London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe

A melange of true crime, history, political science and the portrait of a family, London Falling is another masterclass in narrative non-fiction from the author of Say Nothing.

A young man leaves the balcony of a luxury apartment building in central London; did he commit suicide, was he coerced or murdered? Zac Brettler clips the embankment and ends up on in the mud, rather than the River Thames. The story of what lead up to this moment and its aftermath is filled with fascinating and insightful twists, turns and backgrounds, not just into the life of Brettler and his family, but “the glitzy, mercenary aspirational culture of modern London.” A fascinating read.

Adult Non-Fiction pr8247277

Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies: A Novel by Lindsay Wong

An utterly original work of social satire and horror, leavened with dark humour, by the author of The Woo-Woo, a Canada Reads nominee.

A 25 year old single woman signs away her life to a matchmaking service that caters to the ancient tradition of corpse marriages. We learn what lead her to this decision, her training and experiences waiting for a match while being held captive in the gloomy Zhong caves of Beijing, and the story of her grandmother, from 1920s China to the occupation of the Japanese in Hong Kong and time spent in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

“Villain Hitting” looks at the cultural hopes and expectations placed on Chinese women, and the constant struggles of economic precarity within a framework that defies genre boundaries. While this will likely be too dark and weird for many, I’d call it an immediate cult classic.

Adult Fiction pr8121339