The Finder
by Colin Harrison (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25)
The Week
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The Silver Swan
by Benjamin Black (Holt, $25)
“Coincidence plays too big a role” in the mysteries that Booker Prize winner John Banville writes under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black, said Clea Simon in The Boston Globe. But Garret Quirke, the guilt-ridden Dublin pathologist Black introduced two years ago, is “a wonderful protagonist.” When an old chum’s beautiful wife is fished out of Dublin Bay after an apparent suicide, Quirke both wants the truth and doesn’t want it, and we’re with him all the way.
Hollywood Crows
by Joseph Wambaugh (Little, Brown, $27)
Readers of Joseph Wambaugh’s latest may wonder if the former cop is working toward writing “a full-blown comedy of manners,” said Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times. “Wambaugh’s formal ambitions” have set apart his previous novels, and here he’s woven a darkly convoluted murder mystery into an ensemble portrait of the community relations officers, or “crows,” who field some of Hollywood’s oddest 911 calls. At 71, Wambaugh’s still experimenting, and he still “owns” all things LAPD.
Hold Tight
by Harlan Coben (Dutton, $27)
A suburban couple’s decision to secretly monitor their son’s online activities launches “a terrifying journey” in Harlan Coben’s 15th thriller, said Bruce De Silva in the Associated Press. Coben “specializes” in taut prose and “stories about how easily ordinary lives can spin out of control.” Hold Tight may be his “classiest” effort yet.
Winter Study
by Nevada Barr (Putnam, $25)
“Prickly” ranger Anna Pigeon is back for the first time in three years in another of Nevada Barr’s “adrenaline-pumped” National Park mysteries, said Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times. This time, a wolf attack spreads fear on an island in chilly Lake Superior. The resulting manhunts through the frozen woods “are described with crisp, hard-edged beauty,” and the wolves themselves are “magnificent.”
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Trump vows to send federal forces to Chicago, BaltimoreSpeed Read The announcement followed a California judge ruling that Trump's LA troop deployment was illegal
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How China rewrote the history of its WWII victoryIn Depth Though the nationalist government led China to victory in 1945, this is largely overlooked in modern Chinese commemorations
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September 3 editorial cartoonsCartoons Wednesday’s political cartoons include news from the war front in Ukraine, RFK Jr. riding the Grim Reaper, and a Donald Trump cabinet meeting
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”