Books: 749

Mr.Texas
Lawrence Wright
Knopf
$29

Everything’s bigger in Texas; pocketbooks and politics, heroes and skulduggerists. What could have been mere diatribe on the Mare’s Nest that is regional politics, or a fantasy where Shining Good stands tall to vanquish Grift and Greed, Wright crafted a delicious satire of Texas Big, and moral Small, revealing the seemingly vast abyss between them may be bridged over a disturbingly short span. Blank slate rancher Sonny Lamb, exalted hero after storming a burning barn to save a child, is lured by canny lobbyist L.D. into running for state legislature–as his pliable country Candide. But Sonny’s an idealist, and wife Lola wants a baby. Soon. As in every good tale, fickle fate has its own agenda, beyond virtue or vice, for all.  Razor-sharp; hilarious.

Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
Ben Goldfarb
Norton
$30

America’s expanding roadways expedite human needs,  but become death traps or hindrances to millions of animal lives. Traveling, counting, interviewing scientists, Goldfarb reveals the dangers inherent in our willful ignorance. The “What’s a few deer, too many already” view seen under the costs in human deaths, injury medical costs, raised insurance rates, is sobering, but obscures the breadth of the problem. If migrating animals can’t, their food sources and available mating choices plummet, they starve and are weakened genetically. Pacific salmon, a human food resource, die when upstream spawning routes are barred. Goldfarb’s clear, detailed explanations of specific problems and possible solutions are readable, and thoroughly researched. Workarounds practiced for years in many European countries are being introduced here. May they be in place in time.

Deliver Me
Malin Persson Giolito  tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles  
Other Books
$18.99

Giolito’s legal thriller draws the reader into darkness. Two little boys, pals since they were six, are lured into lives they neither comprehend nor control. Billy, from a struggling first-generation, loving immigrant family, and Dogge, the only child of wealthy, dysfunctional parents who barely acknowledge his existence. A highway separates their two disparate neighborhoods, but watching over it all is a wannabe crime kingpin who manipulates a legal system unable to arrest anyone under fourteen, providing the pair a pathway to crime, drugs,  seeking status as trusted runners for the Boss. Trying to work within this unworkable system is Detective Inspector Farid Ali, whose hands are tied even as one child fires fatal shots at the other. Giolito is also the author of international bestseller, Quicksand.

The Last Note of Warning
Katherine Schellman
Minotaur Books
$29

Schellman’s third Nightingale doesn’t relent. It’s 1925 Prohibitionist New York; protagonist Vivian Kelly is more financially secure; before; her sister’s married Danny Chin, head bartender at the Nightingale, the speakeasy where Viv lives her best life after working delivering goods by day for a tony dressmaker’s shop. Even that innocuous job is fraught with danger; delivering a frock, Viv discovers the client’s wealthy husband murdered in his home study. In a world unfair to the poor, Viv is detained for the crime, given a week to absolve herself, while friends Black, white, Asian, straight and gay, come to her aid. Unfairness, as much or more even than murder itself torques the tension of the tale, highlighting the importance of friendship, forgiveness and grace under pressure.