In Ace Atkins's rollicking adventure, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, a scheme by Russian spies brings together a once-famous crime writer, a teenager who suspects his mother's new boyfriend is a KGB agent, and an FBI agent investigating the murder of an employee at Scientific Atlanta who had access to top-secret information.

In 1985 Atlanta, Ga., Peter knows there's something funny about Gary, his mother's boyfriend. He has a hard-to-place accent and both a gun and a cassette of Russian music in his car. Peter's mother works for a company with Department of Defense contracts, and Peter thinks Gary is a spy. He approaches Dennis X. Hotchner, who recently wrote a magazine piece about KGB spies, to ask him for help. Dennis initially refuses to buy it, but after prodding from his former-defensive-end-turned-drag-queen friend, Jackie, and events that suggest Peter is in genuine danger, the author and the Tina Turner impersonator join in, becoming embroiled in an FBI investigation that leads to a nest of Soviet agents and double agents.

Atkins (The Sinners; The Innocents) weaves a splendidly intricate web of intersecting plots that is as successful for its comedy as for its nonstop action. Nearly every chapter contains the sort of well-played surprise that feels inevitable as soon as it is revealed, and delightfully funny dialogue ensures that nobody thinks the over-the-top antics are meant to be taken too seriously. Fans of Carl Hiaasen's and Dave Barry's thrillers should look a little further north from Florida to experience Everybody Wants to Rule the World. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

A return to her family's isolated cabin in the woods of Wisconsin leaves a woman unmoored and profoundly altered in Hemlock, a queer rural gothic exploration of addiction and heritage by Melissa Faliveno (Tomboyland).

Sam plans to fix up the cabin, named Hemlock by her father, and make a quick sale of it. She has a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, and she told them both she'd be gone only a couple of weeks. But a dusty six-pack she discovers in the cabin's basement puts an end to 10 months of sobriety, and while she sits on the porch one evening, a doe speaks to her in the voice of her vanished mother.

Using the remote landscape to its full potential and embracing the equally threatening and comforting possibilities of country life, Faliveno creates an air of menace and instability as Sam seems to simultaneously find and lose herself. Far from her straight-passing life, her body begins to change, becoming something more androgynous or possibly feral. Her sense of time begins to slip, and maybe her sense of reality does too, filling the novel with a dreamlike quality that leaves open the questions of what is real and what is hallucination. By returning to her roots, Sam may discover who she is meant to be or find herself doomed to repeat her mother's fate. Her battles with sinister forces, internal and external, are a powerful depiction of the struggle to escape the generational cycles of addiction that ground Hemlock's eerie sense of the uncanny. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

The personal and professional experiences of a two-time Survivor player and television-industry insider are on full display in Stephen Fishbach's Escape!, a debut novel that explores the driving forces behind reality show contestants and the producers who manage them.

In a new reality show that promises to push the envelope like never before, eight contestants will live in a jungle on an island, subject to limited rules and competing to win keys that will unlock unburied treasure. Among them is Kent, who is middle-aged, depressed, experiencing a break-up, and longing for his glory days on a previous survival-based reality show. Miriam is a pharmaceutical marketing professional mistaken for a chemist, throwing caution to the wind for what was pitched as a grand adventure. On the other side of the island, Beck lives in production housing. As a producer who gained an infamous reputation for always getting the shot even as tragedy unfolds, she's desperate to reclaim the narrative of her career, even if that means influencing the contestants' relationships and actions to a degree that begins moving the production needle from unscripted to scripted.

As each player's established stereotype--the nerd, the villain, the hot girl, the has-been--begins to play out, their choices become more and more frantic, building toward a conclusion that feels inevitable and preventable. Propulsive and affecting, Escape! is a love letter to and indictment of the reality television ecosystem, inside and out. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer

An interior designer comes under suspicion when her wife suddenly vanishes in Thrity Umrigar's suspense-fueled 12th novel, Missing Sam. The titular character is a professor who goes out on a run one morning and doesn't come home. This begins a horrible nightmare that will test not only the marriage at the novel's heart but also one partner's sense of belonging in the United States.

