October 4, 2025
Three of our novels this week are in the thriller mode. There are ill-fated private investigators; a protagonist who becomes obsessed with a local murder; and a story set in dark, suspenseful Venice. We welcome the return of writer who captures coming of age, friendship, and academic New England with a finely chiseled pen; and a Belgian writer with a massive following who arrives with a sexually fluid main character that harks back to Virginia Woolf.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Shadow Ticket
By THOMAS PYNCHON
Published by PENGUIN PRESS
A literary event from the legendary reclusive writer—his first novel in a decade. It continues a run of noirish fiction (two of which, Inherent Vice and Vineland, were adapted into films by Paul Thomas Anderson—see the new DiCaprio film). This one reprises his signature cinematic style and penchant for hapless P.I.s. It takes place during the Depression in Milwaukee (think Al Capone and the forthcoming Prohibition). Hicks is a private eye trying to locate a Wisconsin cheese heiress who’s gone missing when he gets more than he bargained for. He ends up in Hungary, entangled with spies and Nazis, and even Big Band-era dancing. At 88 years old, Pynchon is in rare form.
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Heart the Lover
By LILY KING
Published by GROVE PRESS
King is adept at mining the psychology of her characters, making the reader nostalgic for a place and time they never actually experienced. Her newest novel about the complicated bonds of friendship over time concerns a triad of characters who meet in their college senior lit class. Our narrator observes: “There are two smart guys in the class. They sit up front together, and I see only the backs of their heads, one with coppery brown hair and the other with a thick black ponytail.” These three become inseparable and the excitement of youth is palpable as they recognize kindred spirits, intellectually and emotionally. Read on to see where they end up.
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The Four Spent the Day Together
By CHRIS KRAUS
Published by SCRIBNER
The always-surprising writer Kraus returns with a new novel that is equally as imaginative and sui generis as I Love Dick, her 2006 cult-classic fiction. In what becomes a true-crime nail-biter, we jump around in time and place—from protagonist Catt’s childhood in Connecticut, to Los Angeles following Catt’s literary success, to a cabin in the Iron Range in Northern Minnesota where Catt and her husband Paul’s marriage is fraying from addiction and money. There, Catt becomes obsessed with a local murder—and the three teenagers and their victim who had ‘spent the day together.’ Kraus shrewdly looks at capitalism, corruption, and power, her finger firmly on the pulse of America today.
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Orlanda
By JACQUELINE HARPMAN
Published by SEVEN STORIES PRESS
Translated by Ros Schwartz
We meet Aline at a café near the Gare du Nord rereading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando for the umpteenth time. Suddenly her psyche splits and she finds herself in the body of a young rock journalist. She ponders, “what if I were to shrug off the fearful persona, liberate myself from my female body, and make my home in a male body…. People find me charming and feminine, but my stifled masculine side is always lurking.” Belgian writer Harpman’s pioneering exploration of gender and sexuality was first published almost thirty years ago—fans will be happy to see its reissue with a new afterword.
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Venetian Vespers
By JOHN BANVILLE
Published by KNOPF
A honeymoon goes quickly awry for a young couple in Venice at the turn of the 20th century when Laura, the newlywed wife and American heiress, disappears. Her husband Evelyn is a pompous English writer and things get off to a bad start as soon as they arrive at the palazzo where they are staying. With echoes of other haunting stories set in that atmospheric city (du Maurier, James, Mann), Banville crafts a puzzle of many moveable parts as Evelyn spirals. Disturbing, unsettling, and nerve-wracking, the choice to set the story here over the course of a number of days adds to the texture and suspense of another consummate thriller.
