Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowellPublished by Charco Press, 2018, 148 pages. Original version published in 2017. In the summer of 2014, during one of the biggest storms to hit the coast of Uruguay, Alejandro is killed in a lightning strike. Ale, as he was known, was aware that there was an electrical storm brewing. …
Category: Fiction
Lagos Noir: Chris Abani (ed.)
Published by Akashic Books and Cassava Republic Press, 2018, 217 pages. “Lagos never sleeps. Ever. It stays awake long after New York has faded in a long drawn-out yawn, matched only by the vigil of Cairo. ... “By the way a man sits smoking on the hood of his burned-out Mercedes-Benz, it is clear he …
At Night We Walk in Circles: Daniel Alarcón
Published by Fourth Estate, 2013, 374 pages. Things are not going well for Nelson. His girlfriend Ixta has left him, and his acting career is floundering. His older brother has moved to the United States, promising to help Nelson move there, but has made no attempt to start the process. So when Nelson’s hero, the …
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The Devil’s Company: David Liss
Published by Ballantine Books, 2009, 369 pages. This is a gripping story set in 18th century London. Thief-taker[1] Benjamin Weaver is asked by a mysterious man called Cobb to carry out a dangerous assignment. When Weaver declines, Cobb resorts to other means. He threatens three people close to Weaver with destitution unless Weaver agrees to …
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: Michael Chabon
Published by HarperCollins, 2007, 432 pages. “Nine months Landsman’s been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered. Now somebody has put a bullet in the brain of the occupant of 208...” The year is 1998. When, after World War II, plans to create a homeland for …
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Nightwoods: Charles Frazier
Published by Hodder & Stoughton and Random House, 2011, 336 pages. “Luce’s new stranger children were small and beautiful and violent.” “Nothing changes what already happened. It will always have happened. You either let it break you down or you don't.” Luce is the caretaker of an almost abandoned lodge in a forest by a …
The Silence of the Rain: Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
Translated from Portuguese by Benjamin MoserPublished by Picador, 2002, 256 pages. Original version published in 1996. Ricardo Carvalho, a well-to-do executive, gets into his car in a multistoried car park in Rio de Janeiro, smokes a cigarette and then shoots himself. He leaves behind a gun, a briefcase, 20,000 dollars and a note to the …
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And Then There Were None: Agatha Christie
Published by William Morrow and Harper Collins, 1939, 256 pages. “Ten little soldiers went out to dine; / One choked his little self and then there were nine.” Ten people are summoned to a weekend on Soldier Island, a rugged piece of rock off the Cornish coast with a single large house. Some have received …
The Taiga Syndrome: Cristina Rivera Garza
Translated from Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva KanaPublished by And Other Stories, 2019, 128 pages. Original version published in 2012. “‘But you must know about the taiga syndrome, right?’ he asked...‘It seems,’ he continued, almost whispering, ‘that certain inhabitants of the taiga begin to suffer terrible anxiety attacks and make suicidal attempts to …
The Black Locomotive: Rian Hughes
Published by Picador, 2021, 400 pages. “It had been designated Anomaly 36. “The previous thirty-five anomalies had all been examined, evaluated, excavated and catalogued; then work had continued on the undocumented Crossrail tunnel extension under central London, the one that would never appear on any map.” The construction of a secret Crossrail tunnel linking Buckingham …
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