Settled into cozy domesticity in Ohio's Cleveland Heights, Sam and Ali have endured their share of unwanted attention over their same-sex marriage. Ali's Muslim Indian heritage adds another layer of complexity, especially when Sam's disappearance prompts one of her students to accuse Ali of foul play. That's all it takes for Facebook to erupt with conspiracy theories, Ali's otherness a perfect target for a community desperately seeking answers. As the investigation into Sam's whereabouts gains steam, it reveals uncomfortable details about her marriage to Ali, including their terrible row the night before Sam disappeared. An already distraught Ali is unsettled by the virulent social media campaign against her as Sam's absence drags on. Even if Sam is found, how will the couple recover from their respective ordeals?

Umrigar (The Secrets Between Us; Everybody's Son) navigates that harrowing question in this marvelous novel. A phenomenal storyteller, she expertly incorporates thematic layers into the narrative, including family estrangement, racial identity, and psychological trauma. Missing Sam is equal parts a compulsively readable thriller and a beautifully rendered love story that captures how Sam and Ali's different backgrounds are in fact the source of their strength. --Shahina Piyarali

Former Reykjavík police detective Konrád continues to fail at retirement in Icelandic crime fiction titan Arnaldur Indriðason's The Quiet Mother, translated by Philip Roughton. Indriðason (The Darkness Knows; The Girl by the Bridge) has skillfully plotted another soulful vehicle for the mononymous Konrád, whose professional determination, as ever, twines with a personal objective.

The novel opens with the murder of the elderly Valborg in the apartment where she lived alone. The detective who arrives on the scene, Marta, spots among the notes on Valborg's desk "a phone number that she knew well" and calls it. Konrád answers and explains that he met the victim two months earlier: she contacted him after reading about one of his celebrated cases. Valborg told Konrád that she was getting her affairs in order because she was terminally ill and wanted his help finding the child she gave up decades earlier. Konrád's guilt over his refusal to help the now-dead Valborg animates his headlong search for her adult child.

The Quiet Mother's roving perspective accommodates Konrád; Marta, who finds his intrusiveness into her murder case exasperating; and Konrád's friend Eygló, who conducts her own investigation into a matter that knocks into his. Once again, Indriðason's readers should come prepared for coincidence as a plot device and also for the foregrounding of a social issue, in this case reproductive rights. While Konrád hunts for the dead woman's child, he continues to pursue the truth about his miscreant father's murder, which readers will understand is also the reluctant retiree's search for himself. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

In her debut mystery, A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer, Maxie Dara introduced readers to S.C.Y.T.H.E. (Secure Collection, Yielding, Transport, and Handling of Essences), an organization of grim reapers who tidy up souls after death. The series' second installment, A Grim Reaper's Guide to Cheating Death, focuses on Nora Bird, a S.C.Y.T.H.E case administrator who assigns daily death files to grim reapers for soul collection. Nora has been terrified of death since losing her parents as a child, which counterintuitively makes S.C.Y.T.H.E. the perfect job for her: she can learn the many ways death occurs and structure her life to avoid them.

Nora's routine is insular and risk averse until the morning she opens a case file and sees that her twin brother, Charlie, is scheduled for death that day. With uncharacteristic disregard for her employer's rules, Nora steals the file and rushes to collect Charlie (and his chatty parrot, Jessica), determined to keep him alive at any cost by getting him somewhere S.C.Y.T.H.E can't reach. Their efforts to avoid the file's now constantly changing cause of death take them to the remote town where their father grew up, which holds odd people and family secrets--and someone who is trying to kill Charlie. With wit and empathy, Dara's cozy sequel is a pitch-perfect mix of charm and emotional depth that reiterates the importance of living every day not without fear of death but in spite of it. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer

With Greta Gets the Girl, Melissa Marr (Remedial Magic) delivers another steamy contemporary romantic comedy. "Lee" and "Marie" meet on an exclusive lesbian hookup app and believe their connection will end after their one-night stand (okay, it's two nights). After all, they don't use their real names, they meet at a hotel, they don't live in the same city, and neither wants a relationship. When Kaelee travels to New York to finally meet the editor of her debut sapphic novel, she comes face to face with the formerly anonymous hookup she couldn't get out of her mind. Both women realize that their simple yet electrifying fling now risks bleeding into their professional lives and that their connection could cloud the legitimacy of the book release.

