Seven books about writerly rivalry

Laurie Petrou is an award-winning, internationally published author. She is also a Professor at the RTA School of Media at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson). She has a PhD and Master's in Communication and Culture (York and TMU), a diploma in New Media Design (Sheridan), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, specializing in painting (Queen's). She lives in Niagara.

Her new novel is The Rayburn Affair.

At Lit Hub Petrou tagged seven of her favorite "books that feature creative people and their relationships with other artists or writers." One title on the list:

Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings

I read this wonderful book by Meg Wolitzer on a trip to New York, which allowed the setting of the novel to burst from its pages. At the start of the book, we meet a group of talented and dreamy-eyed creatives at a camp for artsy kids—Spirit of the Woods—in the summer of 1974. American politics bleed into the margins of their conversations, which are heady and serious, and then brash and provocative. Ethan is the unattractive but undeniably talented artist of the group who call themselves (in that self-conscious but arrogant blush of youth) The Interestings; Jonah and Cathy are the children of a famous Laurel Canyon-esque folk singer; gentle Ash is the beautiful and talented star around which, orbits many, including insecure and often-envious Jules, who steers the story in her writerly observations. Over the course of the novel, we follow all six as they shed childlike creative ideals and experience what it is to grow up chasing artistic dreams with varying degrees of success and failure.

The novel explores the challenges of making a life both within and without the arts, and how that unfolds from adolescence into adulthood. The friends are witnesses to one another’s success and failures and seem to have a stake and a sense of prideful ownership over one another because of their decades-long friendships. Set against the backdrop of political dishonesty and the country’s abandonment of ideals, the book probes questions about how to be an artist in the world.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Interestings is among Rebecca Makkai's five top novels with academic settings and Sabrina Rojas Weiss's five novels ripe for adapting as a TV series.

--Marshal Zeringue

Linda Kass's "World News from Waverley High," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: World News from Waverley High: A Novel by Linda Kass.

The set-up for World News from Waverley High:

1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion. When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she is drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests—while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper’s editor.

Kass's dreamcasts begins:

Here are some age-appropriate-looking, older-teen-playing actors and actresses who are commonly cast as 16- or 17-year-olds, including performers who may be a bit older but still pass convincingly:

For Rita Fields: Maddie Ziegler — good for the popular girl, social media girl, or slightly aloof “everyone knows her” type; often cast in teen roles and can read as 16–17.

For Caroline Brown: Chloe Coleman — works well as the smart, cool, socially aware popular girl; has a strong “older teen” look on screen.

For Lena Rosen: Sunny Sandler — can fit the bubbly popular girl or well-liked campus-cool character; can read as a 16–17-year-old with...[read on]

Visit Linda Kass's website.

Writers Read: Linda Kass (June 2026).

Writers Read: Linda Kass (July 2026).

Writers Read: Linda Kass (August 2026).

My Book, The Movie: World News from Waverley High.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Nozomi Naoi's "The Land of Happiness"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Land of Happiness: How the Japanese Department Store Visualized Modern Life by Nozomi Naoi.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fascinating look at how Japanese department stores of the twentieth century influenced modern life, identity, and the concept of a dreamworld—and why they continue to loom so large in our imagination.

The Land of Happiness explores the far-reaching influence of the Japanese department store on modern life and our imaginations. In this gorgeously illustrated volume, Nozomi Naoi explains how Japanese department stores modeled “the new modern Japanese life and identity” through print media and design, physical and imagined space, and the new experiences that these spaces offered. The stores created the notion of a modern subject enjoying a “land of happiness”—and this, in turn, shaped the wider sociological context, including emerging roles for women and perceptions of coloniality.

The book focuses on three areas: the mediascape of proliferating department store posters, advertisements, commercial design, promotional magazines, and merchandise; the physical space, such as the Western-style architecture that characterized many of these early department stores, and the imagined “modern space” created within their walls; and, finally, the production of a novel “dreamworld,” which included dining spaces with children’s menus, elevators, escalators, and more.

While the research on department stores and their role in the quotidian experience is vast, there is nothing like this study, which is uniquely grounded in an art historical approach that draws upon the visual media environment of early twentieth-century Japan and its impact on the everyday.

Learn more about The Land of Happiness at The MIT Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Land of Happiness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six crime novels with astonishing narrative turns

Gillian McAllister is the New York Times bestselling author of Reese's Book Club Pick Wrong Place Wrong Time, Caller Unknown, Famous Last Words, Just Another Missing Person, Everything but the Truth, The Choice, The Good Sister, The Evidence Against You, How to Disappear, and the Richard & Judy Book Club pick That Night. She graduated with an English degree before working as a lawyer. She lives in Birmingham, England, where she now writes full-time.

