Other Relaxation

Hope Never Dies from Andrew Shaffer was my antidote to last week’s fear and tragedy. It’s both mystery and humor, featuring fictional versions of Joe Biden and Barack Obama. If you like all the memes that feature the imagined tomfoolery of those two, you’ll enjoy this...

Rebecca Makkai tells two intertwined stories in The Great Believers. One starts in 1980s Chicago, the other in 2015 Paris. Held within are the lives of two friends, Yale and Fiona, along with many others. In the mid-1980s, the world was just beginning to understand...

A.J. Finn introduces us to Dr. Anna Fox, child psychologist and agoraphobe, in her debut novel, The Woman in the Window. As my friend said upon seeing the cover, it’s a mashup of The Girl on the Train and classic movie Rear Window. Finn dives deep into the...

Robert Galbraith skewers an author who skewers the people in his life—and gets killed for it—in this C.B. Strike mystery. Of course, Galbraith is actually J.K. Rowling under a pseudonym. And she’s published many books and sold zillions of copies. There’s some irony in...

Out is a gruesome, feminist Japanese thriller written by Natsuo Kirino. What a choice during a week when my circle of friends is all talking about women who experience sexual assault! It’s also a great representation of the genre from one of Japan’s pre-eminent female...

Robert Galbraith creates a cracking good mystery in The Cuckoo’s Calling. Just in case you didn’t already know, Galbraith is the pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame. However, this is only my second Rowling book. I’m not a Potter fan. This series, though?...