February books
February 1, 2023
Notable new releases
compiled by Sally Brewster
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past — the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school and the 1995 murder of a classmate, Thalia Keith. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are the subject of intense fascination online, Bodie prefers — needs — to let sleeping dogs lie. But when The Granby School invites her back to teach a two-week course, Bodie finds herself inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t as much of an outsider at Granby as she’d thought — if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.
Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide
by Rupert Holmes
Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college — its location unknown to even those who study there — is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate … and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live.
The Angel Maker by Alex North
Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely — until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more. Meanwhile, a distinguished professor of fate and free will has been brutally murdered just hours after firing his staff. All the leads point back to two old cases: the gruesome attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, and the despicable crimes of a notorious serial killer who, legend had it, could see the future.
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
The only mortal in a family of gods, Medusa is the youngest of the Gorgon sisters. Unlike her siblings, Medusa grows older, experiences change and feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know. When the sea god Poseidon assaults Medusa in Athene’s temple, the goddess is enraged. Furious by the violation of her sacred space, Athene takes revenge on the young woman. Punished for Poseidon’s actions, Medusa is forever transformed. Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze will turn any living creature to stone. Cursed with the power to destroy all she loves with one look, Medusa condemns herself to a life of solitude — until Perseus embarks upon a fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon. SP
Sally Brewster is the proprietor of Park Road Books. 4139 Park Rd., parkroadbooks.com.
