Elita by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum While “Nordic Noir” crime fiction has been a well-established genre since the 1990s (think of authors such as Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Peter Høeg, and Stieg Larsson) Lynnwood author Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum gives it a local spin as “Northwest Noir,” which describes her first novel, “Elita.” Set in the winter … Read more
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson “Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone” by Benjamin Stevenson is a darkly humorous thriller. Ernest Cunningham is the story’s aptly named and self-described “reliable narrator.” He presents himself as an earnest, forthright and upfront narrator – on page two he tells you everything to … Read more
Out of the Sierra: A Story of Rarámuri Resistance by Victoria Blanco “Out of the Sierra: A Story of Rarámuri Resistance” provides a window into the world of the Rarámuri, an Indigenous group in present-day Chihuahua, Mexico. Author Victoria Blanco spent years researching and living among a Rarámuri community, adapting ethnographic and sociologic practices to … Read more
Crooks: A Novel about Crime and Family by Lou Berney Think crime novels aren’t for you? Crooks may make you reconsider. In 1960s Vegas, Buddy Mercurio is a low-ranks mobster getting exactly nowhere. When Buddy catches department store clerk Lillian swiping cash from a customer, it’s love at first sight. “Mercurios don’t play by the … Read more
El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott Oh, how the once-golden Bishop sisters have fallen. Nothing about their adult lives resembles their well-heeled childhood. Debra is drowning in medical debt, Pam’s contentious divorce drained her dry, and Harper is underemployed and ducking creditors. And then, salvation appears. The Wheel is a women-only financial “gifting club” – … Read more
Enough: Climbing Toward a True Self on Mount Everest by Melissa Arnot Reid World-renowned climber Melissa Arnot Reid shares her story of becoming the first woman to summit Mount Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen in her new memoir, “Enough: Climbing Toward a True Self on Mount Everest.” In response to a traumatic childhood, … Read more
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls This year’s winner of the Washington State Book Award for Creative Nonfiction is a breathtaking achievement of memoir, art and Chinese history. Growing up, Tessa Hulls knew three things about her grandma, Sun Yi: She was from China, she was a writer, she was crazy. Their home … Read more
So Far Gone by Jess Walter If the news cycle has ever given you the urge to throw your phone out the window of a moving car, you will find a kindred spirit in Rhys Kinnick, the protagonist of Spokane author Jess Walter’s recently published eighth novel, “So Far Gone.” Rhys, an environmental reporter forced … Read more
Summerhouse by Yiğit Karaahmet, translated from the Turkish by Nicholas Glastonbury To their neighbors on Büyükada, a sleepy island off the coast of Istanbul, pianist Şener and playwright Fehmi are known to their neighbors as unusual artist friends who share a lush, hilltop garden estate. Only their closest friends know the two men have been … Read more
Friends of the Museum by Heather McGowan It’s a no good very bad day for the director of a floundering New York art museum. A PR disaster involving dubiously sourced artifacts is unfolding in real time; meanwhile, the head security guard has a hunch that the new artwork is a fake. Half the staff are … Read more