2025 Book Review Roundup

Apologies that I didn’t finish this compilation in time for your holiday gift giving! But as promised, here is a comprehensive guide to everything I read (or almost everything) in 2025. This year I surprised myself as there are more than 50 books on the list. Even so, I deleted about five from the final roundup. Even though Audible says I bought them and listened to them, for the life of me I can’t remember a thing about them, so I have no opinions to offer.

If there is an asterisk* next to the title, the link first takes you to my full review posted under the Book Reviews tab; otherwise it will take you to Amazon. (Full disclosure: these are affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission if you buy from one of these links, at no additional cost to you.)

If you agree or disagree with any of these assessments, drop a comment at the end! Let’s discuss books!

Nonfiction

Subcategory: Memoir

1. Anonymous Male: A Life Among Spies, by Christopher Whitcomb, 2025. A disturbing tale about a former FBI agent and spy who suddenly dropped off the face of the earth, abandoning his work, family, friends—his whole life, and disappearing into East Timor for 15 years. He accumulated a private army and performed contracts for foreign governments. Eventually hitting rock bottom, he slowly recovers and finds his way back home. I found some of the book difficult to follow and was amazed that his wife and children took him back after such a wholesale abandonment. It’s a frightening account of the degree of shattering that can take place when your government trains you to lead a double life and then cuts you loose.
2. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, by Sarah Wynn-Williams, 2025. It’s everything you ever suspected was true about Facebook, only worse. Wynn-Williams was in the inner circle, traveling on the corporate jet along with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. We learn of Facebook’s public promise to protect personal data (yet behind the scenes they exploit it, even after the Cambridge Analytica scandal), of their relentless push to gain entry into foreign countries like China, of their influence in Trump’s first election, of their involvement in the Myanmar genocide against the minority Rohingya ethnic group, of their misogynistic work culture. Meta tried to get the publication of this book shut down, but it only had the effect of catapulting it to the bestseller list.
3. Hiding for My Life: Being Gay in the Navy*, by Karen Solt, 2025. I heard this author speak to my memoir group, and her story was so riveting that I had to read her book. Solt never realized she was gay until after she was enlisted in the Navy, and then she was caught between two impossible worlds: one where she finally felt at home amongst her people, but one where admitting who she was was a crime. She had to choose between leaving the Navy she loved, or staying and remaining under cover. She chose to stay for more than 20 years. When she finally is forced to admit to a superior officer that she is a lesbian, the consequences are tragic. I’m not gay and I’ve never served in the military, but I still felt compelled to read how she navigated this difficult world. You won’t be able to put this book down.
4. Letters to My Soul Dog: Loving and Raising Your Soul Dog, Allowing Him to Rest, and Almost Everything You Feel After, by Shalini Israni, 2025. A poignant and thoughtful book about grieving the loss of her black Lab Kahlua, who she’d raised from a puppy to 13 years old. This book is a must-read for anyone who has suffered the loss of a beloved pet, or is watching their elderly pet slowly lose vitality.
5. Mother Mary Comes to Me*, by Arundhati Roy, 2025. An astounding memoir about the author’s relationship with her difficult mother and her sudden rise to fame and wealth as a Booker Prize winner in 1997. The book is both humorous and poignant and was one of my favorite books of 2025.
6. Safe Passage: The Remarkable True Story of Two Sisters Who Rescued Jews from the Nazis, by Ida Cook, first published in 1950; re-released in 2008. A rare book I read in paperback. In the early 1920s, two ordinary British sisters became enamored with the opera, and saved every penny so that they could attend operatic performances throughout England, Europe, and even the US. They befriended the famous opera stars reigning at the time. When WWII broke out and Jewish singers’, colleagues’, and family members’ lives were threatened, they used their personal savings, resources, and ingenuity to save countless lives. An incredible story.
7. The Möbius Book, by Catherine Lacey, 2025. Named “the most anticipated book of 2025 by The New York Times” and others, I had to see what all the fuss was about. So, Lacey has gone through a traumatic marital breakup, something about a million other people have experienced. She writes a book that is one-half memoir and one-half novel, both parts completely unrelated to each other. To emphasize this point, in hard copy the book parts are printed upside down to each other, so that you have to flip it over to read the other part. This gimmick didn’t work so well in the audio version. Neither part of the book is memorable or worth publishing—both are fragmented, incomplete stories—yet this girl gets advance praise and a book deal out of it. The whole thing just irritated me. Never again for this author.
8. The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn, 2019. The author learns that her husband Moth is diagnosed with an incurable illness, and soon thereafter they lose their home, their farm, and their livelihood. Homeless and given no hope from doctors, they decide to walk. And walk. For 630 miles, from Somerset to Dorset, England, with nothing left to lose, they walk. And her husband’s health slowly and miraculously recovers, as long as they keep moving. It’s an amazing story of extreme hardship, resilience, and hope.
9. The Wild Silence, by Raynor Winn, 2021. This book takes up where The Salt Path leaves off, after Raynor and Moth return from their trek on England’s southwest coastline. They try to return to a life of four walls and jobs, but normality proves difficult, and Moth’s symptoms return. Then a stranger who has read their story makes an incredible offer: restoring his farmhouse in Cornwall and rewilding the land back to nature, something tailor-made for this couple’s skills and sensibilities. The book isn’t quite as compelling as the first memoir, but still a good follow-up to their story.

