Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told, Tom Phelan's sixth novel, is a masterful portrait of Irish village life disguised as a murder mystery. Journalist Patrick Bracken heads back to the small rural town where he grew up. He visits the home of former lawyer Sam Howard and his witty wife, Elsie, to talk about two near-simultaneous deaths in 1951 that Patrick and his best friend Mikey Lamb witnessed. The two deaths had been officially ruled accidental, but Patrick knows better. The narrative toggles back and forth between Patrick's revealing conversation with the Howards in the present day and the events as they unfolded in the early '50s.

Jarlath, a priest who died after a nasty fall from his bicycle, had come home from his mission only to fleece the poor townspeople for more charity. His haughty ways invited the resentment of the town, especially given how rudely he treated his devoted siblings.

Doul Yank, a nasty old man, willed his farm to his nephew but refused to die. Instead, he lived with the younger man, expecting to be cared for, fed and allowed to go hunting for grouse--all the while lording over farm. No one was particularly upset when he was found sporting an "accidental" hole in his chest from hunting rifle.

Phelan (The Canal Bridge) finds humor and warmth in every poignant moment, with a clear eye to the reasons no one has ever come clean about the murders, even though most intelligent villagers know the truth. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

Aganetha Smart is a 104-year-old one-time Olympic gold medalist whose fame has long since faded. Readers join Aganetha's story when she is alone in a nursing home; she has no living family or friends and spends her days trapped in her withered body. Her only escape is the memory of her life long ago.

The careful unraveling of her secretive past begins with the arrival of Kaley, a young aspiring runner, and her companion, who at first say they are friends come to visit but later claim to be filmmakers. They receive permission to take Aganetha out for the day and load her into their car, touring sites from her childhood. Though they film the old woman with Kaley, it becomes clear they want more from her than just a story. They want something from her past that will affect their future.

The resulting memories are not a sugarcoated retelling of her life, but neither are they the exhausted ramblings of a woman ready to die. Instead, the narrator of this exhilarating novel offers a no-nonsense, truthful account of her experiences, including her brief moment of international fame.

Carrie Snyder (The Juliet Stories) writes with prowess, immersing readers in each moment. The cohesive narrative maintains a fluid sense of time, moving between the present and snapshots of Aganetha's past. While the pieces of Aganetha's long life come out of sequence, Snyder's unifying themes of sibling relationships and family bonds make striking connections between the centenarian's current situation and the memories she relives. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company

Michael Sears (Mortal Bonds) left a lucrative career on Wall Street to write thrillers. As it turns out, he has a golden touch with words. In Long Way Down, the third in his series featuring former trader Jason Stafford, Jason is nicely set up with a "seven figure job for life" working for banker Virgil Becker, whose father's Ponzi scheme nearly sank the family business until Jason salvaged it. Virgil asks Jason to investigate an SEC insider trading charge against Philip Haley, the CEO of a breakthrough biofuel company in which Virgil's boutique bank holds a large position. Having served two years in prison for his own firm's "financial irregularities," Jason knows where the bodies are buried.

He soon finds himself meeting tycoons in back seats of limos and on terraces of Long Island estates complete with "the Times spread over glass-topped tables, the scent of fresh-brewed Zabar's coffee, and a bag of jelly-filled croissants from the Montauk Bake Shoppe." Jason uncovers fraudulent trading accounts, marital spite, bottom-feeding investor sharks and enough thievery to send him on the run from thugs hired by any number of potential suspects who want his investigation ended.

What sets Sears's novels apart is Jason's relationship with his six-year-old autistic son referred to only as "The Kid." Sears's articulation of the challenge in raising a child with autism reads as true as his Wall Street jargon. With a compelling plot and the authenticity of Jason's professional and personal worlds, Long Way Down is a solid reader investment. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Scott McCloud--a cartoonist nicknamed the "Aristotle of Comics" for his nonfiction trilogy explaining the art of the comic book (beginning with Understanding Comics)--explores the seedy side of art, the soul and human desire in The Sculptor. David Smith--not the real life sculptor David Smith--is a down-and-out sculptor living on the last vestiges of the fame he attained as the favored artist of a wealthy patron. He is nursing a hangover in a diner when he meets Death in the guise of his long-dead Uncle Harry. Uncle Harry offers David a deal: 200 days of creativity and fame in exchange for his life.

David agrees and is content to meet his maker until his "angel" appears. Meg, a careless, manic-depressive bike messenger with a savior complex, forces David to confront--and ultimately embrace--the darkness in his life that hinders his artistic abilities, and the fear and anxiety of being an artist whose work is on the verge of being forgotten. As David seeks to make the most of his remaining days, manically creating abstract pieces that represent the time line of his short life, he learns what it means to love and be loved, to have something within his grasp only to lose it when he least expects it.

McCloud, a master of the medium, renders a story that is at once familiar, original and emotionally resonant. He focuses his attention on the anxieties that plague talented young people who haven't performed to the best of their abilities, and situations in which the opportunities that can make or break a career prove just as fleeting as the fame that accompanies them. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

Distinguished cultural critic Morris Dickstein (Dancing in the Dark) has written a lively, impressionistic account of the intellectual and personal transformation of a "brash Jewish kid from New York" that paralleled the U.S.'s emergence from the torpor of the 1950s into the political and cultural explosion of the following decade. Why Not Say What Happened intertwines these two narrative threads to create this engaging story of "an education of the feelings as well as the mind."

In vivid and entertaining prose, Dickstein describes his educational journey as he moved from his undergraduate years at Columbia College and on to Yale, where he obtained a Ph.D. in English literature. Dickstein had the good fortune to experience his scholarly coming of age under the tutelage of intellectuals like Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom. His anecdotes about these and other figures (Susan Sontag; the great British critic F.R. Leavis) invigorate the memoir.

