Books: 767

“Please Come to Boston”
Gary Goldstein
Hadleigh House Publishing
$17.99

It’s 1975, and youngsters stream into one of the monolithic residences rising above the Charles. Nicky DeMarco, lowly (in his eyes) freshman, tall, self-assured upperclassman greeter (nametag “Joe O”) and Susan Dey lookalike Lori descend together in an elevator. No short ride in the long run, as Goldstein swings us between 1975 and “Now.” No one comes of age by the end of freshman year, and Nick has returned “Now” for his 50th reunion, ready to sort out some old, old business. He knows about his roommate Monty Rosenman, diehard Jerry Jeff Walker fan, but to learn the tangled threads spun about the three in that 1975 elevator, you’ll have to plunge in yourself; experience the consequences of the decisions they made then, and what the future may hold — “Tomorrow.”

“Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah”
Ian Buruma
Yale University Press
$26

Born in 1632 in Amsterdam to a Marrano family fleeing Portugal, Baruch Spinoza grew to be a radical freethinker, who, while rejecting an all-seeing God, embodied strong moral principles. His stance concerned Jews andChristians of his time, and Buruma couches his narrative within this tension of newly-arrived Sephardim and the current politics of the Dutch Republic. The Jewish community tiptoed around the powerful Calvinist faction, wary of troublemakers like Spinoza who perceived God as the embodiment of Nature. In 1656, Spinoza was permanently expelled from the Jewish community; even family were forbidden to communicate. Spinoza moved to Den Haag and continued to study, write, and grind optical lenses to survive. His writings, many published posthumously and in Latin to avoid censure, include “Ethics” and “Theologico-Political Treatise.”

“The Whitewashed Tombs”
An Emma Djan Investigation
Kwei Quartey
Soho Crime
$27.95

If you haven’t read Quartey, take the plunge now — in this fifth volume from the talented Ghanaian-American writer featuring PI Emma Djan. Ghana is on the verge of enacting legislation that would criminalize everyone with LGBTQ+ identities. The father of a young gay activist, who was butchered after being lured through a dating app, mistrusts the Ghana Police Service and hires Djan to sort it out. For complicated reasons, she can’t use her usual partner and goes undercover alone to penetrate the International Congress of Families, a group seeking to criminalize gays — hence the title of the book (think Jesus’s warnings of “whited sepulchers,” Matthew 23.) Another terrific mystery in this fine series; reflected in a dark mirror held to the current human rights abuses unfolding in Africa.

“May Our Joy Endure”
Kevin Lambert
Translated by Donald Winkler
Biblioasis
$16.95

Céline Wachowski, internationally-known architect on most non-Polar continents, has never — until now — been offered a commission in her home base, Montréal. Céline is wealthy. Not “I just bought a Lexus” rich, but “I’ll loan you my plane” oblivious. Her latest is the “Webuy Complex”. Lambert, whose “Querelle of Roberval” won the Marquis de Sade Prize, knows instinctively how not to pull a punch, using as epigraph John A. Macdonald’s 1864 quote, “We must protect the rights of minorities, and the rich are always fewer than the poor.” Enter The Poor. They do not want this Webuy, which they feel will destroy their existing social fabric. Lambert’s description of Webuy is itself an architectural tour-de-force, think garden folly on a cosmic scale. Many convolutions and characters­ — worth the ride.