Sean Barrett

This novel is a tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their...

Regarded by Charles Dickens as his best novel upon publication, "Martin Chuzzlewit" relates a tale of familial selfishness and eventual moral redemption. First published serially from 1842 to 1844, it is the story of young Martin Chuzzlewit, who has been raised by his grandfather. He has fallen in love with his grandfather's ward and caretaker, the young orphan Mary Graham. Martin's grandfather does not approve and young Martin alienates himself from...

"Available for the first time in English, the seventh entry in the beloved Inspector Sejer series from Norway's Queen of Crime, Karin Fossum. On a wet, gray night in early November, Charlo Torp, a former gambler who's only recently kicked the habit, makes his way through the slush to Harriet Krohn's apartment, flowers in hand. Certain that paying off his debt is the only path to starting a new life and winning his daughter's forgiveness, Charlo plans...

When a former student bungles the investigation of a mother-daughter double murder, clinical psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin discovers a link between the case and a series of escalating attacks.

"Psychologist Joe O'Loughlin is being pushed away. His marriage is ending. Charlie, his eldest daughter, will barely speak to him. And Charlie's rebellious best friend Sienna is getting into more and more trouble, and taking Charlie along for the ride. Sienna has been almost like family to O'Loughlin-a troubled child who for years spent more time in the O'Loughlin residence than her own home. O'Loughlin's worst fears are confirmed when Sienna turns...

"William and Mary live in Wales and have been married sixty years with four children and five grandchildren. William is a celebrated surgeon, Mary a devoted wife. Both are strong believers in right and wrong. William and Olivia have been together twenty years and share a house in London, enjoying the theatre and restaurants and playing tennis every week. Only one of these stories can be true - but which one? This is the question that confronts clinical...

Martin Amis first tackled the Holocaust in 1991 with his bestselling novel Time's Arrow. He returns again to the Shoah with this astonishing portrayal of life in "the zone of interest," or "kat zet" --the Nazis' euphemism for Auschwitz. The narrative rotates among three main characters: Paul Doll, the crass, drunken camp commandant; Thomsen, nephew of Hitler's private secretary, in love with Doll's wife; and Szmul, one of the Jewish prisoners charged...

Retired detective Konrad returns to a haunting cold case in The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason, the "undisputed King of the Icelandic thriller." —The Guardian (UK)
A frozen body is discovered in the icy depths of Langjökull glacier, apparently that of a businessman who disappeared thirty years before. At the time, an extensive search and police investigation yielded no results—one of the missing man's

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Bleak House, Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections - between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, but nowhere either is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed. Bleak House defies a single description. It...