Books: 765

“Goodnight Tokyo”
Atsuhiro Yoshida
Europa
$18

Like many beyond the covers of “Goodnight Tokyo,” Yoshida’s characters are searching. For love, if you want to be specific, and, mirroring many readers, hiding behind something else throughout their quest. Mitsuki, for example, is known as a procurer. No, not the kind you’re thinking — a searcher for props for a film company. Its giant warehouses are bursting at the seams, yet always lack something — a particular object that she must rush to find. A midnight taxi driver ferries her about her rounds, while he himself frequents a nocturnal diner in search of a particular lady. A different lady is a stealer and distributor — of loquats. Like characters in similar books, and the classic film, “La Ronde,”people interact or pass unknowingly; some find love while others … we understand.

“Forgotten on Sunday”
Valérie Perrin
Europa
$28

What looks to be by the cover another summer romance beach read grows deeper by the page into a decades-long exploration into family secrets and lost love. The title’s “forgotten” are the aged, warehoused, however kindly, who no longer expect Sunday visitors; those who wait and remember, living in the endless past. Justine, only 21, is a nursing assistant who lives with her grandparents and her cousin Jules. Listening to her charges’ repeated stories, Justine has bonded with Hélène, nearing 100. The two exchange stories, Hélène’s of her lost love, wartime, and their summer at the beach; Justine’s of her lack of love. Life goes on until an anonymous phone call to the nursing home changes their lives. Moving, endearing, yet never, ever treacly.

“Point and Shoot: A Gay Marine’s Story III”
Brett Edward Stout
Breur Media
$29.95

Continuing the bildungsroman of ex-Marine Brad Spicer, “Point and Shoot” is less than a month from the events of Sugar Baby Bridge and Semper Civilian, leaving a ways to jump from rural Ohio to Marine to an uncertain future. Brad, avoiding personal responsibility for his lack of domicile, income, car, and driver’s license, is pleased to be asked by James, video pornographer, to assist on the Big Island for a long weekend with two straight Marine “subjects.” When even a barely verbal actor complains he never listens, Brad realizes something’s wanting, but is both angered by criticism and afraid to assume agency. Volume four is titled “Outstanding Marine: Book 0”: a backstory, offering perhaps offering a window into Brad’s mind, and further intimations of his future.

“All’s Fair in Love and Treachery”
Celeste Connally
Minotaur Books
$28

Following “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord,” Connally’s well-researched Regency-era mystery will enthrall. June 21, 1815: All London is celebrating news of Napoleon’s surrender at Waterloo, but Lady Petra Forsyth has received information that her fiancé’s death three years earlier was not mishap, but murder, at the hands of now-paramour Duncan Shawcross. Concurrently, she’s called by Queen Charlotte to investigate a death at the Asylum for Female Orphans, which may cover a group of radicals tied to certain aristocracy plotting to topple the monarchy (nothing Regency was ever simple). No matter; wealthy, single — “I’ll never marry!” — Petra summons the wit and wile to lead the beach-bound reader through a thorny summer romp, as Connolly wields her writerly skills to keep those pages turning.