One of the greatest Japanese writers of the 20th century, Yukio Mishima is known to most Westerners for his Sea of Fertility tetralogy and his shocking death by ritualistic suicide in 1970. Translated into English for the first time, The Frolic of the Beasts is a short novel from 1961 and a takeoff of Japanese Noh theater (a form of art Mishima loved). A tale of lust, violence and acceptance, the story stands as another example of his genius.

The Frolic of the Beasts is nominally about a love triangle. A young man, Koji, begins an affair with his boss's wife, Yuko, leading to a violent encounter where he cripples his employer. Sent to jail for two years, Koji is then taken in by Yuko and Ippei, the husband who is now a shell of his former self. But Mishima isn't interested in a battle of wills between his male characters; instead he focuses on how each person in his triad makes the lives of the others unbearable. Powerless to break away from the strange relationship they've created, Koji, Yuko and Ippei start down a road that leads to further bloodshed.

Much of Mishima's work has a bitter, almost nihilistic quality to it, and The Frolic of the Beasts is no exception. The novel uses its short running time to explore the ways humans create lies in order to prop up their worldviews, and how issues of sex and power can fray or solidify those lies. The Frolic of the Beasts may be a "lesser work" in Mishima's oeuvre, but it's yet another example of his mastery. --Noah Cruickshank, adult engagement manager, the Field Museum, Chicago, Ill.

Set in New York City in 1979 and 1980, the "Dakota" of Tom Barbash's second novel is the famed Upper West Side apartment building at the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West. That building is home to comedian and talk show host Reginald "Buddy" Winters, his wife, Emily, and their sons, Anton and Kip.

Twenty-three-year-old Anton, the novel's narrator, thinks he's there only temporarily, after a near-fatal bout of illness while serving in the Peace Corps. And he isn't the only member of the family in recovery mode. Buddy, who hosted a late-night talk show, is striving to rebuild his career after a nervous breakdown that featured an on-air walk-off. To make the Winters' lives even more interesting, two floors above them live their friends John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It's been nearly five years since John's last album, and he's in the midst of his own creative lull.

Through Anton's observant eyes, Barbash (The Last Good Chance) trails these characters around New York City in one of its dodgier eras. The smart and self-aware narrator becomes a creative muse to both Buddy and John, who is on the cusp of recording his final album, Double Fantasy. Hovering over all of this is a reader's knowledge of the tragedy that will occur at the Dakota on the night of December 8, 1980.

The Dakota Winters is a refreshingly candid look at the power of celebrity and the sometimes terrifying price it exacts. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

A common trap of the themed anthology is the inclusion of subpar writing to flesh out the volume. Vancouver Noir, however, book number 90-something in Akashic's redoubtable regional noir series, generally keeps its quality as high as its characters' moral standards are low.

Don't expect to root for the everyman in the film noir tradition: most of Vancouver Noir's 14 stories are from the perspective of protagonists with broken moral compasses. In Dietrich Kalteis's "Bottom Dollar," an ex-con decides to enact revenge on the gangster who fired him. In S.G. Wong's "Survivors' Pension," an elderly Chinese Canadian woman supplements her pension by faking accidents for the insurance money. In R.M. Greenaway's "The Threshold," a photographer waits until he gets the perfect shot before calling 911 to report that he's happened upon a dying man. Co-starring in every story is the stratified, changed and still-changing titular city. A local grouses that Greektown has become Yuppietown. Laments another character: "Everyone in the city seems to have forgotten South Cambie exists." Another wonders: "What still remained after gentrification, real estate crises, countless waves of new arrivals?"  

That's not a question applicable only to Vancouver, of course. In his introduction, editor and contributor Sam Wiebe describes Vancouver as "a city under siege by drugs, poverty, racism, colonialism, violence directed at women. In other words, a city like any other." True, but Vancouver Noir's frequent references to the water do earmark it as a city that offers a great place to dump a body. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Emily Littlejohn impresses once again with the third entry in her mystery series featuring Deputy Gemma Monroe. In Lost Lake, Gemma and her team are flummoxed by the disappearance of a camper in the Colorado Rockies. This is followed by the murder of the missing woman's co-worker and the theft of a valuable diary from their employer, the Cedar Valley History Museum. 

