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Review

A Blizzard of Polar Bears

by Brian Kenney

Alex Carter is just winding down a research project in Montana—she’s a wildlife biologist—when a fellow scientist calls to see if she would like to lead a study of polar bears. Within weeks she’s at a scientific research center in Churchill, Manitoba, polar bear capital of the world. Accompanied by a research assistant and a pilot, Carter flies over the frozen terrain of Hudson Bay in a helicopter, seeking bears. When she locates one, she shoots it with a tranquilizer from the helicopter then descends to quickly tag it and take samples. Henderson does a terrific job in describing life in Churchill, especially the effort to survive in such a hostile environment, but even more compelling is the information about the polar bears, struggling to live despite climate change, loss of prey, and increased exposure to toxins. Slowly Alex’s study is undermined—someone breaks into the lab and steals her samples, her supplies are tampered with, her pilot disappears—until on one mission the plane itself sets on fire, leaving Alex and her team stranded on the ice, miles from anywhere. Henderson manages to marry both suspense and mystery in this book, featuring a classic, suspense-driven fight-and-flight with several overarching mysteries. It’s even better than the excellent first book in the series, A Solitude of Wolverines. Fans of Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon novels may well enjoy this.

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Review

A Valiant Deceit

by Henrietta Thornton

There’s no shortage of WWII novels, but this second in a duology is happily in the less-crowded subgenre of the women behind the scenes. It stars Olive Bright, a kind, loyal, and sometimes-brash young woman who keeps even family in the dark about her work. Pre-war, she inherited her father’s loft of racing pigeons, and now lends them to the war effort as carriers. They’re brought from England to mainland Europe by government agents, then fly home bearing maps and letters that Olive and her gruff supervisor, the dashingly named Jameson Aldridge, hope will help beat the Nazis. Olive’s avian work isn’t the only deceit here; as cover for her job at the Bletchley Park-like Brickendonbury Manor, she and Jamie pretend to be in a relationship, but she hopes for more between them (as will readers). The mystery here concerns a body found in nearby woods, but the worldbuilding, characters, and details of espionage-assisting pigeons make the tale. Graves’s afterword discusses the real Operation Columba, which saw the allies drop thousands of pigeons from Denmark to France from 1941 to ‘44. Readers can go back to the first book in the series, Olive Bright, Pigeoneer; also try Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code, which features women codebreakers at Bletchley Park

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Review

Girl in Ice

by Brian Kenney

Val Chesterfield, a scholar of ancient Nordic languages, lives a sheltered life. Suffering from depression and anxiety, she relies on medicine, and the occasional drink, to get through the day. The apparent suicide of her twin brother, Andy, a climate scientist conducting research on an island off the coast of Greenland, leaves her bereft and suspicious. But then Wyatt, one of her brother’s research colleagues, calls with the unbelievable news that they have discovered a girl frozen in ice, likely for hundreds of years, who has thawed out and is now alive. Would Val come to Greenland and try to communicate with her? Despite her phobias, Val agrees, as much to learn about Andy’s death as to meet the girl. Sigrid, as the girl comes to be called, is a medical anomaly; humans can’t survive being frozen. Typically, this is the point when I would put the book down and walk away. But Ferencik does such a stellar job of selling us on Sigrid, creating a relationship between the girl and Val, and depicting the growth of language between the two that I read on, riveted. All is not well on their little island, it turns out. Wyatt acts more like a cult leader than a scientist, two other researchers meet unanticipated challenges, and Val realizes that Sigrid is sick, possibly dying—and it’s up to Val to figure out how to save her. Ruth Ware fans will appreciate both the tension and the claustrophobia.—Brian Kenney

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Review

Her Perfect Life

by Henrietta Thornton

Lily Atwood has the titular perfect life. She’s an Emmy-winning journalist, the kind who wants to be hard-hitting but mostly presents human-interest stories from the comfort of a studio. Every evening, Lily gets to return to her designer Boston home to spend time with her daughter, Rowen, the center of her single-mom existence. Some of Lily’s stories, the juicer ones, are fed to the journalist and her behind-the-scenes right-hand, Greer, by a man calling himself Mr. Smith. They’re sure it’s a pseudonym, but are content to idly wonder about Smith’s identity and motives as long as the tips keep coming. Then he starts getting sinister—at least, Lily thinks it’s Smith who’s behind anonymous flower deliveries to her home, though she’s never given him her address. He also seems overly familiar with events at her daughter’s school. Lily is afraid that he may reveal private details that could finish her career, but she soon has far more to fear. An author’s note reveals that Ryan wrote this during COVID, and the feeling of being trapped and at the same time wanting to hide away permeates the novel. The surprises keep coming, and the tightly woven storytelling closes with a deft, satisfying twist. Fans of the author should add this to their library hold lists as it’s not going to sit on shelves. While waiting, they can try Belinda Bauer’s The Beautiful Dead, which also features a journalist in peril.

