Thin Air

Ann Cleeves

Cleeves writes crime stories rooted in family and community secrets rather than bad language and graphic violence. Her Shetland mysteries feature detective Jimmy Perez. Here he’s grieving over the murder of his girlfriend and investigating the death of a London filmmaker who had visited an isolated far north island for a wedding celebration. Cleeves depicts a tightknit community that doesn’t readily open up to outsiders. Her atmospheric setting—the furthest-north tip of the United Kingdom, dense fog, and summer nights that never get dark—provides the perfect setting for murders that seem to connect to a ghost story of a young girl’s drowning decades earlier.

Song of the Lion

Anne Hillerman

The Navajo Nation hosts a “mediation”—inviting tribal representatives, environmentalists, developers, adventure guides, archaeologists, and government officials—to discuss development of a resort on tribal land near the Grand Canyon. Before the mediation begins, a bomb blows up the mediator’s car, killing a Navajo youth. Then the electricity and heat go out at the conference center meeting location. Navajo police duo Bernadette Manuelito and her husband Jim Chee must protect the mediator and solve the bombing. Anne Hillerman transforms her father Tony’s taut Navajo mysteries into aimless, talky fare by elevating Bernie to a starring role.

The Invoice

Jonas Karlsson

This Swedish novel begins when the unnamed protagonist receives an invoice from W.R.D. (World Resources Distribution) for 5,700,000 kronor (about $633,000), a sum he can’t possibly pay. He works part time in a video shop, lives alone, and has few friends. But his optimistic nature has earned this film buff a high “experienced happiness” rating. “Being alive costs,” the person on the other end of the phone tells him. In 200 pages, Karlsson paints a humorous picture of bureaucracy run amok and ponders the question of what makes for happiness in a godless world. Caution: Brief nongraphic affair and several obscenities.

To the Bright Edge of the World

Eowyn Ivey

In 1885, a small expedition sets off from Portland to explore the interior of Alaska. Mission leader Allen Forrester leaves behind his pregnant wife, Sophie, not knowing if he’ll ever see her again. Ivey tells a fictional story through old photos, letters, and diary entries that recount a treacherous journey up the Wolverine River. In Portland, Sophie learns photography and waits to hear if her husband has survived. Ivey’s characters search for adventure, knowledge, forgiveness, and enlightenment. They encounter strange things that defy explanation. The book straddles a line between historical fiction and fantasy and will appeal to fantasy-lovers.

AFTERWORD

I can anticipate the objections to Very Married by Katherine Willis Pershey (Herald Press, 2016). She’s a female pastor in a very liberal denomination and, no surprise, favors same-sex marriage. But her book on marriage, told in the form of memoir, gets much right—and it might be the perfect book for someone who’s more theologically liberal. Of marriage vs. premarital sex, she writes, “The covenant of marriage—the vows to love now and forever—changes everything.”

Baby boomers raised kids without being constantly online, so it’s hard for us to imagine the experience of digital natives. In What Falls From the Sky (Zondervan, 2016), millennial Esther Emery goes offline for a year: no Facebook, no blog, no internet. The initial withdrawal shocked her: She missed the constant affirmation, the speed of email, and her online community. She learned to appreciate stillness, returned to church, gardened, baked, and enjoyed her children and husband in new ways. —S.O.