The Ariadne Objective
The Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis
by Wes Davis (Crown)
Nearly 70 years after WWII ended, fascinating untold tales continue to be uncovered. This one involves an unlikely group of British spies — scholars, archaeologists and writers — who are sent to Crete to support the local resistance. Their most audacious act: kidnapping the island’s German commander (they flee to the mountains, sleeping in a cave on Mt. Ida, where, myth says, Zeus grew up).
The Universe of Peter Max
by Peter Max (Harper Design)
The mustachioed artist who burst onto the scene in the psychedelic ’60s with swirls of color and cosmic images led a colorful life aside from his art. When he was an infant, his family fled their Berlin home for Shanghai. There until he was 11, they lived in a pagoda-style house. The Maxes left China on the eve the Communist victory, relocating newly independent Israel before finally moving to New York City — with a detour in Paris — at age 16.
Tatiana
by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster)
The Cold War is long over, but trouble is just heating up for detective Arkady Renko. Smith mirrors real events in Putin-era Russia in his latest novel about the fictional detective introduced in “Gorky Park.” Detective Renko smells a rat when’s he’s told that journalist Tatania Petrovna has committed suicide by jumping out a window. Renko follows the trail to a Soviet-era secret city where he races to decipher a coded notebook from a dead translator. In a tale that is as much political commentary as murder-mystery thriller, Smith based the character Tatania on Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter and outspoken critic of Putin whose 2006 murder remains unsolved.
In Love With Art
Françoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman
by Jeet Heer (Coach House Books)
As a girl growing up in Paris, Mouly (one of three daughters) was groomed to take over her father’s plastic-surgery practice. Thankfully, that didn’t pan out — today, Mouly is the longtime art editor for The New Yorker. Her first encounter with husband Art Spiegelman (dinner at a Chinese restaurant) didn’t go to well — he spoke too fast and she couldn’t understand him — when she later called him about his “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” they talked on the phone for eight hours. Sweet.
Heart-Shaped Rocks
A Path to Happiness
by Lee Ann Perry (Balboa Press)
Call it “Eat Pray Love” without a passport. Realizing her marriage is over, New Jersey school counselor Perry opts for a life-changing journey. But instead of India, Indonesia or Italy, the spiritual metamorphosis in Perry’s memoir takes place in her own head and mostly in the Garden State — where she channels her expertise in counseling others. She reads. Collecting heart-shaped rocks helps. Also crucial: really good friends and really good chocolate.