My Favorites

5 stars

"Winter 1940: With soldiers parading down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Nazi flags dangling from the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower defaced with German propaganda, Parisians have little to celebrate as Christmas approaches. Police Inspector Henri Lefort's wishes for a quiet holiday season are dashed when the Gestapo orders him to investigate the disappearance of Dr. Viktor Brandt, a neurologist involved in a secret project at one of Paris's...

3.8 stars

"Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary's fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries. Meanwhile...

4 stars

"From the bestselling author of Gates of Fire comes an historical epic about the early years of the Roman Empire. A Man at Arms is a Western set in Jerusalem and the Sinai desert in the first century AD, a few years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. The villains are the Romans. They're in pursuit of a courier bearing an incendiary letter from Paul the Apostle. For agents of Rome, this letter represents an existential threat that will propagate...

3 stars

While staying in post-World War II Paris with her grandfather, Tabitha Knight becomes friends with her neighbor and fellow American, Julia Child, and must clear both their names when a woman they both knew is murdered with a knife from Julia's kitchen and a note from Tabitha in her pocket.

5 stars

"It is 1990 when Melvina Donleavy arrives in Soviet Belarus on her first undercover mission with the CIA, alongside three fellow agents--none of whom know she is playing two roles. To the prying eyes of the KGB, she is merely a secretary; to her CIA minders, she is the only one who can stop the flow of nuclear weapons from the crumbling Soviet Union into the Middle East. For Mel has a secret; she is a 'super recognizer,' someone who never forgets...

3.9 stars

"November, 1921. Edward VIII, Prince of Wales and future ruler of India, is arriving in Bombay to begin a four-month tour. The Indian subcontinent is chafing under British rule, and Bombay solicitor Perveen Mistry isn't surprised when local unrest over the royal arrival spirals into riots. But she's horrified by the death of Freny Cuttingmaster, an eighteen-year-old female Parsi student, who falls from a second-floor gallery just as the prince's grand...

5 stars

Recognizing ritualistic injuries on a murder victim from a memory compromised by his opium addiction, Captain Sam Wyndham, aided by sidekick Surrender-Not Banerjee, struggles to solve two mysteries while hiding his personal demons from the Calcutta police force.

2.7 stars

1892. Lady Emily Hargreaves's well-intentioned husband, Colin, persuades her to recuperate at his family's estate in Normandy. While out riding, Emily happens on the butchered corpse of a woman, later identified as an escaped inmate from an insane asylum outside Rouen. The nature of the victim's wounds suggests that Jack the Ripper has crossed the Channel to France.

4.3 stars

4.4 stars

"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six,...