Greta Gets the Girl is capital-S Sexy but also packs a strong emotional punch. Kaelee and Greta show all the signs of people falling hard for each other despite a determination to stay single. The women demonstrate maturity as they navigate their growing interest with clear, honest communication and respected boundaries.

Second in a series, Greta Gets the Girl heavily features the lead characters from the previous installment, Toni and Addie Go Viral, so readers will appreciate reading them together. Nonetheless, Greta and Kaelee's charm makes their story enjoyable as a stand-alone as well. Full of heart and heat, Greta Gets the Girl is sure to please any reader who enjoys watching relationships bloom unexpectedly. --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller

"I remember every little thing about every little thing," Dolly Parton once noted, referring to her songs' vibrant images. In the exhaustive biography Ain't Nobody's Fool, Martha Ackmann (These Fevered Days) follows the icon's lead, sharing copious details of her life from her impoverished childhood to her legendary music and performance career.

With quotations, research, and anecdotes starting from Parton's Tennessee roots, Ackmann presents a touching and honest portrait of the multifaceted artist. Though Parton found fame as a singer, she knew she was part of a music business, and her talents in that area helped her become a multimillionaire. She rebranded a theme park near her childhood home as Dollywood, remaking the local economy in the process, and founded the Imagination Library, which has mailed more than 264 million free books to children since 1995. She wisely kept the publishing rights to her songs, and "I Will Always Love You" earned millions in royalties after Whitney Houston's award-winning hit. The poignant history of that song resonates: Parton sang it with a sometimes cantankerous early mentor, Nashville performer and producer Porter Wagoner, at the Grand Ole Opry shortly before he died.

When Parton boarded a Nashville-bound bus the day after graduating from Sevier County High School, she launched a 60-year career that includes a who's who of musicians and actors, as well as numerous honors. And it's those Tennessee roots that helped her at every turn. "My truest gift," she notes, "is that sound that comes from the mountains." Fans of Dolly Parton--as beloved performer or successful businesswoman--will rejoice in this entertaining biography of the near-octogenarian from the Smoky Mountains. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

Susan Wise Bauer's The Great Shadow is an informative and lively survey of the history of illness and of humanity's attempts to combat it. Though much of her account traces the progress that's been made from times when sickness was thought to be a punishment from angry gods, and when society was essentially helpless to fight deadly diseases, embedded in that story is a serious cautionary tale that will temper one's enthusiasm for the belief that medicine can cure what ails us.

Bauer (The Story of Western Science), who holds a PhD in American Studies, is a fluid writer who brings to this project the useful background of an intelligent, curious generalist. The Great Shadow proceeds in roughly chronological fashion, launching most chapters with attention-grabbing stories--like a description of Edward Jenner's daring first smallpox vaccination--to set the stage for a discussion of broader developments in science and medicine.

The task of recounting the history of more than 12 millennia of humanity's struggle with serious illness and death, including terrifying stories of pandemics that outstrip Covid-19 by many orders of magnitude, is daunting, but Bauer handles it skillfully. If she had written her book 50 years ago, it almost certainly would have ended on a note of triumph. But in her concluding chapter, Bauer delves into the rise of a new category of antibiotic-resistant infections, and the many disconcerting responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and how it mirrored those of earlier, far less enlightened eras. The Great Shadow will help anyone gain perspective on some of the critical public health challenges of the 21st century. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

In the unsettling YA psychological thriller Better the Devil by Erik J. Brown (All That's Left in the World) a gay teen escaping the threat of conversion therapy assumes the identity of a missing boy, only to discover that the boy's family might be responsible for his disappearance.

