‘The Invention of Sound’ Aims To Make You Scream
The latest novel from ‘Fight Club’ author Chuck Palahniuk is another satisfying, if superficial, examination of the intersection of victimhood and dark impulses.
Woke Protesters Come For Oprah’s Book Club
Jeanine Cummins’ bestselling novel ‘American Dirt’ has elicited protests over the author’s lack of Latinx credentials, but the bigger problem is that the book is plodding moralistic melodrama.
The Latest Political Thriller From Brad Thor Doesn’t Disappoint
‘Spymaster,’ the latest entry in Brad Thor’s wildly popular thriller series, has a ripped-from-the-headlines plot about Russia undermining NATO.
‘Alternate Routes’ Is A Superb, Supernatural Novel About Los Angeles’ Freeway Ghosts
Tim Powers’ latest novel, ‘Alternate Routes,’ is both a thrilling mash-up of science fiction, fantasy, and horror and a work of startling moral sophistication.
America’s Best Satirical Novelist Embraces Historical Fiction With Hilarious Results
Political humorist Christopher Buckley, having decided that the Trump era has made contemporary satire impossible, turns back the clock and finds plenty of laughs in a novel about seventeenth-century America in ‘The Judge Hunter.’
‘The Hellfire Club’ Burns Up Readers’ Patience
CNN host Jake Tapper’s new novel, ‘The Hellfire Club,’ is a regrettable Washington thriller full of cardboard characters, absurd plotting, and relentless historical exposition.
In Mark Helprin’s Latest, A Master Novelist Confronts Music And Mortality
Mark Helprin’s latest novel, ‘Paris in the Present Tense,’ is an ode to fighting anti-Semitism, the beauty of music, and never giving up hope.
John Le Carré’s Latest Depicts A Spy Who Should Have Stayed In The Cold
‘A Legacy of Spies,’ the new novel by John Le Carré, is an anti-climactic mess eclipsed by the espionage master’s inability to grapple with contemporary political realities.
‘The Nix’ Haunts Readers With Timely Themes Of Politics And Forgiveness
One of the year’s most celebrated novels asks us to see national politics as a consuming obsession that both masks and projects our deepest personal failings.