Book Reviews

T.C. Boyle's new novel is ripped from the headlines ... of 1993. It follows the misadventures of a group of scientists conducting experiments in a hermetically sealed, Biosphere 2-like environment.

Sherry Thomas' new novel presents a gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes tale, with a heroine who must battle not only the bad guys but also the Victorian era's unfair restrictions on women's lives.

Writer Benjamin Percy has been on both sides of the divide between literary and genre fiction, and Thrill Me is both a meditation on the writing life and a passionate argument against that divide.

Joe Ide's debut novel follows Isaiah Quintabe, known as IQ around his Los Angeles neighborhood. IQ solves the crimes police won't touch — even when his clients can only pay him in chickens or tires.

Martin Cruz Smith's new World War II thriller follows a Venetian fisherman who saves a Jewish girl from pursuing Nazis — a predictable scenario, but one that surprisingly never goes stale.

Francine Prose takes a comparatively light comic turn in her new novel, about the disappointing lives of a group of people involved in an off-off-off-off-Broadway musical based on a children's book.

Margaret Atwood's retelling of The Tempest follows the exiled director of a Shakespeare festival, now reduced to putting on shows with convicts at an isolated rural prison.

The new Fireside Grown-Up Guide series is a throwback to the brightly-colored life lessons of your childhood. They're dark and dry and surprisingly funny, a pleasant tonic for your grown-up cares.