October books
October 1, 2020
This month’s notable new releases.
compiled by Sally Brewster
The Searcher, by Tana French
Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After 25 years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing convinces him to investigate, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets.
Memorial: A Novel, by Bryan Washington
Benson and Mike are a mixed-race couple living together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese-American chef at a Mexican restaurant, and Benson is a Black day care teacher. They’ve been together comfortably for a few years — but now they’re not sure why they’re still a couple. When Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan, he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together or fracture everything they have ever known. A funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms.
Missionaries, by Phil Klay
A group of Colombian soldiers prepares to raid a drug lord’s safe house on the Venezuelan border. They’re watching him with an American-made drone, about to strike using military tactics taught to them by U.S. soldiers who honed their skills to lethal perfection in Iraq. In his debut novel, National Book Award-winning author and Iraq War veteran Phil Klay examines the globalization of violence through the interlocking stories of four characters and the conflicts that define their lives. Missionaries is a window not only into modern war but into the individual lives that go on long after the drones have left the skies.
Troubles in Paradise, by Elin Hilderbrand
Warning: If you haven’t read the first two books of this trilogy, don’t start here. If you have, read this one slowly, because at the end we will be saying goodbye to the series’ endearing cast of transplanted Midwesterners and their new friends in the U.S. Virgin Islands. After uprooting her life in the Midwest, Irene Steele has settled in the villa on St. John where her deceased husband Ross had been living a double life. After a visit from the FBI, Irene realizes how little she knew about the man she loved. Evidence mounts that the helicopter crash that killed Ross might not have been an accident, and surprises are in store for Irene and her two grown sons. SP
Sally Brewster is the proprietor of Park Road Books, located at 4139 Park Road. parkroadbooks.com.
