Describing his late companion, of whose murder he has been accused, the titular sailor in McGlue complains, "He was just a student of misery. He had this idea that there was something like grace and victory to be found in ... choosing the worst." If one can study misery, Ottessa Moshfegh offers a master class with her debut, winner of the Fence Modern Prize in Prose. Whether or not doom is chosen, the narrative proves there is, in fact, "something like grace" in watching it unfold.

Inhabiting the mind of a tortured character has the potential to be torturous, but Moshfegh--whose stories have been published in the Paris Review--unspools luminous, capable prose. In his first-person account of the days leading to his murder trial in 1850s Massachusetts, McGlue manages both drunken shambling and balletic grace as he waxes poetic about his adventures with the late Johnson, whom he may or may not have stabbed to death. Memory is suspect in the wake of innumerable flagons of booze and a head injury that won't heal.

The novella's most heartbreaking element, played like a card trick at the end of a high-stakes game, is the hint at a love affair between the duo. On a ship where one man is called "Fagger," McGlue and Johnson still play at heterosexuality, masking their revulsion during group visits to the whorehouse. The reader doesn't want for opportunities to wince; in a book this brutal, there are plenty, but the brutality is underpinned by exquisite prose, and a writer's empathy for a character awaiting his condemnation. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer and bookseller at Flyleaf Books

Elizabeth Hughes, who has achieved modest fame as a New York City chef, rarely visits her family in Seattle after her mother's death from cancer. When a cooking slump (and the surprise arrival of a new assistant chef) coincides with her sister Jane's chemo treatment, Lizzy reluctantly heads home. Although she's glad to see her father, it doesn't take long for the friction between Lizzy and Jane to start a fire. Named for Jane Austen's Bennet sisters, they've been at odds since their mother's illness, and Lizzy wonders if her presence at Jane's house is helping or hurting.

Casting about for a way to be useful, Lizzy hits on an unusual project: cooking meals for cancer patients, using surprising flavors and textures to appeal to taste buds ravaged by the disease. Lizzy finds willing customers among Jane's fellow patients and even meets a kind, attractive man. And though her situation back in New York is far from perfect, she's not sure she's ready to leave and build a new life for herself on the West Coast.

With the Bennet sisters as a starting point, Katherine Reay (Dear Mr. Knightley) weaves in references to Austen's other works and explores the strength of family ties in the face of great pain. Although Lizzy narrates the book, the story also belongs to Jane: both sisters must come to terms with their fractured relationship, grief over their mother's death and the future possibility of deep love and great heartbreak. Packed with descriptions of mouthwatering meals, Lizzy & Jane is a wise and winsome novel of food, family and new beginnings. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

As intricate as a henna tattoo and as sweet as gulab jamun, Sonali Dev's debut novel takes its inspiration from the world of big Indian cinema. Mili Rathod of Balpur, India, has waited 20 years for her husband. Married at age four to 12-year-old Virat (and then separated when his family moved away), her beliefs in tradition and destiny have left her pining for their reunion. After her acceptance to an international study program in Michigan, Mili resorts to writing a letter asking her absent husband to claim her.

Bollywood director Samir likes his women without strings attached, but he would do anything for his family. When his brother Virat--who is now married with a baby on the way--receives a letter claiming his childhood marriage that he thought had been annulled years ago is actually valid, Samir offers to go to America and talk the girl into bowing out of her claim. He expects a gold digger but instead finds idealistic, tender-hearted Mili, who injures herself in their meet-cute of mistaken identity.

Seeing Mili as the cure for his writer's block, Samir pretends to be her new neighbor. Under the guise of helping while her ankle heals, Samir remains close to his muse--he'll tell her everything once his script is complete. Soon, however, Samir is cooking for Mili, taking her to a lavish wedding and falling in love. As the lies mount, he wonders if she can forgive him for the truth.

With a setup as far-fetched and irresistible as that of a classic Bollywood musical, this witty confection is sure to delight. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

In a madcap, international adventure, Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, asks what would happen if one of the happiest people in the world--a Dane--was forced to flee Denmark and reinvent himself in a small town in upstate New York. Clarke's answer will make readers laugh, scratch their heads and maybe even investigate their high school guidance counselors a bit more closely.

Following the 2005 strife involving political cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, cartoonist Jens Baedrup receives an assignment from his editor at the Optimist, a small weekly paper in Skagen, Denmark. "Draw a cartoon depicting in some way or other the controversy." A naturally positive man with no strong feelings about the controversy, Jens isn't sure if drawing this cartoon is such a good idea. But ultimately he decides it is his job and everything will be just fine. He is mistaken.

Two Danish Muslim teenagers happen upon Jens's cartoon in a discarded copy of the newspaper. They are angry about the drawing and feel insulted by Jens and the Optimist. Their answer is to burn the newspaper office and Jens's home, "Though their anger hadn't made it clear to them that when burning down occupied buildings, killing someone [is] always a possibility."

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service decides to make that possibility a reality and, for his safety, Jens Baedrup is declared dead in the house fire. He bounces around Europe for a few years with a minder and then Locs, the agent assigned to him, decides--contrary to her superior's orders--to send Jens to Broomeville, N.Y. What the agent doesn't tell Jens is that Broomeville is the city she fled when her lover, the town's high school principal, left her to stay with his wife. Seeing a way to reconnect, she calls on him to give Jens a job. Thus, Jens becomes Henrik "Henry" Larsen, a high school guidance counselor.

As Henry settles into his role as school guidance counselor, he learns the idiosyncratic characteristics of American life: "...that American sports talk radio announcers liked to say about something, 'There's no doubt about it,' before then expressing their many doubts about it; that American political commentators liked to preface their comments by saying, 'No offense,' before then saying something offensive... that Americans were very impatient people with very short attention spans; that Americans believed as long as they were inside their trucks they were invisible... and that in general Americans thought their trucks were magic."

The new guidance counselor's appearance in Broomeville is the first in a series of events that shake up the sleepy little backwoods town. Soon after his arrival, Henry's predecessor dies from what the coroner is calling a self-inflicted gunshot wound even though her brother denies she was suicidal. Henry falls in love with Ellen, the principal's wife. And finally, a mysterious Dane, Søren, shows up looking for Jens Baedrup. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to most of the town, a CIA training school is recruiting the young outcasts of Broomeville, who meet regularly at the town diner.

In Skagen, Muslim teenagers drop a literal match on the gasoline that ignites Jens's home and destroys his life. In Broomeville, Clarke flicks a figurative match at the  accelerants--a questionable suicide, a volatile marriage, a stranger and spooks--priming the town. Not only has Clarke relocated his happy Dane, he's given him flames to juggle but no juggling lessons. The result can only be spectacular.

The Happiest People in the World is a wacky spy novel full of ingenious commentary devices. Pithy statements throughout--"You miss a lot when you spent so much time looking through binoculars"--offer up insightful advice as well as thematic acumen. Clarke isn't wasteful in words, imagery or plot devices. Down to the smile or frown on Jens's face and the clocks on Doc's diner wall, every detail plays a significant role.

Cultural differences come into play when the Danes can't fathom committing a murder with a gun or the Americans can't easily buy one in Denmark, when the Danes won't rent a car over taking mass transit because of wastefulness, and most especially when there are communication barriers. But Clarke illustrates just as clearly that communication missteps or omissions between people sharing the same language and culture can destroy families, friendships, businesses. If communication doesn't work, nothing works.

The espionage format is the vehicle that provides an element of suspense and a swift plot pace, but readers are more likely to anticipate the characters' next debacle rather than their next crime. In other words, think Maxwell Smart rather than James Bond.

The Happiest People in the World isn't a book that easily fits into a neat marketing category but it does offer plenty to appreciate--a little happiness for all kinds of readers in the world. --Jen Forbus

This isn't a big book; it's a huge book. Edited by noted mystery anthologist Otto Penzler and boasting more than 900 pages with an old-fashioned, two-column layout, The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries compiles 68 of the best of the best. Many of the stories are classics (and worth reading again), but there are a number of writers here whose stories aren't well known, so there's much to discover.

Penzler organizes his tome in nine themed sections, including stabbing, vanished people, shootings and stolen valuables. One story stands alone in its own section, un-categorizable: Martin Edwards's "Waiting for Godstow," a curious tale about a detective, Godstow, who doesn't even realize he has an impossible crime to solve. Each story is accompanied by a short, informative introduction with an author bio and piquant critical notes: Jacques Futrelle's "The Problem of Cell 13" is a "masterpiece"; Lord Dunsany's "The Two Bottles of Relish" was chosen by Ellery Queen as one of the 10 greatest mystery stories ever.

Among the many authors demonstrating their locked-room prowess are Stephen King--with "The Doctor's Case," a Sherlock Holmes pastiche--MacKinlay Kantor, P.G. Wodehouse and Dashiell Hammett. This is the ideal bedside book for mystery fans: packed with short, challenging tales of murder and deduction, easily consumed before the eyes flicker. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Fans waiting for the third installment of Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles (which began with The Name of the Wind) may be surprised to find this companion novella doesn't continue the main series' story arc.

Even though this isn't the hotly anticipated third volume, it's best not to miss out on this delightful, focused narrative about Auri, the mysterious waif who lives under the University (which the protagonist of the main series attends). Auri lives in what she calls the Underthing, a series of twisting passages and unused, abandoned rooms. She has a magical talent that plays out like obsessive-compulsive disorder. Every discarded thing she finds in the Underthing has an ideal place and position. Auri can detect each object's feelings and desires and has made it her duty to ensure all is in its proper place. She spends her days connecting with these silent castoffs and helping them find their own special spots to be.

She's also waiting for "him," an unnamed hero fans will recognize as the series' protagonist. This sense of anticipation evokes its own rhythm, underscoring Auri's daily routine. This is not an epic novel full of heroic deeds, but rather a soft, gentle tale of a young girl with a specific, burdensome talent and who must follow her compulsions. The Slow Regard of Silent Things is ideal for fans looking better to understand Rothfuss's world through a lovely, peaceful story of a young woman with a rich inner life. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

William Gibson, author of the seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, once again drops readers into a future multiverse that boasts plausible, disconcerting advances in technology. On what should be a simple surveillance job in an immersive video game, Flynne Fisher accidentally witnesses a murder. She doesn't know it, but the game isn't a game--it's actually a future trajectory in Earth's history. Unidentified future entities with meddlesome and sometimes malicious intentions have tapped into Flynne's world via an undisclosed link in cyberspace.

It's only when people begin dying in Flynne's present time that she realizes she hadn't been in a game after all. To save their present from these interlopers, Flynne and her friends interact with a variety of good and not-so-good people in the future through robot-like entities, which are accessed in Flynne's time line via headsets printed with 3-D printers. Suspense builds in both worlds as people in each time frame try to avoid being killed.

In this rapid story that bounces from the near future to the distant future like a time-traveling Ping-Pong ball, money flows readily from one world to another, tattoos scuttle about on the skin, some people have double irises in their eyes and Lego pieces are cybernetically enhanced to move on their own. Gibson's details are sometimes sparse and his occasional odd turns of phrase might leave some readers confused, but for those willing to persevere through the vague (and sometimes quite complex) spots, the story succeeds in showing what might happen if humans stay on their current trajectory of drug use, medical manipulations, greed and hunger for power. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Former CIA operative Robert B. Baer, whose memoir See No Evil inspired the George Clooney thriller Syriana, blends memoir and geopolitical analysis into a comprehensive guide to the world of political murder. The Perfect Kill is organized into 21 laws for the successful assassin, covering everything from the act itself (the importance of vetting accomplices and using terrain) to its moral implications (the victim should really deserve it and his or her death should save lives).

Baer uses "good" and bad assassinations as examples, though most of the book revolves around his own harrowing experiences as a CIA agent in Lebanon during its civil war. He spent much of that assignment hunting (and, he speculates, being hunted by) master Hezbollah assassin Imad Fayez Mughniyah, alias Hajj Radwan, whose bombings drove the United States military out of Lebanon in the 1980s. Baer moves between other shady people and dangerous assignments, including a potential plot against Saddam Hussein in post-Gulf War I Iraq gone farcically awry, but his nemesis is never far from his thoughts. Radwan's own assassination in Damascus in 2008 was a fitting end and, Baer argues, the result of the professional ignoring the rules of his trade.

The Perfect Kill's unusual mix of thrilling memoir and political science is a winning combination. Baer's espionage exploits are the stuff of spy novels, his insider's insights on a deadly business refreshingly candid. His bluntness clarifies a topic usually obscured by moral quagmires, and The Perfect Kill should appeal to a wide swath of nonfiction readers and fans of spy thrillers. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer

In her memoirs of her 1950s childhood near Niagara Falls (Too Close to the Falls) and her turbulent teen and college years (After the Falls), psychologist Catherine McClure Gildiner captured the baby boomer eras with humor and spot-on details. In Coming Ashore, she invites readers into her years studying at Oxford, teaching in inner-city Cleveland and finding love and her career in Toronto.

Gildiner began her life in upstate New York, where, as a precocious only child, she challenged her parents, who exhorted her not to play "too close to the Falls." Metaphorically, Gildiner seemed continually to wander close to the edge--as an outspoken teen, a blonde co-ed dating a black man at rural Ohio University, and as an Oxford student, where she was unusual both as an American and a woman.

