Featuring: Evelyn Clarke, Gordon Corera, Cameron Crowe, Josh Dean, Stephen Fishbach, Megan Garber, Jon Lindstrom, Rebecca Novack, Mario Vargas Llosa, Olivia Waite, Yaron Weitzman, James Wolff

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Evelyn Clarke, THE ENDING WRITES ITSELF (Harper)

Six authors.

One private island.

Seventy-two hours to write the ending that will change their lives.

Arthur Fletch, one of the world’s bestselling novelists, is a reclusive genius known for his iconic protagonists and fiendish twists. When six struggling authors are invited to spend a weekend on his private Scottish island, they arrive to discover a shocking secret: Arthur Fletch is dead… and his last book is unfinished.

Desperate to publish the novel, Fletch’s agent and editor have summoned these writers in the hope that one of them will imagine a worthy ending for this final book. To sweeten the deal, they are offering an irresistible prize: in addition to ghost-writing the last chapter – for a mind-boggling sum – they will also help the lucky writer successfully re-launch their own career, guaranteeing future bestsellers. The catch: the writers have just seventy-two hours to finish Fletch’s magnum opus.

Starting is often the hardest part. But getting to the end could be murder.

I first spotted this in one of the publisher’s catalogues, and thought the synopsis sounded intriguing and promising. I had no idea the author’s true identity was a secret, but for a short while, it was. There was a seemingly half-hearted attempt to make this into a buzzy story, but it failed to catch fire.* With the novel still months away, the publishers of The Ending Writes Itself seem to decide there was no point in prolonging this mystery: it’s V. E. Schwab and Cat Clarke. I’m unfamiliar with the latter’s work, but have been a fan of Schwab’s work for a little while, now. Regardless, it was the synopsis that caught my attention and made me want to read this. Looking forward to doing so soon. The Ending Writes Itself is due to be published by Harper in North America and HQ in the UK, on April 7th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Gordon Corera, THE SPY IN THE ARCHIVE (William Collins)

How one man – Vasili Mitrokhin – turned first disaffected dissident and then traitor to the KGB, stealing the most secret Soviet archives and smuggling them to the West.

How do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret, heavily guarded archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover and deep amongst the files. The work goes on for decades but remains so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no-one even notices you are gone.

The Spy in the Archive tells the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin – an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty files – ended up changing the world. As the in-house archivist for the KGB, the secrets he was exposed to inside its walls turned him first into a dissident and then a spy, a traitor to his country but a man determined to expose the truth about the dark forces that had subverted Russia, forces still at work in the country today.

Bestselling writer and historian Gordon Corera tells of the operation to extract this prized asset from Russia for the first time. It is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, with vivid flashbacks to Mitrokhin’s earlier time as a KGB idealist prepared to do what it took to serve the Soviet Union and his growing realisation that the communist state was imprisoning its own people. It is the story of what it was like to live in the Soviet Union, to raise a family and then of one man’s journey from the heart of the Soviet state to disillusion, betrayal and defection. At its heart is Mitrokhin’s determination to take on the most powerful institution in the world by revealing its darkest secrets.

I can’t remember exactly where I first learned about this book (probably a publisher catalogue), but I was reminded of it when I learned that Corera was a co-host on The Rest is Classified podcast with David McCloskey (an author whose work looks like it’s perfect for my taste in espionage fiction, all of whose books I have purchased, but have yet to read… Why do I keep doing this?) Anyway, I decided to finally pick up this books on a trip to Stratford, Ontario, the other week, and eagerly dove in. The Spy in the Archive is out now, published by Williams Collins in Canada/UK and Pegasus Books in the US.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

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Cameron Crowe, THE UNCOOL (Avid Reader Press)

The long-awaited memoir by Cameron Crowe — one of America’s most iconic journalists and filmmakers — The Uncool is a joyful dispatch from a lost world, a chronicle of the real-life events that became Almost Famous, and a coming-of-age journey filled with music legends as you’ve never seen them before.

Cameron Crowe was an unlikely rock and roll insider. Born in 1957 to parents who strictly banned the genre from their house, he dove headfirst into the world of music. By the time he graduated high school at fifteen, Crowe was contributing to Rolling Stone. His parents became believers, uneasily allowing him to interview and tour with legends like Led Zeppelin; Lynyrd Skynyrd; Bob Dylan; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Fleetwood Mac.

The Uncool offers a front-row ticket to the 1970s, a golden era for music and art when rock was young. There’s no such thing as a media junket — just the rare chance a young writer might be invited along for an adventure. Crowe spends his teens politely turning down the drugs and turning on his tape recorder. He talks his journalism teacher into giving him class credit for his road trip covering Led Zeppelin’s 1975 tour, which lands him — and the band — on the cover of Rolling Stone. He embeds with David Bowie as the sequestered genius transforms himself into a new persona: the Thin White Duke. Why did Bowie give Crowe such unprecedented access? “Because you’re young enough to be honest,” Bowie tells him.

Youth and humility are Crowe’s ticket into the Eagles’ dressing room in 1972, where Glenn Frey vows to keep the band together forever; to his first major interview with Kris Kristofferson; to earning the trust of icons like Gregg Allman and Joni Mitchell, who had sworn to never again speak to Rolling Stone. It’s a magical odyssey, the journey of a teenage writer waved through the door to find his fellow dreamers, music geeks, and lifelong community. It’s a path that leads him to writing and directing some of the most beloved films of the past forty years, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Say Anything… to Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. His movies often resonate with the music of the artists he first met as a journalist, including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Who, and Pearl Jam.

The Uncool is also a surprisingly intimate family drama. If you’ve seen Almost Famous, you may think you know this story — but you don’t. For the first time, Crowe opens up about his formative years in Palm Springs and pays tribute to his father, a decorated Army officer who taught him the irreplaceable value of the human voice. Crowe also offers a full portrait of his mother, whose singular spirit helped shape him into an unconventional visionary.

With its vivid snapshots of a bygone era and a celebration of creativity and connection, this memoir is an essential read for music lovers or anyone chasing their wildest dreams. At the end of that roller-coaster journey, you might just find what you were looking for: your place in the world.

Like many, many people, I’ve long been a fan of Cameron Crowe’s movies — especially Almost Famous. This was a guaranteed read, for me. The Uncool is out on October 28th, published by Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster and Fourth Estate in the UK.

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

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Josh Dean, THE IMPOSSIBLE FACTORY (Dutton)

The extraordinary true story of Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works” — the radical innovation hub that designed the greatest airplanes of the twentieth century — and the visionary who made it all possible

It began with a humble warehouse building in Burbank, California, and a charismatic young engineer named Kelly Johnson. In 1938, Johnson, who was then freshly out of the University of Michigan’s school of engineering, got the idea for a small, agile, disruptive engineering shop — one that could help America’s war machine innovate more quickly. By 1943, with the U.S. now in World War II and desperate for new technology, “Advanced Development Projects” — later nicknamed the “Skunk Works” — was born.

During Johnson’s forty-seven years at Lockheed Martin, the Skunk Works developed at least half a dozen planes that would have been the capstone achievement of anyone else’s career. There was the P-38 Lighting, which outdueled Axis pilots over Europe and the Pacific. The XP-80, America’s first ever fighter jet, which did indeed help the Allies win World War II. The Constellation, the first passenger plane with a pressurized cabin, revolutionized commercial air travel. The U-2 spy plane, which could reach an astonishing altitude of 70,000 feet, enabling it could fly dangerous covert missions in Soviet airspace during the height of the Cold War. And perhaps most famous of all, the A-12/SR-71 Blackbird, one of the most unusual, and iconic, planes ever designed.

But the planes were only part of Kelly Johnson’s legacy. There was also his management style, which would come to shape organizations for decades to come. Under him, the Skunk Works’ structure — flat management, no red tape, extraordinary speed — quickly became the model for nurturing innovation, and eventually would fuel the nimble startups of Silicon Valley. Half a century before Mark Zuckerberg coined the motto “move fast and break things,” Kelly Johnson was living that mantra — and at the same time helping the Department of Defense secure the fate of the free world.

Thought this sounded very interesting. Looking forward to reading it soon. The Impossible Factory is due to be published by Dutton in North America and in the UK, on May 19th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Stephen Fishbach, ESCAPE! (Dutton)

Everyone gets the story arc they deserve.

Kent Duvall, a faded reality show winner, just wants another chance at glory — to find his way out of his depressing life and back to his highlight reel. When a scandal is captured on camera at a charity event, he gets his shot, on a new jungle survival show with seven other contestants. Each of them has been cast as a type — Ruddy the bully, Miriam the nerd, Ashley the love interest — but everyone is more than they appear.

The contestants’ goals seem simple — survive the wild, build a raft, win treasure. But Beck Bermann, a reality producer who suffered her own public shaming, sees them as characters in her redemption arc.

As the schemes and strategies spiral out, breakout camps sabotage each other and rival producers struggle to control the storyline. Soon the question becomes less about who will win than who will make it out in one piece.

Intriguing premise. While I’ve not been the biggest fan of reality TV, the idea of fiction based around it has great potential. I’ll be reading this very soon. Escape! is due to be published by Dutton in North America (January 27th, 2026) and Text Publishing in the UK (January 28th)

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

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Megan Garber, SCREEN PEOPLE (HarperOne)

A look at how the current media landscape has incentivized us to see our fellow citizens as characters in an ongoing entertainment — and how we can fight back against this phenomenon.

Whether it’s our reality-television-star President or our expertly curated Instagram feeds, the line between fact and fiction — between what’s real and what’s fabricated for entertainment — has never been more blurred. Screen People explores what happens when we cede our reality to spectacle. Megan Garber explains how today’s internet-inflected culture conditions us to see one another not as people but as characters in an ongoing show, and how some of our most chronic and harmful social conditions — loneliness, depression, mistrust, misinformation, cynicism — stem from our demand for diversion.

In ten chapters, each themed around an element of entertainment — from “The Producers,” who edit our reality, to “The Extras,” the strangers we turn into objects of our amusement, to “the Haters,” the worshipful Qanon-types who expect the prophecies of their anonymous leader to play out on live television — Garber argues that this comedy of our daily lives is quickly becoming tragedy. And we can’t understand our politics without first understanding our culture.

There are quite a few recent and upcoming books about the attention economy, and what it’s doing to us all. (The Siren’s Call by Chris Hayes, for example.) This new book by Garber looked like it was interesting, so decided to give it a try. I’m pretty sure I’ve read a lot of Garber’s The Atlantic articles, too. Screen People is due to be published by HarperOne in North America and Wildfire in the UK, on April 21st, 2026.

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

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Jon Lindstrom, HOLLYWOOD PAYBACK (Crooked Lane)

A struggling Hollywood actor falls into a life of crime…

Twenty years ago, Jake Ferguson threw his life away. Once a promising Hollywood actor, he crashed and burned the usual way: with coke, booze, and pills. When that path reached its inevitable end, he made a desperate choice, and an innocent woman was killed. Before being convicted and shipped to Folsom Prison, Jake agreed to testify against his own partners-in-crime as the star witness for the prosecution.

Now Jake’s reentering society — coming home to an LA he no longer recognizes and to a life that has lost all meaning. Then he meets Carla, a waitress who understands him better than he expects, and he begins to believe deliverance may be possible after all. Until one night, a murder is committed right in front of him, and Jake knows he’s been set up.

With authorities closing in and more lives on the line, there’s only one way out, for himself and the people he cares about: revenge.

This is Lindstrom’s second stand-alone novel, following Hollywood Hustle (which was recently optioned; but which I haven’t had a chance to read, yet, but hope to get caught-up on relatively soon). Always interested in reading new LA-based crime fiction, so of course this caught my attention. I’ll be reading it very soon. Hollywood Payback is due to be published by Crooked Lane Books in North America and in the UK, on April 14th, 2026.

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

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Rebecca Novack, MURDER BIMBO (Avid Reader Books)

The origin story of sex worker turned assassin turned unlikely folk hero, Murder Bimbo, as told by the Bimbo herself (and then revised, uncensored, and reconsidered).

A thirty-two-year-old sex worker is shocked when she’s approached by undercover government agents to aid them in a top-secret plot to assassinate a politician known as “Meat Neck.” But once the deed is done, she realizes what made her the perfect recruit: She’s 100% disposable.

Holed up in an off-the-grid cabin in the woods, she now has only two days, her wits, and a laptop to save her own life.

Her best bet is to reach out to the wildly popular feminist investigative podcast Justice for Bimbos. In a hastily typed series of emails, the newly minted “Murder Bimbo” explains how she was recruited and then trained by a cabal of code-named US agents to take out Meat Neck.

Then she starts a new series of emails. This time, they’re addressed to her ex, and the facts line up a little differently…

Constructed in three increasingly unhinged acts, each a more subversive, twisted version of the story than the last, Murder Bimbo can be read as a gloriously bold literary thriller, a satirical megalomaniac’s manifesto, or a raucous send-up of the political insanity we all live inside every day. Either way, it’s a dead-serious announcement of an electric new voice in American literature.

This sounds rather bonkers; but in a good way? Looking forward to reading this very soon. Murder Bimbo is due to be published by Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster in North America, and Manilla Press in the UK, on February 10th, 2026.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Mario Vargas Llosa, I GIVE YOU MY SILENCE (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

In his final novel, the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa returns to his native Peru.

Toño Azpilcueta, writer of sundry articles, aspirant to the now defunct professorship of Peruvian studies, is an expert in the vals, a genre of music descended from the European waltz but rooted in New World Creole culture. When he hears a performance by the solitary and elusive guitarist Lalo Molfino, he is convinced not only that he is in the presence of the country’s finest musician, but that his own love for Peruvian music, as he has long suspected, has a profound social function. If he could just write the biography of the man before him and tell the story of both the vals and its attendant inspiring ethos, huachafería (Peru’s most important contribution to world culture, according to Toño), he might capture his country’s soul and inspire his fellow citizens remember the ties that bind them. Through music, the populace might unite and lay down their arms and embrace a harmonious and unified Peruvian culture.

Both a send-up of parochial idealism and a love song to the culture of his homeland, Mario Vargas Llosa’s I Give You My Silence is the final novel of the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner, whose enduring works captured a changing Latin America. His tragic hero Toño, a man whose love for a democratic, proletarian music is at odds with the culture and politics of a modern Peru scarred by violence, is the writer’s last statement on the revelatory, maddening, and irrepressible belief in the transformative power of art.

While I haven’t read all of his books, I have been a fan of Vargas Llosa’s work for quite some time — in part because I lived in Peru for a short while when I was very young (in the early 1980s), and that country has always been an interest of mine. Looking forward to reading this final novel (the author passed away in April 2025). I Give You My Silence is due to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in North America, on 2026.

Follow the Author: Goodreads
Review copy received via NetGalley

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Olivia Waite, NOBODY’S BABY (TorDotCom)

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

A wild baby appears! Dorothy Gentleman, ship’s detective, is put to the test once again when an infant is mysteriously left on her nephew’s doorstep. Fertility is supposed to be on pause during the Fairweather’s journey across the stars — but humans have a way of breaking any rule you set them. Who produced this child, and why did they then abandon him? And as her nephew and his partner get more and more attached, how can Dorothy prevent her colleague and rival detective, Leloup, a stickler for law and order, from classifying the baby as a stowaway or a piece of luggage?

Told from Dorothy’s delightfully shrewd POV, this novella series is an ode to the cozy mystery taken to the stars with a fresh new sci-fi take.

The follow-up to Murder by Memory, which I very much enjoyed. This is another cosy sci-fi mystery, and I read this the same day that I received the DRC. Fans of the first book will find plenty to enjoy in this second one. (I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first.) Nobody’s Baby is due to be published by TorDotCom in North America and in the UK, on March 10th, 2026.

Also on CR: Reviews of Murder by Memory and Nobody’s Baby

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

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Yaron Weitzman, A HOLLYWOOD ENDING (Doubleday)

When LeBron James signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018, it looked like a match made in heaven. Here was the preeminent athlete of his generation, fresh off ending Cleveland’s 50-year title drought and in need of a new challenge to help further burnish his legacy, joining forces with one of the most iconic teams in all of sports. And here were the Lakers, in the midst of their worst stretch in franchise history and reeling from the death of the legendary owner Dr. Jerry Buss, in need of a savior. The script wrote itself.

A little over two years later, LeBron and Dr. Buss’ daughter, Jeanie, were standing shoulder to shoulder, hoisting the NBA finals trophy into the air. Having won their record-tying 17th NBA title, the Lakers had reclaimed their accustomed perch on top of the basketball world. It looked to be the birth of a new dynasty.  

But this was a new Lakers’ franchise, one beset by infighting and years removed from Kobe’s prime. And this was LeBron James, the catalyst of the “player empowerment” era, an athlete chasing things greater than Michael Jordan’s ghost. The two parties were too big to peacefully coexist under one roof. The 2020 title would represent the pinnacle of their pairing, and the beginning of a precipitous decline.

Drawing from over 250 interviews, Yaron Weitzman takes readers on a riveting, behind the scenes journey of this fraught partnership. From the Succession-like power struggle between the Buss children, to the rise of LeBron’s landscape-altering talent agency and its attempts to assert its own power within the Lakers’ walls, to the evolution of LeBron’s priorities and political voice, “A Hollywood Ending” is the definitive story of an American icon’s final years on stage, one portraying him, a fabled NBA franchise, and the world of modern professional sports in a light never seen before.

The latest book by long-time NBA journalist, and author of the excellent Tanking to the Top (which was one of the first books about the NBA that I read). It’s an account of “the high stakes drama happening inside the Lakers’ organization as they try to juggle the warring priorities between LeBron James and the Buss family.” I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I spotted it in one of the publisher’s catalogues. So, when a review copy arrived in the mail, I started reading it right away — capsule review: it’s very good, and definitely recommended to all fans of NBA books. Of the growing number of books available about LeBron James’s career, this is definitely one to pick up. A Hollywood Ending is out now, published by Doubleday in North America and in the UK.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received from publisher

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James Wolff, SPIES AND OTHER GODS (Atlantic Crime)

The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he’ll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations.

To make matters worse, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee — the body that oversees Sir William — has received an anonymous complaint from one of his officers. Sir William dimly recalls accepting that there should be a channel for whistleblowers, but he never expected that they would pick his most sensitive case, one involving an Iranian assassin and a trail of dead bodies, or that the person who turned up to poke their nose into his files should be a lowly parliamentary researcher named Aphra McQueen, who displays smarts, tenacity and rebelliousness in unsettling measures.

Aphra seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she really up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?

More spy fiction! Yup, the new golden age of espionage fiction continues, and my interest in it and appetite for it has yet to wane. Really looking forward to this one. Spies and Other Gods is due to be published by Atlantic Crime in North America (April 14th, 2026) and Baskerville in the UK (February 12th).

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

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* This isn’t the first time two authors — one established, one less-well-known — have teamed up under a pseudonym to write a book together. However, I think the cultural interest in this kind of secret just isn’t what it used to be. You may recall the froth about the real identify of “Elly Conway”, the author of Argylle? (True story: some people actually thought it was Taylor Swift.) When it was finally revealed that it was Terry Hayes (author of I Am Pilgrim) and Tammy Cohen, I remember the story being met with shrugs.