At CrimeReads McAllister tagged six top novels in which you should guess the twist but probably won't. One title on the list:

Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen, The Wife Between Us

Vanessa is recently divorced from wealthy, charming Richard and has developed an unhealthy taste for booze, plus obsession with his new fiancée, Nellie. Or has she?

As we alternate between Vanessa’s present day and Nellie’s countdown to her wedding we’re made to question the unhinged ex-wife narrative and ask who’s actually the victim and who’s the predator in this twisty, surprising thriller.

Read about another entry on the list at CrimeReads.

The Wife Between Us is among Vi Keeland's six top thrillers with a side of romance and Lizzy Barber's seven novels about wealthy people behaving badly.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Sara Cooper

From my Q&A with Sara Cooper, author of Ravenous: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Ravenous is the word that I think best describes the story: our protagonist, Breigh, is ravenous for food, both because she's pregnant and because she is literally starving herself to stay thin while pregnant; she's ravenous for items, because she is a compulsive shopper and unboxer; she's ravenous because she is chronically, endlessly unfulfilled; the baby, who is a character, is ravenous because it's growing; and we are all ravenous because we, as consumers (willing or not), are trapped an endless loop of buying and overconsumption. It's a story about...[read on]

Visit Sara Cooper's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ravenous.

The Page 69 Test: Ravenous.

Writers Read: Sara Cooper.

Q&A with Sara Cooper.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is James R. Benn reading?

Featured at Writers Read: James R. Benn, author of The Ninth Circle (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery).

The entry begins:

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France. During the Second World War, it was the scene of a remarkable conspiracy of goodness. Local residents made the commune a haven for Jews and other refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. The refugees were hidden both within the town and in the countryside while some were escorted to neutral Switzerland. Precise numbers are impossible to determine, but estimates of the number of people sheltered in Chambon and its area range from eight hundred to five thousand.

I am researching this chapter in WWII France for a Billy Boyle novel, and I’m reading two accounts which differ greatly in their tone and approach (both are excellent). One of the challenges in reading for research is finding a book that hits the marks you’re interested in as an author. Sometimes a book looks good but when you get into it, the material is disappointing.

Not so with these two titles.

Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There, by Philip P. Hallie.

This is perhaps the quintessential work on Le Chambon. It shows how quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy worked to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death. At the center is...[read on]

About The Ninth Circle, from the publisher:

To solve a double murder in Cuba, US Army Captain Billy Boyle will need to build unlikely alliances with Havana’s underworld and British intelligence, including Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, whose naval wartime service would later inspire the James Bond novels.

This installment of James R. Benn’s fan-favorite, critically-acclaimed WWII mystery series marks 20 years of Billy Boyle, an Irish American cop from Boston thrust onto the staff of his “uncle” Ike Eisenhower for sensitive overseas military investigations.

January, 1945: If US Army Captain Billy Boyle thinks a summons to Havana will give him a chance to sip a cold Hatuey under the Caribbean sun, the fantasy is dead on arrival. Within hours of landing, Billy and his partner-in-crime-solving, Lieutenant Piotr Kazimierz, are assigned to investigate the murder of a Navy intelligence officer. But as the men wait for an informant at a beachside bar, a bomb goes off, and they narrowly escape with their lives. Then the informant—a Cuban taxi driver named Hector Díaz—is found dead outside his apartment. What did Hector know? And who was so desperate to silence him?

Thrust into a double-murder investigation, Billy and Kaz team up with the brass at the British Legation in Havana, including none other than Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, to gather intel from sources inside Havana’s criminal underworld. Their search takes them from Havana’s Chinatown to the Gran Casino Nacional, where notorious gangster Meyer Lansky offers his services if it means defeating the suspected common enemy—the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence wing of the Nazi military—and finding out what sort of intelligence they are so hell-bent on keeping top-secret at this late stage in the war.

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Bitter Wind.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2025).

The Page 69 Test: The Ninth Circle.

Writers Read: James R. Benn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paul Cartledge's "Pericles"

Featured at the Page 99 Test Pericles: Statesman, Demagogue, Eccentric by Paul Cartledge.

About the book, from the publisher:

A nuanced portrait of ancient Athens’s boldest statesman and his enduring cultural legacy.

Pericles, the Athenian statesman, was a towering figure of his era, renowned for promoting Athenian democracy, shaping the Athenian Empire, and championing the arts, notably through the Parthenon’s creation. Born to aristocracy, he was a fervent democrat, a masterful demagogue in the ancient sense, and an eccentric in his personal life. Paul Cartledge explores Pericles’ life, examines Athenian history, and provides an insightful account of Pericles’ political career, his role in Athens’s building program, his intellectual connections, and his love life. Cartledge further considers Pericles’ reputation in the theater and how he has been represented over the centuries from antiquity to the present day. This book is a nuanced, illuminating, and lively portrayal of a remarkable politician.

Learn more about Pericles: Statesman, Demagogue, Eccentric at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test Pericles.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven pulse-pounding thrillers

Rebecca Joines Schinsky is the Chief of Staff for Riot New Media Group and a co-host of the Book Riot Podcast.

At Book Riot she tagged seven "pulse-pounding reads for thriller fans." One title on the list:

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

No list of great thrillers is complete without this Edgar Award-winning novel about a Black Texas Ranger who travels to a small town in East Texas where two recent murders have brought long-simmering resentments back to the surface.

Named among the top 10 thrillers of the 21st century, Bluebird, Bluebird marked the breakout of a major name in modern crime fiction. It’s a gritty, tense read infused with blues music and southern history. Good news if it leaves you wanting more: there are two more books in Locke’s Highway 59 series, with a fourth on the way.

Read about another entry on the list.

Bluebird, Bluebird is among Polly Stewart's seven new classics in Southern noir, L. Alison Heller's eight crime novels in which a small town is the perfect incubator, Janice Hallett's five gripping mysteries set in small towns, and Katie Tallo's top ten crime novels about returning home.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kate Westbury's "The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies by Kate Westbury.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set against the backdrop of post-WWII Oxford University, The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies is the irresistible debut from Kate Westbury that seamlessly layers mystery, romance, and a dash of academia to introduce the Crown’s newest undercover operatives.

Oxford, England, 1951 - The Honorable Ginevra Bishop likes red lipstick, clever retorts, and earning top marks in her tutorials. She’s following her mother’s footsteps by studying at Oxford, eager to prove she’s more than a debutante.

Sidney Braithwaite likes brooding, Latin, and ignoring his nightmares. He’s determined to forge a new life for himself at Oxford, far from his childhood mining village and free from memories of the war.

Though Gin and Sidney have little in common, the British Security Service is keen to unite her charm with his espionage experience: there’s a Soviet spy at the university, and the agent tracking them down was poisoned. MI5 wants Gin and Sidney to pick up the trail and identify the informant before more sensitive information is compromised. As a team, the pair of undergraduates clash in personality, upbringing, and taste––but have a connection neither can deny. Gin and Sidney must unite their respective talents to follow the clues before they’re caught in the traitor’s crosshairs…if the sparks flying between them don’t blow up the operation first.

Visit Kate Westbury's website.

Q&A with Kate Westbury.

The Page 69 Test: The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael T. Bernath's "In a Land of Strangers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: In a Land of Strangers: Northern Teachers in the Slave South by Michael T. Bernath.

About the book, from the publisher:

What makes the American South distinctive? Is it the location, the culture, the mindset—or a story Americans learned to tell about themselves? In a Land of Strangers contends that the idea of a “distinctive” South did not crystallize out of the Civil War or politics alone; instead, it took shape decades earlier through the everyday observations of thousands of Northern teachers who lived and worked there from the late eighteenth century through the Civil War. Young, white, educated, and marked as outsiders, these men and women occupied an unusual position of trust within Southern households, classrooms, and plantations, granting them rare, intimate access to the inner workings of slaveholding society.

Michael T. Bernath offers the first full-length study of this vast group of teachers—the most sustained point of contact between North and South in the antebellum era. Bewildered, curious, and constantly translating the South for themselves and audiences back home, these educators described a strange and profoundly different place in their diaries and letters. Collectively, they fixed a shared image of the South in the national imagination. In this book, Bernath reshapes our understanding of sectional identity, American culture, and why the idea of a distinctive South endures.

Learn more about In a Land of Strangers at The University of North Carolina Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Confederate Minds.

The Page 99 Test: In a Land of Strangers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books that will make you feel something

Darianne Schramm grew up in Gainesville, Florida listening to the sounds of the woods and the music of Tom Petty. When she’s not writing stories about grief, love, and characters who are slightly nihilistic, you can find her eating the darkest possible chocolate and playing overly aggressive games of Scrabble. She has a BA in Philosophy from Elon University and her Masters from the University of Southern California where they reluctantly let her write her thesis on rock and roll lyrics. She is currently getting her PhD in New Zealand where she lives with her husband, daughter, and goldendoodle.

Schramm's YA debut is 72 Hours Of You.

At The Nerd Daily the author tagged "six books that make you feel deeply and widely," including:

All The Noise At Once by DeAndra Davis

You’ll Feel: Sibling Love

All The Noise At Once is such a special book that leaves you with the deep urge to call your sibling and tell them how much you love them. After closing this book, I immediately had to pick up the phone and call my brother to tell him how much I love him (and also remind him that I am still Mom’s favorite). This is a book about police violence against Black people in the US, a book about what it means to be an autistic teen grappling with their place in the world, and it’s definitely about football. But the heart of this book is the relationship between two brothers: the football star and his younger brother. The absolute care and protectiveness shown by Brandon to his younger brother, Aiden, is so beautiful it almost makes you forget the time your own brother drew a bunch of overflowing toilets on your (private!!) diary.

Read about the other titles on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Lara Stokes reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lara Stokes, author of Midsummer Nights: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I just finished Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley, a love story told through the soundtrack of the relationship. Set in the early 2000's, this was such a sweet spot for me, as the timeline coincides almost exactly with my university years, when I was very into music and had every back issue of SPIN magazine to impress boys with my musical knowledge. The book tracks the relationship between a music writer and the songwriter she inspires, and dips in and out of music trends of the time as well as classic 'deep cuts'. The author has created a great Spotify playlist to accompany - my only complaint is that I read this while camping, and didn't find the playlist until after reading. It made for a nice epilogue!

I also recently read...[read on]

About Midsummer Nights, from the publisher:

Life imitates art when a down-on-her-luck TV star returns to her hometown stage and redefines her dreams in a funny and heartwarming spin on Shakespeare’s most magical romantic comedy.

Miranda Belmont is a regular on a popular TV series, but her acting career is not exactly moving forward. After she’s publicly humbled, her next steps are definitely backward: playing Helena in a community theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in her stifling hometown, directed by her parents, and sharing the stage with her high school boyfriend.

Backstage, it’s borderline Shakespearean drama. Between her ex, an intriguing costar making sweet overtures, and an unwelcome blast from the past, Miranda is caught in a real-life, nearly magical tangle of romantic confusion that threatens the production at every turn.

Opening night will bring them all down to earth―especially Miranda, who’s navigating her way, onstage and off, through all the chaos these mere mortals create. As she reconnects to her roots, the creative spark she’s been missing awakens Miranda to who she truly is.

Visit Lara Stokes's website.

Writers Read: Lara Stokes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Steven B. Smith's "On Statesmanship"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: On Statesmanship by Steven B. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

What true statecraft consists of, and how to know a statesman when we see one

In the modern world we yearn for great leaders but resist them when they come along. In this much-needed essay, Steven B. Smith tells us that a statesman is something far different from a demagogue or a technocrat; he or she incorporates many qualities of leadership―persuasiveness, courage, foresight, judgment―to take people where they need to go while hardly seeming to lead them at all. A true statesman is focused not on amassing power but on finding the best way to use power toward responsible ends. Above all else, Smith argues, the statesman is an educator who, through language and argument, helps shape a people’s civic understanding. This book is a timely reminder of a set of qualities we desperately need in our political leaders but have forgotten how to talk about.

Learn more about On Statesmanship at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes.

The Page 99 Test: On Statesmanship.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that explore brothers' bonds

Carson Markland is a writer and filmmaker from South Carolina. Her first novel, Men Like Us, was published by Algonquin/Little, Brown in July 2026. Her short stories have appeared in Breakwater Review and SmokeLong Quarterly, have been included in the Best Microfiction anthology, and have been longlisted for the Disquiet International Literary Prize.

At Electric Lit Markland tagged seven books in which "we see a variety of brothers and permutations of this thorny relationship—some younger brothers who look up to the older, some who want nothing to do with them, all inextricably bonded to a person who understands them (or doesn’t) like no one else in the world." One title on the list:

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

This novel is perfect for anyone with a Western itch to scratch. Assassin brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters are sent by their boss to kill a prospector on his gold mining claim. Along the way, Eli (the younger of the two) begins to question his life as a hitman, a concern that his more aggressive, less introspective brother doesn’t share. The novel tracks their journey (and Eli’s growing doubts) through a series of absurd detours that give the story a picaresque, episodic feel from chapter to chapter. As with Intermezzo, the novel explores what happens when two brothers start to diverge—as well as the bonds between them that, try as they might, can never be severed completely.

Read about another book on the list.

The Sisters Brothers is among JP Gritton’s ten must-read crime books set in the American West and John Larison's ten books that represent the evolution of the Western.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Kevin C. Morris

From my Q&A with Kevin C. Morris, author of Untamed Coast: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Untamed Coast is set in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska, and the setting is absolutely a main character. The story weaves three narratives across three timelines spanning eighty years, and the wild, magnificent, and dangerous place is the common thread connecting them all together. My working title was Radioville — the name of a remote island along the rugged coast where the lives of all the characters intersect.

In today’s publishing world, publishers decide titles, not authors. And as a result, titles are often more marketing devices than creative opportunities. I’m lucky to have a publisher who worked collaboratively (and exhaustively) with me to find a title that evoked the story and character of the book and was in line with my vision, while also checking the boxes on important marketing considerations such as genre appeal and target demographic expectations. As much as I was in love with Radioville, Untamed Coast does far more work setting reader expectations for a mystery/thriller in a wilderness adventure setting.

What's in a name?

For me, names are an opportunity to...[read on]

Visit Kevin C. Morris's website.

Q&A with Kevin C. Morris.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Robert Thompson's "After Belsen"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: After Belsen: Christian Encounters with Holocaust Survivors by Robert Thompson.

About the book, from the publisher:

After Belsen reveals the deeply personal ways in which British and American Christians responded to and were affected by survivors of the Holocaust in the years immediately following the liberation of concentration camps. British and American Christians―men and women, army chaplains and relief workers, government officials and interfaith activists―listened to testimony, confronted postwar issues facing Jews, pioneered the fight against antisemitism, and reapproached their Christian faith as they encountered survivors. At camps like Bergen-Belsen, these encounters forced Christians to confront their long-held beliefs, their complicity, and the meaning of solidarity in the face of atrocity.

Using neglected archives, private correspondence of British and American Christians, and interviews with their families, Robert Thompson pieces together stories that complicate the idea of Christian silence. He highlights the emotional and theological impact of direct witness―moments when Christian and Jewish lives intersected amid the devastation. In doing so, he also reveals the previously unheard voices of women relief workers and chaplains who offered care, challenged antisemitism, and began to reformulate their beliefs from the ground up.

After Belsen is not only a moving contribution that unites Holocaust studies, religious history, and interfaith reflection but also a vital new perspective on how ordinary people responded to extraordinary horror and how their responses resonate today. Their previously untold human stories demonstrate how lived experience―not just institutional declaration―shaped postwar Christianity.

Learn more about After Belsen at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: After Belsen.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six great uplifting books

Jeffrey Davies is a professional introvert and writer with imposter syndrome whose work spans the worlds of pop culture, books, music, feminism, and mental health. His work has appeared on HuffPost, CBC Arts, Collider, Slant Magazine, PopMatters, and other places.

At Book Riot Davis tagged six great uplifting books. One title on the list:

Libby Lost and Found by Stephanie Booth

The publisher describes this book as “for people who don’t know who they are without the books they love,” which to me is just the definition of an uplifting read.

Libby Weeks is the high-earning author of The Falling Children, a bestselling fantasy series. Only the world doesn’t actually know her as Libby; they know her as F.T. Goldhero, a pseudonym made up to protect her privacy. The world is also impatient to know how the beloved series will end.

When the last manuscript is already months overdue, Libby is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The author’s symptoms advance quickly, as does her already-crippling anxiety. After an incident in which she leaves her dog at the dog park and almost reveals her true identity to the journalist who returns him home, Libby realizes she’ll need help to bring her incredibly famous book series to a close.

That doesn’t seem like much of a problem once she turns to Peanut Bixton, a precarious 11-year-old who eats, sleeps, and breathes The Falling Children books, which provide her a sense of stability and validation in a world committed to misunderstanding her. As Libby’s memory worsens, Peanut might have to venture outside the pages of her books and learn what it really means to be a hero.

Read about another book on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Libby Lost and Found.

The Page 69 Test: Libby Lost and Found.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: James R. Benn's "The Ninth Circle"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Ninth Circle (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery) by James R. Benn.

About the book, from the publisher:

To solve a double murder in Cuba, US Army Captain Billy Boyle will need to build unlikely alliances with Havana’s underworld and British intelligence, including Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, whose naval wartime service would later inspire the James Bond novels.

