 Tey, Josephine . Brat Farrar . F T356b.
It's okay if Brat Farrar is the consummate con man because you will fall in love with him anyway. When you first me him he just been hired to impersonate Patrick Ashby, the young heir to a successful horse farm south of London. The trouble is, Patrick has been presumed dead for eight years, having disappeared over a cliff at the age of thirteen. The staid Ashby's are initially reluctant to accept Brat as Patrick, but his skillful deception soon wins them over --- all except Simon, Patrick's brother. To further complicate matters, Brat begins to suspect that Patrick's death wasn't an accident, but was murder. Spurred on by his conscience (he does have one; it haunts him throughout the novel), Brat risks his own life to uncover the truth about Patrick's death and to protect the family he's come to love as his own, even if it means them losing them forever . J. Tey belonged to the Golden Age of British crime writing (1920-1950) – and this short work will not disappoint you.
 Jones, Edward P. The Known World . F J77
Arlington, Virginia author Jones may just be on his way to a National Book Award for this powerful narrative of a hidden aspect of antebellum history –the world of African-Americans who owned slaves. He begins his tale with 31 year-old Henry Townsend, a former slave and present owner of 50 acres of Virginia land and 33 slaves. Henry is dying and is fearful of how his plantation and progeny will survive. He looks back on his rise to slaveholder – former slave, dutiful to the end to his master, purchased freedom and then tutelage in the ways of entrepreneurship by his former owner, William Robbins. Despite his “slavish devotion” to the status quo, Robbins is in love with a black woman and is as fond of Henry's family as his own. Jones' knowledge of African-American history is superb. He incorporates accurate historical detail and strong characterization into a story that has tremendous momentum. A must read for African American History fans.
 Hirsh, M.E. Kabul. F H669k
Set primarily in Afghanistan (with visits to Moscow and New York) between 1973 to 1979, Kabul is a saga about the political and romantic passions of the Anwari clan, a fictional half-Afghan, half-American family. The novel provides wonderful insights into the political factions and historical events that led to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover. The author has packed an amazing history lesson into an exciting work of fiction. The Anwaris – most of whom were educated in the U.S. –struggle with the conflicts inherent in their position as aristocratic, well-educated citizens of a poor country that's steeped in tradition and suspicious of the foreigner. Full of family rivalries and unwise romance, Kabul is a true taste of a now “off-limits” area of the world for most of us.
 O'Farrell, Maggie. After You'd Gone . F O31
If grief is a disease with no cure, but time, then Alice Raikes could not wait for rehabilitation. Without calling any of her extended Scottish family, she boards a train home from London. While meeting with two of her sisters at the Edinburgh stop, she encounters “something odd and unexpected and sickening in the station's restroom that causes her to immediately board the train back to London. Preoccupied with this vision, she abruptly steps into the swirl of oncoming urban traffic. As she lies comatose in her hospital bed, her beloved grandmother Elspeth, her mother Ann, her two sisters, and John Friedman, whom she loved and lost, visit and reveal her past. As if peeling the layers of an onion, O'Farrell (first time novelist) lays bare the whys that prompted Alice's suicide attempt. Back and forth like a weaver with a loom she threads her way through Alice's life so that we thoroughly understand and empathize with Alice's state. Despite the theme, this is not a depressing book.
 Carr, J.L. A Month in the Country FC311m
Here's a short novel where time and the season does its lovely work. Set in post-World War I England, a world-weary veteran arrives at a sleepy Yorkshire village with the assignment of restoring a newly discovered medieval mural in the local church. As he works lovingly, he uncovers the mysterious magnificence of the centuries-old mural from paint and whitewash that cover it and cautiously interacts with some of the townspeople, including the vicar's achingly beautiful wife. Slowly he reveals his frailties; the pain from a wife who ran off with another man, memory of the horrors of the war, and his eye for beauty in a woman he cannot have. What's wonderful about J.L. Carr's novel is the way art, beauty, summer, and time conspire to cure the protagonist of what ails him. –Hope is restored and life goes on.