More than anything, being a participant in the societal ferment of the 1960s propelled Dickstein's desire to be "part of the cultural conversation about the changes in modern life" instead of settling for a life of quietude, teaching and writing about his specialty, English Romantic poetry. Whether he's describing his sexual initiation in the company of the woman who would become his wife, his struggle to maintain his fraying connection to his Orthodox upbringing by his refusal to abandon Jewish dietary laws or his passionate engagement with Keats's poetry, Dickstein shows why his talent would have been only half-realized had he chosen the cloistered life. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Brian McGinty (The Oatman Massacre) uses his skills as both attorney and historian in Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge and the Making of America.

On May 6, 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton hit a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge--the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi. Both steamboat and bridge caught fire. The Effie Afton sank, with all its cargo. The Illinois side of the bridge collapsed onto the wreck of the steamboat the next day. In the trial that followed, the powerful steamboat interests fought the developing railroad industry for control of the Mississippi and the nation's shipping business.

McGinty sets out the complicated story with the clarity of a legal brief. He places the trial and its issues solidly in a historical context that includes the role of the Mississippi in American economic life, the Dred Scott case, Abraham Lincoln's career and westward expansion. He leads readers through the intricacies of legal principles governing interstate commerce and judicial jurisdiction, steamboat operation, bridge construction and river currents with a sure hand. He reports the day-to-day unfolding of the trial with an eye to both the personalities and the issues involved.

Lincoln's Greatest Case tells an intriguing story that will appeal to anyone interested in the commercial and industrial history of the United States, but the title is misleading. Anyone expecting a courtroom drama with Lincoln at its center will be disappointed. There is a reason the Effie Afton trial is little more than a footnote in most Lincoln biographies: Lincoln was not the lead attorney in the team defending the Rock Island Bridge. He is simply the best-known character in a colorful cast. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

Elana K. Arnold (Sacred) makes her middle-grade debut with a slow-building story of 11-year-old Iris learning to live with her grief.

Iris Abernathy moves with her mother and father to Corvallis, Ore., from Seal Beach, Calif. In Corvallis, it rains every day. Iris misses the sun and most of all, her best friend, Sarah. Sarah used to tell her that "iris is the name of a flower, but also a part of the eye"; she said that Iris was sweet like a flower and also noticed things that others didn't. "But without Sarah, Iris didn't know what to do with the things she noticed." Iris accepts overtures of friendship from classmate Boris, whom many kids overlook. When she visits Boris's home after school, his mother tells Iris that he was a "miracle," he was not supposed to live. Readers learn that Iris had been standing next to Sarah six months ago, when Sarah was hit by a car, and later died. Why did Sarah die and Iris live?

In a third-person narrative that remains fully in Iris's range of understanding, Arnold explores the range of sorrow, anger and grief Iris undergoes. Her compassionate parents allow Iris the time and space to find her way while also remaining a strong, consistent presence. A bus driver and psychologist, though secondary characters, also play important roles for Iris. Her gentle explorations of faith, doubt and making a friend while still keeping Sarah close leave a powerful impression. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Victoria Aveyard's thrilling debut throws readers into a futuristic fantasy world of clashing countries, segregation and a rebellion that depends on a young thief.

In the country of Norta, at the Feats of First Friday, champions with Silver blood compete against one another using their supernatural abilities to entertain audiences of other Silvers and their servants, the Red bloods. Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red, knows these fights serve as a warning that any act of rebellion will lead to punishment or execution via the Silvers' many abilities--mind control, telekinesis and super strength among them. In the small city of Summerton, Mare is pickpocketing the crowd when a group of insurgents called the Scarlet Guard rise up against the Silvers and bomb a castle in the capital. Mare's attempt to pickpocket a boy named Cal (the crown prince) serendipitously lands her a job as a serving girl at the summertime castle of King Tiberias. Mare discovers that she possesses lightning talents that no Red has exhibited before, which the court covers up by posing her as a long-lost daughter of a Silver war hero and betrothing her to Cal's brother. But if one lie from the king can save her life, another lie may take it.

Class tensions run high in this trilogy's first installment. Even when Mare is aiding the Scarlet Guard, she remains wary of the rebels. A gripping, high-stakes game of power and betrayal, Red Queen is an easy pick for those seeking electrifying action and royal settings with a touch of romance. --Adam Silvera, children's bookseller and reviewer

Songwriter Cynthia Weil ("On Broadway," "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling") delivers a first novel that's part mystery, part 1960s New York City period piece, with a strong feminist flavor.

"[B]efore I even hit a double-digit birthday, I made a decision. One day I would fly over my own rainbow and write a song like that one.... I'd make it to Oz too." Justice Jeanette ("JJ") Green is determined to break family rule #3: The Greens always become lawyers. The book opens as she takes "a giant step toward my not-so-secret dream and my parents' worst nightmare" by applying for a summer job in the famous Brill Building, where her Uncle Bernie is "the godfather of the music business," and all she wants to do is prove her talent. Sixteen-year-old JJ's first-person narrative takes readers into the heart of the factory-style music business, where JJ rubs elbows (at the keyboard) with the great "Sweet" Dulcie Brown (who's fallen on hard times and now works as a custodian in the Brill Building and who takes JJ under her wing), ends up writing music for Luke Silver, and gets to know "the godfather" perhaps a bit better than she wants to.

When Dulcie dies on the night they're to have dinner, JJ's questions to a neighbor convince her of foul play, and her lawyer lineage comes out as she probes into the matter. She discovers complicated connections between Dulcie, her Uncle Bernie and Luke's father that bring her out of innocence and into the music industry's underbelly. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness