Books: 753

Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of The Modern Mind
Frank Tallis
St. Martin’s Press
$31

Tallis, a clinical psychologist is doubly qualified to undertake a portrayal of Sigmund Freud, a central figure during the years of Vienna’s Golden Age. Knowledgeable concerning Freud’s work, Tallis is also well-versed in that heady, vanishing pre-WWI Vienna through his Liebermann Papers, seven mysteries concerning a young Jewish protegé of Dr. Freud set in that same exquisitely lush–sometimes deadly­–locale. Thus doubly-equipped, Tallis’s accessible prose delivers a vibrant portrait of Freud; his unique mind in a unique but vanishing time. Neither glorifying nor vilifying his subject, Tallis describes a Freud seeking to create something akin to a “unified field” of the mind; whose “integrative thinking” makes him a “prophet” for our times, whose acknowledged personal defects are “irrelevant with respect to his intellectual legacy.”

The Lost Book of Bonn
Brianna Labuskes
William Morrow
$18.99

Frankfurt, Germany, 1946. Librarian Emmy Clarke is sent by the Library of Congress to assist the Monument Men sort and catalogue literal tons of valuable manuscripts and books looted by the Nazis. She’s unable to resist and pockets a Rilke poetry volume dedicated to “My dearest Annelise…” determining to track down its owner. Through different time segments–1937-8, 1946, and Emmy’s present, she and the reader are drawn back into the lives of Annelise and sister Christina, Eitan, who dedicated the book to his “brave Edelweiss Pirate, the brave protesting women of Rose Street during the war itself. Cruelty and courage, fidelity and betrayal, love and forgiveness are interwoven as successfully as Labuskes did in her earlier and equally compelling, The Librarian of Burned Books.

Reykjavík: A Crime Story
Ragnar Jóhannsen and Katrín Jakobsdóttir
Minotaur
$28

Based on a real-life cold case, author Jóhannsen is a noted translator of Agatha Christie and co-author Jakobsdóttir Iceland’s prime minister. In 1956, fourteen-year-old Lára, a modest and well-mannered only child, took a summer position working at a couple’s summer home on the island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. She leaves suddenly–almost rudely–and is never seen again. The search for resolution threads through several generations; one detective from the start searches in vain, then the story picks up again in 1986, during the celebrations of Reykjavík’s 200^th anniversary. Amid the celebratory crowds and a 200-meter cake, the case is pursued again by a young journalist, but the same dark forces block his path. Then…fictionally, there’s resolution. In reality–still cold.

The Other Lola 
Ripley Jones
Wednesday Books (YA)
$25

The sequel to Jones’s highly recommended Missing Clarissa introducing teen sleuths Cam and Blair. Following their near-fatal outcome then, they’ve foresworn detecting, but are now beseeched by Mattie Brosillard, a freshman at Oreville High, where they’re seniors, to find her sister. Lola, who’d whispered, “I’ll never leave you behind here when I go, Mats”–but did. Five years ago, and now returned. But, says Mattie, she’s not the real Lola and will Cam and Blair help find her? Easier, perhaps, if this Lola didn’t look exactly like the old one. If their brother and their parents didn’t accept her as the Lola. Burned by the aftermath of their podcasts during the Mellissa caper, they initially shout, “No!” but Mattie, limpet-like, pushes on to gain “Yes.”