Subcategory: History

1. The Bernards of Louisiana: An Acadian Family History*, by Ryan U. Bernard, 2025. Bernard, a writing colleague of mine, retraces an astounding history of his direct ancestors who were homesteading on the eastern Canadian seaboard, and were summarily rounded up and forcibly deported by the British to the southern state of Louisiana. He recounts how his ancestral family was involved not only in the Louisiana Purchase but the American Revolution. An impressive piece of research and a story well told.
2. Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor*, by Christine Kuehn, 2025. The author discovers, through a tip from a journalist, that her German grandparents were the key spies who supplied the Japanese with the critical intel leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She takes the reader through her own jaw-dropping journey as she slowly peels back layers laid down by her father, who wanted to hide the truth from her. Astounding book.
3. None Left to Tell, by Noelle West Ihli, 2024. True story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre that took place against the Mormon community in 1857. A harrowing and brutal account of religious intolerance in the US, and one that has been largely untold before this book.

Subcategory: True Crime

1. Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime, by Sarah Weinman, 2025. In 1978, Greta Rideout was the first woman in the US to accuse her husband of rape. The sensational trial took place in Oregon and her husband John was eventually acquitted, yet she was publicly shamed for years afterward. Was it even possible to rape one’s wife? Wasn’t having sex an inalienable right when you were married? Oregon was one of the first states to make spousal rape a crime in the US, but it would take until 1993 before this battle was won in all 50 states. The author outlines how these women’s rights were slowly won, case by case and state by state: no means no, even in marriage. But Greta’s legal battle was the first, and she often circles back to these main players and the significant role they played in shaping our current laws.

   As a side note, Greta’s lawsuit occurred in 1978 and the author states that it was a “sensational trial that riveted the nation.” I was in college at the time and getting married that year, and even though I’m an avid newspaper reader, I do not recall this landmark news item. I wish now I’d been paying attention.