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Review

My Annihilation

by Henrietta Thornton

Remember the reactions to Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life? People either loved it or flung it across the room. This promises to provoke similar adoration/ire (I’m in the former camp). As Nakamura’s strange book opens, his unnamed protagonist is alone in a Japanese mountain lodge. He begins reading a manuscript that’s been left there. It’s by Ryodai Kozuka, a man whom the narrator believes he will take the place of; he hopes to use the manuscript as a manual for living as its author. Ryodai tells of becoming obsessed with pushing his sister off a cliff, an obsession that can only be cured by completing the deed. Next is his in-depth description of the psychology of real-life Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki. Abrupt, dreamlike shifts in the author’s location and persona continue, and he is next a psychologist who attempts to hypnotize a patient into forgetting past abuse and tolerating new trauma at his hands, leading to a detached account of destroying others in her life (suicide is described). Cruel ideas are intellectual exercises for this man, with his crimes adding up to a thought-provoking picture, in Nakamura’s words, of “what it means to be human and what it means to exist in the world.” Some true crime set in Japan might be the thing after this: try Richard Lloyd Parry’s People Who Eat Darkness or Haruki Murakami’s Underground.

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Review

Reckless Girls

by Brian Kenney

Lux McAllister is eager to get out there and explore the world. She’s lost her lousy job cleaning hotel rooms in Hawaii, is still mourning her mother’s death, and fears that her boyfriend, Nico, is getting too comfortable to leave. So when Brittany and Amy, best friends from college, hire Nico to sail them to an incredibly remote island in the South Pacific, she’s game. After all, what could go wrong? Pretty much everything, it turns out. After surviving a horrific storm, they finally get to Meroe Island, and are indeed dazzled by its beauty. But they’re also surprised to discover another ship anchored off the beach, with two occupants, Jake and Eliza, who are rich, friendly, and more than willing to share their wine cellar. The six of them live out their Robinson Crusoe fantasies until things begin to fray. And Meroe Island, famous for its history of shipwrecks and murder, begins to live up to its reputation. Reckless Girls builds slowly while we are treated to lots of backstory, but that’s OK. The characters are compelling, the set up is worth it, and once the suspense starts we are 100 percent in. For fans of Ruth Ware and Lisa Jewell.

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Review

The Secret in the Wall

by Henrietta Thornton

Many of us grew up on a strict diet of Nancy Drew. For nostalgia in the same vein but grittier, try 12-year-old sleuth Antonia Grizzi, who’s been raised on Gilded Age San Francisco’s streets, and it shows. She’s now the “ward” of Inez Stannart, a single woman who wants to remain so. The two are perfectly matched as companions, but Antonia can’t bring herself to trust Inez, or anyone, completely. When demolition in a building Inez has bought reveals a dead man and a cache of gold coins, she and Antonia each determine to solve the mystery of who he is and what happened—solo. By playing in the house, the little girl gets deep into its secrets, while her guardian looks further afield, including in the investigation a handsome local who just might make her abandon the going-it-alone plan. Exciting switches in perspective quickly advance the plot while accessible but atmospheric dialog and cultural touchpoints impart a vivid sense of the time. Readers will want more from Parker; also try Erin Lindsey’s Rose Gallagher Mystery series.

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Review

The Other Me

by Henrietta Thornton

When struggling artist Kelly enters an art gallery bathroom on her birthday, she turns into a different version of herself. In this life she’s no longer single, but is married to Eric, who is waiting outside for her. Her tattoos have vanished, and she never went to art school. Bewildered as to which existence is real, she plays along. Memories from this life’s past suddenly appear, along with a returning, comfortable attraction toward Eric, who, in the other life, she turned down when he asked her out in high school. Over time, odd moments tell Kelly that the new life might be no more stable than the old—her tattoos flash back onto her skin at times, for example—and she discovers that some in her new life might know what’s going on. A stellar choice for book groups and classes on ethics, this debut brings up a wealth of questions about possibilities other than the linear progression of life that we take for granted, and about the wisdom of trying to start over. Kelly and Eric’s insta-relationship is a mind-bender of its own, the does-he-know and does-he-know-that-I-knows perhaps reminding readers of the mysteries in any partnership. Sure to be a hot title this fall.

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