Alice Cary

NonfictionTrue CrimeMemoir

I Know Who You Are

Review by Alice Cary

Some retirees quilt; others fish. And then there’s Northern California resident Barbara Rae-Venter, who, with “both feet planted firmly in retirement,” sparked a forensic revolution. How in the world did a retiree sitting alone at her computer looking at family trees manage to crack a horrific criminal case that had been eluding investigators for 40 years? 

Sixty-three days after loading a crime scene DNA profile to a service called GEDmatch, Rae-Venter and others in a group who call themselves Team Justice were able to identify a suspect: a police officer-turned-truck mechanic named Joseph James DeAngelo who eventually admitted responsibility for at least 13 murders and 50 rapes in the 1970s and ’80s in California. She tells the story the world has been waiting to hear in her mesmerizing memoir, I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever. 

“All my life, mysteries have called out to me to be solved,” Rae-Venter writes. As a child growing up in New Zealand, she had what her mother called a “grasshopper mind,” meaning that Rae-Venter tended to circle a topic, coming at it from odd angles before zeroing in on an insight. She came to the United States at age 20, eventually earning a Ph.D. in biology and becoming a patent lawyer specializing in biotechnology innovations. In retirement, she started researching her own family history, then became a volunteer genealogist at a not-for-profit organization called DNAAdoption that teaches adoptees how to identify biological relatives using autosomal DNA. In 2015, Rae-Venter became involved in a cold case pertaining to an adoptee named Lisa Jensen, who at age 5 was abandoned by a man who claimed to be her father but wasn’t. The now-grown Jensen had no idea who her birth parents were until Rae-Venter solved this family mystery, and what turned out to be a mind-blowing criminal case, using investigative genetic genealogy (IGG). 

In addition to Jensen and the Golden State Killer, Rae-Venter describes a number of additional intriguing cases she’s worked on, along with the chilling details of actually being present at DeAngelo’s sentencing. She also discusses the ethical issues that IGG poses to the privacy of individuals’ DNA profiles, explains the complicated process of IGG in layman’s terms and includes a helpful glossary.

After unmasking the Golden State Killer, Rae-Venter planned to be identified only as an anonymous geneticist, but her son finally convinced her to go public. “If my story can inspire a budding young scientist somewhere to pursue her dreams, then my story is a story worth telling,” she writes. Indeed it is, and true crime lovers everywhere will agree.

Some retirees quilt; others fish. And then there’s Barbara Rae-Venter, who identified the Golden State Killer using investigative genetic genealogy and sparked a forensic revolution.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

The Labors of Hercules Beal

Review by Alice Cary

“It’s a tough world, Beal.” That’s the advice that seventh grader Hercules Beal receives from his new homeroom teacher, retired U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Hupfer. The world’s been especially tough on Hercules, whose parents were killed when a pickup truck slammed into their vehicle. Understandably, he’s not happy about much, including the fact that he has to go to a new school, Cape Cod Academy for Environmental Sciences. Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt knows how to write about devastating situations, and just as The Wednesday Wars did, The Labors of Hercules Beal (Clarion, $19.99, 9780358659631) digs deep.

Narrator Hercules is hardly one to wallow in his sorrows. Despite the tragedy he’s faced, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor nor his sense of wonder, always heading out first thing in the morning with his cat and dog to watch the sunrise over the Truro Dunes, which is his time to say good morning to his parents. After their death, his adult brother, Achilles, returned home to take care of him and run the family business, Beal Brothers Farm and Nursery.

Schmidt has created numerous caring adult teachers in his novels—a fact no doubt influenced by the fact that Schmidt is himself a college English professor. The Labors of Hercules Beal is no exception. At the beginning of the school year, Lt. Col. Hupfer assigns each of his seventh graders their own “Classical Mythology Application Project” to “learn something about yourselves through studying classical myths.” Hercules’ assignment is to consider how each of his namesake demigod’s 12 fabled labors might be performed today.

This daunting assignment provides an intriguing theme, as well as a great way to connect young readers to mythology. Schmidt makes great use of the Maine setting, and the Beal Brothers Farm and Nursery is rife with intriguing dilemmas. Hercules’ reflection essays and Hupfer’s responses are entertaining and informative as well; Hupfer is a kind, sensitive but tough grader, making comments such as, “Your grade might have been significantly higher had you not chosen to use tricks that have been obvious to any teacher born since 1702.”

Few writers have the ability to sink a middle grade character so deeply into the abyss and then bring them back again. As Hercules Beal concludes, “By the end of his Labors, Hercules understood that he had been to hell, and come back. That meant a lot—that he had come back. Now he had a lot more living to do—and he was grateful beyond anything for that.” The Labors of Hercules Beal is an exceptionally honest and empowering book, offering multitudes of hope, kindness and unforgettable adventures.

Gary D. Schmidt’s middle grade novel offers multitudes of hope, kindness and unforgettable adventures as it introduces young readers to classical mythology.
FictionHistorical Fiction

The Postcard

Review by Alice Cary

There should be a special word for when readers become so thoroughly engrossed in a book that they can hardly put it down—and are jolted, even bereft, when it comes to an end. Captivated comes close but doesn’t completely convey the experience of reading The Postcard from French writer and actor Anne Berest. Already an international bestseller, it’s a unique piece of autofiction that unfolds like a thriller while seamlessly addressing a number of hefty social issues past and present.

Like the author, the novel’s Anne Berest is the great-granddaughter of artist Francis Picabia and French Resistance fighter Gabriele Buffet-Picabia. But Anne knows little about her maternal grandmother Myriam except that she was Jewish and lost her family in concentration camps. The topic is rarely discussed, and Anne doesn’t think much about it until one day when her young daughter remarks, “They don’t like Jews very much at school.” 

Shaken to her core, Anne can hardly address the subject. Instead, she suddenly remembers a strange, anonymous postcard that her mother had received years earlier, in 2003. The front showed a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris; the back contained the names of Myriam’s parents, Ephraim and Emma, and siblings, Noémie and Jacques, all of whom died at Auschwitz in 1942. 

Anne becomes determined to find out who sent the postcard, though she’s uncertain whether the sender’s intentions were honorable or menacing, “waiting, as they had been for decades, patiently, for me to come looking for them.” She partners with her chain-smoking mother to investigate, hopping into her mother’s messy car, and little by little, their efforts pay off and details emerge, which Berest shares in fictionalized scenes, creating dialogue and details while sticking to the facts as closely as possible. As her mother says, “It’s incredible how much is still there in the archives, like an underground world, a parallel world, still alive. Like the embers of a fire . . . all you have to do is blow on them to rekindle the flame.”

The rekindling is unsettling, and Berest’s moving storytelling brings her ancestors’ story to life in dramatic, artful ways, often interspersing historical events with running discussions between mother and daughter. They uncover an epic, tragic tale that spans the globe, including Russia, Latvia, Poland, France, the United States and Palestine. Although Ephraim had taken note of the growing dangers to Jews in Europe, he was determined to become a French citizen, and in so doing, “He’d allowed himself to become inextricably entangled in a situation from which there was no escape, trapped by rising waters while he simply stood there and watched them rise.” 

As Anne and her mother explore their past, the author notices a number of coincidences and parallels to her own life while acknowledging the extent of the inherited trauma. “I carry within me,” she concludes, “inscribed in the very cells of my body, the memory of an experience of danger so violent that sometimes I think I really lived it myself, or that I’ll be forced to relive it one day.” Readers of The Postcard will be left with similar feelings and much to ponder, especially after these words from Anne’s mother: “Indifference is universal. Who are you indifferent toward today, right now? Ask yourself that. Which victims living in tents, or under overpasses, or in camps way outside the cities are your ‘invisible ones’?”

Readers of The Postcard will be left with much to ponder, especially after these words: “Indifference is universal. Who are you indifferent toward today, right now?”
NonfictionTrue CrimeMemoir

What the Dead Know

Review by Alice Cary

Early on in her job, Barbara Butcher got an invaluable piece of advice from a colleague: “When you leave here each day, surround yourself with things of beauty. Enjoy nature and art and food and music and love. Just do it, and don’t skip a day.” Those words turned out to be crucial, lifesaving wisdom for Butcher, who spent 22 years working at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. It was her job to investigate the circumstances surrounding unexpected deaths, carefully examining the bodies and their surroundings for clues to determine if it was an accident, a suicide, a death by natural causes—or a murder. Although she calls it “the best career I could ever imagine,” the emotional toll was painful—often excruciating—as she explains in her colorful, compelling memoir, What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator.

Barbara Butcher shares fond and chilling memories from the career that both saved and ruined her life.

Butcher’s life was almost upended by depression and alcohol addiction. Despite rising in the ranks as a physician assistant and a hospital administrator, she was on an extreme crash course to destruction when she landed in Alcoholics Anonymous. By chance, after she got sober, she was hired as a medicolegal death investigator. Butcher was only the second woman to hold the job; the first had quit after only a month.

Writing in a fast-paced, no-nonsense, sometimes funny and always precise style, Butcher shares a treasure trove of life and death stories that touch on racism, wealth, poverty, prejudice, misogyny, justice and injustice. In many ways, it’s the ultimate behind-the-scenes tour of the Big Apple from the 1990s through 2015, including the 9/11 attacks. Butcher guides readers through mansions, flophouses, back alleys, squatters’ buildings, train tunnels and more while taking note of the immense breadth of humanity, both living and dead.

Visceral, impassioned and hard to put down, What the Dead Know is a lively account of an unimaginable career.

Writing in a fast-paced and precise style, Barbara Butcher shares a treasure trove of stories from her 22 years as a death investigator in New York City.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Bitsy Bat, School Star

Review by Alice Cary

It’s Bitsy Bat’s first night at her new school, Crittercrawl Elementary, in Kaz Windness’ inventive and informative Bitsy Bat, School Star. Adorable, irrepressible Bitsy soon discovers that her classmates aren’t at all like her. There’s a mouse, a rabbit and a racoon who uses a wheelchair, making Bitsy the only “toe-hanger.” Windness, who describes herself as “proudly autistic,” beautifully describes Bitsy’s reaction: “Maybe it was the awful feeling that she would never, ever fit in. Whatever it was, Bitsy Bat had a FIVE-STAR meltdown.”

Every young reader, autistic or not, will likely identify with many of Bitsy’s feelings, and the resourceful bat soon comes up with excellent solutions to her problems while reaching out to her classmates so they can all better understand everyone’s unique abilities.

Windness’ dusk-toned art plays up Bitsy’s batlike behavior in clever ways, and the author-illustrator’s personal note, as well as a footnote containing additional facts about autism, make Bitsy Bat, School Star a particularly helpful resource for all kids.

Every young reader, autistic or not, will likely identify with many of the feelings portrayed in Bitsy Bat, School Star, and its resourceful protagonist soon comes up with excellent solutions to her problems.
NonfictionMemoirHumorEssays

Congratulations, the Best is Over!

Review by Alice Cary

R. Eric Thomas is a big personality, and he owns it: “I’m a lot without reason or provocation.” He likes exclamation points, and he’s fun, funny, vulnerable and one hell of a storyteller. Readers will find him a hoot to hang out with in his second book of essays, Congratulations, the Best is Over!: Essays. It’s an excellent follow-up to Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America, which recounted his coming-of-age in Baltimore, education at Columbia and early career writing for Elle. Now a multitalented pop-culture guru, Thomas has published a YA novel, Kings of B’more, and written for the TV shows “Better Things” and “Dickinson.”

These latest essays chronicle his courtship and marriage to David Norse Thomas, a white Presbyterian minister who was raised in Oregon. Their dissimilar backgrounds provide tender comedy, as seen in the account of their engagement on top of an Oregon peak at sunset: Eric describes the mountain as “one that we walked up with our feet and bodies and such.” By the end of the expedition, he’s shivering uncontrollably, saying, “David, I think nature is trying to kill me!”

In the first half of the book, “Homecoming,” the couple move from Philadelphia back to Baltimore —which is problematic for Eric, since Baltimore “was where all the ghosts of the unhappy person I used to be still lived.” Eric’s discussions of his depression are frank and charismatic. “I feel like I’m talking about the inner workings of a stranger. The sadness is real and it is always around and it is not who I am.” Readers can feel his loneliness as he writes at his apartment desk, and his attempts to find friends and community are both touching and hilarious.

Engaging stories about neighbors, landscaping and a horde of very loud frogs ensue in the second half of the book, “Homegoing.” When the COVID-19 pandemic hits, Eric and his husband buy a house set on a half acre of land—which Eric poignantly connects to the failed promise of 40 acres and a mule to formerly enslaved Black people in 1865—out in northern Baltimore County. As Eric explains, “Apparently the key to getting me to consider the appeal of the suburbs is locking me in my city apartment for fifty-two days. On day fifty-three, suddenly I’m like, ‘You know what really rings my bells? A Nest camera, a cul-de-sac, and an HOA handbook full of microaggressions.’”

Thomas will keep you laughing, but underneath his mirth lies a wealth of thoughtful observations about his life, family, politics, pop culture and especially his marriage.

R. Eric Thomas will keep you laughing, but underneath the mirth of this excellent essay collection lies a wealth of thoughtful observations about his life, family, politics, pop culture and especially his marriage.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School

Review by Alice Cary

In the marvelous Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School, Justin Roberts provides an invaluable life lesson for anyone fearful of approaching something new: Lean into those nerves. Roberts borrows a page from fellow musician and author Bill Harley (Sitting Down to Eat) by turning one of his own most popular hits into a picture book. During a drive to school, a girl’s mother explains that those butterfly feelings are normal and happen to everyone. Even Mom and the girl’s dad felt them when the girl first arrived as a baby. “Don’t hold them in,” her mother says. “Just let them fly.”

Paola Escobar’s art visualizes the child’s fears with colorful, delicate swirls of butterflies that follow her as she gets up and heads to school, reinforcing the message that these nerves are actually a lovely, useful force. With its reassuring text and cheerful illustrations, Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School provides a simple yet powerful message about harnessing one’s fears: “Those butterflies made me realize that the flutters inside are wings opening wide . . . guiding me through my first day.”

With its reassuring text and cheerful illustrations, Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School provides a simple yet powerful message about harnessing one’s fears.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

How to Get Your Octopus to School

Review by Alice Cary

How to Get Your Octopus to School cleverly addresses school hesitancy by making an octopus the student whose young female human owner is in charge of coaxing him there. In the process, readers learn a lot about octopuses: They are great at hiding, they have strong suction cups for holding onto things, and they squirt ink when nervous. Becky Scharnhorst’s lighthearted text emulates these characteristics, overlaying certain words with a pattern resembling octopus ink, such as when the book concludes, “When you finally arrive at school, you’ll probably be exhausted, but your octopus will be . . . EXCITED!”

Jaclyn Sinquett’s illustrations portray an energetic yet friendly struggle between octopus and human. This anthropomorphized creature is an adorable little fellow who will get laughs from readers as he considers an endless number of first-day outfits, settling on a jaunty blue and gold ensemble. How to Get Your Octopus to School reassures readers that a happy ending awaits on that big first day.

How to Get Your Octopus to School cleverly addresses school hesitancy by making an octopus the student whose young female human owner is in charge of coaxing him there.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

On the Night Before Kindergarten

Review by Alice Cary

Rosemary Wells has been entertaining children with her sly, sweet characters and stories for decades, and she does so once again with On the Night Before Kindergarten. Milo’s parents are excited for Milo’s first day, but Milo, a young kitten, is plagued by bad dreams about what might happen: showing up wearing only his red rubber boots (causing everyone to laugh), forgetting how to count to six or getting stuck on the school bus as it zips past his house.

Young readers will love watching Milo’s parents fret incessantly about his dreams while Milo goes on to enjoy a fantastic first day. Wells has a way of reaching into young readers’ souls and reassuring them about their fears—while making them laugh in the process. She bathes Milo’s dream scenes in a starry blue background, a motif she later repeats in small spot illustrations to indicate what his parents are worrying about. A fine, funny joke on Milo’s father nicely ties the story’s end to its beginning. On the Night Before Kindergarten is an excellent choice for any young child about to face a new situation.

Young readers will love watching kitten Milo’s parents fret incessantly about his dreams while Milo goes on to enjoy a fantastic first day in On the Night Before Kindergarten.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Yenebi’s Drive to School

Review by Alice Cary

A daily trip to school is a monumental journey for the narrator of Yenebi’s Drive to School. Yenebi, her younger sister, Melanie, and her mother, Mami, rise at 4 a.m. to cross the border from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego by 7 a.m. Yenebi doesn’t mind the hours of waiting in la linea—the lines of cars awaiting inspection by U.S. authorities—noting that her mother’s wakeup call “makes my ears happier than an alarm clock ever could.” Along the way, she sees a festival of sights, sounds and smells, as vendors tempt car passengers with tacos al vapor, burritos and pan dulce.

Author-illustrator Sendy Santamaria notes that this story arose from her own childhood spent on both sides of the border: “It often felt like home was always around me but never somewhere tangible. . . . It was the moments of waiting, of being in between both countries, that felt like home.” She seamlessly weaves Spanish phrases and dialogue into her crisp text, and her art is an explosion of vibrant color, adding to the book’s multisensory celebration. Yenebi’s Drive to School demonstrates excellently that there are many ways to get to school and that the lessons and rewards of education are worth striving for.

Author-illustrator Sendy Santamaria seamlessly weaves Spanish phrases and dialogue into her crisp text and adds to Yenebi’s Drive to School’s multisensory celebration with art that is an explosion of vibrant color.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Eagle Drums

Review by Alice Cary

In her debut middle grade novel, Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson crafts an exquisitely immersive tale describing the mythical origins of the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast and how the Iñupiaq people acquired song and dance.

A boy named Pinja is sent on a mountain journey by his family to get obsidian for their toolmaking. His mother can’t help but worry; it’s the same mountain where his two older brothers disappeared. Nonetheless, it’s a vital task, because this small family lives off the land and never takes more than what’s necessary, surviving “thanks to the animals and their kindness and generosity—and a heavy dose of luck.” They rarely see others and are extremely cautious the few times they do.

When Pinja reaches the mountain, he is immediately confronted by an immense eagle god named Savik, who snatches him and takes him far away to Savik’s eagle god family. Pinja remains prisoner for 14 moons, learning many difficult lessons from the eagle gods, including how to dance, sing, drum, build a large gathering hall and become a leader.

Pinja is thoughtful, intelligent and determined, and his intense yearning to return home drives him to study and learn from everything he encounters—even a cute lemming teaches Pinja to see the power of combining strength with others. Gradually, Pinja realizes an important new concept, one foreign to his family: “Why would you do things alone when you can accomplish so much together?”

Rainey’s writing is taut and finely chiseled, as in this description of the endless ennui of Pinja’s imprisonment: “The days cut at him like obsidian against grass with their slow emptiness.” Her fine-toned illustrations showcase the beauty of the Alaskan landscape and its people, while her knowledgeable, passionate descriptions of survival in a harsh environment integrate well into the ongoing action. Rainey herself lives with her family in a remote Alaska Native village in the Brooks Range, where they follow a predominantly subsistence life and try to preserve traditional Iñupiaq values and knowledge.

Eagle Drums marks the impressive debut of a gifted writer. Rainey gives readers an engrossing, exciting look into Iñupiaq culture while offering invaluable lessons about the power of community, kinship and celebrations.

Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson gives readers an engrossing, exciting look into Iñupiaq culture while offering invaluable lessons about the power of community, kinship and celebrations.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Chinese Menu

Review by Alice Cary

Award-winning author Grace Lin leads readers on a fascinating, mouthwatering tour of American Chinese food in Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods. Her enthusiastic, attention-grabbing narration often makes readers feel as though she’s addressing them directly.

Lin describes American Chinese dishes—which have been adapted and changed from those found in China—as “the flavor of resilience, the flavor of adaptability, the flavor of persistence and triumph. Above anything, this food is the flavor of America.” Chinese Menu is jampacked with chapters that are organized according to course, including tea, appetizers, soup and chef’s specials. Foods like Bird’s Nest Soup, General Tso’s Chicken (he was a real general during the 1850 Taiping Rebellion) and Chop Suey make an appearance. There’s history, too: Lin explains that the fork may have been invented in China, but that as chopsticks evolved from long bronze cooking tools to their wooden form, Confucius advised people to use them to eat instead, believing that knives and forks resembled weapons and brought disharmony to meals. Adding to the offerings are numerous color illustrations, diagrams, a map of China, informative endnotes, an extensive bibliography and an illustrated timeline showing when various dishes emerged. There’s also a recipe for Lin’s mother’s scallion pancakes.

Read our interview with Grace Lin: “What’s more tangible and easier to understand than the food that we eat?”

Though all of the above is compelling, what makes this book shine are the numerous retellings of food-related myths and folktales, many of which Lin first heard as a child at the dinner table. A story about the origin of Dragon Well Tea involves a dragon, a poor old woman and a mysterious stranger who knocks on her door. Dumplings are said to have been invented during the Eastern Han Dynasty (24–220), when a doctor named Zhang Zhongjing found an innovative way to treat villagers’ frostbitten ears during the Lunar New Year. Some tales are not for the faint of heart and involve subjects like death and poverty, but throughout, Lin’s sensitive narration remains mindful of her young audience.

Lin’s illustrations are further icing on the cake—starting with the book’s ornate cover showing a young girl holding out a steaming bowl of soup, inside of which readers see the faint suggestion of a bridge and a building, hinting at the tales waiting inside.

Chinese Menu is a treat in every way: an exceptional compilation that can be read all at once or taken out from time to time as a reference while eating certain dishes—a family ritual that all ages will enjoy. Either way, it’s scrumptious!

Chinese Menu is a treat in every way: an exceptional compilation that can be read all at once or taken out from time to time as a reference while eating certain dishes—a family ritual that all ages will enjoy.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

The River We Remember

Review by Alice Cary

In William Kent Krueger’s exquisite The River We Remember, newspaper editor Sam Wicklow wants to write a book about the experiences of the Dakota Sioux people of Jewel, Minnesota. One character describes his project as telling “The history of this place. The whole history. The true history.” And that’s exactly what Krueger so adroitly achieves in this novel, excavating both the history and truth of a memorable town through one compelling mystery: Who killed the town’s wealthiest landowner, a tormented bully of a man named Jimmy Quinn whom no one seemed to like, and left him lying in the Alabaster River to be gnawed on by catfish?

The acclaimed author of 19 Cork O’Conner mysteries, Krueger is no stranger to the form. He sets the scene beautifully, beginning with the discovery of Quinn’s body on Memorial Day 1958, as Sheriff Brody Dern and his part-time deputy, retired sheriff Connie Graff, begin to investigate. The author is a superb director of his large cast of characters, including café owner Angie Madison, who lost her husband in World War II; her 14-year-old son, Scott, who is eager to meet life head-on despite the congenital hole in his heart; and female attorney Charlie Bauer, who, after the war, worked on behalf of Japanese American families who had lost their lives, savings and livelihoods while incarcerated in camps. The aftermath of WWII—and war in general—haunts The River We Remember. Brody, a veteran who has PTSD, is an intriguing central protagonist, and holds several surprising secrets; one of his early actions in the investigation is particularly jaw-dropping.

William Kent Krueger dives into the darkness of 1950s America.

In this page-turning, but also rewarding read, Krueger deepens the tightly-plotted central mystery by examining many horrors of history that reach out to affect the present day. Suspicion for Quinn’s murder soon falls on Noah Bluestone, a Dakota Sioux veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife, Kyoko. Numerous prejudices run deep throughout the novel, including those against Quinn’s German widow, Marta, and Wendell Moon, a Black cook at Angie’s café. Krueger excels at embracing both the beauty and the sordid side of his characters’ lives, making them feel alive and all too human. 

At one point, Sam’s wife asks her husband, “This book you’re going to write, if you ever do, I wouldn’t count on it being a bestseller. . . Why don’t you write a mystery instead? Everybody loves a good mystery.” The beauty of The River We Remember is that it’s an excellent mystery but also so much more, making readers care about all of these flawed lives while unearthing painful truths about the xenophobia and racism nestled within small-town America.

William Kent Krueger’s page-turning, rewarding mystery The River We Remember is a superb exploration of the prejudices and complexities of post-World War II America.

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