As Coming Ashore opens, Gildiner needs to flee Ohio and the FBI agents who are questioning her association with activists, so she applies to a postgrad program at Oxford. It's a long shot that pays off. Once in England, the irrepressible (and obviously academically gifted) Yank makes her mark; her hilarious escapades include orchestrating a friend's dying wish to have sex with Jimi Hendrix.

Gildiner's poignant reflections on her family and her childhood recall her earlier work, but Coming Ashore is a worthy stand-alone memoir, especially for the laugh-out-loud anecdotes, witty chapter titles ("A Shrew in Shrewsbury") and vintage photos of the author that open each chapter. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco

In 2014, Ezidis, Druze, Mandaeans and other Middle Eastern religious minorities have appeared in global headlines. For the most part, these groups have been unfamiliar to most Westerners, and sadly they are in the news because of tragedies. Gerard Russell's first book, Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, appears just in time to answer readers' questions about some of the world's most ancient and least understood religions.

Russell describes Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms as a series of personal and informal investigations begun during his 14 years as an Arabic- and Farsi-speaking diplomat in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. Much of the narrative's considerable charm rests in Russell's accounts of his often-uncomfortable travels into remote regions of the Middle East and his interviews with members of the seven religions he covers. He pursues his explorations in places as diverse as the Zoroastrian ruins of ancient Persepolis and a Chaldean community center in Detroit. Make no mistake, though: this is not a dilettante's travelogue.

Building on his extensive knowledge of both comparative theology and the region's history, Russell places each religion in historical context and describes them as they exist in the 21st century. He considers both how these faiths have survived and why they were endangered even before the current attacks began. He considers ancient languages and long traditions of secrecy, as well as the difficulties both present to diaspora communities attempting to practice a faith away from its historic heart.

Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms is an important and engaging book for anyone interested in the Middle East. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

In Ally Condie's (the Matched trilogy) stand-alone novel Atlantia, she creates a world with secrets as deep as the ocean it inhabits, where trust is a luxury not all can afford.

Fifteen-year-old narrator Rio and her twin sister, Bey, have never been Above. Humanity created Atlantia, an underwater haven where people live long, healthy, happy lives, when the world Above became too polluted to inhabit. Those remaining on land have chosen to sacrifice themselves to short, brutal lives of suffering in order to keep Atlantia thriving. But Rio wants to see the trees and sky, and longs for the day when she can choose the world Above. After the sudden, suspicious death of their mother, the Minister of Atlantia, Bey makes Rio promise to remain Below with her. But Bey turns the tables and elects to go Above. As Rio struggles to accept her sister's apparent betrayal, Maire, her mother's mysterious and estranged sister and a known siren, appears with offers of assistance. Rio's secret, which only her mother and sister know, is that she is herself a siren. When Rio meets True, whose best friend Fen also unexpectedly chose the Above, she wonders if there's a connection between Bey and Fen. At what cost will Rio find the answers to her sister's departure?

Condie's thorough world-building includes the history of Atlantia, its architecture, governance, cultural practices and religious history. Rio makes a fascinating heroine, along with captivatingly mysterious Bey and Maire. Each mystery leads into another, and Condie keeps readers guessing to the end. --Kyla Paterno

In this second entry in the Legion trilogy, Kami Garcia's gripping writing once again draws readers into the paranormal and supernatural world of the Legion.

Kennedy Waters unknowingly released the demon Andras into the world in Unbreakable.  After joining the Legion of the Black Dove, a centuries-old underground organization of supernatural warriors, she was tricked into freeing their most formidable foe. Now Kennedy must rejoin the fight with her Legion friends before Andras can release more demons into the world. But first, Kennedy must confront her own demons.  An intense yet tenuous relationship with fellow Legion member Jared feels like love; after all, Jared's "the boy who fought for me, even when I didn't fight for myself." But Kennedy has yet to prove she's a member of the Legion and destined for Jared. As an orphan, Kennedy wonders who can confirm whether she's inherited the familial Legion mantle? Kennedy hunts down her aunt Faith, and learns her family has ties to the mysterious Legion enemy organization, the Illuminati. Worse yet, her mother was secretly working against everything the Legion, and now Kennedy, stands for. Kennedy must find the strength to fight for her own beliefs, her love, her family and the world.

Set in a darker world than that of the Beautiful Creatures series, the Legion will appeal to male and female teens, as well as adults. Garcia's dialogue flows naturally and shows the personality of every character, making it easy for readers to keep track of a somewhat large cast of characters. --Jessica Bushore, former public librarian and freelance writer