Eight months ago, the 16-year-old narrator ran away from his staunchly Christian parents when they signed him up for conversion therapy. Now, the police have apprehended him for stealing food and, desperate to hide his identity, the narrator gives his name as Nate Beaumont, a boy who went missing almost a decade prior. The Beaumonts readily welcome "Nate" home. Although the narrator wars with guilt, he is deeply fulfilled by how Nate's family cares for him. He also befriends Miles, Nate's distractingly cute childhood friend, who tells him to drop the act. Miles runs a "highly unpopular true crime podcast" about Nate's disappearance and promises to keep the narrator's secret if "Nate" gets intel on the Beaumonts; Miles thinks one of them murdered Nate. Suddenly, "Nate" must investigate a temperamental dad, a super protective mom, and a sweet-and-sour older brother, all while someone frames him for incriminating acts--broken glass in food, a gas leak--that earn him the scrutiny of a potentially deadly family.

This addictively engrossing mystery blends unrelenting suspense with a genuinely heartfelt found family story. The "constant state of fear" that "Nate" lives in is tempered by adorable banter with Miles and quintessential family moments. That gentleness--from a family who may have killed one of their own--adds a deliriously disorienting atmosphere to this brilliant thriller. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

The friendship drama of Mean Girls meets the chaotic gay energy of Bottoms in Maggie Horne's wickedly funny contemporary young adult novel Freddie and Stella Got Hot.

Freddie, Stella, and Levi "were a solid unit... obsessed with each other" while attending their bougie private middle school. But when they got to Coral Cove, an even "bougier private" all-girls high school, Levi left Freddie and Stella behind. As homecoming queen and the school's "lesbian teen Jesus," Levi is on track to win the prestigious Beaumont-Gardiner Award, which offers the recipient "a full-ride scholarship to the school of their choice." Freddie and Stella know that if Levi doesn't win the BG, "it would crush her." But Stella wants revenge and convinces Freddie to join her in trying to get the BG themselves. There's only one problem: "the girls who win the BG are... invariably, inevitably, consistently hot." Freddie and Stella hatch a plan to get hot ("hot girls work out," "hot girls do brunch," and "hot girls help their community"). As the girls work toward their goal, Stella becomes increasingly power-hungry, and Freddie realizes she might need Levi to stop this newly born "supervillain mastermind."

Author Horne (Don't Let It Break Your Heart) revels in the messiness of the novel's scheming, sharp-tongued protagonists: "California girls with new-money parents" who are "bored and unsupervised," but "sad underneath it all." Freddie's self-conscious and sarcastic narration of her evolution from Stella's "quirky sidekick" to a young woman pursuing her own desires--including Levi--hits all the satisfying notes of a coming-of-age comedy. Fans of Casey McQuiston and Dalhia Adler should enjoy this banter-filled romp. --Alanna Felton, freelance reviewer

In Eureka, a melodic, transportive middle-grade novel-in-verse, Victoria Chang (Love, Love) adeptly depicts the harrowing experience of Chinese Americans in 1880s California.

It's November 1884, and violence and racism against Chinese people is rising in San Francisco. "You/ must/ go," 12-year-old Mei Mei is told by her parents, who worry the brokers to whom they owe money will kidnap Mei Mei and sell her into slavery. In San Francisco, Mei Mei isn't allowed to attend school "with the American kids," but when her parents send her north to live with family in Eureka, they tell her a "judge just said/ schools must let Chinese/ kids... go to school with/ the white kids." Instead, when Mei Mei arrives, she's ushered to a rich white family's house, and every day, she's "cutting vegetables./ Rolling dough./ Mixing flour./ Stirring soups./ Cleaning the floor./ Repeat." Mei Mei is ecstatic when the daughter of the house offers to secretly teach her to read English, but anti-Chinese sentiment increases in Eureka and threatens to dash Mei Mei's hopes.

Chang effortlessly employs her poetic prowess to tell a well-balanced story of childhood innocence and horrible acts. Her enticing formatting renders beautiful visuals (such as Mei Mei's mother's tears forming a teardrop) and evokes strong emotional responses. Chang's word choices express lovely imagery: "Her words flood out/ like a river and I am/ just a boat floating." Themes of freedom, found family, and hope are all featured in this heartbreaking yet stirring story of survival. Back matter includes an author's note about the Chinese Exclusion Act, cultural facts, and additional resources. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader