Still trying to get caught up. I now have a fair few reviews that need to be written and published. Hoping to get on top of the back-log over the next week or so. In the meantime, here are some more new books!

Featuring: Kate Belli, Cory Doctorow, Mark Edwards, Kit Frick, Lee Goldberg, Holly James, Alissa Lee, Peter Mann, George Packer, K. J. Parker, Clay Risen, and Seamus Sullivan

*

Kate Belli, THE GALLERY ASSISTANT (Atria/Emily Bestler)

This twisty and sinister thriller follows a New York art gallery assistant reckoning with her past and now trapped in a web of deceit after an up-and-coming painter is murdered…

November 2001: Chloe Harlow wakes up late, with hazy memories of the party the night before but no recollection of how she got back to her Brooklyn apartment. Ever since the terrifying and catastrophic terrorist attack, it seems she has been on a collision course with destruction.

When she finally arrives at the exclusive Upper East Side art gallery where she works, she is immediately called into her boss’s office. A pair of NYPD detectives greet her, also very curious to know how her evening ended… because the host of the party, a rising painter and the gallery’s newest artist, is dead.

Navigating both the sophisticated high-stakes art world and her personal life in burgeoning Williamsburg, Chloe struggles to piece together a complete picture of that lost night. As she digs deeper, inconsistencies emerge between what she remembers and what people tell her actually happened, and more questions are raised. Everything begins to feel like a conspiracy and maybe it is. Because Chloe is the only one who glimpses the secrets the murdered artist left behind, and the closer she gets to the truth… the more deadly it becomes.

A novel that’s pitched as being perfect for fans of Julia Bartz’s novels (which I am, so that’s good to know). Thought it might be interesting. The Gallery Assistant is due to be published by Atria/Emily Bestler in North America and in the UK, on October 14th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via Edelweiss

*

Cory Doctorow, ENSHITTIFICATION (MCD)

Enshittification: it’s not just you — the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can disenshittify it.

We’re living through the Enshittocene, the Great Enshittening, a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. Demoralizing. Even terrifying.

Enshittification identifies the problem and proposes a solution.

When Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification, he was not just finding a funner way to say “things are getting worse.” He was making a specific diagnosis about the state of the digital world and how it is affecting all of our lives (and not for the better).

The once-glorious internet was colonized by platforms that made all-but-magical promises to their users — and, at least initially, seemed to deliver on them. But once users were locked in, the platforms turned on them to make their business customers happy. Then the platforms turned to abusing their business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. In the end, the platforms die.

Doctorow’s argument clearly resonated. Once named, it became obvious that enshittification is everywhere, so much so that the American Dialect Society named it its 2023 Word of the Year, and was cited as an inspiration for the 2025 season of Black Mirror.

Here, now, in Enshittification the book, Doctorow moves the conversation beyond the overwhelming sense of our inevitably enshittified fate. He shows us the specific decisions that led us here, who made them, and — most important — how they can be undone.

The word “enshittification” may be one of the best terms invented in the past couple of decades. When Doctorow first coined it, I suppose we had no idea just how enshittified everything would become. Very much looking forward to reading this soon, certainly early in the summer at the lastest. Enshittification is due to be published by MCD in North America (October 7th) and Verso Books in the UK (October 14th).

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley

*

Mark Edwards, THE WASP TRAP (Atria Books)

A dinner party in a beautiful Notting Hill townhouse turns into a sinister game as six old friends are forced to spill their darkest secrets… or else.

Six friends reunite in London to celebrate the life of their recently deceased ex-employer, a professor that brought them together in 1999 to help build a dating website based on psychological testing.

But what is meant to be a night of bittersweet nostalgia soon becomes a twisted and deadly game. The old friends are given an ultimatum: reveal their darkest secrets to the group or pick each other off one-by-one.

It soon becomes clear that their current predicament is related to their shared past. The love questionnaire they helped develop in 1999 for the dating site was also turned into a tool for weeding out psychopaths: The Wasp Trap. This experiment and the other tragic events of that summer long ago may help reveal the truth behind a killer hiding in plain sight.

Premise made it sound interesting, and also a little different to the usual mysteries/thrillers I read. The Wasp Trap is due to be published by Atria Books in North America (September 16th) and Michael Joseph in the UK (July 31st).

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received via Edelweiss

*

Kit Frick, FRIENDS AND LIARS (Atria/Emily Bestler)

An insidious thriller about four estranged friends trapped in a powerful family’s deadly games at a luxe estate in the Italian countryside.

It’s been five years since heiress Clare Monroe tragically died on New Year’s Eve at her family’s opulent Italian palazzo. Since that time, her college friends have harbored a dark secret — their lies and betrayals led to Clare’s untimely death.

What happened that fateful night was a horrible accident, but Luca, Harper, Sirina, and David are guilty, nonetheless. And their desperate decision to conceal the truth destroyed their once-close bond.

Now, the estranged friends are each the recipient of an invitation from the Monroes to return to the lakeside palazzo for a long-overdue memorial for Clare. Accepting the Monroes’ invitation means playing with fire, but they can hardly refuse.

Luca, Harper, Sirina, and David have barely settled into their idyllic accommodations on Lake Como before someone at the memorial party begins targeting them. Haunted by little “gifts” left in their rooms, taunting notes, and the unshakable sense of being watched, it soon becomes clear that someone on the guest list knows the whole truth about the night Clare died — and the secrets her friends have been keeping. Nothing is as it seems at the palazzo on the lake, and under their tormentor’s vengeful gaze, their secrets — and their lives — are in danger.

Haven’t read any of Frick’s other novels, but this sounded like it could be good. Friends and Liars is due to be published by Atria/Emily Bestler in North America and in the UK, on December 2nd.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via Edelweiss

*

Lee Goldberg, FALLEN STAR (Thomas & Mercer)

A spiralling case of betrayal, corruption, and murder could destroy Eve Ronin if she exposes it…

A fifty-five-gallon drum washes up in the Malibu Lagoon stuffed with the corpse of Gene Dent, the key player in a bribery scandal that ensnared several local politicians. LASD detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone know the case — and all the likely suspects — well. Just as they begin their investigation, the sheriff publicly reveals evidence linking the crime to LA’s mayor.

But Eve and Duncan realize the bombshell allegation, true or not, arises from corruption within the sheriff’s own office… because they helped cover it up years ago. If the sheriff goes down, so will they.

Eve is agonizing over her moral dilemma when a helicopter crashes in the hillside below her Calabasas home. It’s not a coincidence. Eve soon discovers among the twisted wreckage and dead passengers shocking connections to her own past… and they lead straight to a fight for her life.

This is the sixth novel in Goldberg’s Eve Ronin series. I enjoyed the first novel, Lost Hills, but have managed to fall woefully behind on the rest of the novels. I fully intend to get caught up as soon as I can. Fallen Star is due to be published by Thomas & Mercer in North America and in the UK, on October 14th.

Also on CR: Review of Lost Hills

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received via NetGalley

*

Holly James, THE BIG FIX (Kensington)

A modern blend of screwball action and romantic attraction when a case of mistaken identity lands a college professor on the run with a mysterious — and dangerously hot — fixer…

When bookish Penny Collins reluctantly lets her sister drag her to an estate sale at a neighbor’s house, she’s hoping for a little diversion rummaging through dusty antiques. Instead, she ends up in a public squabble over candlesticks with the deceased owner’s nephew, Anthony — right before a dead body tumbles out of a closet.

Penny’s plan for the summer involved finalizing tenure at the university where she’s a computer sciences professor. Instead, she’s suddenly on the run with a man she barely knows, scaling walls, evading bullets, and accidentally stabbing henchmen. It seems the wrong people have got it in their heads that she’s Anthony’s girlfriend and, by association, in possession of something they desperately need — and will do anything to get.

As for Anthony, he has a top-secret occupation as a fixer, but a recent fix went dangerously awry, and now he and Penny are dodging both a ruthless billionaire and the FBI. And it’ll take all of Penny’s plentiful savvy and common sense, in addition to Anthony’s particular set of skills, to survive long enough for her to see the next semester…

I remember seeing this in a publisher’s catalogue a while before publication, but then it slipped my mind until I saw that it had been released. Sounded a bit different, so looking forward to giving it a try. The Big Fix is out now, published by Kensington Books in North America and in the UK.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram

*

Alissa Lee, WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE (Atria/Emily Bestler)

A group of Harvard alums have played a secret game for decades but as the stakes rise, deadly consequences emerge from old lies.

Harvard promised them everything.

Ambitious futures, peers who pushed each other toward their absolute best, and an education that would open doors for the rest of their lives. And though they started out as roommates, Sara, Bee, Dina, Allie, Wesley, and Claudine soon became family. They had their whole bright lives ahead of them — until their senior year, when a shocking tragedy changed everything.

Twenty years later, five of the roommates still indulge in a secret tradition they’ve kept alive since their campus days: the Circus, a harmless elimination-style “killing” game played across the private rooms and hidden alleys of New York City. The game is a nod to their younger selves and a tribute to the sixth roommate they lost too young. But this year, Sara wants out of the game — until she discovers there is a small fortune awaiting the winner of this final round.

As the Circus unfolds, Sara begins to suspect that the others aren’t playing by the rules, and as the danger turns real and the old friends start pointing fingers, she discovers that even those closest to her harbor secrets of their own… secrets that could kill.

Another novel this time pitched as perfect for fans of Julia Bartz. Also made me think of a dark academia meets The Game. (Remember that movie? Saw it a lot when it came out… Seemed like it was always on British TV.) Looking forward to reading this debut as soon as I can. With Friends Like These is due to be published by Atria/Emily Bestler in North America, on November 4th.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via Edelweiss

*

Peter Mann, WORLD PACIFIC (Harper)

A darkly comic novel of intrigue, adventure, and the perils of self-invention, set in San Francisco and the Asian Pacific during the outbreak of the Second World War.

In 1939, just as the clouds of war are gathering, Richard Halifax — boys’ adventure writer of manly bravado and the breeziest of prose styles — vanishes in the Pacific. Halifax was attempting to sail a Chinese junk from Hong Kong to San Francisco as part of the World’s Fair festivities on Treasure Island. But while his disappearance upends the lives of those left in his wake back home, both his machinations and his letters to his young readers live on.

Hildegard Rauch, an émigré painter and the daughter of Germany’s greatest living writer in exile, finds her twin brother in a coma after an attempted suicide. He left a mysterious note that sends her on a search for the truth about her brother’s relationship with Richard Halifax and the dangerous secret he entrusted to the writer before his voyage.

Simon Faulk, a British intelligence officer, has been assigned to ferret out Nazi spies in California. He learns of the arrival of a mysterious American agent from across the Pacific, part of a joint German-Japanese operation.

Told in the alternating voices of these three characters, set against the growing threat of another world war and a World’s Fair dedicated to peace, World Pacific is a madcap quixotic tale that explores the many forms of shipwreck, exile, betrayal, and the stories we tell ourselves in the fight to stay afloat.

This is Mann’s next novel after the well-received The Torqued Man (a novel I somehow managed to miss). Not sure what to expect, but the premise caught my attention. World Pacific is due to be published by Harper in North America, on August 19th.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via Edelweiss

*

George Packer, THE EMERGENCY (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

An empire has collapsed from boredom and loss of faith in itself. In the Emergency that follows, youth rebellions of urban Burghers and rural Yeomen embrace radical new ideas of humanity. Doctor Hugo Rustin, chief surgeon at the Imperial College Hospital, is increasingly estranged from his city and his family — from his wife, Annabelle, who finds fulfillment in their changed community; and especially from his teenage daughter, Selva, who has turned against her father’s values. When an incident at the hospital leads to Rustin’s disgrace, he seeks redemption in a quixotic and dangerous journey into the countryside, with Selva as his companion, just as the conflict between Burghers and Yeomen is reaching a crisis.

I’ve been familiar with Packer’s non-fiction work for some time (long-form and journalism), so when I learned that he had written a novel, I was interested to see what he came up with. The Emergency is due to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in North America, on November 11th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley

*

K. J. Parker, MAKING HISTORY (TorDotCom)

A group of scholars must do the impossible for a ruthless king. The cost of refusal, of course, is death.

History isn’t truth, it’s propaganda.

Seeking war with his neighbor, the tyrannical ruler of Aelia convenes several of his kingdom’s professors for a chat. First Citizen Gyges only just invaded Aelia a few years back and, naturally, his public image can’t take the hit of another unjustified assault.

His totally sane solution? Simple, really. These scholars must construct a fake ancient city from scratch to verify Gyges’s apocryphal claims.

Now these academics must put their heads together to make history. Because if they don’t, they’ll lose their heads altogether.

Shouldn’t be a surprise, but I read this pretty much immediately after I received the DRC. Parker’s shorter fiction is amongst the best getting published today, and Making History is no exception. Superb. I’ll publish a full review hopefully soon. Making History is due to be published by TorDotCom in North America and in the UK, on October 2nd.

Also on CR: Reviews of The Devil You Know, The Last Witness, Downfall of the Gods, My Beautiful Life, Prosper’s Demon, Academic Exercises, The Big Score, The Long Game, Pulling the Wings Off Angels

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley

*

Clay Risen, RED SCARE (Scribner)

As relevant as it is comprehensive, Red Scare tells the story of McCarthyism and the Red Scare — based in part on newly declassified sources — by an award-winning writer of history and New York Times reporter.

The film Oppenheimer has awakened interest in this vital period of American history. Now, for the first time in a generation, Red Scare presents a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. The cultural phenomenon, most often referred to as McCarthyism, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, coupled with the terrifying onset of the Cold War. This defining moment in American history, unlike any that preceded it, was marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria. Drawing upon newly declassified documents, journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.

Beginning with the origins of the era after WWI through to its conclusion in 1957, Risen brings to life the politics, patriotism, opportunism, courage, and delirium of those years through the lives and experiences of a cast of towering historical figures, including President Eisenhower, Roy Cohn, Paul Robeson, Robert Oppenheimer, Helen Gahagan Douglas, Richard Nixon, and many more individuals known and unknown. Red Scare takes us beyond the familiar story of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklists to a fuller understanding of what the country went through at a time of moral questioning and perceived threat from the left, and what we were capable of doing to each other as a result.

An urgent, accessible, and important history, Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment.

Always on the look-out for more books on the Cold War (useful for work and personal interest), and this seems rather timely and particularly interesting. (Unfortunately.) Red Scare is out now, published by Scribner in North America.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

*

Seamus Sullivan, DAEDALUS IS DEAD (TorDotCom)

A delirious and gripping story of fatherhood and masculinity, told through the reimagined Greek myth of Daedalus, Icarus, King Minos, Ariadne, and the Minotaur.

Daedalus of Crete is many things: The greatest architect in the world. The constructor of the Labyrinth that imprisoned the Minotaur. And the grieving father of Icarus, who plunged into the sea as father and son flew from the grasp of the tyrannical King Minos.

Now, Daedalus seeks to reunite with Icarus in the Underworld, even as he revisits his own memories of Crete, hoping to understand what went so terribly wrong at the end of his son’s life. Daedalus will confront any terror to see Icarus again — whether it be the vengeful spirit of Minos, the cunning Queen Persephone, or the insatiable ghost of the Minotaur.

But the truth, stalking Daedalus in the labyrinth of his own heart, might be too monstrous for him to bear.

Intriguing premise, so it caught my eye. I’ve been drawn to Greek (and Roman and Egyptian) mythology, ever since I was a kid. Publishing has really gone through a retelling-of-myth “moment” recently, hasn’t it? (No bad thing.) Daedalus is Dead is due to be published by TorDotCom in North America and in the UK, on October 2nd.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley