San Francisco defense attorney Joe Turner’s latest case takes him down south to Barton, Georgia. He’s there on behalf of his investigator, Chuck Argenal, whose 18-year-old nephew is accused of fatally shooting the small town’s high school quarterback. There’s quite a bit of evidence (though no discernible motive) implicating Carl Ledbetter, who’s on the autistic spectrum (“tracking other people’s emotions is just too intense, too overwhelming for him. So he avoids eye contact, social cues, and buries himself in his own thoughts”); a witness claims to have seen him on the night of the murder, and Carl tested positive for gunshot residue. Locals, who practically worship their high school football team, are wary of Joe’s presence, since he’s an outsider. He gets the most flak from the judge trying Carl’s case and from the prosecuting district attorney. They seem convinced of the teen’s guilt and determined to close the case quickly, presumably before the town gets too deep into the new football season. Luckily, Joe has skilled people on his side: Chuck, unsurprisingly, takes on the investigator role to help his nephew, and Joe’s archaeologist girlfriend, Eddy Busier, comes for a visit and lends a hand, doing some investigating of her own. The trio’s most pressing objective is unmasking the culprit, which entails identifying suspects and checking to see if their individual alibis hold up. At trial, Joe must dispute the evidence and show the jury what he sees: an innocent kid who’s looking at serious time behind bars.

Bequette’s legal narrative moves briskly, thanks to succinct chapters that bounce the story from scene to scene. The novel employs a narrative structure that ramps up suspense; scenes of Joe working the case are intercut with the nine-person jury deliberating post-closing arguments and flashbacks from before and the night of the murder. The jury scenes are especially good, showcasing assorted personalities stuck in one room, including a blatantly offensive and bigoted juror. Carl occasionally narrates, too, and provides welcome insight into a thought process that may seem unorthodox to some readers (in one scene, someone bumps into him and angrily says, “Watch yourself,” which confuses Carl, who takes everything literally). The story’s nonlinear mingling of scenes is easy to follow and maintains the mystery for much of the novel (the jurors don’t spoil moments from the trial that readers haven’t yet encountered). Joe is a likable series hero; there’s no question he’s an accomplished lawyer who fights hard for his clients. His believable flaws make him appealing as he struggles to retain his cool in the courtroom (he isn’t always successful) and his legal tactics sometimes fail miserably. As the narrative unfolds, so do several surprises, from crucial information a particular character chooses to withhold to an unexpected revelation regarding a potential suspect. There are a handful of viable murderers, making it difficult to pinpoint who definitely did the deed—the story culminates with a doozy of an ending.

BeBe enjoys her comfortable life as a caterpillar, munching leaves and crawling wherever she pleases. But after waking up with wings and long legs, her world suddenly feels “strange.” She can no longer “crunch on her favorite milkweed or clover” and feels uncomfortable when “her big wings [follow] her everywhere.” The story uses BeBe’s transformation as a way to open a conversation for young readers about the difficulty of change—whether this comes in the form of growing up, sudden illness, or familial shifts. Inspired by the author’s real-life recovery after a seizure and brain surgery, Bebe’s metamorphosis shows how frightening change can be, but also how rewarding new experiences can follow. The prose flows easily, and lines like “From above, the world looked wider—and a little brighter” capture moments of hope as the adorable caterpillar grows to accept the unknown. Sir’s illustrations are warm and charming, especially those of BeBe in her two forms—they recall the style of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), with grainy textures and bright colors. The sudden shift from white daytime backdrops to a dark nighttime scene interrupts the visual rhythm, but the overall atmosphere remains coherent and uplifting, and should prove a delight for young readers.

It’s 1990. Sixteen-year-old Morgan’s mom left when she was 10, but Morgan tries not to think about that; she has a decent life with her white commercial fisherman father. But Morgan finds it tough being Native in a largely white school. When she drops out, her friend Skye, who was expelled, convinces her to join her at Kaien Island Alternate School. Morgan’s academic achievement took a nosedive after her mom’s departure, and thanks to Skye’s influence, she gets pulled into shoplifting and partying. But as Morgan gets to know “cute Native guy” Nate, her priorities change. The more she learns about her family’s history with residential schools, the more she realizes how this legacy affects her. Spencer, who’s from the Gitxaala Nation, writes with sincerity about a “fictionalized Indigenous community,” examining how intergenerational trauma from residential schools affected families. The short, easily digestible chapters sustain an effective pace, and Morgan is a realistically drawn teen with conflicting emotions, desires, and needs. Over the course of two years, she grows and changes. The early ’90s setting allows the author to examine politics and pop culture from the perspective of a young adult finding herself at a time when residential schools were still in existence.

Stephanie Zamekova, the queer daughter of immigrants from the Czech Republic, has no recollection of what caused the fire that took the life of her best friend, Matt; tore apart her friend group; and left her with a traumatic brain injury. Now, ominously, the survivors receive invitations to return to BREAKOUT to participate in “an escape room in honor of Matteo Luca Cesari.…Because secrets won’t keep themselves.” Someone wants their secrets to come out at any cost—and Steffi’s determined to get the answers she needs to solve the mystery of Matt’s death (and her potential role), but her former friends seem just as determined to keep what transpired under wraps. Wlosok steadily builds the tension, leaving carefully crafted clues showing the complexity of the escape room puzzles and weaving in elements of misdirection as the clock ticks down and Steffi and her friends must figure out if there’s a traitor among them. The author doles out revelations from the past through newspaper articles, social media chats, courtroom transcripts, and online gossip column posts—and all the while, readers will wonder whether they can trust Steffi if she doesn’t even trust herself. There’s diversity in race and sexual orientation among the friend group.

“The shoes were packed. ‘Daddy loves you,’” Josie’s father tells her, “glancing around—had he left anything?” Martin Brier is halfway out the door, first wife cast aside for the younger model destined to become his second. Shorr’s latest novel is a mid-20th-century, Midwestern, nearly father-free coming-of-age story that follows Josie, her two brothers, and their mother as they try to build a life for themselves in Martin’s cavernous absence. Shorr favors a close third-person point of view which hovers, hummingbird-style, outside her characters’ windows. It’s an effective strategy, especially in Shorr’s fluidly engaging prose style, which allows readers to access the thoughts of even the most difficult characters—Martin included. He shows us in the passage above, for instance, that he can’t focus on his daughter long enough to tell her he loves her without simultaneously wondering if he’s adequately packed his belongings. His selfishness is astounding. So is the psychological astuteness with which Shorr has loaded the sentence—and the rest of the book—which is, in the end, the portrait of a girl and her wider family as they adjust to a world whose parameters they have not set themselves. Shorr picks up the narrative in the mid-’50s and sets it down half a century later, when Cleveland has changed irrevocably and Josie’s family has scattered. If the book putters out in the last two or three chapters, that seems a small price to pay. The larger missed opportunity is that Lora, Josie’s mother, doesn’t seem fully rendered. As a momentarily penniless single mother of three, she has to act decisively—and does. Still, Shorr has cast her sights elsewhere, and the result is a remarkable success.