Review by New York Times Review
THE PERFECT NANNY, by Leila Slimani. Translated by Sam Taylor. (Penguin, paper, $16.) Two children die at the hands of their nanny in this devastating novel, an unnerving cautionary tale that won France's prestigious Prix Goncourt and analyzes the intimate relationship between mothers and caregivers. KING ZENO, by Nathaniel Rich. (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28.) In Rich's riotous novel about New Orleans a hundred years ago, at the dawn of the Jazz Age, a great American city and a new genre of music take shape as the Spanish flu and a serial ax murderer both run rampant. THE YEARS, by Annie Ernaux. Translated by Alison L. Strayer. (Seven Stories, paper, $19.95.) In this autobiography, the French writer anchors her particular 20th-century memories within the daunting flux of 21st-century consumerism and media domination, turning her experiences into a kind of chorus reflecting on politics and lifestyle changes. DOGS AT THE PERIMETER, by Madeleine Thien. (Norton, paper, $15.95.) Narrated by a neurological researcher whose memories of her childhood in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge start to leak into her present day, this novel is contrapuntal and elegiac in tone, with a white heat beneath. THE LAST GIRL: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, by Nadia Murad with Jenna Krajeski. (Tim Duggan Books, $27.) Murad, a Yazidi woman, describes the torture and rapes she suffered at the hands of ISIS militants in Iraq before escaping to become a spokeswoman for endangered Yazidis. WINTER, by Ali Smith. (Pantheon, $25.95.) The second in Smith's cycle of seasonal novels depicts a contentious Christmas reunion between two long-estranged sisters. As in "Autumn" (one of the Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2017), a female artist figures prominently, and Smith again takes the nature of consciousness itself as a theme. GREEN, by Sam Graham-Felsen. (Random House, $27.) Set in a majority-minority middle school in 1990s Boston, this debut coming-of-age novel (by the chief blogger for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign) tells the story of a white boy and a black boy who become friends - to a point. A STATE OF FREEDOM, by Neel Mukherjee. (Norton, $25.95.) Mukherjee's novel, a homage of sorts to V. S. Naipaul, presents five interconnected stories set in India and exploring the lives of the unmoored. BARKUS, by Patricia MacLachlan. (Chronicle, $14.99; ages 4 to 7.) A mysteriously smart dog changes everything for a little girl in this witty beginning to a new early chapter book series from MacLachlan, the author of books for children of all ages. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Australian author Harper's debut is a stunner. Sold in a bidding war (the film rights were bought soon thereafter), it's a small-town, big-secrets page-turner with a shocker of an ending evocative of Nancy Pickard's The Virgin of Small Plains (2006). Harper tells the heart-wrenching tale of a man named Aaron Falk, who returns to his hometown to attend the funeral of a friend who is believed to have shot his wife and son and then killed himself. The town is in perilous decline, undergoing the worst drought in a century. The idyllic river of Falk's youth has dried up, and all that remains is a monstrous wound. Now a federal agent, Falk begins to question the details of the crime and, together with the town's police sergeant, Raco, undertakes a painful investigation. Twenty years earlier, Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion surrounding a young woman's death. This still-unsolved case simmers in the boiling air, and the townsfolk are resentful of Falk's presence. Falk and Raco manage to unravel secrets new and old in the course of uncovering the sad truths behind both crimes. Recommend this one to fans of James Lee Burke and Robert Crais, who mix elements of bromance into their hard-boiled tales. But the book's appeal extends further: the Australian setting will attract both followers of Peter Corris' long-running Cliff Hardy series, as well as Golden Age fans who remember Arthur Upfield's novels, especially Gripped by Drought, published in 1932.--Murphy, Jane Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of Australian author Harper's devastating debut, Melbourne-based federal agent Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown, Kiewarra, for three funerals-those of popular school aid Karen Hadler; her six-year-old son, Billy; and her husband, Luke, Aaron's childhood best friend. Luke apparently murdered Karen and Billy before turning the shotgun on himself. Falk knows better than anyone that his charismatic mate may have had a darker side-two decades earlier as teens they gave each other bogus alibis for the afternoon of high school crush Ellie Deacon's suspicious death by drowning. When Luke's brokenhearted parents beg Falk to investigate, he can't refuse. But as Falk begins digging with the help of recently arrived Sgt. Greg Raco, including looking into a possible connection to the earlier tragedy, he swiftly discovers that a badge may not protect him from a town driven to the brink. From the ominous opening paragraphs, all the more chilling for their matter-of-factness, Harper, a journalist who writes for Melbourne's Herald Sun, spins a suspenseful tale of sound and fury as riveting as it is horrific. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
When Luke Hader and his family are found shot to death at their farm near the small town of Kiewarra, the locals presume it to be a murder-suicide, the desperate act of a man pushed to the brink by financial woes caused by the area's two-year drought. Luke's father is not convinced, though, and asks Aaron Falk, once Luke's best friend and now a police officer in Melbourne, to investigate. But as Aaron probes the case, he faces hostility from the townspeople who remember that 20 years ago he had been a teenage suspect in the drowning death of a young girl; what saved him from being charged were the alibis Luke and Aaron had given each other-alibis that some residents know were lies. Winner of the 2015 Victorian Premier Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, this first novel by a former journalist was an Australian best seller, but despite the critical acclaim it has received, this work fails on many fronts as a mystery: slow, tedious pacing; poor character development; lack of suspense or surprise (readers can spot the culprit and plot twist a mile away). VERDICT Because of the advance hype, crime fiction fans will want this, but steer disappointed readers to Peter Temple's superior The Broken Shore, which offers a more authentic portrait of small-town Australia. [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/16; library -marketing.]-Wilda Williams, Library Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A mystery that starts with a sad homecoming quickly turns into a nail-biting thriller about family, friends, and forensic accounting.Federal agent Aaron Falk is called back to his rural Australian hometown for the funeral of his best friend, Luke, who apparently committed suicide after killing his wife and 6-year-old son; hes also called to reckon with his own past. Falk and his father were run out of town when he was accused of killing his girlfriend. Luke gave him an alibi, but more than one person in town knows he was lying. When Lukes parents ask Falk to find the truth, long-buried secrets begin to surface. Debut author Harper plots this novel with laser precision, keeping suspects in play while dropping in flashbacks that offer readers a full understanding of what really happened. The setting adds layers of meaning. Kiewarra is suffering an epic drought, and Lukes suicide could easily be explained by the failure of his farm. The risk of wildfire, especially in a broken community rife with poverty and alcoholism, keeps nerves strung taut. Falk's focus as an investigator is on following the money; nobody in town really understands his job, but his phone number turns up on a scrap of paper belonging to Lukes late wife, a woman hed never met. The question throughout is whether Lukes death is something a CSI of spreadsheets can unravel or if its a matter of bad blood from times past finally having reached the boiling point. Falk struggles to separate the two and let his own old grudges go. A fellow investigator chastises him: Youre staring so hard at the past that its blinding you. A chilling story set under a blistering sun, this fine debut will keep readers on edge and awake long past bedtime. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
