Featuring: Leigh Bardugo, Mike Bockoven, Tom Cox, Hernan Diaz, David Goodman, Ken Jaworowski, Jonathan Kaufman, Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor, Kyle MacLachlan, Emily St. John Mandel, Walter Mosley, Paul Theroux
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Leigh Bardugo, DEAD BEAT (Flatiron Books)
Hell is empty and all the devils are here…
Alex Stern made it to hell and back more than once, but this time she left the door open behind her. Demons are creeping through the streets of New Haven and the Yale campus, feeding on the souls of the living, terrifying the dead. Alex and her allies can hunt them, but it’s only a matter of time before the gates to the underworld open and they face a war they cannot win. To stop it, they’ll have to reach deep into the secrets of Yale and its societies, and discover the truth hidden in Alex’s own blood.
While she struggles to hold onto the dream of a future Yale once offered, Alex must contend with the machinations of a corrupt Lethe Board and a deadly vampire with his own connection to the societies. But for the first time in her life, she won’t have to face the fight alone. Dawes, Turner, Mercy, and even Tripp will have a role to play, none more so than Alex’s mentor Darlington, the golden boy who lived so long in her head, now back in the flesh and cursed with dangerous powers of his own. Hell itself is stalking the delegates of Lethe House, and they’re all about to learn that demons don’t play by human rules.
The final novel in Bardugo’s excellent Alex Stern trilogy, and one of my most-anticipated novels of the year. Fantastic dark academia series, recommended to anyone who likes their fiction gothic (in aesthetic, as opposed to pacing) and gripping. Dead Beat is out now, published by Flatiron Books in North America and Gollancz in the UK.
Also on CR: Review of Ninth House
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
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Mike Bockoven, YOUR BEST CHANCE OF SURVIVAL (Atria/Emily Bestler Books)
Welcome to the end of the world. Premium membership required.
The climate has collapsed, there’s water riots in the streets and humanity’s future looks bleak. But that doesn’t mean the ultra-wealthy still can’t live in luxury!
Welcome to Guadiam, a luxury bunker featuring fine dining, the latest in technology and enough workers to make sure the end of the world is hardly a speed bump on your road to total self-actualization. All you need to do to enter is be ungodly rich and connected, sign the absolutely binding contract and then you are locked away from the world with hundreds of your closest friends.
Of course, being an “Underground Innovator” is not without challenges. You must solve your own problems which may include (but are not limited to) insurrection, assault, cannibalism, murder for sport, drugs, public executions, willing dismemberments, unwilling dismemberments, panicking staff and human madness beyond all reason. But don’t let that concern you. You’re better than everyone else! Leave the world behind and head underground to Guadiam. You’ll never want to leave.
Not that you have a choice.
An intriguing-looking new dystopian novel. Don’t know anything about the author, and haven’t seen much early buzz for this one (it’s still quite a few months away, though). With my recent dystopian reading, for an article I’m working on, I’ve been on the look-out for new books that examine potential/possible futures; this looks like it’ll be an interesting read. Your Best Chance of Survival is due to be published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books in North America, on February 2nd, 2027.
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Review copy received via Edelweiss
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Tom Cox, EVERYTHING WILL SWALLOW YOU (Swift Press)
Have you ever been curious about how people live when nobody is watching? Have you wondered whether there’s more going on than meets the eye?
Eric and Carl live in Dorset in a small white cottage under the shadow of a big cliff. Eric sells old records and antiques. Carl cooks, cleans and crochets. Nearing seventy, Eric is a lifelong accumulator of obscure objects whose easygoing, chaotic approach to life masks some of the unaddressed sadness of his past. The significantly younger Carl is an old soul who has a sophisticated emotional intelligence and likes swimming, mid-century female novelists, fibre arts and Dolly Parton. If you passed them on a walk, you may not pay them much attention. Most likely you would see Carl’s long floppy ears, tail and fur and mistake him for a dog.
The story of Eric and Carl’s friendship spans twenty-one years: a constant anchor in a changing world. During that time they adopt an eccentric, unlikely gang of fellow travellers. Their wanderings through South West England unfold against a backdrop of lived, local folklore and hints at future apocalypse. All the while, Carl’s true nature remains a closely guarded secret.
Tom Cox’s third novel is a rare gem, centred around the importance of friendship, the power of landscape and the joy of accepting the unusual. Everything Will Swallow You will make you think deeply about the place you occupy in the grand scheme of things and give fresh perspectives on how to live and love in the present moment.
I’ve been following Tom Cox of social media for quite some time, but for some reason haven’t managed to get around to reading his novels yet. (Probably because they’re not as easy to get hold of in Canada.) I read a sample from this, his latest novel, and decided it was high time that I started reading his book. (Naturally, this meant I bought a couple, as well as a couple of his non-fiction books…) Everything Will Swallow You is out now, published by Swift Press in the UK and Canada.
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, BlueSky
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Hernan Diaz, PLY (Riverhead Books)
Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival, and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market. It’s a high-risk life, one that brings her into a rich art and music scene where she powers underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could change the very fabric of reality.
After rewriting America’s past with his two previous novels, Hernan Diaz defies expectations with his third and gives us a breathtaking glimpse into the future. A major achievement from a major contemporary writer, Ply questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind. It is a novel of ideas built from a story of people. Combining Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller, Ply poignantly charts the tenuous boundaries of selfhood and the distance that inevitably stands between us and those we love.
The new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Trust (which, like so many books, I do own a copy of, but still have yet read…). This latest book sounds like an intriguing, near-future dystopia — which, as it happens, is a genre I’ve been reading a lot of recently, for something I am writing myself. It is pretty likely, then, that I’ll get to this very soon. Ply is due to be published by Riverhead Books in North America (September 29th) and Picador in the UK (September 24th).
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads
Review copy received via Edelweiss
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David Goodman, SOLITARY AGENTS (Headline)
Jamie Tulloch and Sam Li never intended to be spies. Jamie, a former exec at a tech company, found himself caught up in a mission and discovered a taste for the secret world while Sam, a burnt-out corporate lawyer, was unexpectedly talent spotted by MI5. When both are plunged into covert training, they find themselves pitted against each other for their final evaluation — Exercise Red Poacher.
Every year, MI6 trainees must evade capture, infiltrate sensitive sites and report back with the right intel, while their peers at MI5 try to stop them. But things take a sinister turn when they witness the apparent murder of one of their fellow recruits. Is it all part of the exercise? Or is someone trying to weaponise this game of spies into something far more deadly?
David Goodman’s debut spy thriller, A Reluctant Spy, received a ton of (entirely justified) pre- and post-publication buzz when it was released, and there has been much anticipation for his second. Solitary Agents was published earlier this summer in the UK (and a little later in North America), and I finally picked it up. Really looking forward to reading it. Solitary Agents is out now, published by Headline in North America and in the UK.
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
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Ken Jaworowski, THE BEAUTIFUL BURN (Atlantic Crime)
Locksburg, PA — a small town left behind by the world, filled with people just trying to survive.
Jamie fled home when he was a teenager after a crime born of good intentions went horribly wrong. When his brother winds up in danger, Jamie finds himself driving back to a place he swore he’d never see again, even though returning might end with a bullet to the chest or a long sentence in a cell.
Sandra’s an eighty-four-year-old resident at Hillview Living Center, and she’s never felt more stuck. But when an old flame checks in, the two of them can’t help but reminisce about the mischief of days gone by. All too aware of her ticking clock, Sandra plans their escape.
Father Marc is the newest priest assigned to the Locksburg church, where he oversees a parish of people slowly losing faith. Which makes sense to him, since he doesn’t believe in God. When a young girl gives a troubling confession, Marc must weigh his vow of silence against speaking up to save the child’s life.
As the three strangers’ lives begin to collide, they are forced to make a choice: confront the fears they’ve spent years burying or let the life they want go up in flames. With razor-sharp twists and heartfelt moments, The Beautiful Burn builds to a finale that lingers long after the final page.
Atlantic Crime has really been knocking it out of the park, recently. For some reason, I haven’t yet read any of Jaworowski’s novels (though, of course, I’ve bought the two prior to this one), and I will get caught up soon. This one sounds particularly intriguing, too. Maybe I’ll start here… The Beautiful Burn is due to be published by Atlantic Crime in North America, on March 9th, 2027.
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via Edelweiss
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Jonathan Kaufman, WHEN AMERICA ROARED (Viking)
The panoramic story of the 1980s, exploring the triumphs and failures of the decade that shaped the 21st century more than any other, from a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who witnessed the transformations firsthand
In January 1980, America seemed broken. Inflation raged. Interest rates topped 20 percent. Americans were held hostage in Iran. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with impunity. Japan was eating American manufacturing alive. Three networks controlled what Americans watched. China had been closed for 30 years.
Ten years later, everything had changed. The economy was booming. The Soviet Empire was collapsing. American businesses were competitive again.
In this immersive, character-driven narrative, Jonathan Kaufman lays bare the contending ideologies — and people — who battled for control of business, media and politics in the 1980s, shaping the way we live today. As Ronald Reagan and conservatives pummeled the Democratic party, as Jack Welch redefined leadership at Fortune 500 companies, and as deregulation spearheaded by Mark Fowler allowed television to become the hundreds of specialized and partisan channels we watch now, the groundwork was laid for our current economic and political conflicts. The decade also launched transformative social and political movements. Karen Nussbaum and Jane Fonda galvanized a struggling women’s movement, Evan Wolfson spearheaded the gay community’s legal fight against a hostile government, and Barack Obama cut his teeth as a community organizer in Chicago — all building long-lasting movements whose success progressives can learn from today.
From pivotal moments in board rooms and court rooms, to cultural touchstones like the birth of hip hop and of conservative talk radio, as well as the author’s eyewitness experiences in Tiananmen Square and Prague, When America Roared is the riveting story of how the 1980s built the world we live in, for better and for worse. It is the decade that made us — and the key to understanding where we go from here.
Jonathan Kaufman’s previous book, The Last Kings of Shanghai, is one of my favourite reads of the year (and is very highly recommended to everyone with an interest in history and China in particular), so it was inevitable that I’d be reading his new one, which is about another of my favourite topics: American history. Hope to get to it very soon. When American Roared is out now, published by Viking in North America.
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
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Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor, END TIMES FASCISM (Knopf)
A scathing investigation into the apocalyptic thinking of the Christian nationalists, tech-bro reactionaries, and populist survivalists who increasingly define the contemporary right ― and a recipe for how to fight them.
The planet burns and shared reality melts, a new iteration of the far right is on the march. How can we understand this dangerous new development, and what resources can we draw on to resist it? In their scathing assessment of the contemporary scene, the celebrated activists and authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor explore how the religious fundamentalists, Silicon Valley technologists, and ethno-nationalists who make up this apocalyptic alliance share more than one might think: they are united in their belief that some kind of cleansing cataclysm is coming, whether through the manifestation of messianic prophecy, the rampages of a resource- and job-consuming artificial intelligence, or the purported existential threat of immigration and cultural replacement. Rather than avoiding this conflagration, they welcome it, convinced they will be among the saved on the other side.
End Times Fascism is the ideology of the actors who strive to make the world unlivable and then seek to protect themselves from the fallout — whether by repairing to luxurious private islands, rocketing off to Mars, or bunkering the nation to keep their enemies at bay. The new survivalists have accumulated power, but they are far from impregnable. As Klein and Taylor show via original reporting and analysis, their many internal conflicts and contradictions and their nihilistic inability to envision a shared future, even for their ostensible allies, leaves them vulnerable to a new kind of “pro-life” politics — rooted in reverence for our shared existence and regard for the earth we inhabit and must protect.
I started reading this on its release day, and it is (as expected) a gripping, harrowing read — even for someone who, like me, spends more time than I need following American politics. To read this account of the End Times fascists who have captured many the levers of power in the U.S. and a handful of other nations was by turns baffling, frightening, but also utterly depressing. (Great bedtime reading, then…) Klein and Taylor do a fantastic job of setting the scene, placing contemporary events into context, and examining how these forces have gained followings that have swept them into power. An excellent book, and an essential read for anyone who is looking about them today and thinks the world has lost its mind. End Times Fascism is out now, published by Knopf in Canada, Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S., and Allen Lane in the UK.
Follow the Author (Klein): Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
Follow the Author (Taylor): Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
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Kyle MacLachlan, FICTIONAL SELVES (Crown)
Star of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Sex and the City, Fallout, and more shares his utterly original account of his offbeat journey in Hollywood, his battles with fear and fame, and the projects that shaped him — and created a cult icon.
Everywhere I go I am followed by a mystery man. He looks like me but — not quite. On talk shows, I sip coffee on couches and pretend to be him; on social media, I put on his mask to engage in suburban silliness. And of course, we work together. But for him, the movies and TV shows never end. Where does this guy — this Kyle MacLachlan — end and where do I begin? And is he even real? And, holy mackerel… am I?
To be in the black suit, or not to be? Kyle MacLachlan’s funny, moving, and playfully self-aware memoir charts a career that could belong to no other. Plucked from obscurity to star in David Lynch’s Dune, the Hollywood blockbuster that never was, MacLachlan rebounded with a startling performance in Lynch’s provocative masterpiece Blue Velvet, which would mark him as a master of the unusual and ultimately lead to his career-defining role as Agent Dale Cooper on the TV sensation Twin Peaks.
Fictional Selves is a book of doppelgangers, with MacLachlan mirrored by his own prodding ego (“Other Kyle”), the iconic characters he inhabited, and the ones that eluded his grasp but gave him a profound and surprising lens onto himself as a person and a performer. Taking us from the heights of critical success for Blue Velvet to the depths of the backyard pool in his infamous (and delightful) Showgirls love scene, MacLachlan brings us into the mind of one of the most distinctive actors of his generation, offering profound insights on collaborators like David Lynch, Laura Dern, Dennis Hopper, Anthony Hopkins, and more. Featuring lessons learned the hard way about ambition, love, and fatherhood, this memoir is an honest look into the remarkable — and often unpredictable — life of an enduring and endearing Hollywood icon.
This must be one of the most-anticipated memoirs of the year (certainly, if you are a person of taste). I’ll be listening to this next (I pre-ordered the audiobook edition, read by the author). Fictional Selves is out now, published by Crown in North America and Century in the UK.
Follow the Author: IMDb, Goodreads, Instagram
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Emily St. John Mandel, EXIT PARTY (Knopf)
A novel of doubles, shadow worlds, and fractured timelines as a man disappears from a glittering Los Angeles party, and a woman — a gunrunner, an art collector, an operative of the State — searches for answers.
Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted. Ari Waker and her roommate pass the gauntlet of bomb-sniffing dogs, the shanty towns, and the Red Cross tents as they walk across Silverlake to a party. The mood is ecstatic inside the apartment, people drink and dance, a woman wears a silver dress, pleated like tinfoil. And then: A shift. A bewildered twin, an uncanny doppelganger stumbles through the crowd and out into the night, and Kareem, the party’s host, vanishes into thin air.
As Ari Waker unravels the mystery of this inexplicable night, Emily St. John Mandel unfurls a story that takes us from a future America splintered by civil war to the seaside cliffs of Greece where weapons dealers hide in an elegant resort, and from the domed city of Paris to a colony on the moon. An unforgettable literary feat, Exit Party is a novel about the price of safety, the perils of the surveillance state, a requiem for a world not unlike our own, and a breathtaking story of resilience in the face of cataclysmic change.
Like many people, I discovered Emily St. John Mandel’s work with Station Eleven. I received a very early DRC of the novel, and devoured it, leading me to the author’s past novels which I also thoroughly enjoyed. Each new novel from the author has been a must-read, and this one is no exception. I’ll be reading it as soon as I can. Exit Party is out now, published by Knopf in North America and Picador in the UK.
Also on CR: Reviews of Last Night in Montreal, Station Eleven, and Sea of Tranquility
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky
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Walter Mosley, PARISHIONER (Atlantic Crime)
In a small town between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, a simple white-stone church sits atop a hill. It belongs to no denomination. Its priest, Father Frank, never speaks of God. The members of his congregation have broken every one of the commandments. They have gathered here to seek forgiveness.
Xavier Rule — Ecks to his friends — didn’t come to California searching for salvation. A thief and a killer on the run from the law, he expected to disappear. But under Father Frank’s strange ministry, Ecks has started to forgive himself and others for past misdeeds. Then Benol Richards walks through the door. Twenty-three years ago, she helped her lover kidnap three baby boys and sold them on the black market—she has carried the guilt with her ever since. Now she wants to know what became of the children, and Father Frank gives Ecks the job of finding out.
Crooks make the best detectives. They know how the guilty think and where the guilty hide. But if Ecks is to pick up this trail and follow where it leads, he will have to fight his old, lethal instincts — and know when justice demands he give in to them.
Walter Mosley is one of those authors who I have been aware of for years, but I have not read as much of his work as I would like. I have no idea why, and I fully intend to address this oversight. Hopefully starting with this new novel, which sounds particularly interesting. Parishioner is due to be published by Atlantic Crime in North America and Grove Press in the UK, on February 2nd, 2027.
Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram
Review copy received via Edelweiss
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Paul Theroux, TRUE NORTH (Mariner)
For more than half a century, Paul Theroux has traveled the globe and chronicled its far corners with curiosity, wit, and an unflinching eye. With True North, his twelfth travel book, he turns that eye to a country that has long been his quiet neighbor: Canada.
What begins as the completion of a North American road trip trilogy becomes something more personal. Theroux traces his own ancestral connection to Quebec, where his forebear Antoine Theroux arrived in the 17th century. Theroux meets his Quebcois friends and relations, then travels more widely through remote villages, multicultural cities, and sweeping landscapes that have defined modern Canada. Along the way, he speaks with farmers, refugees, writers like John Irving and Michael Ondaatje, and Indigenous leaders such as Tanya Talaga, listening as Canadians reckon with identity, belonging, and patriotism, often in response to the jabs and provocations of their southern neighbor.
From snowbound Ottawa at the height of political protests to the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, from Toronto’s “ethno-burbs” to Vancouver’s Pacific gateway, True North is a panoramic portrait of a vast country both familiar and elusive. It is also a meditation on kinship, migration, and the resilience of a people shaped by history, geography, and challenging weather.
With the empathy of a companion and the sharpness of a cultural critic, Theroux delivers a timely, vivid travel narrative that reveals Canada as never before — diverse, unsettled, and alive with stories.
It feels like I’ve been familiar with Paul Theroux’s work for decades, and yet I have never read any of his books… It’s odd. Anyway, his latest travel book is about my new home country, so it immediately went to the top of my must-read pile. With luck, I’ll get to it soon. True North is out now in North America, published by Mariner Books; the book will be published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton, on September 29th.
