Shanna
William Kent Krueger gives us another very readable literary mystery in his third stand-alone book outside of the Cork O’Connor series. The small town of Jewel, Minnesota is turned upside down after the murder of a prominent citizen in the post-WWII era. With Sheriff Brody Dern at the helm of the investigation and a cast of characters including a war widow and her adolescent son, a female lawyer, and a nosy newspaperman, Krueger addresses PTSD and racial discrimination against people of Native American, German, and Japanese descent in 1950s America. His writing describes the power of nature with the river that runs through town as a central character, and he once again delivers a love song to the landscapes of Minnesota.
In her classic readable style, Jennifer Weiner spins a tale of romance on a cycling trip across New York, but takes on complex social issues as well. If you haven’t been on a bicycle in awhile, this story will make you want to dust yours off. However, Weiner also weaves in tenuous mother-daughter dynamics while navigating the complexity of body image issues and our current climate of women’s rights. This book is both fun and thought-provoking.