Counterpoint: 634 books

“It is a rare book that is as scientific as it is magical and as magical as it is scientific. This is that book.” —Karen Joy Fowler In the early 1900s, young Lucia Rutkowski escapes the Warsaw ghetto to work as a kitchen maid in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Paris. But, too talented...

Life is hard for a literary wunderkind after a decade of writer’s block in this “ribald deconstruction . . . of an industry in love with its own absurdities” (Kirkus Reviews). You graduate from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with a short story published in The New Yorker and subsequently...

“In these 35 stories, one struggles to find a sentence that is anything less than jewel-box perfect.” —The New York Times Book Review Gina Berriault is known for the complexity and compassion with which she weaves her characters, and her stories are such models of economy that they seem...

From the exiled Russian author of The Zone—“His tales open a small window on to daily life in the former Soviet Union” (The Guardian). Sergei Dovlatov’s subtle, dark-edged humor and wry observations are in full force in The Suitcase as he examines eight objects—the items he brought...

San Francisco stunt double Darcy Lott specializes in creating the illusion of serious danger. But when her lawyer brother calls and asks her to wine and dine a mysterious client, the danger is no illusion. Darcy takes an instant liking to the client, Karen Johnson, but there are too many unanswered...

Cracking in the desert heat, the sleepy town of Twentynine Palms sits outside the bright blankness that is the sprawl of Los Angeles. For someone on the run like Jack Baylor, who needs a quick exit out of L.A. after a steamy affair with his best friend’s wife, Twentynine Palms is the perfect refuge.Standing...

A divorced shop teacher buys a Colorado gold mine sight unseen in this raucous novel from the screenwriter of Doc Hollywood and The Manchurian Candidate. Lee Garrison, a high school shop teacher in Evergreen, Colorado, managed to survive his messy divorce only to find himself in a full-on midlife...

“Lovely . . . more than an ode to a singular character . . . It’s also an evocation of place—a walkable city with stubborn, old-New England charm.” —The Boston Globe   The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is a memoir of the author’s friendship with Robert Dunn, a brilliant poet who spent...

At the dawn of Mexican Civil War two adversaries form a surprising bond in this “brutal and often stunningly brilliant novel” (Booklist, starred review).   Mexico, 1910. The landscape pulses with the force of the upcoming revolution, an atmosphere rich in opportunity for a criminal like Rawbone....

From the Edgar Award–winning author of Bone Rattler. “Evocative language, tight plotting, and memorable characters make this a standout” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). With the aid of the Native American Shaman Conawago, Duncan McCallum has begun to heal from the massacre of his...

From the Edgar Award-winning author of The Skull Mantra: An ingenious thriller that “blends the bleakness of The Road with a well-crafted whodunit plot” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Thirty years after global holocaust, the colony of Carthage still struggles to build its new world....

The Edgar Award winner’s acclaimed mystery set in colonial America is “The Last of the Mohicans meets Braveheart, with a curious dash of CSI” (Entertainment Weekly). Unfairly convicted and force into indentured servitude, young Highland Scot Duncan McCallum finds himself aboard a prisoner...

For fans of Geraldine Brooks' novels, Caleb Carr's The Alienist, or Laird Hunt's Neverhome, Elliott Pattison is an exciting talent, capable of weaving the most page-turning of historical thrillers Set during the American Revolutionary War, Book 5 of the series is sure to capture the widest...

Sal Cupertine is a legendary hit man for the Chicago Mafia, known for his ability to get in and out of a crime without a trace. Until now, that is. His first-ever mistake forces Sal to botch an assassination, killing three undercover FBI agents in the process. This puts too much heat on Sal, and he...