William Christie’s A Single Spy uses a disputed story of World War II, Operation Long Jump, an alleged German plan to assassinate Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt at the 1943 Tehran Conference, around which to structure his breathless story of Russian spy Alexsi Smirnov.

Christie launches into Smirnov’s story from the time he is taken into custody by Russian officials in 1936. Alexsi is surprised to discover that not only has the state been following him since his childhood, they have a plan that doesn’t involve life in a gulag. He is to be trained as a spy and eventually sent on a deep cover operation inside of Nazi Germany.

The reader learns bits and pieces about Alexsi’s childhood, his training, and his thoughts as he goes about his mission, all the while silently wondering about the motivations, both real and imagined, of his superiors.

Christie, a former Marine Corps officer, exhibits the expected grasp of the story’s military history and procedures, managing to weave those details into the narrative without making it into a boring history lesson. Instead, he seeds the details inside each successive step in the story to give the reader a vivid sense of time and place.

Through Alexsi’s training, eventual undertaking of his mission, and his covert rise inside of the Nazi ranks, the story adroitly keeps up the intensity and thrills with timely placed action scenes. The book never seems to forget the thriller part of the equation in its quest to qualify for the historical half of things. You’ll wonder how you didn’t see the climax of the story coming, and it will leave you with a deeply felt desire to learn more about the intriguing Alexsi Smirnov.

A Single Spy puts you on the edge of your seat as you accompany its protagonist on his mission. The book is a top-notch work of historical fiction that pits one man against a world bent on tearing itself apart.

Swedish author Malin Persson Giolito’s excellent English-language debut is the story of Maria “Maja” Norberg—a pretty, popular 18-year-old who lives with her family in a wealthy suburb of Stockholm. Maja stands accused of helping her ultra-rich boyfriend, Sebastian Fagerman, plan and execute a mass shooting at Djursholm Upper Secondary School.

According to the prosecution, Maja and Sebastian wanted to exact revenge on those who had betrayed them and then take their own lives; Maja’s attorney, however, maintains that his client had no idea what Sebastian was plotting, and that everything Maja did that day was in self-defense. The book opens nine months post-massacre, on Maja’s first day in court.

Quicksand is an immersive and emotionally resonant tale that captures the complexity of adolescence and argues the idea that most tragedies are more complicated than the media coverage would suggest. Incisive social commentary complements the riveting central mystery; Persson Giolito takes advantage of her intricate plot to tackle such weighty issues as sexism, classism, the refugee crisis, and child abuse. The prose is evocative, the structure is elegant, and Rachel Willson-Broyles’ translation is flawless.

What really elevates Persson Giolito’s work, though, are her beautifully crafted characters—Maja, in particular. While the reader remains in the dark for most of the book as to Maja’s role in the attack, it’s impossible to avoid becoming invested in the young woman’s fate. Her observations—about journalism, justice, and life in general—are trenchant, her narrative voice is engaging, and her emotions ring true. Despite her snarky, stoic front, it gradually becomes clear that at her core, she’s just a scared child who’s struggling to process all that has happened. Regardless of whether or not she’s guilty, that realization is devastating.

The sixth book in the Detective Sean Duffy series may come with a rather unwieldy title, but the story itself is another fascinating look into a bygone era of policing. Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1988 is essentially a war zone. Divided between Catholics and Protestants with the IRA blowing stuff up all over the place, the city and the entire country is some- where most people would want to be far away from. So, you can imagine what it must be like to be a cop at the time. Particularly a Catholic one who has to check for bombs every time he goes to drive his car.

Sean Duffy is a man who is a wreck both personally and professionally. His career is going nowhere, and he’s not solving any cases because of the internecine politics being waged inside the Royal Ulster Constabulary on the basis of religious and interdepartmental skullduggery. If that isn’t enough, he drinks too much, smokes too much, and has a Protestant girlfriend (the mother of his child) who is hounding him to move away from all the danger.

When Duffy is called to the murder scene of a low-level drug dealer, his investigation soon leads him to suspect there is something larger going on. When a key witness in the murder disappears without a trace, instead of heeding the demands of his superiors to drop the case, Duffy is only more determined to solve it. But his stubbornness leads to grave danger for him and his family.

Adrian McKinty’s delineation of Duffy as one of the smartest people in whatever room he enters, even to the character’s detriment, is a nice touch. But the author smartly doesn’t make it something that alienates the reader (despite an unnecessary potshot at the music group U2). The supporting characters are strongly cast, whether they be friend or foe. In particular, Duffy’s two fellow detectives strike the interest enough that you could see them as characters headlining their own series of novels. McKinty’s hilarious use of language, particularly when insults are being hurled at one of Duffy’s higher ranking officers, can make you laugh out loud.

Whether your first exposure to Detective Sean Duffy or just the latest in your reading of the series, McKinty’s undeniable love of the character and keen grasp of the time and place his story occupies shines through and makes this another winning entry in the series.

Stacey Bishop was the pseudonym of George Antheil, an avant-garde composer known for his eccentric work, including the infamous Ballet Mécanique, which required a variety of mechanical engines for its performance. Death in the Dark, originally published in 1930, is an excellent Golden Age mystery set in the New York entertainment world that Antheil knew well.

Theatrical manager Dave Denny is killed at the beginning of the novel, in the first of three impossible crimes. Denny has been shot precisely in the center of his forehead in a pitch-black room during a party, with his wife, mother, and other acquaintances on the scene.

New York Public Prosecutor Howard Wayson is friends with the Denny family and also on the scene during the murder, but much like District Attorney Markham calling in Philo Vance in an S.S. Van Dine novel, he’s dismayingly incompetent, and so requests the help of his friend Stephan Bayard to sort out the confusion. In fact the parallels between this book and those of Van Dine (Willard Huntington Wright) are striking. Bayard is a cultural intellectual who frequently comments on art and music, the action takes place largely in the Denny’s stylish New York apartment during the 1920s, and the book is narrated by Bayard’s companion and purported author, George Stacey Bishop, who is almost as invisible as was Van Dine in the 12 Philo Vance novels. Bayard, however, is in no way annoying, as Vance could sometimes be, and neatly unravels this brain buster of a case.

There are parallels between the real lives of Antheil and Wright as well. Wright solicited and published the work of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound in The Smart Set magazine, and Eliot and Pound helped Antheil write Death in the Dark! Antheil’s life and the story behind the book are almost as complex as the plot. Dr. Mauro Piccinini, an Antheil expert, provides details, including Antheil’s work with actress Hedy Lamarr to design the spread spectrum technology used in all cell phones today, in a lengthy afterword.

Imagine having a perfect memory—never forgetting anything that happens in your life. While it may at first seem like it might be a blessing, Marcel Després, otherwise known as Mister Memory, proves just how painful it can be. Along with the good, you remember the bad—in the case of Després, the fact that he murdered his wife. More difficult than that, however, is that with so many items in your head, your brain gets bogged down in details, or as Sedgwick puts it, “lost in cul-de-sacs of false logic.”

This “ability” and the death of his wife, Ondine, land Després at Salpêtrière Asylum in Paris, where Dr. Lucien Morel tries to get the near-catatonic sideshow performer to remember what happened. He is joined in his quest by Inspector Laurent Petit, a young detective who, while not sure of Després’ innocence, knows that something isn’t right about the way that police higher-ups are pushing for the case to be closed.

Everyone has an agenda in this story, and the real victim is Després, who is either being framed or who committed a murder but can’t untangle his thoughts in a way that unravels the mystery. Just like the doctor and the detective, the reader must be patient—many pages go by before Després gives up a clue. The tension in the story comes from wanting the truth to be discovered before his time runs out; the guilty parties having decided that his death is preferable to the chance that he could someday understand what he saw.

Similar to Sedgwick’s first novel for adults, A Love Like Blood, the author rarely uses two words when 20 will do. In this case, the style meshes perfectly with the plot; the reader needs to travel down all of the tangents of Després’ mind to truly understand what this condition must be like. This is a memorable book for many reasons; including an ending that Després and his prodigious mind deserve.

Sasscer Hill’s series debut Flamingo Road follows Fia McKee, a Baltimore cop with a quick tongue and endless determination. As the story opens, Fia is put on leave while an incident involving her fatal use of force is being investigated. With time on her hands, Fia agrees to travel to Florida to help out her brother Patrick when he reveals that his 15-year-old daughter, Jilly, is coping badly after her mother’s abandonment. Fia has barely settled in, though, when a local gang butchers Jilly’s favorite horse and her niece goes missing. Looking into her niece’s disappearance, Fia finds herself undercover investigating the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TRPB) at a track in Florida, where racetrack workers are rumored to be illegally drugging their horses to run harder and win big.

In Flamingo Road, Hill proves that she can not only write a great mystery, she can also create a great character: Fia is a spirited young woman with a snarky attitude, and it is great fun to see her interact with her brother, Zanin, Jilly, and a whole cast of suspects and criminals. Fia is also a master of disguise, dressing and acting like a completely different person to get into the villains’ good graces while hiding her true intentions. The story is told in the first-person from Fia’s perspective, and serious happenings are balanced by comedy and banter.

Hill also offers detailed glimpses of Florida, including Gulfstream Park, where the horse races take place, and C-9 Basin, a wilderness known to harbor criminals and their deadly activities. As Fia and her loved ones become more deeply involved in the illegal goings-on at the track and the criminal gangs connected to it, it gets harder and harder to tell who is really on their side. A subplot also ties in the cold case of Fia’s father’s murder and the effects it still has on her and her family.

For fans of female sleuths, Flamingo Road is an entertaining novel, marking the welcome arrival of Fia McKee.

In the eighth Sir Robert Carey mystery, the newly appointed deputy warden finds himself on the Scottish border, where blood feuds are imbibed with mother’s milk. Warned by the King of Spain of a possible plot against England and Queen Elizabeth I, Carey travels to the Scottish court of King James VI at Edinburgh to investigate, joined by Simon Anricks, a tooth-drawer, philosopher, and spy. Anricks is preparing to debate mathematician John Napier at court over the Copernican versus the Ptolemaic conceptions of the movement of the spheres. King James will declare the winner at a grand masque for the New Year, where costumed lords and ladies will portray the planets in a dance.

The mystery builds slowly and the author paints a splendid portrait of Elizabethan society at all levels, filled with homey details and colorful characters, as the narrative shifts among several intriguing characters—not only Carey, but also his henchman Henry Dodd, Dodd’s wife Janet, the former mining engineer Jonathan Hepburn, his paramour Marguerite (lady in waiting to the Queen of Scotland), Marguerite’s jealous, elderly husband, Sir David Graham, the Jesuit Father Crichton, Carey’s servant Hughie Tyndale, and even Dodd’s beloved horse, Whitesock.

Carey’s outward persona as the quintessential courtier, more interested in the latest court fashions than in the arts of war, provides cover for an adept sleuth with a steely will, while multiple intersecting feuds, plots, and jealousies keep the reader guessing until the final pages. The end is satisfying, but leaves open the possibility of future installments. There’s also a helpful glossary to explain historical terms such as cramoisie (a dark purplish red) and morion (a type of helmet).