Also of interest...in villains and anti-heroes

I Wear the Black Hat

by Chuck Klosterman (Scribner, $25)

The fugitive Edward Snowden would have been a perfect candidate for Chuck Klosterman’s latest book, said Kevin Nance in USA Today. In this “witty, brainy, at times self-indulgently discursive” new volume, the pop-culture critic aims to parse the relative villainy of various real and fictional figures. Why, he asks, is Batman revered while real-life vigilantes are scorned? Along the way, Klosterman becomes proof for his own theory that a charming troublemaker can get away with anything.

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Confessions of a Sociopath

by M.E. Thomas (Crown, $25)

It’s strange to read a book whose author doesn’t care if you like it, said Evelyn Theiss in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Sociopaths operate without regard for others’ opinions, so we shouldn’t be surprised this volume’s pseudonymous author-—a sociopathic but nonviolent law professor—“bores us by repeatedly bragging about how smart, attractive, and successfully manipulative she is.” Yet when M.E. Thomas finally starts describing how she and other sociopaths see the rest of us, “it all becomes riveting.”

Tampa

by Alissa Nutting (Ecco, $26)

If only Alissa Nutting’s debut novel didn’t so obviously invite comparisons with Nabokov, said Susannah Meadows in The New York Times. Her story about a teacher who seduces a 14-year-old is essentially “a gender-swapped Lolita,” and though “highly diverting,” it doesn’t compare. But Nutting excels at exploring the difference gender makes. Female predators are typically less ostracized than male predators, but Tampa will make you believe that they’re “every bit as destructive.”

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton

by Elizabeth L. Silver (Crown, $25)

The protagonist of Elizabeth Silver’s first novel “cannot help but narrate her story unreliably, most of all to herself,” said Sarah Weinman in The New Republic. A murderer facing execution, she’s resigned to her fate even as she fears oblivion. But her cynical voice proves “so pungent and potent” that the novel’s midstream switch of perspectives registers as “a small letdown.” Still, in taking the harder road of providing us two less-than-likable narrators, Silver manages “a more rewarding payoff.”