Fiction

Subcategory: Crime/Police Procedural

1. Girls Like Us, by Cristina Alger, 2019. Police procedurals and crime novels are what I call my “road trip” audiobooks—when I’ve got many hours or days in front of me in the car and I need an easy consumable to listen to—no complex plot or deep thought involved. That’s when I line up some police procedurals (see number 5 below, also). This book fills that bill. An FBI agent, Nell Flynn, has been estranged from her father for at least 10 years. He’s been a homicide detective on Long Island and passes away suddenly. When she returns home to deal with his ashes and clear his estate, she gets involved in the investigation of the murders of two young women. The deeper she digs, the more she suspects that her father might have been involved in their deaths (as well as her own mother’s murder when she was seven).
2. Locked In: A Department Q Novel, by Jussi Adler-Olsen, 2024. I believe I’ve read every single Department Q novel from this author. I’ve followed the evolution of all his beloved characters: Carl Mørck, the feisty Rose, the lovable Assad, the hapless Gordon, the broken Hardy (which is why I’m so disappointed by the Netflix series, which bears no resemblance to these books whatsoever.) But I digress. In this book, which we are told is the final in the series, Detective Mørck is handcuffed and on his way to prison, being framed for a case he thought was buried in his past. His Dept. Q colleagues must race to clear his name and save his life, as his department in Copenhagen has abandoned him. Great stuff, and the author brings the story full circle in the end.
3. Nightshade, by Michael Connelly, 2025. With this book, the author introduces a new character to his lineup: Detective Stilwell, a guy kicked off the homicide desk at the Los Angeles Police Department and exiled to Catalina Island. Here, while working the drunks and break-ins, a woman’s body (why is it always a woman?) is found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor, identified only by a purple streak in her hair; hence, the nickname of “Nightshade.” A second case of possible poaching at a nearby nature reserve has him working double duty. There is plenty of ego head-butting, atmospheric writing, and tension to make this an enjoyable read. It will remain to be seen whether the Stilwell character becomes as well-developed and well-loved as Harry Bosch was—I devoured every one of those books.
4. Presumed Guilty*, by Scott Turow, 2025. A legal thriller that is the sequel to Turow’s Presumed Innocent and is a rare case of the sequel being as good or better than the original. Turow used the real-life disappearance and then murder of Gabby Petito, in 2021, as the jumping-off point for this book. It’s riveting from beginning to end.
5. The Side Hustle, The Long Cold Winter, and The Blind Trust, by Colin Conway, 2019. These police procedurals are by a Spokane author I discovered after moving here. They are the first three of 19 in a series by this incredibly prolific writer, called his 509 Crime Stories. He has more than 30 police procedural, private detective, amateur sleuth, thriller, and cozy mystery novels in his catalog (see www.colinconway.com). All have to do with some level of crime/murder solving in eastern Washington, some more grisly than others. Being a former Spokane police officer, he has inside knowledge of how the police force works, corruption in law enforcement, and intimate knowledge of the city. All these elements come together for some fascinating reads with great local color.
6. The Troubled Man, by Henning Mankell, 2011. Like Jussi Adler-Olsen, Henning Mankell is another Scandinavian author I’ve loved and read almost everything he’s written. What is it about those frozen landscapes? Mankell is the author of the fantastic Kurt Wallander detective series set in Sweden. This book is the end of the road for Kurt Wallander, and we are all mourning it. All good things must end. Kurt’s in his 60s now and is having some memory issues. His daughter Linda is pregnant with her first child. One day her father-in-law goes missing, and officially it’s another detective’s responsibility to solve the case, but that doesn’t stop Kurt from interfering. As he digs himself in where he doesn’t belong, he grapples with unavoidable personal issues. It’s an excellent but sad wrap-up to an outstanding series. Another book I read from deep in his catalog (2007) this year, Kennedy’s Brain, exposes the deep inequities at the heart of the AIDS epidemic, enabling the few and powerful to profit at the expense of millions of poor in Africa.

Subcategory: Spies/Espionage

1. A Death in Cornwall, by Daniel Silva, 2024. Number 24 of Silva’s Gabriel Allon series, a retired Israeli spy turned art restorer. Except the criminal element won’t let him retire. Charlotte Blake, an art historian in Cornwall who is researching a stolen Picasso comes up dead, and they ask Allon for his help in solving her murder.
2. An Inside Job: A Gabriel Allon Spy Thriller of Leonardo da Vinci and Vatican Corruption, by Daniel Silva, 2025. Silva’s main character, Gabriel Allon, no longer spends his days as a successful Mossad spy. He’s now a full-time and in-demand art restorer under the direction of his wife Chiara. His current project is interrupted by a dead woman floating in the lagoon in Venice and the disappearance of a suspected original da Vinci painting from the Vatican museum. It’s soon discovered that these two events are probably connected, and Allon is hired to find the painting. He also soon realizes that the painting couldn’t have disappeared without help from the inside; hence, the “inside job.” Silva’s books have become formulaic for me and I’m probably done, after 25 of them.
3. The Spy from Beijing: An Espionage Thriller*, by Joan M Kop, 2025. Jenny, a Chinese-American FBI agent, discovers a Chinese double agent is coming to infiltrate the Seattle area. In a delicious subplot, Jenny also discovers through DNA testing that she is the double agent’s biological twin. Torn between loyalty to country and family, Jenny navigates these uncharted waters in this intriguing novel.

Subcategory: Biographical Fiction

1. Burma Sahib, by Paul Theroux, 2024. A fictionalized account of the transformation of a young British policeman in Burma named Eric Blair into the controversial but beloved writer we know today as George Orwell. This is based on the known facts of Blair/Orwell’s life and his eventual disillusionment as a colonial officer, and was a fascinating read.
2. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, by Marie Benedict, 2020. The author speculates as to where the famous British author Agatha Christie disappeared to for 11 days in December 1926. When she resurfaced, she claimed amnesia and never divulged her whereabouts. At the time of her disappearance, her marriage to her first husband was in trouble and he was revealed to be a philanderer. She divorced him shortly thereafter. I’ve liked every book I’ve read by Ms. Benedict and this one is no exception—she takes the known facts of Mrs. Christie’s life and weaves a plausible tale around her mysterious disappearance. It’s an enjoyable book.
3. The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict, 2021. The story of the personal librarian to JP Morgan, Bella da Costa Greene, who kept the fact that she was Black a secret from her employer for all her years of employment. They shared an unusually close and sympatico relationship, with him eventually entrusting all his negotiations and acquisitions of fine art and books to her. She manages to keep up her charade because of her extremely light-colored complexion (which is explained in the book), and her estrangement from her Black father. The whole time reading the book, you are waiting for the house of cards to fall—the author does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat. A ton of research and great story telling here.
4. The Secret Life of Sunflowers*, by Marta Molnar, 2023. I have mixed feelings about this book. The author alternates chapters between historical Vincent Van Gogh, his brother Theo, and sister-in-law Johanna, and a modern-day counterpart of a failing businesswoman named Emsley. I found this modern storyline so disorienting and distracting, and having such a tenuous connection to the Van Gogh storyline, that out of frustration I skipped ahead chapters and read all the Van Gogh chapters first. When I went back to read the modern-day counterpart, it felt like cheap filler and added nothing to the book. An overall disappointment.

Subcategory: Literary Fiction

1. Audition, by Katie Kitamura, 2025. A book that was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, and I’m not the only one who is baffled as to why. Two halves of a story are presented, and they both contradict each other. The reader is left to wonder which is true or how to put the halves together—no help from the author. This one is a head-scratcher.
2. Flashlight*, by Susan Choi, 2025. The one I wished would have won the 2025 Booker Prize. See my full review at the link. An amazing story of a complex family extended across America, Korea, and Japan that will have you guessing right until the end.
3. Flesh, by David Szalay, 2025. Winner of the 2025 Booker Prize. An unlikeable book about a thoroughly unlikeable character who, starting at about age 16, has affairs with married women and continues on this trajectory for the rest of his life. The dialogue never gets more complicated than, “Are you okay?” “Yeah, I’m okay,” and “I don’t know.” It’s a typical tale where the critics loved this book and most of the readers hated it.
4. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai, 2025. Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. Two young people are introduced in India; their paths diverge to America and back, before finding their way to each other again. I admit I could not finish this book. I got to about hour 11 of a 25-hour audiobook and when I was presented with yet a dozen more new characters, I had no idea who they were or what was going on. I rarely do not finish a book. But I had totally lost interest in these two star-crossed lovers or if/when they ever got together. The author took too long to make his point for me.
5. Table for Two: Fictions, by Amor Towles, 2024. A collection of delightful short stories by the author of A Gentleman in Moscow. If you’re in the mood for some light reading, this book is a great choice. Six stories based in New York City and one in Old Hollywood. If you’re a short story writer, this book is a master class on how it’s done.
6. The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, 2025. A delightful concept for a book, one that I’ve had the same idea myself for many times, but did not know how to pull it off: a book written entirely in letter form. I had to read this book to see if it worked, and I’m so pleased to report that it does. The concept hangs together from beginning to end, whether she’s writing to her best friend, to the president of a university (trying to get something she wants but is being refused), or her brother. The progression of her life plays out like a memoir, only in letter form, and I marveled at how the author adeptly manipulated this writing style. A story is well told here in a unique style and is an enjoyable experience for readers; I highly recommend it.
7. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, by Robert Dugoni, 2018. I learned something from this book—I didn’t know this condition existed. A boy is born with ocular albinism, or red pupils. As school children will do, they tease him mercilessly, calling him Devil Boy or Sam “Hell.” He is isolated in school until an African American child named Ernie moves into town and becomes his desperately needed friend, as well as Mickie, an unconventional and rebellious girl. The three become inseparable. Sam becomes an eye doctor as an adult (of course) and hides his condition with brown contact lenses. It wasn’t until a period of volunteering as a doctor in Costa Rica, when he meets a young child with the same rare eye condition, that he is confronted with feeling like a fraud for hiding his condition. He then faces difficult choices about being true to himself and the world. I enjoyed this book a lot.
8. The People in the Trees, by Hanya Yanagihara, 2013. A work of fiction but one that is a profound indictment of today’s industries, especially the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. A. Norton Perina travels with a team of anthropologists to a small Micronesian island to study a group of forest dwellers, where it is discovered that they outlive all other humans by 5 to 6 times longer than normal human life spans. These scientists discover that the secret is the consumption of a certain indigenous turtle that lives only on this island. Perina returns home to his university with some turtle meat and four of the islander’s children, conducts more research, and against the advice of his colleagues, he publishes his findings and eventually wins a Nobel prize. The attention this brings to the tribe of forest dwellers brings incalculable damage, as scores of pharmaceutical companies descend on the island in search of this turtle and massive profits. In his semi-annual trips back to the island, Perina adopts more young children and brings them back to the US to be raised, gradually increasing his family to more than 40. He is eventually charged with rape by one of the boys, thus destroying his career and everything he has worked for. It’s a complicated, cautionary tale of greed and power inflicted upon a poor society and one that reads as entirely plausible in today’s world. Yanagihara is also the author of A Little Life, published to great acclaim in 2015.
9. Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi, 2025. A feel-good novel about an old man who moves into a town, buys portraits off a restaurant wall and gives them, one by one, back to the local townspeople who are their subjects. During each “bestowal” he learns each person’s story and gets deeper and deeper involved in the lives of the residents. This book has all the makings of a Hallmark movie; it was a little too sweet and unbelievable for me, but some people might like it.
10. Truths and Lies, Elena S. Smith, 2023. A divorced woman has sworn off men forever…yet she finds herself getting talked into setting up a profile on a dating app. When she recognizes a guy on the app as the same one she spilled a beer on at a Seattle Seahawks game months earlier, on a dare from her friend she sends him a message. To her surprise, he answers—and they’re off. It’s not all love and romance, as these people in their 60s bring plenty of baggage into a relationship. Will the relationship survive? You’ll have to read it to find out.
11. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt, 2022. I didn’t really have a place for this one in my list, as on Amazon it’s categorized as “Animal Fiction” or “Cozy Animal Mysteries.” Hmmm. Not sure why I read it, other than to see what all the noise was about (you have to give me points for curiosity). The author casts a wide net, introducing a wide set of characters that makes you wonder how they contribute to the story; yet it all comes together in the end. Tova the cleaning lady and Marcellus the wise octopus take center stage, but the surrounding characters are richly rounded out. For a debut novel I was very impressed.

Subcategory: Historical Fiction

1. Clear, by Carys Davies, 2024. Written about the period in the 19^th century during the Scottish Clearances when the poor were driven off their lands, a minister accepts the job of evicting the last remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland. While attempting to find Ivar, the minister slips and falls down a cliff. Ivar finds him unconscious and badly injured; he takes him home and tends to his injuries. This kindness, and the bond that forms between them, changes everything.
2. The German Wife, by Kelly Rimmer, 2022. The author puts the reader in an interesting moral dilemma with this one. A gifted German scientist Juergen is forgiven of his war crimes 20 years after WWII, and he and his wife Sofie are brought to the US to work on the space program. Sophie hopes this will be the beginning of a fresh start for them. But while the welcome mat has been laid out for them by our government, the people are a different story. Lizzie is a US wife touched by the war in a very different way, and her attitude toward Germans has not softened. Both of their husbands are at work in the same space program, but the book tells the story from the perspective of the women. It’s a compelling approach and it forces the reader to ask ourselves what we would have done in the same situation.
3. The Human Stain, by Philip Roth, 2000. I’m probably the last person in America to read this. Published immediately after President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and subsequent impeachment, Roth writes a scathing indictment of America’s prudish reaction to this whole scandal. The book includes a parallel scandal with a college dean over career-ending remarks interpreted as racist to illustrate his point. The audio version of this book is outstanding.
4. The Rose Code: An Intriguing Novel of Love, Loyalty, and Secrets Among Female Codebreakers During WWII, by Kate Quinn, 2021. Three female code breakers inside Britain’s Bletchley Park bond over the shared goal of breaking the German military codes. This story, intertwined with the love triangle of one of them dating Prince Phillip while he is simultaneously falling for Princess Elizabeth, and the subsequent royal wedding, makes for a fun intrigue. I’ve read many exciting real-life accounts of Bletchley Park and the breaking of the Enigma codes, but most are from the male point of view. Rarely do we hear about the contributions the women made, although we know they were there. For that reason alone this book offered a refreshing perspective.

