Tana French, FAITHFUL PLACE

French's 3rd book is probably as fabulous as the first two (though I loved INTO THE WOODS the best). The protagonist Detective returns home to Faithful Place (on the ugly side of Ireland, wherever it is) to find out that the girl whom he loved as a young man, and who vanished one night, was actually murdered, her body hidden in the basement of vacant house nearby. What unravels is typical Tana French ... a dysfunctional family, multiple motives, and the recognition that often the only difference between the good man and the bad man is that the good person doesn't do the things that they both imagining doing.

Beryl Markham, WEST WITH THE NIGHT

An old favorite that I read years ago, when I was (!) 24. The autobiography of a woman who grew up in colonial Kenya; as a child, she ran with kids in the bush and was nearly killed by a wild boar; at age 16 she was training world-class race horses; ten years later she was flying medical equipment and running safaris all over Africa. Born in 1902, she was the first woman to fly west across the Atlantic, against the headwinds, before crash-landing in Nova Scotia. She was Denys Finch-Hatton's mistress (you'll remember him as Robert Redford in OUT OF AFRICA) and was actually supposed to be on the plane that he died on. There's some debate about whether she actually wrote the book--Errol Trzebinski swears that one of her several husbands ghost-wrote it for her. But no matter. It's a fabulous read.

Zoe Sharp, SECOND SHOT

I went to see Zoe Sharp speak at Poison Pen in Scottsdale. She's very engaging, self-deprecating, with that dry "British" sense of humor. Book was fun, a slowish start, faster ending. I'd probably read another by her if it came my way.
My only gripe is the way that Charlie Fox (the protagonist/heroine/ex-military/bodyguard with a PAST) so quickly loves her little charge, Ella, age five or so, who actually seems sort of dull and spoiled, coy and giggly. But I must confess ... I don't always like other people's children in real life either. (Grin)

Karen Hesse, PHOENIX RISING

YA about a girl Nyle whose community experiences nuclear disaster at The Plant not far away. Usual gritty Hesse, with a strong girl protagonist and an evacuee boy/friend who takes up residence in the "back room" (where everyone in Nyle's family dies); he too dies at end, from radiation poisoning. Good Gran, evil Ripley, and a girlfriend named Muncie. Not bad, but feels somewhat standard YA.

Irene Latham, LEAVING GEE'S BEND

Good tween/YA book. Her first novel, and well-written. Great first lines: "Mama pulled a chicken egg from behind the azalea bushy in our front yard and narrowed her eyes. 'Ludelphia Bennet! You go back in there and get your eye patch!'"
An eye patch? Hm!
Turns out Lu wears the eye patch because of a wood chip that flew from her father's hatchet; there's no doctor in Gee's Bend, AL, so when Mama takes sick, Lu has to cross the river and go to Camden to find a doctor. Hence, leaving Gee's Bend. But on the way to the doctor she meets the Angry Crazy White Boss Lady Mrs. Cobb who has never been able to have children (when Mama had too many that came early and died, and nearly killed her in the process). Lu's central activity is stitching quilts, and she hangs onto the needle and bits of cloth she collects as talismans against evil. Didn't quite do it for me as an "organizing" force to her psyche, but that may be because I don't quilt. But at least she didn't turn out to be yet another girl-who-longs-to-be-a-writer.

Ann Rinaldi, A BREAK WITH CHARITY: A STORY ABOUT THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

YA Historical fiction.
Not Rinaldi's best but all her trademarks present: trouble, a bad historical moment, well-drawn and flawed characters with good intentions. Good for the 13-15 girl crowd.

Jenna Blum, THOSE WHO SAVE US

This is a first novel, and it's pretty well written. Like a lot of novels I'm seeing lately, it's told bouncing between points of view, which I happen to like. In this case it's past/present. But this is a Novel With A Purpose. Not saying it's not a valid purpose. The premise is that Trudy, whose mother was the German mistress of a Nazi officer and an assistant in a bakery in Weimar, is a college professor interested in hearing and videotaping stories from average Germans during the war. Naturally she encounters some horrid Germans who still hate Jews; some decent Germans who helped hide Jews; and one man who is Jewish and reads a blistering prepared document for Trudy's camera.
The tough part, narratively speaking, is that the last interview is with a man who just Happens to be from Weimer and just Happened to see Trudy's mother delivering bread one day and just Happened to have met a man named Max in the Buchenwald camp, and just Happened to know that Max was in love with Trudy's mother and had a child with her out of wedlock. OH MY GOODNESS! Trudy thinks. You mean, I'm not the daughter of a horrible Nazi officer? I'm the daughter of a Jewish doctor? And the book ends. The good thing is that Anna, Trudy's mother, refuses to acknowledge the truth of what this man says. That feels psychologically real to me, and saves the book from being a melodrama. Worth a read. I give it a B.