Books that captivate with their exquisite prose and unforgettable storytelling. Perfect for readers who appreciate the art of language.
10:04: A Novel
Ben Lerner, 2014
256 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
November, 2014
It's hard to tell where you stand in a Ben Lerner work, especially his newest—a dazzling and dizzying read.
♦ Is Lerner the first-person narrator? (Mostly...maybe.)
♦ Is this a work of fiction? (Yes. No... Yes.)
♦ Is the narrator/author/Ben Lerner going to die? (Who knows.)
♦ Is New York City going under water? (Yes and no.)
♦ Is the world ending? (Feels like it could...or should.)
♦ What's the time? (One of the book's big questions.)
If you're wondering what the book could possibly be about, you're hardly alone. Yet its mind-bending quality is what makes 10:04 so compelling—in turn hilarious, thought-provoking, and perplexing.
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
Jonas Jonasson, 2009 (Eng. transl., 2012)
400 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
August, 2014
In this whimsical, even farcical novel, Allan Karlsson crawls out the window of the Old Folks Home and lands in a bed of pansies. He's wearing bedroom slippers, and he's on the run—all to avoid his 100th birthday party.
The book follows Allan, one serendipitous adventure at a time. With luck and guile, he manages to evade his captors, inevitably landing on his feet—though, by now, his feet have left the bedroom slippers for a pair of shoes...shoes belonging to one of the men Allan has killed (sort of killed).
11/22/63
Stephen King, 2011
880 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
October, 2013
It's long, 880 pages—the author takes his time in this book—which means you might as well just settle in. And unless it's a fast-paced thriller you're after, you won't be disapointed.
Fans know King as a master of horror. But in 11/22/63 he shows his chops across a range of genres—realism, historical fiction, romance, suspense, philosophy, and speculative fiction (i.e., time travel)—and, no surprise, he's good at all of it.
The Accursed
Joyce Carol Oates, 2013
688 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
May, 2013
Over the past number of years, I'd grown wary of Joyce Carol Oates—with her characters and plots bordering on the grotesque. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up The Accursed.
Well, here again are her usual grotesqueries, this time placed in a historical context, with a gothic setting, and fantasy-thriller plotline—and all of it so mesmerizing it was difficult to put the book down.
The Age of Desire
Jennie Fields
368 pp.
November, 2012
Edith has sex (yes, Edith Wharton!), even though one would be hard-pressed to find the words "sex" and "Wharton" in the same sentence. It's hard to think of her—with the jutting chin and high-necked gowns—as a sexual being; indeed, Wharton never thought of herself as such. Yet this very juxtaposition forms the crux of Jennie Fields's fictional biography.
Edith is trapped in, what is for her, a loveless marriage, although one can't help but pity her aggrieved husband. Teddy Wharton, a kind if simple man, loves his wife with a desperate intensity, yet sex between the two is nonexistant. Having attempted it once in the marriage, a traumatized Edith told Teddy, "never again."
Ahab's Wife
Sena Jeter Naslund, 1999
668 pp.
December 2006
Some people devour this book; others have told me they couldn't get through it. Certainly, it's an ambitious underaking: the retelling of Moby-Dick, America's great epic, from a woman's vantage point.
Much of the book I love—though not all of it. Mostly, I admire the intelligence and courage of a writer to attempt such a work, especially a writer with a such a powerful sense of myth and elegant prose style.
All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
Beverly McLean and Joe Nocera, 2010
416 pp.
June 2011
McLean and Nocera do some finger pointing in All the Devils—not at just a few individuals but at a host of policy makers, businessmen, and financial types across the spectrum.
No single villain is responsible for the 2008 crash, they posit. Instead, the crash was a result of a wide systemic failure that encouraged—and was encouraged by—greed and carelessness.
Arcadia
Lauren Groff, 2012
320 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
January, 2013
Utopian visions have captured our literary imagination through the millenia—from the Biblical Eden and Plato's Republic up through Thomas More's Utopia (which actually coined the word for us), and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance.
Lauren Groff's Arcadia is the latest in that long line and can stand easily among its celebrated forebears. The novel has landed on many a "Best Books" list for 2012—and deservedly so.
The Art of Fielding
Chad Harbach, 2011
528 pp.
February, 2012
For many reviewers, The Art of Fielding stands alongside Bernard Malamud's The Natural as one of the great baseball classics of all time.
Chad Harbach channels Malamud, to be sure, but Herman Melville is his real muse. Melville is here in the quirky asides and even more in the dark Romantic theme of life as unknowable, undefinable, and indescribable.
The Astral
Kate Christensen, 2011
320 pp.
November 2011
At the center of this book's cover* is a guy on a bicycle surrounded by a vacant stretch of pavement. Presuming the figure represents Harry Quirk, the novel's protagonist, it's a clever metaphor for the predicament Harry finds himself in.
Harry's a guy who weaves and bobs his way through the byways of Brooklyn, in other words, through life itself. No straight line to where he's going: it's a meandering, crooked path. Not to worry though, Harry finally reaches his destination. The joy of this book is Harry himself and Brooklyn, New York—its byways and waterways, sidewalks and bars...and the quirky creatures who inhabit all of it.
Atonement
Ian McEwan, 2002
480 pp.
January 2007
His fellow Brits once dubbed him "Ian Macabre" due to his string of dazzling yet morbid novels.
But this time around, Ian McEwan has written a gorgeous, lush book, taking on the genteel shades of Jane Austen, specifically her Northanger Abbey and its young heroine with the over-active imagination that lands her in so much trouble.
Beautiful Ruins
Jess Walter, 2012
352 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
August 2012
Life in this stunning new novel, set primarily in Hollywood and Italy, is made up of moments of startling clarity—moments capable of changing lives.
The difficulty is in recognizing those moments, holding on to them, and making them matter. Which is what Jess Walters is so very good at showing—how hard his characters find it to pin down the fleeting randomness of life.
Before I Go to Sleep
S.J. Watson, 2011
363 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February 2014
Christine Lucas wakes up every morning to a strange man in her bed—with no idea who he is or how he got there. More disturbing: a different woman peers out at her from the mirror, much older than the one who looked back at her the night before.
For Christine, each night's sleep wipes out all memory of the previous day. Every morning for the past 20 years—since the hit-and-run accident—she must relearn her world from scratch: the husband beside her, the house she finds herself in, the clothes she wears, and most of all herself.
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Autul Gawande, 2014
304 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
November, 2014
What a relief that someone like Atul Gawande, a physician, has written this book. In lucid, non-technical terms—and with a large measure of compassion—Gawande lays out how his profession fails us in our final days. Not surprisingly, the book has garnered a good deal of attention nationwide.
Ironically, Gawande tells us what we really already know: that before taking our last breath, we want control over the time left to us—we want to live out those remaining days, months, or years with a degree of independence. Yet independence requires a quality of service that nursing homes and physicians rarely provide. We can do better, he insists. And he sets out to show us how.
Bel Canto
Ann Patchett, 2001
318 pp.
February 2007
In Bel Canto Ann Patchett uses an age-old plot device which hinges on a group of strangers trapped in an isolated environment. As old as the technique is—it goes back to The Decameron of the 14th century—Patchett's use of it is fresh, elegant and, at times, very funny.
Fifty-seven men, and one female opera singer, from different countries with different languages, are held hostage in an unnamed Latin American country by a group of terrorists. Patchett turns up the heat, or in this case the music, and we get to watch what happens.
Belle Cora
Phillip Margulies, 2014
592 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June, 2014
Margulies has given America our own version of Moll Flanders. His heroine, Belle Cora, a prostitute and madame, is as richly drawn as her 17th-century English progenitor. Like Moll, Belle mesmerizes—and shocks—characters and readers alike with her beauty, intelligence, and endless stratagems.
This is no sedate tale of Victorian manners nor a sentimental glance backward to a golden era. Margulies has stripped away the mythology of a young country to reveal its grittiness and corruption. It is the mid-1800's—when America was raw and earthy—and Belle Cora's story reflects those times.
