Amy's Staff Picks

Tana French is a master of tension and mystery. Her latest novel, Broken Harbor, tells the story of Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy, one of Dublin’s top murder detectives, as he attempts to solve the murder of a young family in a largely abandoned new housing development. Only the mother has survived, and she is in the hospital in critical condition. Although Brianstown, the location of the murders, is the site of a major trauma from Kennedy’s youth, he feels like the case will be a simple solve that will make him untouchable on the murder squad. As he and his young partner investigate, Kennedy slowly realizes that the case is far deeper and murkier than he expected. At the same time, his younger sister (who has had mental health problems for most of her life) starts to go off the deep end again, adding an extra layer of stress for Kennedy. Tana French does a wonderful job creating characters that are very real, flaws and all, and she provides plenty of twists and turns throughout the novel. Broken Harbor was a very entertaining read. If you like police procedurals or a good mystery of any kind, I would also recommend her earlier novels, In the Woods, The Likeness, and Faithful Place.

Russian Winter is a novel about jewels, ballet, love, betrayal, and secrets. It centers on Russian ballerina Nina Revskaya, The Butterfly, a star of the Bolshoi Ballet in communist Russia. The tale weaves back and forth from her life in Russia to present day America, where she is auctioning all of her jewels. Drew Brooks, an associate director at the auction house, finds herself unusually intrigued by the unknown backstory on the jewels (a backstory that Nina is not eager to share), and when Russian professor Gregori Solodin donates an amber necklace that belongs to a suite of The Butterfly's jewels, they begin to unravel the mystery that surrounds them, a mystery that has great personal meaning for Solodin. Kalotay beautifully captures life behind-the-scenes in the ballet world as well as the fear and uncertainty of the Stalinist regime. I will admit that I found this book a little hard to get into, but I am glad I persevered. Once it takes off it is a haunting tale of humanity at its best and worst.

Wow. That's what I kept thinking as I read Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things.  Just wow.This is the kind of book that is about so much more than simple advice for an individual. As Sugar, Strayed takes her readers' questions and uses them to examine larger questions about love and life that are in many ways universal . She does so in a gut-wrenchingly truthful way. I will be honest, this book is not always a comfortable read. There are stories in it that are painful and horrific. Yet even in these stories there is beauty and hope. It illuminates all that is beautiful and brutal in the world. Raw, powerful, emotional, tender, sorrowful, and hopeful, Tiny Beautiful Things touched me at my core, made me think deeply, and is staying with me in a powerful way. There is a fair amount of profanity (so if that is a deal-breaker for you, be warned) yet the writing is so luminous that it didn't bother me in the least. In fact, given the subjects, it seemed fitting, even necessary. This is a book that I will highly recommend to all my friends and family, but I will not loan out my copy for fear of it not being returned. It's just that good.

The Kommandant's Girl is the story of what an ordinary person will do in impossible circumstances. Nineteen-year-old Emma has been married three weeks then the Nazis invade Poland. Her young husband leaves her alone to go underground with the resistance, and when she returns to her parents' home in the Jewish ghetto she is imprisoned there with the rest of the city's Jews. Late one night she is smuggled out and taken to her husband's Catholic cousin. In order to remain safe, she must assume a gentile identity, the single girl Anna.

Emma/Anna's situation becomes even more complicated and dangerous when she is introduced to high-ranking Nazi officer Kommandant Georg Richwalder. He insists she work for him, and to refuse would be to raise questions she can't afford to answer. The situation provides Anna with the opportunity to spy for the resistance, but does she dare? Things become even riskier as the Kommandant's romantic feelings for Anna become clear. What will she do in order to be safe and protect those whom she loves? The Kommandant's Girl is a compelling story that is ultimately about what a normal person is willing to do in extraordinary circumstances.