 Thompson, Marilyn. The Killer Strain. 362.1 T474
Washington Post reporter Thompson begins the tale of one of America's most dangerous biological crises by relating the symptoms of Leroy Richmond who inhaled aerosolized anthrax spores at the Brentwood postal facility in Washington, DC. Richmond survived the infection, but it was not due to the diligence of any U.S. government agency. In fact, many government departments worked at cross-purposes. The ones concerned with the well-being of Americans were sometimes juxtaposed against those who were trying to find the perpetrators of the attack. Be that as it may, some interesting facts do emerge – one of the September 11 terrorists was treated at a Florida hospital near one of the first victims for a lesion that health workers realized was cutaneous anthrax. Steven Hatfield, the government's prime suspect, had the training and perhaps motive to also have committed this act. Who did it? Thompson, in true reportorial style, sticks to the facts. She lets you decide. Her story of the government's bungling of the attack and lack of preparedness for a chemical or biological disaster is the most chilling part of this factual medico-terrorist thriller.
 Gildiner, Catherine. Too Close to the Falls . B GIL
Whether delivering prescriptions for her father, conversing with the family's new television set, squaring off with the school bully during Geometry class (a sharp compass does the trick), or sledding alongside the frozen Niagara River (forbidden by her mother because it's “too close to the falls”), little Cathy McClure approached life in 1950's Lewiston, New York, with effervescent enthusiasm. As an adult she's a clinical psychologist living in Canada so the character sketches in this memoir are remarkably astute, not to mention laugh-out-loud hilarious.
 Ephron, Amy. A Cup of Tea. F E63
Rosemary Fell never dreamed that offering a cup of tea to a stranger on a rainy night would change her life forever. But that's just what happens when she invites Eleanor Smith into her upper class home one evening. Rosemary's act of “charity” turns her world upside down, sending shock waves through her pampered life and her society marriage. Based on a short story by Katherine Mansfield and set in 1917 New York, this novella examines the intricacies of personal relationships and the rigidity of the status quo, as well as the lengths to which people will go to protect both. Each chapter is like the blink of an eye, opening and shutting upon the characters' lives until they all come crashing together. A Cup of Tea can be consumed in a single sitting, leaving you to understand that a single act can change the world forever.
 Bowen, Elizabeth . The Heat of the Day. F B786h
You've probably seen E. Bowen's name here and there; she's on every famous literary person's list of favorite authors. Read this novel and you'll know why. Bowen's prose is dense and detailed, yet absolutely stunning in its effect. She displays a keen understanding of the vagaries of the human heart and psyche. But above and beyond that, The Heat of the Day is a spellbinding story. Is the somewhat creepy stranger Stella meets at a funeral the good guy he claims to be – and is her perfectly lovely lover the traitor the stranger accuses him of being? Once the seed of doubt is planted, Stella is in a quandary. It's England, you see, in the heat of WWII, and to think one loves a traitor is, well, unthinkable. You're never sure, until the end, of course, who's good and who's bad. And you're not even sure what you think of Stella. In this novel, the concepts of good and bad seem to be on a sliding scale.
 Glass, Julia. Three Junes . F G549t (Winner of the 2002 National Book Award)
During three separate Junes spanning a period of ten years, this brilliantly written novel tackles the big issues of gender, family loyalty, and death. In the first June, Paul McLeod, a successful newspaper publisher and recent widower travels to Greece to escape the memories of his wife. He meets and falls in love with a young American artist who causes him to reflect upon the truth of his marriage. In the second June, six years later, Paul's death unites his three sons and their families in their ancestral Scottish home. This part of the book is seen from the perspective of the oldest brother Fenno who is a gay bookstore owner now living in New York City. He too will examine his parents' marriage and finally his own relationships vis-à-vis his siblings. The third June finds Fenno together with Fern Olitsky, the artist who once enchanted his father. Unwed and pregnant, Fern must decide what family really means to her. Glass has that mysterious gift of creating characters that live long after you have closed the cover on this memorable novel that is well deserving of last fall's NBA.
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