The missing woman's fellow campers and the murder victim's family are all in the suspect pool, which is expanded to frustrating levels by the stolen diary. Written by one of the town's founders, it allegedly contains clues to the location of historic gold mines for which any number of people might kill.  

Struggling with the emotions elicited by working tragic cases and trying to balance police work with her fiancé and six-month-old daughter at home, Gemma's perspective is a refreshing take on the theme that a career, partner and child constitute "having it all." Littlejohn instead forges steadfastly and candidly into the truth that life is messy. Within the chaos, the small details bring even minor characters (e.g., fabulous nanny Clementine) to vivid life.

As in her debut, Inherit the Bones, Littlejohn herds a multitude of professional and personal plot arcs into one neat package without loose ends. She expands on a solid foundation of diverse characters from which hopefully she can mine material for further additions to this fine series. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

John Strausbaugh (The Village, City of Sedition) captures important and formative years of New York City in his sweeping historical account, Victory City: A History of New York and New Yorkers During World War II.

With lively prose, Strausbaugh sets the scene, both intimate and vast, of the city before, during and after the war. The book features notable historical figures like Franklin Roosevelt and Fiorello LaGuardia, but also looks at broader movements. As Nazism spread in Europe before American involvement, New York was a hotbed of Hitler and Mussolini sympathizers, Communists, pacifists, isolationists and even spies. In addition, Strausbaugh sheds light on various marginalized groups, including blacks, who were discriminated against in the armed forces, and women, who became essential in the war effort.

When the United States entered the war, New York became a crucial location. Strausbaugh paints an eerie picture as the city's lights were dimmed to deter German U-boats off the Atlantic coastline. But the city itself was bustling. A little slow to reap the benefits of mass mobilization, New York eventually transformed into a powerhouse of wartime industrialization. Besides factories, it contributed in other ways. Scientists in the aptly named Manhattan Project met there to begin research on atomic weapons. Madison Avenue ad men prepared pitches for war propaganda to boost morale. The new United Nations headquarters was located there. By the time the war ended, New York was christened the "world capital," as many other major cities around the world had been destroyed.

Victory City thoroughly illuminates New York's role during a pivotal moment in world history. Highly recommended for history buffs. --Scott Neuffer, writer, poet, editor of trampset

On the morning of June 6, 1944, American infantry landed at Plage d'Or on the coast of Normandy, an area designated Omaha Beach by Allied planners. It was just one of several amphibious assaults, paratrooper drops and air/naval bombardments that marked the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France. But of the five major beach landings, Omaha was by far the worst.

On the German side, a mediocre garrison had been recently replaced by veteran troops, and these forces occupied formidable positions. Omaha Beach, at four miles long, was penned in on either end by sheer cliffs and along the center by steep bluffs. The only way off the beach, besides summiting those obstacles, was through five gaps, some with roads, leading inland to small villages. The Germans concentrated their defense on these passes. During the previous years of occupation, they had constructed huge concrete strongpoints with interlocking and flanking fields of fire. These, plus an obstacle belt in the surf, minefields and pre-sighted artillery, effectively stopped the first wave of American attackers.

In Landing on the Edge of Eternity, former paratrooper and current military historian Robert Kershaw gives a thrilling narrative of the longest day's most trying hours. He switches deftly between command and unit level on both sides, with glimpses of the destruction wrought on French civilians. Kershaw clarifies and expands an event made even more famous by Saving Private Ryan's opening scene, which accurately reflects the violence encountered by the first wave but simplifies the terrain and course of battle. This is a visceral account of apparent defeat, ultimate victory and how the United States Army sustained more than 2,400 casualties on a single beach in one day. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer

Good food, bad food, right food, wrong food. For many people, external pressures and ideologies influence how they eat--so much so that they can lose track of what their bodies are telling them. Virginia Sole-Smith, a writer and editor, began to re-evaluate her ideas about food when her baby daughter, Violet, suffered a medical trauma that made her stop eating for two years. The Eating Instinct is her memoir of this experience, given broader context by her research and interviews. "Violet taught me that eating well cannot be about following rules; it has to be about trusting our own instincts, which value safety, comfort and pleasure just as much as nutrition, and sometimes more."

We search for a perfect set of rules, "a way to feed ourselves that... feels simple and right. That doesn't make us feel guilty about everything we put into our bodies." But Sole-Smith discovers that the wellness and nutrition professionals we look to are as susceptible to diet culture as the rest of us, and often struggle with their own disordered eating. Though her emphasis is on the experiences of women, Sole-Smith explores U.S. food culture across lines of class and race. Restrictive diets, the popularity of weight-loss surgery and fads for "clean eating" and "detoxing" are among her targets.

To demand a program from her would be to miss her point, but if Sole-Smith has any advice in conclusion, it is to take a risk and trust yourself more with food. --Sara Catterall

In Girl Talk, New York Times science writer Jacqueline Mroz (Scattered Seeds) delves into the background, benefits, challenges and specificity of platonic relationships between women, looking at female friendship across history, culture and age. Mroz employs reportage from scientific studies and interviews with anthropologists, psychologists and neuroscientists, as well as anecdotes from sources and her own personal stories.

She uncovers biological, evolutionary and social factors that help explain why women's friendships are different than men's. For example, female hormones enhance connections in the communications area of the brain, so women tend to be better at expressing emotion and recognizing other people's feelings. Throughout history, women often lived with their in-laws after marriage, so they'd exhibit submissiveness and vulnerability, which increased empathy in their new female relatives. And in the 18th century, the new popularity of novels shaped women's understanding of relationships and people in real life.

Mroz notes how different cultures view friendship; for example, Koreans forge deep, lifelong connections, and they are more likely to intervene in their friends' lives than Americans are. She also explores the health benefits of friendship, how technology impacts these relationships and how friend breakups can cause more grief than ending a romance.

Mroz takes on the difficult but important task of understanding the nuances of friendship through scientific study. Girl Talk takes the bonds between women seriously, and offers a compelling and necessary look at some of the most vital interactions in a woman's life. --Katy Hershberger, freelance writer and bookseller

In Honoku, humans exist alongside yōkai, supernatural beings "as limitless as the magic within them." The human emperor hates the yōkai and wants them killed or enslaved. Akira, the child of a yōkai and a human, believes neither group will ever accept him. But Mari, an Animal Wife yōkai, does accept him, and he is in love with her for it. Animal Wife yōkai are preternaturally beautiful, with the ability to transform into dangerous monsters; they "trick men into marriage and then steal their fortunes." But Mari is plain and capable of only a partial transformation, growing talons from her fingers. When it became clear that Mari would not be beautiful, her mother taught her how to fight in order to "conquer the Seasons, become Empress, and steal the prince's fortune."

Every generation, a competition is held to find an empress: the young woman who survives each of the palace's enchanted seasonal rooms wins. All of Honoku's young women (except yōkai) are eligible to compete, and Taro, the prince, is the prize. Mari travels to the palace to survive the Seasons; Akira follows her to prove his love. A chance meeting between Taro and Mari kindles a romance, and Taro, who has always been against the competition, begins to hope Mari will win. Meanwhile, Akira falls in with a group of revolutionary yōkai who are planning to assassinate the emperor.

Told in the alternating voices of Akira, Mari and Taro, Emiko Jean's (We'll Never Be Apart) Empress of All Seasons builds a lush, Japanese mythology-inspired world. The three teens are inextricably linked, each individual's fate reliant upon another's choices and so, as the stakes rise for one, they rise for them all. An enchanting, gripping novel. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness