It’s 1985 in Southern California, where Samuel McCammon is the devout and fiercely observant only child in a volatile household rife with alcoholism, discord, and domestic abuse. In his strict religious school, his demonic visions have already made him notorious. As children begin disappearing from the neighborhood, Samuel’s visions grow darker and more disturbing, and he experiences supernatural events that he can’t fully understand. His parents interpret these episodes in very different ways. His father, a charming and deeply troubled man with secrets of his own, sees a medical problem to be managed. His loving mother—who calls herself “a prayer in a dark closet”—believes her son has been chosen by God. She encourages him to embrace this destiny. Samuel finds an unlikely confidant in Glen, a rough-edged neighbor boy who harbors unsettling information about Samuel’s father. As the dark mysteries at the heart of Samuel’s family grow more sinister, his visions push him toward a devastating reckoning. As written by Mansouri, Samuel’s voice is by turns hilarious, harrowing, and heartbreaking. The relationship between him and his mother is dynamic and complex, combining a fierce love with a heavy dose of denial. The author walks a tightrope between dark psychological realism and the supernatural, leaving readers uncertain as to whether Samuel’s visions are divine, demonic, or the product of a traumatized mind. Suggestions of the occult add a dark frisson to the proceedings as Samuel tries to uncover the secrets of the past. The action sequences are visceral and hallucinatory, building toward a genuinely shocking climax and an ending that will linger with readers long after the final page. With its considerable length, the novel occasionally loses momentum, but readers willing to surrender to its dark, immersive world will be richly rewarded.

When, upon leaving a cafe, Naomi realizes she has taken the wrong coat—it resembles her own—she returns it to the woman it belongs to. At the cafe on another occasion, Naomi again spots this woman, Laura, who becomes the object of Naomi’s fascination (and eventually her lover). The novel swaps third-person narration for first-person narration by an unnamed woman whose job is to transcribe recordings of women’s personal stories for a ghostwriter. “I am transformed into every woman as I type,” the narrator reflects. “We are, in the moment I listen and type, the same person.” Soon the novel switches to what seems to be a transcript of a woman’s personal story; “I’m so lonely!” it begins. The novel interweaves the three narratives, inviting the reader to wonder how they’re connected. Alas, while the book is written with marvelously cool composure, none of the three strands is especially interesting: The reader is unlikely to share Naomi’s obsession with Laura, whose ethereality seems performative. Nothing much is going on in the transcriber’s life; the transcript snippets don’t go anywhere. And the women’s musings on having or being a double ultimately leave the impression of intellectual noodling. Some readers may find the book seductively mysterious: Johansson, the Swedish author of the novel Antiquity (2024), has set her scenes in an anonymous city in an unspecified past of landlines and cassette tapes. And some readers may be intrigued by the novel’s references to unnamed suspense films presumably invented by the author (although Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Marnie will come to mind). The transcriber’s summaries of the movie plots are compelling; if only this novel were equally so.

When 28-year-old Ali Azeem agrees to an arranged marriage with psychiatric resident Maryam Khan, brilliant and gorgeous daughter of real estate billionaire Abbas Khan, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot—not least because he’s having a hot affair with her ne’er-do-well sister, Farhan. But Ali, whose Mumbai-based family’s fortunes have slipped enough that his parents must leave their swank home in the city’s Breach Candy district, is less savvy than he thinks; one of the high points of this complex book is how every sign Ali misses leads to his comeuppance. For example, he fails to connect one family member’s work with their subterfuge, revealing how little he’s had to think ahead during the years he’s worked as a successful wedding photographer and bon vivant. As the narrative alternates between Ali and Farhan, the plot thickens. Abbas offers Ali a position in his Manhattan office, but there are many strings attached—as well as rivals for Abbas’ approval. Farhan shares with Ali the terrifying story of her near-assault by a man she believes to be the Jackson Heights Killer, or JHK, a murderer who killed and cut out the hearts of at least nine young South Asian women in the early 2000s. Determined to track down the JHK, Farhan enlists retired case detective Orlando Epps to the cause, then Ali: perhaps the book’s electrifying opening scene involving a hidden corpse has to do with their success? Or not: Ahmad handles multiple villains, all unreliable narrators in their own way, with great aplomb as the novel hurtles to a possibly predictable but still remarkable finale.

Because of a geological fluke, bad air and brown skies settled over the Los Angeles basin even before the rise of the automobile. But over the last century, as oil refineries and international shipping docks started dotting the coast and as millions moved into newly created suburbs too spread out to be reached easily by public transit, Los Angeles became notorious for its smog. The cover was so thick that some newcomers to the area, including author Carlson’s mother, were unaware that the city was surrounded by mountains—until, by chance, extreme winds blew the filthy clouds away. “This is a book meant to celebrate and explain government’s great achievement in cleaning up my city’s air,” writes Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a former acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “But it is also a cautionary tale about corporate malfeasance and the massive harm it can do to public health and the environment.” Carlson presents a quick, efficient history of the factors that came together to tackle the scourge, factors that included concerned citizens both well-placed (like Dorothy Chandler of the Los Angeles Times dynasty) and downtrodden (including pioneering environmental justice groups from East Los Angeles and South Central Los Angeles); innovative scientists from regional institutions like UCLA and the California Institute of Technology; and local, state, and federal government combining to regulate oil and auto manufacturing companies that not only denied their role in creating the mess but spent billions to discourage action on it.

After Weatherby arrived at the ritzy Boston School, she discovered that she and Jack, who come from very different backgrounds, are cousins. The pair conquered challenges to gain membership in their school’s secret society, Last Heir, going from rivals to partners as they uncovered their family history. Last Heir—an anagram for “THE LIARS”—was established by their forebears, the Hunts, to cover up misdeeds, but the kids are determined to reveal the truth. Now studying abroad in St. Moritz, Switzerland, they compete in the 72nd round of the game of la Victoire, hoping to win the one open spot in the Last Heir’s inner circle. They need this access if they are to discover and expose the truth about their family, however heinous it might be. They won’t be distracted from their goal by the glamour, riches, and power promised by Last Heir—or by anonymous threats. Together with loyal friends from their top-secret Liars Society, the white-presenting cousins brave tests, enact a rescue mission, and unmask a host of enemies, some of whom will resort to murder to keep the past buried. Knowledge of the first two books is essential to appreciating this one.