Kill My Mother by Jules Feiffer
Liveright Publishing
Longtime readers of the Village Voice will instantly recognize Feiffer’s distinctive style. But in this graphic novel, he eschews politics for a grand noir tale with gangsters, cops, boxers and dames. Hanging it all on teenage Annie Hannigan, who hates her mom, it’s like something out of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Really the Blues by Joseph Koenig
Pegasus
The city of light has gone dark. Koenig’s latest mystery takes place in Nazi-occupied 1941 Paris, where fictional hero Eddie Piron leads a jazz band in La Caverne Negre, a favorite SS haunt. Piron is able to take life one day at a time until the drummer of his band is found floating dead in the Seine. Soon, the investigators’ questions turn from the dead drummer to Piron’s unseemly flight from New Orleans to France and what he is really hiding. Don’t read this atmospheric tome alone at night.
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Ecco
When 18-year-old Nella Oortman’s aristocratic but indebted father dies, her mother marries her off to a prosperous, but mysterious, Dutch merchant. Set in 1686 Amsterdam, Burton’s debut novel explores the unlocking of secrets people keep. Nella receives a chilly reception from her sister-in-law and servants in her handsome new home. Husband Johannes stays locked away in his study, appearing just to give her a wedding gift, a miniature house that’s an exact replica of the house they live in. With the help of an anonymous miniaturist, Nella decorates her toy house, in exacting detail. Along the way, she unlocks the secrets of its members.
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
Doubleday
Back to school season is here, and so is a Schumacher’s new novel about academia and all of its pitfalls. For Jason Fitger, a creative writing professor at an obscure liberal arts college in the Midwest, these pitfalls include an overlooked department, writer’s block and his love life, or lack thereof. The novel tells its tale via a series of letters of recommendation that Fitger is constantly asked to produce. Instant messaging will never look the same.
The Beast in the Red Forest by Sam Eastland
Opus
Welcome back to the cold war. Eastland’s well-loved Inspector Pekkala series about the Russian spy who was favored by the czar, sent to the Gulag after the Russian Revolution, then recalled by Stalin himself to solve a murder mystery, returns. “Beast” picks up during WWII, as Stalin is told that Pekkala’s been killed in battle. Refusing to believe it, the dictator sends Pekkala’s assistant, Kirov, to find him — in the heart of Western Russia. To find his boss, Kirov must evade Nazis, partisans and mysterious ghostly half-men creatures. For newcomers, the book contains enough back story to bring you up to speed.