Books

When Finn Hensen gets a call from his sister Jess to say their father has died, neither is heartbroken. Their parents divorced many years ago, after which their father, Jimmy, continued to live a bohemian lifestyle in sun-soaked Mallorca.

Ownership of his beautiful but dilapidated farmhouse in the mountains now passes to Finn and his sister. The only problem is that Jimmy recently remarried and his new wife, Ruensa, is still living there.

The pair agree that Finn should go to Mallorca and tactfully take possession of their inheritance.

When he arrives, however, Finn is surprised to find that Finca Siquia has been completely transformed into a chic Mediterranean bolthole by Ruensa and her twenty-seven-year-old daughter, Roze. The Spanish police, meanwhile, are asking awkward questions about Jimmy’s death.

Are Ruensa and Roze the helpless victims of circumstance? Or will they stop at nothing to get Finca Siquia for themselves?

Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.

When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.

But as evidence threatens June’s stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.

From the author of LAST ONES LEFT ALIVE comes the story of young female warrior who must start a revolution if she and those she loves are to survive.

Orpen has always been an outlier in Phoenix City – the only outsider ever admitted to the ranks of the banshees, the female warriors who enforce order, and protect it from the skrake – the ravening creatures that have laid waste to the rest of the country, and gather at the city walls.

Unrest is building in the city – a deadly sickness is spreading through the workers, while an unspoken disillusionment is creeping amongst the fighting women, weary of enforcing the all-male management’s patriarchal rule, and of the cost, to their sisters, and to young new recruits, of upholding this order.

Rumour has it that banshees have been taking matters into their own hands, and taking swift and violent revenge. When Orpen’s troop leader falls under suspicion it becomes clear that Orpen will need to muster all her courage and prowess if she and her fellow banshees are going to be able to find a way to escape, and rebuild a society worth fighting for.

From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead comes the thrilling and entertaining sequel to Harlem Shuffle

1971, New York City. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is going bankrupt, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney is trying to keep his head down, his business up and his life straight. But then he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up an old police contact, who wants favours in return.

For Ray, staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.

1973. The old ways are being overthrown by the thriving counterculture, but Pepper, Carney’s enduringly violent partner in crime, is a constant.

In these difficult times, Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem, finding himself in a world of Hollywood stars and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.

1976. Harlem is burning, while the country gears up for the Bicentennial.

Carney is trying to come up with a celebratory July 4th advertisement he can actually live with, while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire seriously injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it, navigating a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent and the utterly corrupt.

In scalpel-sharp prose and with unnerving clarity and wit, Colson Whitehead writes about a city that runs on cronyism, threats, ego, ambition, incompetence and even, sometimes, pride.

Crook Manifesto is a kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem, and a searching portrait of how families work in the face of chaos and hostility.