This installment of James R. Benn’s fan-favorite, critically-acclaimed WWII mystery series marks 20 years of Billy Boyle, an Irish American cop from Boston thrust onto the staff of his “uncle” Ike Eisenhower for sensitive overseas military investigations.

January, 1945: If US Army Captain Billy Boyle thinks a summons to Havana will give him a chance to sip a cold Hatuey under the Caribbean sun, the fantasy is dead on arrival. Within hours of landing, Billy and his partner-in-crime-solving, Lieutenant Piotr Kazimierz, are assigned to investigate the murder of a Navy intelligence officer. But as the men wait for an informant at a beachside bar, a bomb goes off, and they narrowly escape with their lives. Then the informant—a Cuban taxi driver named Hector Díaz—is found dead outside his apartment. What did Hector know? And who was so desperate to silence him?

Thrust into a double-murder investigation, Billy and Kaz team up with the brass at the British Legation in Havana, including none other than Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, to gather intel from sources inside Havana’s criminal underworld. Their search takes them from Havana’s Chinatown to the Gran Casino Nacional, where notorious gangster Meyer Lansky offers his services if it means defeating the suspected common enemy—the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence wing of the Nazi military—and finding out what sort of intelligence they are so hell-bent on keeping top-secret at this late stage in the war.

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Bitter Wind.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2025).

The Page 69 Test: The Ninth Circle.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Cathryn J. Prince's "For the Love of Labor"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman by Cathryn J. Prince.

About the book, from the publisher:

From her start as one of the youngest activists in US history, Pauline Newman helped shape the International Ladies' Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) into a dominant force in industrial America. Cathryn J. Prince tells the story of a self-educated Jewish immigrant who dedicated herself to a legion of causes and lifelong battles against sexism and classism.

Prince follows Newman’s life from a youth split between Lithuania and New York City sweatshops to her work as an advisor to New Deal–era labor secretary Frances Perkins. Newman’s long hours at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory informed her entrée into labor activism. In the following years, she tirelessly advocated for workers, ran for New York Secretary of State as a socialist, and became the first woman to serve as the ILGWU general organizer. Her interest in the health of workers led to service on the Joint Board of Sanitary Control and a decades-long term as education director of the ILGWU health center. Membership in Eleanor Roosevelt’s circle opened doors to government positions and advisory roles that continued into the postwar era. Prince also weaves in the details of Newman’s fifty-year relationship with a woman, her struggles with her sexual identity, and her final years.

Engaging and panoramic, For the Love of Labor is the first major biography of an important figure in labor and women’s history.

Visit Cathryn J. Prince's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Cathryn J. Prince & Hershey and Juno.

The Page 99 Test: Death in the Baltic.

The Page 99 Test: American Daredevil.

The Page 99 Test: Queen of the Mountaineers.

The Page 99 Test: For the Love of Labor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that try to keep up with Elizabeth Taylor

Stephen Greco is a novelist, journalist, media executive, editor, dramatist and Executive Director of the Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards, which he co-founded in 1988. He is a regular contributor to the magazine Upstate Diary and has contributed as a feature writer and editor to numerous publications including Interview magazine, New York magazine, Air Mail, The Advocate, American Way, Art News, Dance Magazine, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Latina, the London Observer, Stagebill, and The New York Times online.

His new novel is The Woman Who Had Everything.

At Lit Hub Greco tagged six books that approach the question: "Was [Elizabeth Taylor] a great actress, a great beauty, the ultimate movie star, a creature of vulgar excess, or some magnificent combination of all four?" One title on the list:

Kitty Kelley, Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star

Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized biography is the louche pleasure of the group. Kirkus memorably called it a “tacky stroll” through Taylor’s life, and that is not entirely unfair. Kelley is much more interested in Taylor’s appetites—for food, for men, for feuds—than in the nuances of her acting. She assembles gossip with a prosecutorial enthusiasm, often relying on people who seem only too happy to settle an old score.

And yet the book has become fascinating as a period object. Published in 1981, it captures the way Taylor was discussed before her AIDS activism, before the perfume empire, and before the culture reconsidered the courage and generosity of her later life. Here she is still the scandalous, overindulged bad girl of the tabloids, forever arriving late, spending too much, falling ill, falling in love, and making everyone furious.

The best way to encounter this book, by the way, is in a battered vintage paperback like mine, found in a secondhand bookstore. An as-new hard cover or pristine digital edition might violate its spirit.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue