Occasionally, the stories that seem most quiet and humble are the ones that leave the loudest din in their wake. That applies to Wendy Jones's The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals--and to Wilfred, whose marriage proposal is the catalyst for a series of events both heartrending and profound. The novel's sweet and simple premise initially belies the tumultuous, perilous world of its 1920s Welsh countryside setting, where townspeople bicycle to and from the local general store, families cope with the loss of loved ones in the First World War and locals struggle to keep their private dramas from entering the town's formidable rumor mill.

For Wilfred, the tumult makes navigating the channels of engagement and marriage that much trickier, as his spontaneous proposal sets off a chain of events that ultimately forces him to choose between honor and passion. Though the story alone is a sturdy drama with many moving parts, the novel is most potent for its fearlessness; what initially seems to be a whimsical, cheeky European romance finds gravity in Jones's refusal to skim the surface, diving into the inner lives of those around Wilfred. The reader follows Jones's characters as they wade through crises as grave as they are private, including pregnancies, broken hearts and an inability to swim against the tide of small-town judgment. While the process might be slow, it leads to a highly rewarding--and unflinchingly candid--slice of early 20th-century Welsh life. --Linnie Greene, bookseller at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C., and freelance writer

Daniel Anselme's On Leave has just a single paragraph describing the atrocities committed during France's war with Algeria, but the damage of that combat, the casualties and emotional scars, are everywhere apparent. The novel--written before Algerian independence, published in 1957 in France and now available in English for the first time--is a brave testament to a generation of French "under thirty-twos" forced to die in a war they didn't want to fight. Anselme's technique is brilliant; he builds his entire case off the battlefield, watching three conscripted 20-somethings try to enjoy a too-brief reprieve, from Christmas to New Year, a 10-day break from the carnage.

These utterly different, damaged young men try to reconnect with a world that has already marginalized them. Anselme expertly crafts their interactions with a wealthy childhood friend, a former pupil, an evangelizing neighborhood Marxist trying to enlist them into collecting signatures for peace and an ex-serviceman, not to mention frustrated family members struggling to show their love but not understanding.

This immaculate short novel tells it all in a few scenes and heartbreaking simplicity. It doesn't try to persuade you of anything, just lets you experience the charm and youth and private longings of three young men briefly escaping from atrocities they can hardly bear to witness, much less perpetrate. The reader is left with an intimate glimpse into the wrecked lives of three human beings who no longer connect with anyone but each other. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle, Wash.

Rene Denfield's debut novel, The Enchanted, offers a fresh approach to the crime novel: though the story is heavy with criminals, it is never clear what crimes they may have committed. Rather than focusing on what led her characters to prison, Denfield tells the story of the prison itself--and the lives of the death row inmates in this corrupted place.

We meet "the priest," a fallen cleric who works with the inmates on a spiritual level, and "the lady," an investigator hired by lawyers to aid the appeals of their death-row clients. "The warden" goes home every night to his wife, who is dying of cancer. "The guard" earns a small fortune smuggling contraband into the prison, while "the boy" finds himself offered to the meanest of inmates as a prize for cooperation in the guard's scheme. Meanwhile, the inmates all suffer in their own ways in their lonely cells.

Each character's perspective contributes to the multifaceted life of the prison, which one inmate believes to be enchanted. Their experiences with different aspects of the prison building--the interview room, the cells, the yard, the crematorium--reveal the seedy underbelly of prison life. The result is heartbreaking yet captivating, a study of one of the darkest places in our society--a place that, despite the despair, is always tinged with hope. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Kristina Ohlsson's The Disappeared has one of the most disturbing openings to a mystery novel in recent memory, as an unnamed woman watches an old film clip of another woman being hacked to death. Is it fake, or a real snuff film?

The story doesn't ease up, either, as Stockholm police find dismembered body parts, soon identified as belonging to Rebecca Trolle, a literature student who went missing two years earlier. Inspector Alex Recht and his team, including analyst Fredrika Bergman, discover that at the time of Rebecca's death, she was obsessed with the topic of her dissertation--a former beloved children's book author who went to prison for murdering her ex-lover. Rebecca was convinced of the author's innocence and may have stumbled upon information proving her theory.

While working the difficult case, the investigative team is also grappling with personal conflicts. Alex, still mourning his dead wife, finds himself attracted to Rebecca's grieving mother. Fredrika, who has just given birth, suspects her partner, Spencer, a literature professor, is hiding something when he suddenly takes paternity leave. She becomes more alarmed when his name surfaces in relation to Rebecca.

The Disappeared is the third novel in a series (following Unwanted and Silenced); though some recurring characters' stories aren't fully explained here, the protagonists are well defined and the enthralling case stands on its own. The complex plot keeps readers in the dark with a sense of dread, but the unsettling aspects are balanced by the investigators' persistence in the face of depravity, their determination not to let humanity disappear. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, crime-fiction editor, The Edit Ninja

After her stunning debut novel, Turn of Mind, Alice LaPlante is back with A Circle of Wives, an engrossing psychological thriller where almost nothing is as it seems.

Dr. John Taylor, a well-known reconstructive surgeon, is found dead in a hotel room--in his hometown. Whip-smart detective Samantha Adams is assigned to the case. At first, it seems straightforward--an overweight, middle-aged man who worked too hard had a heart attack--but the autopsy reveals John died from an injection of potassium chloride. For a detective accustomed to investigating bicycle thefts, this is a major change.

There's no shortage of suspects. John's three wives--concurrent, not sequential--were all neatly located in different cities, instructed as to when and where they might call him, under the careful orchestration of Wife #1, Deborah. She long ago discovered his dalliance with a nurse, confronted him and scared her off. They worked out a deal. "He could seek true love," Deborah explains. "He could even get married again, if he found someone who loved him back. But she was not to know about me." His first conquest (and second wife) was MJ, a hippie gardener. After six years, John wandered again and married Helen, a pediatric oncologist. Six months later, he was murdered.

Told in the alternating voices of Samantha and the three wives, the labyrinthine path to murder, the intricate relationships, and Samantha's own romantic tribulations all play out in an exploration of the nature of love, marriage, trust and expectation. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

Aimée Leduc, the private detective star of 13 previous books by Cara Black, is almost six months pregnant as Murder in Pigalle begins. She still hasn't told the baby's father, but she's distracted from her personal problems when her young friend Zazie tells her that several of her classmates have been raped.

Aimée is appalled to learn the police hadn't yet realized a serial rapist is targeting 12-year-old girls--and becomes even more focused when Zazie goes missing. On a quest to save Zazie and catch the rapist, Aimée will stop at nothing, engaging in shoot-outs with suspects, snooping around police headquarters, even going on a sleazy tabloid television show to get the word out.

Murder in Pigalle brings the red light district of Paris to the forefront as Aimée's search takes her through dodgy bars, old theaters and swanky houses. Although the text is occasionally choppy (perhaps reflective of Aimée's hormonal thought processes?), the pace is brisk, the plot intriguing; Black effectively captures the essence of the titular neighborhood. Aimée personifies fashion-conscious Paris, as she treks across the city in her high-heeled shoes, unfraid to bend the law when it suits her, desperate to find Zazie. Murder in Pigalle showcases both a memorable detective and an unforgettable city. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

With a deft, self-deprecating touch, Jeremy P. Bushnell makes dealing with the devil, the world-ending threat of a lucky cat statue and shapeshifting demon sex-wolves seem plausible--perhaps downright inevitable--as The Weirdness manages to soar beyond the potentially familiar tropes of urban fantasy with a strong sense of style and character.

Billy Ridgeway is a writer, though he hasn't published much of anything, working at a sandwich shop in Brooklyn with his best friend, a non-practicing Hindu named Anil. His roommate has recently vanished, he's not sure his girlfriend really loves him and then one morning, Billy wakes up and finds Lucifer sitting on the couch, armed with a deal and a PowerPoint presentation to back it up. All Billy needs to do is to infiltrate a tower protected by the most powerful warlock in New York City and steal back a maneki-neko--one of those beckoning Japanese cat statues. It turns out the Neko is a perpetual motion engine that will burn the world, something even Lucifer doesn't want.

The Weirdness has a life of its own, due to the clever humor and realistic portrayal of each of the characters (even the supernatural ones). Readers will inhabit the story for a long time after finishing. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

When Carol Wall met Giles Owita, she was embarrassed by her family's yard, but not enough to get her fingernails dirty. Their relationship, chronicled in Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening, is not only a primer on how to prune the azaleas, but a gentle lesson in patience, overcoming adversity and treasuring the joys of life.

A breast cancer patient, teacher, wife and mother, Wall resisted the pink-ribbon mantra to be upbeat: "Like the situation in my yard, the more I tried to ignore them, the more my fears grew and blossomed into anger." Eventually, she recognized the sorry state of her suburban Virginia yard and approached her neighbor's gardener for advice. They initially communicated through notes, and Mr. Owita's formal writing reflected his intellect. Wall discovered his background and the genesis of his gardening skill, as well as their shared trials.

Mr. Owita was actually Dr. Owita, a Kenyan immigrant to Virginia; he and his wife earned Ph.D.s, his in horticulture. Unable to secure jobs in their fields, they worked to provide for their two sons and to bring their daughter from Kenya. As Wall struggled with her illness, her friendship with Mr. Owita gave them both sustenance--he, too, was sick, and their gardening "seminars" were also metaphors for spiritual reflection.

The blossoming of the friendship between Wall and Mr. Owita unfolded through the seasons; as her plantings matured, she allowed optimism and gratitude to take root, despite the sorrows that befell them all. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco

A great-grandfather describes to a young man what it was like to meet and follow Gandhi-ji, the Mahatma, as he calls him, in this lyrical homage to a legendary leader.

The narrator, then a boy, describes the day of Gandhi's arrival in his village of Aslali. Giuliano Ferri's watercolor illustrations portray the architecture and clothing of Aslali, while Elizabeth Cody Kimmel's text explains Gandhi's mission in accessible language: he "has pledged to make our Mother India free from the rule of the British Raj. And he promised that we will do so without hitting or hurting the British soldiers." Gandhi passes under the boy narrator's tree and "gazes up into my face." It is enough to compel the boy to follow him. As he packs to join Gandhi in his mission to gather salt peacefully, free of British authority, his oldest brother, Rajiv, catches him and decides to join his brother. Each night in every village, "the Mahatma gathers all the villagers together and talks of peace. And of salt." Thousands follow him to Dandi, to the edge of the sea, on April 5, 1930. A triumphant painting depicts Gandhi holding high a lump of sea salt, glistening as if engulfed in a halo.

The story ends like a poem, with the narrator coming full circle, describing what that day meant to him. It's a terrific introduction to Gandhi as a man and the strength to be gained in a simple yet powerful act to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness