Books
Check out our picks of this month’s page-turners.—Michael Bandler
The Chicago Way • Michael Harvey • (Knopf, $23.95)
At first blush, this contemporary police procedural by the man responsible for TV’s “Cold Case Files” smacks of Raymond Chandler filtered through Robert B. Parker. A too-wise-guyish central character surfaces on the Chicago landscape. But then Harvey settles down, letting a riveting story unfold without asides and affectations (but with generous images of the city—especially its unforgiving weather). Onetime city cop Michael Kelly, now a private investigator, is asked by his former partner to help him on a cold case involving an assault in which the battered victim, left for dead, vanishes. When the partner turns up dead, Kelly is tabbed as a person of interest. The victim then turns up, pulls a gun on Kelly, and finds a way to break into his apartment—all this in the first 30 pages. As the body count rises and Harvey explores Kelly’s past, he succeeds in creating a three-dimensional character who could be the pivotal figure in a series. To the author’s credit, with all his graphic depictions— and there are quite a few—Harvey actually is more empathetic than hard-boiled in his treatment of his characters, particularly those mirroring an uneasy ambivalence in their back stories.
The Scandal of the Season Sophie Gee (Scribner, $25)
Th is first novel by a Princeton University professor takes what is known and what has been speculated about Alexander Pope’s classic story poem, “The Rape of the Lock,” and shapes an elegant, lighthearted tale overflowing with political intrigue. A young 18th-century English poet with tuberculosis is the perfect protagonist of this detailed novel, which is filled with romantic trysts and betrayals, social mores and foibles, opulent settings and actual literary personalities. It was against the backdrop of Catholic-Protestant tensions and conspiracies that the families Pope immortalized engaged in their everyday public and clandestine aff airs. Pope himself was on the sidelines at the time, only beginning to acclimate himself to the teeming London streets and the stylishness of high society at masquerade balls, picnics and the opera. This is a breezy, accessible story, perfect for summer—and, for Gee, an auspicious debut.
The Rest of Her Life
Laura Moriarty (Hyperion, $24.95)
There are distinct parallels between this compassionate novel and the author’s well-received first book, The Center of Everything.
Both deal with adolescent crises, well-meaning yet misunderstood mothers and external forces that need to be confronted. In this instance, the story emerges from a tragedy: 18-year-old high school senior Kara Churchill, while at the wheel of the family SUV, accidentally runs over and kills a fellow teen. Kara’s parents must confront the ramifications—criminal, civil, social and emotional. This is a quiet book that could be easily overlooked by the average reader, yet in its uncommon sensitivity to the mother-daughter relationship across two generations—and the impact of these ties on other siblings—it is well worth the attention of today’s teens.