Even the Darkest Night

January 1, 2022

International award winner Cercas expands to literary suspense inEven the Darkest Night, featuring a young ex-con who read Les Mis�rables in jail and after the murder of his sex-worker mother joins the Barcelona police and is sent to investigate a particularly brutal double murder outside the city. In another genre blender, the New York Times best-selling Crosley purveys humor, psychological twistiness, and strong writing to create what could be a Cult Classic featuring a woman who leaves a work dinner to buy cigarettes and encounters a string of ghostly ex-boyfriends (100,000-copy first printing). From Dermansky (e.g., the multi-best-booked The Red Car), Hurricane Girl sends 32-year-old Allison Brody from the West Coast to the East Coast, where she buys a small house on the beach and is promptly hit by a Category 3 hurricane that leaves her with a bleeding head and some very confused thoughts. Following Delicious Foods, which boast PEN/Faulkner and Hurston/Wright Legacy honors, Hannaham's Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta features a woman who transitioned in prison and is finally released after more than two decades, returning apprehensively to a New York she barely knows and a family that doesn't understand her (40,000-copy first printing). Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, Holleran returns after 13 years with The Kingdom of Sand, whose nameless narrator has survived the death of friends from AIDS and his parents from old age and tragedy and is surviving his own end time by enjoying classic films and near-anonymous sexual encounters (50,000-copy first printing). In Laskey's So Happy for You, following Center for Fiction First Novel finalist Under the Rainbow, Robin and Ellie have always been best friends, but queer academic Robin has her doubts about being maid of honor in Ellie's forthcoming wedding. In the medieval-set Lapnova, from ever-edgy, New York Times best-selling Moshfegh, hapless shepherd's son Marek--close only to a midwife feared for her ungodly way with nature--is caught up in the violence surrounding a cruel and corrupt lord. In this follow-up to Newman's multi-starred The Heavens, all The Men in the world mysteriously vanish at once, leaving women both to grieve and to rebuild. Prix Marguerite Yourcenar winner Nganang follows up hisLJ best-booked When the Plums Are Ripe with A Trail of Crab Tracks, whose protagonist slowly reveals his story--and the story of Cameroon's independence--on a prolonged stay with his son in the United States. The dedicated assistant principal at a New Jersey public high school thinks she has a lock on the principal's job when the current principal retires, but alas for the durable protagonist of Perrotta's Election, Tracy Flick [still] Can't Win (300,000-copy first printing). In Thrust, a motherless child from the late 21st century learns that she can connect with people over the last two centuries, from a French sculptor to a dictator's daughter; from Yuknavitch, a Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize finalist.

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April 25, 2022
The shadow of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables looms large over the engrossing latest from Spanish writer Cercas (Outlaws). Hugo’s classic is the favorite of ex-con Melchor Marín, who read the book while serving time for his involvement with a Colombian drug cartel and who identifies with police inspector Javert, whom he thinks of as a “false bad guy.” Now a detective in the Spanish town of Terra Alta, Melchor begins to channel some of Javert’s implacable pursuit of justice in his investigation of the murder of a printing magnate and his wife. Though the businessman had many enemies, no evidence turns up to implicate anyone for the crime, prompting his department to close the case. That rankles Melchor, in part because it reminds him of the death of his mother, a sex worker whose murder was never solved. Melchor’s dogged determination to keep investigating the case behind the backs of his superiors eventually risks danger to himself and his loved ones. While Cercas resorts to lengthy swaths of exposition to relate the characters’ back stories, the narrative is generally well paced and suspenseful, and a surprise ending firmly roots the novel in Spain’s troubled 20th-century history and brings Melchor’s Javert fixation full circle. Fans of literary detective novels ought to take a look.

Starred review from April 1, 2022
This moving story of Melchor Marin's journey from petty criminal to driven detective parallels that of his hero, Les Miserables' Inspector Javert, both in self-discovery and tragic consequences. Street brawler Melchor's passion for justice is awakened by his mother's unsolved murder. Melchor's lawyer manages to wipe his criminal record clean so that he can join the police force, and he quickly ascends the ranks. Stationed in the bucolic Catalan town of Terra Alta, Melchor builds a family, enjoying the rhythms of village life until a brutal triple murder initiates a devastating snowball effect. When elderly business scion Francisco Adell, his wife, and their Romanian housekeeper are tortured and killed, Melchor and his partner, Salom, are assigned to the task force. Melchor is convinced that the killings are a professional job, partly because of the lack of evidence that quickly shuts down the official investigation. Despite warnings from Salom and his superiors, Melchor can't stop digging, even after it exacts a devastating price from him and the entire village. Cercas, a winner of the European Book Prize, among other honors, delivers masterful storytelling here, weaving a compelling drama from themes of tragedy and resilience, the long reach of Franco-era vengeance, and Melchor's relentless quest for meaning. A winning choice for both literary- and crime-fiction book groups.

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