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Review_FICTION

estranged brother, Abe, in London. When Hot Mess revelation provide a tidy ending. The
she arrives, she learns that Abe is in a Emily Belden. Graydon House, $15.99 trade territory the author plumbs in this book
coma after a fall down stairs. Immediately, paper (416p) ISBN 978-1-525-81141-8 is familiar from her memoir, Eightysixed:
she begins to suspect that the fall was not Belden’s breezy but shallow behind- the vagaries of dating, social media, and
suicidal (as the police believe) but that the-scenes debut novel set in Chicago’s how one’s security can turn on a dime.
his girlfriend, Jody, may be to blame. high-end restaurant biz revolves around (Mar.)
Naughton alternates chapters between the escapades of 25-year-old Allie Simon.
Jody, Mags, and Mira, a neighbor of Abe’s. She’s hooked up with charismatic Benji
While readers will delight in Mags’s Zane, a chef renowned for his pop-up Mystery/Thriller
nuanced struggle with her emotions dinner parties and a former drug addict
regarding her brother and her suspicions who’s hyped up about the opportunity to Our Kind of Cruelty
of Jody, many sections are clichéd, such run his own restaurant. Allie, blinded by Araminta Hall. MCD, $26 (288p) ISBN 978-0-
as those from the perspective of Mira, wild sex with her lover, is oblivious to the 374-22819-4
who knows more than she’s saying. myriad signs that he is still using and British journalist Hall (Everything and
Sections told in third person are scattered sinks her life savings into the project, Nothing) makes her U.S. debut with a dis-
throughout the book, amplifying the cat- believing in him, his sobriety, and their turbing psychological thriller. Sometimes
and-mouse feel of Mags’ investigations future. When Benji goes AWOL, Allie there’s a fine line between crazy in love
and muddying the water of what really leaves her job as social media manager for and just plain crazy, and for glossy London
happened by creating an undercurrent of an organic cotton swab company and golden couple Mike Hayes and Verity
unreliability. Although the investigation plunges into the fast-paced restaurant “V” Walton, it’s one that becomes blurrier
into Abe’s fall drives the narrative, the world to save her investment while when, after years of all-consuming pas-
nature of Mags and Abe’s past falling-out keeping it a secret that Benji has disap- sion, V decides she wants something dif-
is a subject of intrigue. Naughton’s narra- peared. Angela Blackstone, the restau- ferent. Or does she? Investment banker
tive asks intriguing questions about over- rant’s veteran general manager, does great Mike refuses to accept her moving on to
coming past traumas and the desire for work whipping Allie into shape for the advertising tycoon Angus Metcalf at face
revenge, but the twists that come with launch upon which their lives depend. value, viewing it instead as a new, higher-
the answers never quite satisfy. (Mar.) All too predictably, romance, phenomenal stakes version of the Crave, their kinky
success, financial independence and self- private role-playing game. Hall con-
structs a suspenseful plot that capitalizes
on considerable ambiguity about her
★ The Extinction of Menai characters’ motivations, especially the
key issue of the extent to which V, a sci-
Chuma Nwokolo. Ohio Univ., $22.95 trade paper (424p) ISBN 978-0-8214-2298-4
entist working in AI, might be manipu-
wins separated at birth discover their true identities lating Mike. But with the story unfolding
and a spiritual leader pursues the ancestral home- through the eyes of the emotionally dam-
land of his “dying nation” in this poignant, aged Mike, who was abused as a boy,
T thrilling, and funny novel from Nwokolo (Diaries of readers never learn enough about V and
a Dead African). Brothers Humphrey, a London writer, arguably a lot more than they might wish
and Zanda, a journalist in Abuja, Nigeria, are Menai, about a narrator whose head is an uncom-
descendants of a Nigerian tribe whose members were, in fortably creepy place to be. Still, Hall is a
1990, subjected by a pharmaceutical company to drug writer to watch. Agent: Lizzy Kremer,
David Higham (U.K.). (May)
tests that killed thousands. By 2005, only a few dozen
Menai remain, and their elderly shaman Mata sets out
★ A Necessary Evil
on a quest to find and be buried in their ancestral
Abir Mukherjee. Pegasus Crime, $25.95
Saharan homeland. Meanwhile, a succession of halluci-
(384p) ISBN 978-1-68177-671-2
nations and blackouts reveal to both Humphrey and Zanda that they have been
Set in 1920, Mukherjee’s impressive
living double lives, unbeknownst even to themselves: Zanda has been operating as
sequel to 2017’s A Rising Man finds
the anticorruption extremist Badu, while Humphrey lived as Izak for eight years
Capt. Sam Wyndham, a former Scotland
on the Ivory Coast. Badu’s co-conspirators smuggle him to Cameroon; and
Yard officer, and his astute sidekick, Sgt.
Humphrey heads to Africa to rediscover his forgotten life. But Izak is wanted by
“Surrender-Not” Banerjee of the Bengal
the police, too, forcing Humphrey to flee to Lagos, only to be mistaken for his
Police, transporting Crown Prince
brother and arrested. Zanda is the only one who can clear his name, but he has to
Adhir Singh Sai, of the small kingdom
return to Nigeria first. The madcap twists and turns that ensue provide a joyful
of Sambalpore, back to the prince’s
counterpoint to Mata’s somber odyssey, and Nwokolo manages to brilliantly dis-
Calcutta hotel after a conference. The
till his branching plot into a singular portrayal of a threatened culture. (Mar.)
royal, who attended boarding school with
Surrender-Not, wants his advice about
60 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ JANU AR Y 22, 2018