohesion; how they underlie the double-edged sword of moral egoism, which motivates many of our best and worst behavior; the surprising role of imaginary realities in joy, humor, and group celebration; and the looming threats posed by modern myths surrounding AI, ecological collapse, and genetic engineering.

With clarity, insight, and cultural depth, Imaginary Realities challenges readers to rethink what we believe and why.

Visit Jeffrey Jensen Arnett's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Salt Sisters"

New from Lake Union: Salt Sisters: A Novel by Lindsey J. Palmer.

About the book, from the publisher:

Against the stunning backdrop of Cape Cod, two sisters reunite and confront their painful past in a powerful novel about family expectations and life’s unforeseen turns.

Twin sisters Jocelyn and Maddy Marx grew up in a tight-knit family on Cape Cod, but they couldn’t be more different. Jocelyn, laid-back and dreamy, still lives in their hometown as a Realtor. Maddy, intense and ambitious, left for New York after college and never looked back. Until the summer they turn thirty-one.

After a dramatic fall from grace in her career, a pregnant Maddy returns to the Cape with her husband and announces she’s back for good. For Jocelyn, it’s less a reconciliation than a reminder of a life that was ripped away from her and the deep grief she’s carried ever since. Back in each other’s orbit, the sisters reopen old wounds and are forced to confront what it will take to heal.

Salt Sisters is a moving exploration of sisterhood and motherhood, and the courage it takes to face the past, forgive, and finally let go.

Visit Lindsey J. Palmer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shanghai"

New from Yale University Press: Shanghai: The Story of China's Most Dynamic City by Michael Dillon.

About the book, from the publisher:

A comprehensive new history of Shanghai, revealing its vital place in Chinese history and politics across the centuries

Home to 25 million people, Shanghai is the most populous and wealthiest city in China. A meeting point between China and the wider world, the city has become the beating heart of Chinese capitalism, a place of initiative, confidence, and forward thinking. It is a city of stark contradictions, suffused with both extreme wealth and poverty, luxury living, and a highly organised criminal underworld.

Michael Dillon explores the full history of Shanghai, from its origins as a small fishing village to the bustling financial hub of today. The city has been central to some of the most turbulent events in China’s modern history, from the British and French colonial concessions of the nineteenth century, to the birth of the Chinese Communist Party and its vital role in Chinese economics and politics today. Shanghai is a fascinating portrait of China’s most dynamic city—and explores its future role in the country’s development.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Great Wherever"

New from Henry Holt: The Great Wherever: A Novel by Shannon Sanders.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The dead are relentless gossips, or at least these dead are.

An impulsive and heartbroken woman inherits her father’s share of a Tennessee farm that is rich in family secrets and occupied with busybody ghosts in this sweeping family portrait.

At thirty-two, Aubrey Lamb is stumbling through adulthood. An underpaid gig worker in Washington, DC, she’s grieving the end of a serious relationship and the recent loss of her father. When Aubrey learns she has inherited his stake in a sizable Tennessee farm she sees an opportunity to get out of the city―and to erase a mounting pile of debt.

Watching her arrival with great interest are four ghosts―Aubrey’s ancestors, who’ve staked their own claims to the farm and who never hesitate to pass judgment on the mistakes made by the living, whether romantic, financial, or sartorial. As Aubrey reconnects with her living family, another story unfolds in parallel: the history of the land, beginning with its purchase by Thomas, Aubrey’s great-grandfather and one of the first Black landowners in his community. Though Thomas hopes to give his children a homestead on which they could flourish, the land proves to be a burdensome inheritance. Over the years, it turns the Lambs against one another, culminating in a catastrophic tragedy that splinters the family and echoes through the decades.

Now, as the clock ticks on a potential sale of the farm, the ghosts fear expulsion from the home they’ve made, and Aubrey must weigh the hopes and burdens of her forebears with the very real needs of her future.

An expansive family saga told with a wry and distinctly modern voice, The Great Wherever is at once grand and intimate; it explores the ways we learn to define ourselves through and against our families, how we carry on after loss, and how the past lives on in all of us.

Visit Shannon Sanders's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Silence: A Literary History"

New from Oxford University Press: Silence: A Literary History by Kate McLoughlin.

About the book, from the publisher:

A majestic literary history, revealing the power and possibilities of silence found in literary works.

Silence: A Literary History traces silences over twelve centuries of English literature, from the solitary states of exile on icy seas described in Anglo-Saxon poems to searches for silence in our own Age of Pings. This pioneering work of 'big' literary history encompasses exalted states of blissful union with the divine and with the natural world, the deep hushes of intimacy, spell-binding silent scenes on stage, encrypted expressions of same-sex love, the great literary epics of inarticulable grief, the game-changing idea of silence within the mind, the failure of words in the face of two World Wars, the hilarious awkwardness of some social silences, the echoing absence of lost voices, and silences as a powerful form of protest.

Throughout, Kate McLoughlin illuminates the intellectual and cultural influences shaping our relationships with silence and explores the paradoxical ways in which authors create silences through words. Medieval lyricists express complex theological notions through simple lullabies shushing babies to sleep. Renaissance sonneteers protest their tongue-tiedness in dazzling displays of verbal ingenuity. Shakespeare creates silences that stage violent misogyny, calculating statecraft, the hurt of having to grow up and hard-won equanimity. Out of political favour at the Restoration, Milton dreams of a silent paradise. Wordsworth and Coleridge are dumbfounded by the sublimity of God's creation. Jane Austen deflates pomposities with perfectly-timed pauses. Tennyson composes a three-thousand-line poem about the death of his best friend leaving him lost for words. Virginia Woolf repeatedly writes a novel about the things that people don't say.

In Silence: A Literary History, Kate McLoughlin explores such silences in all their richness and variety, illuminating the intellectual, cultural, political, and religious traditions that shape them. Across English literature silences emerge as powerful, moving, and sometimes very funny.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Next Lie"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Next Lie: A Thriller (The Secrets of Chapel Roads) by Camden Baird.

About the novel from the publisher:

In the unputdownable sequel to The Last Morning, author Camden Baird delivers another harrowing tale of lies and deceit, where a marriage is put to the test while jealousy and revenge run wild.

Few marriages survive what Sadie and Allen Wilson’s did. They were lucky―they had each other, and their kidnapped daughter was found, unharmed. Now, just as their lives are getting back to normal, their neighbor turns up dead. Murdered. And Sadie feels the panic surge all over again. But this time, she won’t have her husband to lean on…because Allen’s disappeared.

As Sadie and the police try to piece together what happened, she begins to wonder if she ever knew her husband at all. The lies keep piling up, along with the body count. And when ghosts from Allen’s past reveal a shocking secret, Sadie’s not sure who―or what―to believe.

Packed with twists (and suspects), The Next Lie is a gripping exploration of marriage and trust. With old lies laid bare and new ones unfolding, when will the next lie finally be the last―and the killer be found?

Visit Camden Baird's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan"

New from Cornell University Press: Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024 by Xian Aubin Wang.

About the book, from the publisher:

Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan investigates decades of contentious relations between the Communist party-state of China and the Muslim community of southern Yunnan centered on the village of Shadian, site of an incident of state violence in 1975 that resulted in 1600 civilian deaths. Examining the causes and legacies of the Shadian massacre, Xian Aubin Wang draws on an extensive review of internal official documents, original written testimonies, and firsthand interviews with Muslim villagers.

By exploring interactions among Beijing, the Yunnan provincial government, county officials, CCP Muslim cadres, and Shadian villagers against the backdrop of the CCP's nationwide political campaigns since the early 1950s, Wang shows how Islam and Maoism influenced the ways that local villagers and party cadres saw and dealt with each other―and how these encounters shaped the developing conflict and its aftermath. Providing an in-depth account of Chinese religious groups living under the CCP, Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan reveals how religion and politics shaped Muslim villagers' responses to the party-state's efforts to control and secularize them.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What Remains of You"

New from Lake Union: What Remains of You by Kimberly Hensle Lowrance.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A widow’s discovery of her husband’s devastating past threatens to destroy everything she believed about their marriage in a gripping and emotional novel about love and secrets.

Dear Diana, If you’ve found this letter, I’m gone.

Eighteen months after her husband Tom’s death, Diana Morgan is still grieving and struggling to move on, while striving to be the strongest parent she can for their two children. When she finds a letter from Tom meant for her eyes only, she expects a final declaration of love―not a cryptic confession to a terrible unnamed crime.

But Tom’s secret is not his alone. There are others who know, others who may try to insinuate themselves into Diana’s life. Tom warns: Don’t let them in. Reeling with disbelief and fear, Diana begins to doubt everything she remembers of their marriage. What was real? What was manipulation? And who can she trust?

Embarking on a dangerous quest for answers, Diana travels to her husband’s small hometown in Vermont. She knows the secrets Tom was holding all stem from here. But will the truth about the man she loved bring her peace, or will it shatter her world?

Visit Kimberly Hensle Lowrance's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"City of Fortune"

New from W.W. Norton: City of Fortune: Inequality and the Making of Contemporary New York by Mason B. Williams.

About the book, from the publisher:

A powerful history of New York’s transformation from a city of middle-class aspiration to one of entrenched inequality.

Postwar New York City famously expired in a 1970s tableau of burning Bronx tenements, subway graffiti, crushing debt, and the tabloid headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” From its ashes the city reemerged to reach new heights, whether in stock averages or the gleaming pencil towers punctuating Midtown. But at ground level the city’s basic institutions were cracking. The city was rebuilt on a foundation of deep inequality.

This elegant history traces the making of contemporary New York over the half-century from the fiscal crisis of the 1970s to the Covid pandemic. The focus is on city life in three of its key dimensions: housing, schooling, and policing. With finance and real estate driving the city’s growth, each of these areas became more exclusive, less democratic. Affordable housing grew scarce, with the homeless population surging and working New Yorkers paying rents well above the 30 percent standard of affordability. Underfunded public schools were crowded out by better-resourced charter schools and academies, magnet schools, and gifted-and-talented programs. Policing was the most volatile flashpoint over this fifty-year period. Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Broken Windows strategy of attacking crime by cracking down on minor offenses escalated into Michael Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy, which targeted young Blacks and Latinos and yielded relatively few arrests. The city’s deepening inequality was heavily racialized, one of many connections between this New York story and those of cities across the country.

The rich cast of characters ranges from mayors, governors, and headline public figures like Al Sharpton, to behind-the-scenes reformers like the progressive educator Deborah Meier, to the everyday New Yorkers who organized to support rent guidelines or local control of the schools. It is in a widespread civic engagement that the city’s progressive traditions continue to thrive.

The Page 99 Test: City of Ambition.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Should the Waters Take Us"

New from Doubleday: Should the Waters Take Us: A Novel by Stephanie Soileau.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An epic debut novel that follows one family across four centuries, from France to Acadia to the bayous of Southern Louisiana—a poignant examination of belonging, place, and how individual acts of moral compromise contribute to cycles of injustice and destruction.

In the shifting bayous of coastal Louisiana, on a rapidly disappearing spit of land, generations of Acadians have kept their heads above water any way they can. When an offshore rig explodes and unleashes a catastrophic spill, the people of Pelerin Parish face a reckoning that tests the bonds of family and the survival of their way of life.

As the toxic plume of oil advances across the Gulf, Boy Broussard, already living hand to mouth off another man’s land, finds himself raising a daughter he barely knows. His dying aunt, Rosa Terrebonne, tries to right the misdeeds of the past yet finds herself thwarted by her husband, Jacot, a retired landman for big oil who refuses to give up claim to the plot of ground where Boy makes his living. Meanwhile, the parish priest, Father Fabian, far from his home in the Niger Delta, lends his assistance to Boy’s all-but-motherless daughter, only to be met with suspicion and hostility from the insular community. When a powerful hurricane threatens to turn an already dire situation into a total cataclysm, this sharp-edged cast of characters collides in a thunderclap of resentment and violence. Throughout all this, Soileau unfolds a sweeping tapestry of loss, resilience, and the fragile miracle of hope.

Should the Waters Take Us reaches across four hundred years of history to illuminate the many epochs and peoples of this storied place. Soileau has crafted an emotionally explosive family saga, as well as a masterful literary crie de coeur about the ways in which moral compromise can eat away at the very fabric of the places we call home.

Visit Stephanie Soileau's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Problem with Personalization"

New from the University of Chicago Press: The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age by Joseph Turow.

About the book, from the publisher:

A respected voice on technology shows how seemingly simple ads help dismantle democracy and public discourse.

Whether you’re intentionally shopping or casually browsing social media, something is following you: ads. Their creators seem to know your income bracket, politics, age, location, medical conditions, and tastes in clothing, food, and romantic partners. As advertising firms use predictive AI to discover your hot buttons and generative AI to push them, your online world becomes an increasingly bespoke―and isolated―place. The fervid competition around personalization in digital marketing has given rise to an ecosystem of advertisers, media outlets, tech companies, and retailers who monetize your data while threatening the health of our media, discourse, and sense of community. In this urgent book, award-winning author Joseph Turow shows how we got here, and how to change direction.

The Problem with Personalization shatters common beliefs about advertising history by showing that individualized ads are not new. Today’s AI-enabled advertisers draw on past aspirations and assumptions about personalization while weaponizing data in unprecedented ways that drive social fragmentation and the disappearance of shared social reality. Informed by interviews with marketing insiders and covering the latest technology advances, Turow accessibly explains how artificial intelligence sifts through our data to tag and target us wherever we go with personalized videos, pictorial billboards, audio messages, and more. A logical next step for advertiser support is tailored entertainment and news, a shift that further destroys the common ground necessary for a functioning democracy.

A must-read for all who care about the future of public discourse, The Problem with Personalization reveals how targeted advertising has altered how we’re seen and what we see in return.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beach Blonde Betrayal"

New from Severn House: Beach Blonde Betrayal (A Florida Beach Mystery, 2) by Elaine Viets.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Life’s a beach . . . until you die.

Fear is growing in sun-soaked South Florida. Hot on the heels of local resident Gil Shecker saving an heiress’s cat from the jaws of an alligator, one of Norah McCarthy’s misfit residents at her Florodora apartment complex finds a body on the beach.

It appears a serial killer is brutally strangling young blonde women. When Gil is stabbed in what seems to be a separate attack, Norah is persuaded to investigate his murder. But while Norah uncovers Gil’s spine-tingling secrets, the beach body count is rising . . . At least one deadly critter is intent on terrorizing the local community, and this time it’s no alligator.

This addictive, quirky crime series set in Florida is perfect for fans of Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey.

Visit Elaine Viets' website.

The Page 69 Test: Murder with All the Trimmings.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bloody Numbers"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Bloody Numbers: The Early Atlantic Slave Trade and the Invention of Modern Corporeality by Pablo F. Gómez.

About the book, from the publisher:

Upends current thinking about how early modern people started to conceptualize human beings in terms of populations.

Bloody Numbers is a provocative account of the violent world of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century South Atlantic slave-trading societies, where traders, financiers, officials, surgeons, notaries, ship captains, and others began thinking about human bodies as aggregate populations understood through numbers: measurements, averages, and calculations of risk and value assessed through the tabulation of heights, weights, tumors, scars, and other characteristics. Pablo F. Gómez explores how figures within the world of slave trading used this model for understanding human bodies to generalize about behavior and disease in ways that foreshadowed the work of modern epidemiologists and public health officials—though they employed their calculations with the aim of protecting their financial interests rather than of caring for enslaved people. The ruthlessness inherent in these practices became ingrained in the modern corporeal mathematics that emerged from the early slave trade and diffused through its vast political, financial, logistical, and intellectual networks.

A pathbreaking work, Bloody Numbers reveals the historical actions that rendered populations quantifiable. In doing so, it shows that confronting these origins is essential to understanding the violent political, legal, economic, and scientific practices that ascribe numbers to our own bodies.

--Marshal Zeringue