The Big Short:Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis, 2010
320 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June 2011
A handful of guys made spectacular sums of money when Wall Street crashed—and, for most of us, it's hard to tell whether they're heroes or villains.
For Michael Lewis, they're mavericks—loners who bucked the system. As Lewis tells it, while others ran mindlessly with the herd, listening to the sound of their own hooves, these men knew the herd was headed over a cliff—it was just a matter of time. And they saw it coming for years.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Ben Fountain, 2012
320 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
December, 2012
Acerbic, heart-wrenching, and at times out-right hilarious, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk has been hailed as the new Catch 22 or Slaughterhouse-Five. It's also a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. (The winner—as of 3/2013!)
The story follows eight young soldiers of Bravo Squad, who find themselves national heroes after fighting bravely in Iraq—action caught on camera by a Fox news crew. Now they find themselves on a Victory Tour of the U.S. to help gin up support for the war.
Black River
S.M. Hulse, 2015
240 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
March, 2015
No wonder everyone is stunned: this 30-something author writes with the strength and surety of a far older and seasoned writer. Black River is, in a word, gorgeous: and it contains a wisdom far beyond S.M. Hulse's young years.
The outline of the story seems straightforward: a retired corrections officer returns to Black River, Montana, to bury his wife's ashes and to confront a man who tortured him during a prison riot years ago. The prisoner is now up for parole.
But as with all good fiction, Hulse avoids the easy delineation of good versus evil. The line, she shows us, is never ever simple.
The Bone People
Keri Hulme, 1985
464 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June 2007
This a powerful, gripping book, with sharply drawn characters who tug at every heartstring. But I need to insert a disclaimer here: it’s not an easy book, and it's not for everyone.
Hulme’s long-windedness, her strange flights of prose or poetry, feel excessive at times. There is also a violent episode which is particularly disturbing though it is critical to the plot.
The Book of Lost Fragrances
M.J. Rose, 2012
384 pp.
June, 2013
M.J. Rose is a mesmeric storyteller, combining history and science with metaphysics, mystery, and romance—then fitting it all into a framework of suspense. The Book Lost of Fragrances, fourth in Rose's reincarnation series, and written in her accomplished prose, contains all the right elements.
The novel opens in 1789, Egypt, where young perfumer Giles L'Etoile finds himself part of a French team prying open an ancient funeral crypt. Once inside, the entire team is transfixed, literally, by a powerful fragrance Giles can't identify.
The Cat's Table
Michael Ondaatje, 2011
288 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
January, 2012
A stunner—beautiful, elusive, mysterious. The Cat's Table explores how events of childhood, fleeting and often perplexing, have the power to shape the adults we become.
As Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient) writes, in the voice of his now older character, childhood "smuggled us away accidentally, with no knowledge of the act, into the future."
Charming Billy
Alice McDermott, 1998
243pp.
February 2009
There was something about Billy. Just an alchololic, a typical one, who stretched his friendships thin, strained his marriage, and died in the street. But, still, there was something special.
The daughter of Billy's best friend narrates this intimate portrait, not just of Billy Lynch, but of the large family of Irish-American cousins who surrounded him and loved him, especially her father, Dennis. Starting with the funeral luncheon after Billy's burial, family members recall what they know.
The Children's Crusade
Ann Packer, 2015
448 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June, 2015
Ann Packer's gorgeous new novel begins with a family creation myth—a giant live oak tree on three acres of land in California. That tree, reminiscent of the wych elm in E.M. Forster's Howards End, is what roots the future Blair family to place and one another.
It is after the Korean War when Bill Blair, a young doctor, meanders down a country road. He finds himself in a woodland clearing where a "majestic oak tree stood guard"—"the most splendid tree he'd ever seen." Falling under its spell, Blair decides to purchase the property then and there.
Coal Run
Tawni O'Dell, 2004
384 pp.
October 2010
Tawni O'Dell's turf is the coal country of southwestern Pennsylvania, and her voice the men who live in the hills and work the mines. She details their gritty, hardscrabble, sometimes violent lives: jobs lost when the mines close down, lives lost when they implode or explode.
In Coal Run, which critics consider a "near masterpiece," O'Dell writes from a masculine viewpoint. Her male voices are smart, funny, perceptive—and their characters good but scarred, like the hollowed out hills left by the mining companies. I love this writer, and I love her characters.
Crossing to Safety
Wallace Stegner, 1987
368 pp.
March 2007
Like other famous authors who claimed to write small (Jane Austen's miniatures on "a little bit of ivory" and William Faulkner's "postage stamp" of native soil), Wallace Stegner says of Crossing to Safetythat he "was trying to make very small noises and to make them thoughtful."
He succeeded on both counts, creating an intimate, thoughtful portrait of friendship between two married couples over a 35-year span. It's a powerful tale.
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Erik Larson, 2015
448 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
April, 2015
Following his penchant for writing about grand historical events—while placing two contrasting worlds side-by-side—Erik Larson, takes on the sinking of the Lusitania. The ship's torpedoing by a German u-boat stunned the world and culminated, eventually, in America's entry into World War I.
In the hands of a skilled writer like Larson, the Lusitaia's demise becomes an epic event. His ability to conjure up the majestic ocean liner, its glorious interior, and the large personalities of its staff and passengers draws attention to the enormity of the loss.
The Dry Grass of August
Anna Jean Mayhew, 2011
352 pp.
August 2011
Inevitable comparisons are already being made of this recent debut novel to The Help, The Secret Life of Bees and even To Kill a Mockingbird—comparisons well deserved.
Mayhew has given us a powerful story of lost innocence in the face of racial injustice—a story that comes to us through the voice of 13-year-old Jubie Watts, a whilte girl from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Early Warning (Last Hundred Year Trilogy, 2)
Jane Smiley, 2015
496 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June, 2015
Much of Jane Smiley's power as a writer lies in her remarkable ability to place readers smack in the middle of a circle of characters and make us feel intimately connected. Her latest novel showcases that talent, engaging us in the minutiae of her characters' lives—all the while carrying us along in an epic sweep of 20th-century history.
With this second installment of her "Last Hundred Years" trilogy, Smiley continues the trajectory of the Langdons—an Iowa farm family—picking up with them after World War II. Like the first volume Some Luck (2014), each chapter covers a single year, taking us from 1953 to 1986.
The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession
and the Last Mystery of the Senses
Chandler Burr, 2003
352 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June, 2013
Chandler Burr has fashioned this nonfiction work, a scientific examination of human smell, into a near novel. Despite charts, graphs—and lengthy disquisitions on isotopes—he's written a gripping, very human narrative.
The hero of his story is Lucca Turin, a brilliant, charismatic, often combative biologist, who has challenged scientific thinking about how our noses actually work. Given our knowledge of biology, according to Turin, human smell should be impossible: "we actually shouldn't be able to smell at all." That mystery is at the heart of this book.
The Emperor's Children
Claire Messud, 2006
528 pp.
September 2011
The title of Claire Messud's book is a dead giveaway—think "clothes" instead of "children." Things in Messud's world are not how they appear; there is a wide gap between perception and reality, what people say they believe in and what they do in their lives.
Training her eye on New York's glittering literati, Messud has written a stinging comedy of manners, in the style of Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and Tom Wolff. The Emperor's Children is that good. The beauty of her book is following the multiple strings of plot and characters as she works her way toward the finale.
Empire Falls
Richard Russo, 2001
496 pp.
November 2007
There seems to be no end to my use of superlatives when it comes to describing Richard Russo as a writer: lucid, funny, humane, poignant perceptive, trenchant.... It's an embarrassment of adjectival riches.
What I'm trying to say is simply this: Empire Falls is a good book—a wonderful book. It's the story of stifled dreams or, more precisely, of those afraid even to have dreams.
Faithful Place
Tana French, 2010
435 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February, 2013
James Joyce left Ireland in his 20s, never to live there again. Yet Ireland never left Joyce. One of his enduring themes was how the past entraps us, in particular the Irish—how it suspended them in a state of paralysis, unable to move forward.
Ireland's Tana French deals with much the same issue—just when they think they're safe, the characters in all of her novels are pulled back into the tragic events of their youth.
Freedom
Jonathan Franzen, 2011
608 pp.
November 2011
Franzen got off to a terrific start when he dissed Oprah ten years ago. She'd chosen his book, Corrections, as a book club read, but Franzen's response was "oh dear, oh dear. If Oprah likes it, men won't touch it." So Oprah said, "forget it, big boy." The whole thing turned into a big ballyhoo—and garnered Corrections a lot of free publicity. Lucky guy.
Forgive and forget, I suppose, because Oprah turned right around and picked Freedom as another selection. This time Franzen did appear on Oprah's show and accepted her imprimatur. Lucky again.
A Gate at the Stairs
Lorrie Moore, 2009
336 pp.
January 2010
Lorrie Moore is "brainy," "Lily-Tomlin-funny", and possibly "the most irresistible contemporary American writer" (that from Jonathan Lethem, no slouch himself).
A Gate at the Stairs, Moore's first novel in 11 years, has been widely praised for its stunning portrait of a young woman maneuvering her way through the adult world. Her heroine, Tassie Keltjin, a student at a mid-sized liberal arts college in Wisconsin, defies the take-the-girl-out-of-the-country-but-not-the-country...cliche.
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Denise Kiernan, 2013
416 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
May 2014
Mud and secrecy are the two most salient facts of this engaging history of the women who thronged to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during World War II. Thousands of them came—for good-paying jobs, adventure, or to follow husbands. They had no idea what they would be doing—or what they were working on once they got here. (They were enriching uranium.)
They slogged barefoot through mud (often knee-deep), worked hard, kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Their efforts, rarely acknowledged, helped bring about the end of World War II...and the world's deadliest weapon.
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt, 2013
784 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
January 2014
Sometimes a book like this—long anticipated—arrives to such high expectations it can only disappoint. Not so The Goldfinch. Heralded by nearly all, Tartt's third novel can be found at the top of (or near) every "Best of 2013" list. It's remarkable.
Theo Decker is 13 when his world is rocked by an explosion in a New York museum. His mother perishes in the blast, but Theo survives, crawling through the wreckage with a priceless Dutch painting in his backpack. This is the Goldfinch of the title, and for Leo it becomes a talisman for all he lost and all he yearns for.
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn, 2012
432 pp.
February 2013
Gillian Flynn hit pay dirt with her third book, a disturbing yet devilishly clever novel that topped the best seller lists as soon as it landed on the shelves. As of this writing Gone Girl remains at or near the top of every list—and for good reason. A mystery cum psychological thriller, Flynn ratchets up the suspense until the very last page.
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2006
528 pp.
December 2008
This is a favorite book—an all time favorite, the kind that makes you stand in awe of the stunning power of literature.
Adichie has converted a tragic global event—the secession from Nigeria of ill-fated Biafra (1967-70)—into a rich, complex human drama, one that makes readers care deeply for the characters and their fates.
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
Catherine Clinton, 2004
304 pp.
February 2010
Harriet Tubman is a real-life action hero: if James Cameron were to make a film of her life, nothing—nothing!—would have to be invented to juice up the screenplay.
Most of us know of Tubman's exploits to free slaves. But the number she rescued, the hardships endured, the risks to her life, the fame she attained...and so, so much more make this biography an especially stunning read.
Hotel du Lac
Anita Brookner, 1984
184 pp.
August 2007
One of Brookner’s earliest works, and some think her finest, this slender book contains some very beautiful and very funny writing.
Edith Hope, a romance novelist, who writes “under a more thrusting name” (Oh, that is so good!), finds herself exiled to a posh but sedate Swiss hotel. She has committed a serious social infraction, though we don’t learn exactly what till about three-quarters of the way through.
The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende, 1985
433 pp.
February 2008
Having just re-read this marvelous book after 18 years, I'd forgotten how much I liked it. Three generations of women populate the story and the eponymous "house of the spirits"—they make for fascinating and compelling characters.
The story begins with the death of the beautiful and unearthly green-haired Rosa, the only woman in the book whose name refers to a color. Her sister Clara (clear) eventually marries Rosa's fiance, Esteban Trueba—thereby beginning the line of women whose names signifiy white, Blanca and Alba.
The Human Stain
Philip Roth, 2000
384 pp.
August 2008
On page 4, the protagonist of Roth's novel, a classics professor, asks his students:
You know how European literature begins?... With a quarrel. All of European literature springs from a fight.... Agamemnon, King of men, and great Achilles. And what are they quarreling about these two violent, mighty souls? It's as basic as a barroom brawl. They are quarreling over a woman.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot, 2010
369 pp.
February 2011
Immortal Life has to be one of the most remarkable stories of all time, combining the human pathos of one woman's family with the history of scientific and medical advancement.
In 1951 a beautiful, young woman died of an aggressive form of cervical cancer. During treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Henrietta Lacks' tissue was taken unbeknownst to her...and used within a cell culture lab. Her cells proved extraordinary—unlike all other cell cultures, they divided endlessly. Nothing like them had been seen before.
The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman, 2010
pp. 272
November 2010
"The Imperfectionists" is the perfect title for Tom Rachman's near perfect book. His characters are smart, talented, funny, sometimes kind, but always flawed—in other words, imperfect. They are wonderfully human.
Rachman presents us with an ensemble cast, a group of people working together to publish a Rome-based international newspaper. Each character gets his own chapter but reappears in others—making the book not so much a novel as a series of interlocking short stories.
The Innocents
Francesca Segal
288 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
November 2012
Francesca Segal's smart update of The Age of Innocence is pitch perfect—from the homonym of the titles to the satirical gaze leveled at social conformity. Even character names are parallel—Adam Newman for Newland Archer, and Ellie for Ellen.
Segal, though, offers a more nuanced judgment of community than Edith Wharton does. The Innocents' tight-knit Jewish enclave in 21st-century North London is far more benign, if still benighted, than the upper-crust of Manhattan's late 19th century. And the conformity Adam Newman struggles against is as much in his mind as imposed from without.
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Anthony Bourdain, 2000
312 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
September, 2014
Bourdain is bad-ass. At least he was 30-some years ago; now he's a grey-haired eminence of the culinary world with several books and TV series under his whites. And it's hard to believe that Kitchen Confidential is closing in on 15 years.
But what a book! Gossipy, deeply personal, always witty and sometimes shocking, it manages to be instructive for both professional cooks and the dining public. Cautionary advice for budding chefs? "Show up on time." For diners? "Nix the Eggs Benedict" (come to think of it, skip Sunday brunch altogether).
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini, 2003
400 pp.
July 2007
This book is a top club read, many claiming it as one of their favorites. And for good reason.
The story follows the plight of two Afghan boys. Raised without mothers, the two were fed at the same nursemaid’s breast, creating a bond of brotherhood that was to last a lifetime. Of course it doesn’t.
Life of Pi
Yann Martel, 2001
348 pp.
May 2007
What do you do with a 450-pound Bengal tiger?
Sounds like the old 800-pound gorilla joke, and the answer is pretty much the same—give it whatever it wants, especially if the two of you are sharing a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Young Piscene Patel is the son of a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India...
Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder in Belle Epoque Paris
Steven Levingston, 2014
352 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
April, 2015
Had this remarkable book been a crime novel, it would be easy to dismiss as improbable or far too dependent on coincidence. But Little Demon is a true story and should leave readers agog at the bizarre fashion in which real life unfolds.
As a taut police procedural—and one in which investigators appear outwardly incompetent while being quietly shrewd—Little Demon had me hooked. An added bonus is its stunning portrait of Belle Epoque Paris.