Notable Books

Chen Cao is chief inspector of a special unit of the Shanghai police tasked with investigating crimes involving high-up Communist Party officials. He’s earned a reputation for integrity but then discovers that someone with great power is setting him up for a fall. The author now lives in St. Louis, but he uses his knowledge of Communist Party intrigues, Chinese poetry and opera, and modern Chinese culture to enliven these crime novels. He paints a grim picture of a society searching for meaning while “Big Bucks” and high party officials grab what they can.

Once Upon a Crime: A Brothers Grimm Mystery

Hansel has grown up to be a card player and alcohol-soaked bon vivant, while Gretel operates a detective agency and overindulges in food, clothes, and spa treatments. To pay her bills, she agrees to take on a case of missing cats even though she hates cats. Soon after, dead bodies begin showing up. After being arrested and taken to the dungeon, Gretel escapes and heads off to meet a troll with strange appetites. P.J. Brackston takes the familiar fairy tale characters and makes them disappointing adults who might end up doing the right thing, but aren’t very admirable in the doing.

Last Ragged Breath

Keller sets her crime stories in Acker’s Gap, W.Va., a fictional hamlet near a highway that carries drugs and big-city crime to the Appalachians. There, prosecutor Bell Elkins helps the understaffed sheriff’s department investigate the murder of a man buying up property for a major resort. The prime suspect: an odd fellow, orphaned at age 2 by the 1972 Buffalo Creek Disaster flood, who refused to sell an essential parcel. Although the book is repetitive in places and has unnecessary R-rated language, it novelistically addresses issues facing people and places left behind by “progress.”

Run You Down

Journalist Rebekah Roberts doesn’t remember her mother. She grew up in her Christian father’s home but became a Hasidic Jewish teenager who ran away from Brooklyn and ended up pregnant in Florida. Now she’s a New York reporter investigating the possible murder of a Hasidic woman and searching for her mom. The novel is surprisingly sympathetic to the Christian dad, but it focuses on the closed Hasidic community, those who try to leave it, and some skinheads who hate Jews. Readers able to get past the R-rated language will find an interesting exploration of clashing cultures.

Spotlight

Meg Mitchell Moore’s novel The Admissions (Doubleday, 2015) is a funny look at the hypercompetitive world in which too many kids grow up. Set in Marin County, Calif., the novel depicts a family that seems to have it all: Nora Hawthorne sells high-dollar real estate, Gabe is a business consultant, and their oldest daughter is vying for valedictorian and running cross-country as she applies for early admission to Harvard. But lies and miscalculations lay bare the rickety foundation on which they’ve built their hopes: They require a new perspective. Occasional R-rated language.

Since September WORLD has run reviews of current children’s books in each issue. Written by the staff of Redeemed Reader, the reviews cover recently published volumes from picture books through young adult. We encourage you to check out the Redeemed Reader website (redeemedreader.com) for reviews of older books, author interviews, and family reading activities. —S.O.