FICTION
AN ATLAS OF IMPOSSIBLE LONGING , by Anuradha Roy (Free Press; paperback, $14). A single act of pity rattles down generations to break a caste’s rules, test a family’s mettle and throw together two unlikely friends. — Marie Arana
DOC , by Mary Doria Russell (Random House, $26). The Wild West rides back to life in this aggressively researched and wonderfully entertaining story about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp in the days before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
— Ron Charles
AN EVIL EYE , by Jason Goodwin (Farrar Straus Giroux, $26). The discovery of a Russian corpse in a Christian well in the heart of a Muslim land clarifies the muddle of the decaying Ottoman Empire.
— Steve Donoghue
FIELD GRAY , by Philip Kerr (Putnam, $26.95). The author propels Bernie Gunther all across Europe to give us a panoramic look at life before, during and after history’s most terrible war.
— Patrick Anderson
GONE , by Mo Hayder (Atlantic Monthly, $24). The little girls who vanish throughout this tale turn out to be beribboned and pink-sneakered red herrings in a much more sinister game of retribution. — Maureen Corrigan
MY NEW AMERICAN LIFE , by Francine Prose (Harper, $25.99). This story of a fierce-witted Albanian babysitter shimmers with hilarious, if blistering, satire.
— Helen Simonson
THE PARIS WIFE , by Paula McLain (Ballantine, $25). An imaginative homage to Hadley Richardson Hemingway, who helped her young husband, Ernest, become a writer. — Donna Rifkind
THE POISON TREE , by Erin Kelly (Viking, $26.95). A compelling creeper about a forlorn woman’s friendship with two bohemian British siblings. — M.C.
THE PREACHER , by Camilla Lackberg (Pegasus, $25.95). Those seeking a successor to the late Stieg Larsson as the doyen of Scandinavian crime fiction should look to the Swedish author of this gripping thriller. — Dennis Drabelle
PYM , by Mat Johnson (Spiegel & Grau, $24). An outrageously entertaining reimagination of Edgar Allan Poe’s enigmatic and unsettling novel.
— Michael Dirda
SAINTS AND SINNERS: Stories , by Edna O’Brien (Back Bay; paperback, $13.99). If what you’re looking for is a map of Ireland, the fiction of Edna O’Brien will do just fine. — Jonathan Yardley
SAVE ME , by Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s, $27.99). The plot gains sinister force by drawing on today’s preoccupations: school bullying, Facebook pillory and even peanut allergies.
— Katherine A. Powers
THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT , by Louis Bayard (Henry Holt, $25). The search for an ancient letter in a Washington apartment escalates into a trans-Atlantic scramble to uncover much more.
— Kathy Blumenstock
SILVER SPARROW , by Tayari Jones (Algonquin, $19.95). A man has two families in the same town. One knows about the other; the other doesn’t. — Anita Shreve
STATE OF WONDER , by Ann Patchett (Harper, $26.99). Set amid the Amazon’s piranha-infested waters, this is surely the smartest, most exciting novel of the summer. — R.C.
THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR , by Arthur Phillips (Random House, $26). An elaborately structured comic novel in the form of a memoir about a Shakespeare-obsessed, dysfunctional family. — M.D.
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