Books

words by > Michael J. Bandler

Top Read
Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, DC
Scott W. Berg

No visitor to the nation’s capital can fail to appreciate the stunning layout of the city’s central landscape—the pivotal Mall, the Capitol perched on a hilltop and the stately diagonal thoroughfare linking it with the White House. We’ve learned in school to associate Pierre L’Enfant with this majestic configuration. But as Berg points out in this highly engaging biography, that isn’t the half of it. To paraphrase Neil Simon: as an artistic genius, you couldn’t touch him, but as a person, you wouldn’t want to touch him.

The French-born Revolutionary War veteran-turned-surveyor and city planner overflowed with arrogance. As a result, even his longtime patron, President George Washington, ultimately had to defer to the opinions of Thomas Jefferson and other L’Enfant adversaries and remove him from the design project, leaving him penurious for the rest of his life. Yet through the vagaries of fate, a century after ignominy, L’Enfant’s reputation was elevated once more. (Pantheon Books, $25, illustrated)

The Double Bind
Chris Bohjalian

Laurel Estabrook, a troubled young woman on the staff of a Vermont homeless shelter, comes into possession of a bulging box of photographs and an envelope of negatives. The collection—dappled with images of front-page celebrities—belongs to a just-deceased local der elict who may have been a her alded lensman years before. What caused his descent? And why is Estabrook the inheritor of the trove?

Bohjalian is compassionate and compelling as he confronts traumas and obsessions as well as homelessness and the value of a creative life. The novel builds to a climax that is both shocking and unforgettable. (Shaye Areheart Books, $25)

The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction
Patrick Anderson

To an extent, this piece of pop literary criticism serves to reflect the author’s preferences and protests. More than that, though, this is a delineation of mystery writing by Anderson (a mystery writer himself) from Poe to Michael Connelly, and, specifically, the social, cultural and economic factors that have enabled the thriller to seize mass market audiences.

No Easy Rawlins or Harry Bosch stalked the best-seller lists a half-century ago. But over the decades, the traditional tough guys gave way to varied protagonists of modern thrillers— lawyers, women detectives, medics, and espionage agents. Anderson’s deft analysis of many of our favorite suspense writers and their characters leads to his basic thesis: that these books are transcending genre fiction. They are exploring the social realism (see Dennis Lehane, for one) and modern history and politics (try Alan Furst) that too often elude contemporary writers of literary fiction. Finally, he introduces us to some of the newer talents, including the likes of Karin Slaughter and Charlie Huston. (Random House, $24.95)