Subcategory: Mystery/Thriller

1. Beautiful Ugly, by Alice Feeney, 2025. A writer is talking to his wife on the phone while she is driving along a country road. She claims she sees something in the road, slams on the brakes, and then the phone goes dead. He never sees her again. He moves to a cabin his agent owns in Scotland, on a deserted island where strange things start to happen. A year later, he swears he spots his wife again, alive in the town.
2. Death Takes Me, by Cristina Rivera Garza, 2025. From the Pulitzer-prize winning author of Liliana’s Invincible Summer. This one was a difficult follow-up to the previous smashing success. A man is discovered murdered and castrated, with a line of poetry beside his body. A professor discovers the body and reports it to the police. Then, three more male bodies are discovered, murdered in the same fashion with the poetry beside them. The professor and a detective team up to solve the murders. This is where the book goes wheels-off for me—diving into esoteric, stream-of-consciousness writing so that half the time, I couldn’t follow what was going on. Possibly because I was listening to the audio version, it was harder to back up and rewind to a precise point, so I kept getting confused. I’m not fond of poetry so that was also a problem for me. (I should mention, it was also translated from Spanish.) If someone reads this book and has better luck with it, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
3. House on Fire, by Bonnie Kistler, 2019. Leigh and Peter have a blended family—she with her 14-year-old daughter Chrissy and Peter with his 18-year-old son Kip. They are extremely happy with how they’ve managed to build a life together. Until the night they are celebrating their anniversary, and the kids are out at a high school party. On the way home from the party, Kip, driving under the influence, crashes his truck and Chrissy is with him. Twelve hours later, she dies in the hospital and Kip is charged with manslaughter. Then, Kip changes his story and says Chrissy was the one driving. If the death of a child isn’t enough to strain the bonds of a second marriage, now the remaining child appears to be lying. It’s a great setup for a great mystery.
4. Nothing More Dangerous, by Allen Eskens. 2019. A coming-of-age story of a young white boy named Boady growing up in Jessup, Missouri, set in the 1970s. A Black woman who is the accountant for a plastics factory in town has disappeared, and along with her disappearance, a hundred thousand dollars of the company money. She is eventually found murdered and the money has vanished. Another Black family has moved into town to take over the company and try to investigate the crime and the money. Boady befriends the teenage son of this new family, named Thomas. As this drama plays out, Boady grapples with the deep racial divide in the town. His own loyalties are divided between staying with his mother and a desperate desire to escape and make a new life for himself. Another great legal thriller from this author is The Stolen Hours, published in 2021.
5. The 4^th Cohort: Finding Dark in the Light*, by Kevin Hostbjor, 2025. Set in the late 1980s, a privately funded, secret underwater submarine facility has hired highly trained, highly paid crews to test cruise missiles as new technologies come on the market. One of the tests turns tragic as a wayward fishing vessel finds itself accidentally in the path of one of the test missiles. This sets off a chain of events and the crews realize there may be more to the tests than they were told. The author is a former career Navy submariner and his familiarity with the subject matter is well on display in this book.
6. The Eye of the Leopard, by Henning Mankell, 2011. This book is a bit of a departure from most Mankell novels. It is set mainly in Zambia, Africa, where a young Swede emigrates to escape a traumatic childhood. He lives in Zambia as a wealthy white man among poor native Blacks, and the book alternates between chapters in Zambia and chapters in Sweden that recall his youth. The study in contrasts is startling and vivid.