Markus Zusak is a bit of a legend, having written the profound award-winning novel, The Book Thief. One of his earlier young adult books, I Am the Messenger, displays his immense talent for authentically portraying the experiences of his characters. He did so with the girl struggling to survive Nazi Germany in The Book Thief, and he does so here, in the story of an unmotivated young man whose life is upended when he embarks on a mysterious, dangerous mission. Family, friendship, love, and the moral responsibility that connects all three surface in this story, adding up to become a novel that is heavy and light, serious and funny, and especially thought provoking.

Set in contemporary Australia, Ed Kennedy is a nineteen-year-old cabdriver who grew up on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. He's an underachiever who spends his time playing cards with his friends, one of whom -- the beautiful Audrey -- he's secretly in love with. His kind but unsuccessful father has recently died, his older brother can do no wrong, and he barely tolerates his verbally abusive mother. Ed lives alone with his smelly dog, The Doorman, his most loyal companion.

Everything is going along as usual until the day Ed unwittingly stops a bank robbery and apprehends the robber. From that moment on, he's a local hero. Soon, he begins anonymously receiving mysterious playing cards in his mailbox, Aces to be specific, on which clues are written. Compelled to decipher the clues and go where he is directed, he winds up intervening in people's lives, sometimes with encouragement, sometimes with a gun. It's menacing, ominous business, because when Ed tries to stop, he is threatened and beaten. And so he becomes "the messenger," fixing lives, helping or hurting as needed. Ultimately, Ed has been given an odd opportunity to exercise a strange power, through which he discovers his desire to be more than a nobody, to live up to his potential. Zusak paints his rough-edged protagonist with a tenderness and thoughtfulness that is impossible to resist.

I Am the Messenger is a natural fit for young adults, as it speaks to the feeling of being an outsider and choosing one's path in life, but it appeals to mature readers with its complex characters, moral conflict, and suspenseful plot. Who is behind the playing cards? Who is forcing Ed to comply? This is no innocent tale. There has been some debate about the novel's ending, which takes an existentialist turn, but I think it fits well with the world Zusak has created for Ed Kennedy. You'll have to read it and decide for yourself, but I do promise you'll feel rewarded.

In Juliet Rosetti's debut novel, The Escape Diaries, Mazie Maguire is in a Wisconsin prison for murdering her husband. She has been there for four years. Mazie still insists she's innocent; no one is listening.

On a hot September day, our heroine is working garden duty. The sky darkens, lightning flashes, and the winds become frightening. Before the prison officer can get them inside, a tornado rolls through the prison yard. In the confusion, Mazie's on the run. Readers, hold onto your hats, it's going to be a very bumpy ride!

The rest of this crazy, funny story is like being dropped in an amusement park running. There is an unbelievable roller-coaster ride, lots of crazy characters, guns, explosions, and a dog. Oh, I almost forgot, the police -- and a very determined U.S. Marshall. The one bright spot in Mazie's chaos is when she's rescued by a reporter who actually believes she is innocent!

I laughed out loud, cringed, and sighed through this whole novel. It is a very enjoyable read, and I recommend it to anyone who wants a good laugh with an adventure of two lifetimes. I am definitely going to read The Escape Diaries again because I know I missed parts ... while I was laughing.

Scandinavian crime fiction, replete with bleak landscapes, graphic violence, and heavy-drinking detectives, is surprisingly popular; consider the success of Stieg Larsson's trilogy or Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole novels. In addition to these greats, there is a lesser-known Norwegian writer you should acquaint yourself with: Karin Fossum. She is the author of a translated series of suspense novels that feature Inspector Konrad Sejer, a stoic detective who prefers the company of his dog and his whiskey. A man of measured words, he is skilled at analyzing people and penetrating their social masks. Fossum's eighth Inspector Sejer thriller, Bad Intentions, is a story of a friendship gone wrong, the weight of guilt, and Sejer's investigation of two disturbing deaths.

The story is set in Norway and begins as three young men, best friends since childhood, go on a weekend trip to a cabin in the woods by a lake. Axel is the controlling, confident ringleader. Reilly is an emotional follower who likes to get high. And Jon is on overnight leave from a mental hospital. There is tension in the cabin, and by the end of the weekend Jon has drowned in the lake. His friends claim it was suicide. But when Inspector Sejer hears that Jon had been improving in the hospital and another body is discovered in a nearby lake, Sejer starts suspecting foul play.

Things get complicated for Axel and Reilly when they realize Jon kept a diary in the hospital. Their friendship was not what it seemed. And as Sejer gets closer to the truth, the two remaining friends begin to break down in very different ways. Loyalties are tested, trust disintegrates, and off-kilter behavior takes over. In an interesting turn, the mothers of the two drowned men find solace in each other -- despite what appears to be a dangerous connection between their dead sons -- and plan their own revenge. When Sejer finally untangles the mystery, we are stunned at how possible it all seems.

In fact, that is Fossum's understated strength. Ordinary situations are ominous in her hands. Often small choices upend a life. She develops her characters' emotional and day-to-day lives so we connect with them and understand the mistakes they have made. One wonders if the crimes could have been perpetrated by any of us in that situation. So, if you're looking for a worthy new Scandinavian crime series, start with Bad Intentions and then carry on to read the other novels: Fossum and Inspector Sejer do not disappoint.

With summer’s end and the fall fast approaching, we begin to look forward to a riot of blazing autumnal colors in Central Park, brisk mornings and cooler evenings, the sensuous scent of roasted, street-corner chestnuts, and the delight of apple picking or a cloudy stroll in a pumpkin patch. It’s one of my favorite times of year, partly because there is nothing more satisfying than curling up with a hot, freshly brewed cup of tea, a warm afghan (the blanket kind), and a good mystery novel on a chilly autumn night. A few months ago, Word & Film introduced us to Headhunters by master storyteller Jo Nesbo and I’ve been hooked ever since. Having followed up that read with The Snowman, which was also terrorizing, my next venture into Nesboland is Nemesis by Jo Nesbo, the second of six Harry Hole books in the translated series (and fourth in the series including those yet to be translated). It’s another winner.

Harry Hole is a senior detective in Norway. He is considered one of the elite elders on the force, recognized as a tenacious, astute officer of the law with a remarkable record of solving some of the most heinous and difficult cases. Unfortunately, as successful as his professional record is, his personal life is equally a disaster. His on-again, off-again serious bouts with alcohol have periodically threatened to blow up his career while destroying many of his personal relationships. These drinking bouts sometimes lead to Harry’s black-outs and subsequent disappearances off the grid, only to reemerge days later with bruises or cuts he is reluctant to explain.

In Nemesis, Harry encounters his latest challenge: a number of bank robberies are occurring around Oslo, which uniquely involve a masked robber coldly and callously forcing a bank employee to count to twenty-five with a gun to his or her head. If the money demanded is not collected and bagged in the allotted seconds, BANG! The trigger is pulled and the employee is killed on the spot. It is a deadly game and gripping scenario. As if that weren’t enough, a concurrent plot finds Harry waking one morning with a severe hangover, only to discover that the former flame he had dinner with the night before is found dead. Harry can’t recall a single detail of the evening, leading him to desperately hide his involvement from the police. There’s plenty of deception all around, including that around the attractive female officer Harry is partnered with. Their dangerous trip to Brazil, in pursuit of the robbery suspect, supercharges the suspense and intrigue.

Part of the reason I’ve become hooked on the Harry Hole series is that, as a protagonist, Harry is unfailingly human with more significant shortcomings than other popular mystery heroes. Yet, like most of us, he struggles forward even in the most difficult of circumstances, despite obstacles and messes, often of his own making. Jo Nesbo’s imaginative writing is right on the money, finding the proper balance between description and drive, without becoming bogged down in density of details.

With more Harry Hole novels I’ve yet to read, it promises to be a most satisfying fall. Oh, and did you know that the main reason leaves turn colors in the fall is due to less daylight and more night? I guess I’d be wise to buy the big box of Lipton.

Dean Koontz's beloved character Odd Thomas returns in his fifth book, Odd Apocalypse, and if you're a fan of the series you won't be disappointed. Unfortunately, things aren't looking up for our poor hero, Odd Thomas, the twenty-something fry cook from Pico Mundo, California, who has the unfortunate ability to interact with the dead. Ever on the move in order to evade lethal pursuers, Odd Thomas finds himself being confronted by the ghost of a woman on a horse who leads him to the mysterious and haunting Roseland, an impeccably splendid mansion in the Hollywood Hills. At first, Odd and his traveling companion Annamaria find solace in Roseland and its reclusive billionaire owner, but as dusk settles it's obvious that the estate isn't everything that it appears and that Odd isn't as safe as he thought.

Odd Thomas has become one of the most well-known and best-selling characters today; if you're not familiar with him, you can read up on his backstory in the first book, Odd Thomas. Because of his special ability, he is frequently visited by ghosts who have unfinished business, which he always feels obligated to resolve. This has led Odd to abandon his hometown in pursuit of life answers, but trouble always seems to follow wherever he turns up. Further complicating the situation is the fact that the needy spirits can't speak to him, forcing him into a constant game of charades. Odd Thomas has become so well known that the spirits of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and even Alfred Hitchcock have turned to him for help.

Despite every effort to simplify, Odd Thomas's life becomes more complicated at every turn, but he continues on with an upbeat outlook and a sense of humor. Odd Apocalypse doesn't fail to once again up the ante, making the game all the more challenging and putting poor Odd Thomas in yet another perilous position he couldn't possibly get himself out of.

Find out more about Odd Thomas here.

For those uninitiated, Jack Reacher is an aloof, offbeat, former military cop. He is the neighbor you never really get to know: a bit too intense, sometimes abrasive, possibly dangerous. Except Reacher is not your neighbor. Nor anyone's. He owns no home, no apartment, no automobile. The only clothes he owns are the ones on his back. Traveling from town to town and state to state by bus or thumb, he is a drifter. Along the way, Reacher never looks for trouble. Yet somehow, he always steps in it. A Wanted Man by Lee Child, the latest Reacher adventure in the series, is riveting. The story picks up mere minutes after we left him in the previous novel, Worth Dying For, and it never lets up.

Stepping onto the blacktop in the cold heart of midnight, blasts of frigid winter winds of Nebraska are a punch in the face. Jack Reacher sticks out his thumb on the dark, desolate state highway looking for a ride. At six foot five inches tall and heavily built, he is a big bruiser of a man. Muscular and strong, his physique is intimidating. A freshly broken nose covered with a strip of silver duct tape makes him even more grotesque. After a few shivering hours and a dozen or so looky-loos, a sedan with two men and a woman pulls over. Reacher gets in. The woman in the backseat to his right never speaks a word. The two men upfront are marginally more talkative, but Reacher soon realizes the details of their story and identities don't add up. His suspicions rise when they hit a police roadblock.

The prime suspects in a violent execution-style stabbing are apparently on the run. The gripping tale that unfolds is a tense nail-biter with more twists and turns than a Nebraskan corn maze. It includes a beautiful FBI agent, a politically-minded hometown sheriff, and a dangerous, deadly consortium, all swirling in a spinning crop-circle of lies. Attempting to discern the good guys from the bad is only half the mystery. Fortunately, Reacher's acute wit and extraordinary mental skills continue to dissect, analyze, and slug his way toward the truth.

Among all the series protagonists out there these days, Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly, Alex Cross by James Patterson, Harry Hole by Joe Nesbo, and others, Jack Reacher is a little more "out there" -- but even as a renegade of sorts, he is as capable as the rest of his brethren. Reacher is a straight shot of whiskey -- neat, no chaser. He lives his unorthodox life by a seriously defined, personal moral code with fierce loyalty, hurdling legal boundaries as he sees fit. Lee Child spits out the narrative of Reacher's adventures with intense vigor, propelling us forward at a blistering clip, leaving us gasping and irresistibly glued into the wee hours way beyond our bedtime. Later, we fall asleep feeling a little more safe, satisfied, and secure knowing Jack Reacher is, well, out there.

New to the world of Jack Reacher? A Wanted Man is as good on its own as it is a sequel to Worth Dying For.

It is 1935 on the glittering French Riviera and Tom Nash is living the high life, summering with a circle of international friends, sipping cocktails, sailing, flirting. All is grand -- until an assassin creeps into Nash's room one night, determined to kill him. Flash back to 1919 and we learn why. Nash has a secret past as a British intelligence operative in Russia, doing atrocious things in the name of the Crown. Now, someone in his social set is not to be trusted, and Nash finds that the self he tried to bury resurfaces with a vengeance when his life is again at stake. So begins Mark Mills' latest suspenseful novel, House of the Hunted.

Deftly portraying Europe at the end of one war and on the brink of another, Mills ties these fragile time periods together into an action-packed espionage-and-love story with a protagonist that is eminently likeable. Despite his wicked past, Nash seems a sensitive, good man who still pines for Irina, the lover he lost in Russia. For the last sixteen years Nash has lived quietly as an author in France, and while he does have a woman in his life, Helene, they are not emotionally tethered to one another. Closest to Nash is his beguiling grown goddaughter, Lucy, who is secretly in love with him, and her stepfather, Leonard -- the only friend who knows about Nash's past and, in fact, was his mentor and supervisor in the intelligence service.

As attempts on Nash's life continue amid a whirlwind of parties, Nash confides in Leonard, and together they try to deduce which incident in Nash's past is catching up with him -- and who would want to betray him. Mills' characters, so cleverly written, are all suspect. As the novel unfolds, Nash must also avoid the police as he does away with each of his attackers. Suddenly, the man who thought his past was behind him is forced to confront what he is truly capable of, and what chance he has at loving again.

It's a somewhat familiar conundrum, but Mills' style is graceful and the glamorous, slightly threatening characters feel original. At the novel's end, you realize that this is a wonderfully sinister story, reminiscent of an elegant Agatha Christie mystery. Mills winds you up and then tightens the tension just a bit more before releasing you to the truth. You'll be left pondering that old proverb, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

We've all seen the movie. We remember the music, the characters, the fake-looking (but still terrifying) shark. We remember lines like "You're gonna need a bigger boat" and "Smile, you son of a …" Yes, Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster is certainly memorable; so memorable, in fact, we've often forgotten (or, in some cases, never knew) that what came first and inspired the movie was Peter Benchley's novel of the same name -- Jaws.

The book's plot is familiar: One night, a young woman goes for a swim and never returns, killed by a shark. Police find her remains washed up, tangled in seaweed. Chief of police, Martin Brody, tries to close the beaches, but the mayor refuses. As he reminds Brody, the town of Amity's livelihood depends on summer vacationers; with the Fourth of July right around the corner, closing the beaches would mean "cutting [their] own throats." But then the shark kills again, and again, until even the mayor can no longer ignore the problem. Chief Brody hires a local fisherman to catch the shark, an ichthyologist named Matt Hooper who comes to provide his expert opinion -- and a patrol is carried out. But all these efforts fail to stop the shark, and Brody must turn to their last savior: a rough, Ahab-type fisherman named Quint. For the right price, and a deckhand or two, he's willing to kill the shark. And so, with Amity's future in the balance, together Quint, Hooper, and Brody set out on the epic hunt.

Some aspects are entirely unique to the novel. The characters are fleshed out, given detailed histories and new motivations. This is most obvious with Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper (an old flame's little brother) who, in an attempt to recapture their shared pasts, have an affair.

Admittedly, big fans of the movie will find this difficult to swallow. The characters aren't those they've come to know and adore. Brody isn't so noble, Hooper isn't so charming, Ellen isn't so loyal. It can be said, however, that these characters, at least in some flawed way, are more honest than their movie counterparts, more multidimensional. If you can get past these differences, though, and accept the novel as unique to itself, its own appealing identity inevitably becomes clear. Jaws is a taut novel that scares and thrills, delivering both insightful exposition and effective action -- a hidden treasure worth rediscovering.

Author Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya was born in India and educated in politics and philosophy at Presidency College, Calcutta, and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. His third novel, The Watch, brings readers to an isolated base in Kandahar. Soldiers are faced with a lone woman demanding the return of her brother's body. Single-minded in her mission, she refuses to move from her spot on the field in full view of every soldier as the camp's tense, claustrophobic atmosphere comes to a boil when the men begin arguing about what to do next. Here, Roy-Bhattacharya shares the inspiration behind the novel.

Everyday eBook: What drew you to Afghanistan?

Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya: I'll paraphrase something by the poet Iqbal by way of an answer: Afghanistan is the heart of Asia, and when Afghanistan suffers, Asia bleeds. It's a wildly beautiful country, with a wildly beautiful people, and one of the last places in the world that appears to have successfully held its own against outside influences. What's not to love? I live in the countryside because my soul needs it. And I wrote about Afghanistan because I needed to dwell, if only for a while, in one of the world's last truly remote places.

EE: What made you decide to buttress your novel with the ancient Greek tragedy Antigone?

JR: Antigone for me transcends time and place, quite literally. I first read Antigone when I was a teenager, and I've measured all the women I've met since against that yardstick, to our mutual detriment. But I've also taught the play and was fascinated by her hold on my students. I needed a protagonist who could serve as a moral yardstick of the degree of injury done to the Afghans by outside powers. A woman who simply has no interest in compromising with the folks who've slaughtered her family and devastated her country. She rejects their overtures in their entirety and, in that, becomes a microcosm of the rejection by the Pashtuns, especially, of all the material temptations offered by Western civilization -- in her specific case, both physiological and therapeutic rehabilitation; and, in the case of her people, all the material detritus that will be left behind by the Americans following their inevitable (and increasingly precipitate) withdrawal.

EE: "Slaughtered," "devastated." These are strong words. It would imply a taking of sides. And yet, in the novel, you are remarkably evenhanded in your depiction of the viewpoints of both the Afghan and the American characters.

JR: I'm a novelist and I don't believe in taking sides as I write: that's the task of the propagandist. My personal beliefs and private opinions do not matter within the covers of the book. I've no interest in either betraying my characters or holding the reader's hand and telling him or her how to think.

EE: What was the most memorable experience you had as part of your research?

JR: Innumerable heart-to-heart sessions with my army mates. More specifically, there was the time I went to see how a halal animal had its throat slit and came away repulsed and physically drained, though the episode did find its way into my book.

EE: Finally, what do you hope readers will take from the book?

JR: Greater empathy and comprehension -- for both those who fight these wars and for the victims -- than when they began the book.

One of the ways a reader can judge a book, and thereby its author, is by the company it keeps. When we look at reviews of Donald Ray Pollock's debut novel, The Devil All the Time, we see comparisons to writers like Raymond Carver, Flannery O'Connor, Jim Thompson, and Harry Crews, with blurbs by Chuck Palahniuk and Katherine Dunn. The context is important, because any reader who picks up this book looking for a light beach romance, opens it and starts reading, will probably drop it and run, screaming in horror. One hopes Quentin Tarantino has optioned this novel, because it is dark, dark, dark.

That said, it is also powerful, imaginative, provocative, disturbing -- and frequently, quite funny. Pollock spent three decades working in an Ohio paper mill before taking up writing. He previously published an acclaimed collection of stories called Knockemstiff, about the inhabitants of a hardscrabble town. His novel returns to this territory, set in Ohio and West Virginia in the 1940s to the 1960s, and is populated with a cast of cheating sheriffs, husbands, and barmaids, with some pedophiles and serial killers thrown in for good measure.

With characters as rich as these, the plot is almost secondary. Willard, a man desperate to cure his wife's cancer, turns to a "prayer log" in the woods, soaked in blood from a series of grisly sacrifices. Roy, a traveling fire-and-brimstone preacher, uses spiders to graphically demonstrate what Hell will look like. Carl and Sandy, a couple of serial killers, pick up hitchhikers only to rob and photograph them in some truly disturbing situations. Many of the strands involve vengeance for crimes that have been committed or, perhaps, for those that probably will be committed. Pretty much everyone is calling on God to save them from one mess or another, "but it don't work."

Maybe there would be more redemption if Pollock's characters weren't always digging themselves in so deep. Roy and his flat-top-guitar-picking partner, Theodore, have to leave town in a hurry after Roy kills his wife to prove that he can resurrect her. Strangely, he fails. They wind up with The Flamingo Lady and Flapjack the Clown, "traveling from one end of the hot, humid South to the other" as part of a flea-bitten carnival. Strangely, things don't work out too well there, either.

In the Prologue, we meet a sympathetic character named Arvin Russell, and we are told that "it seemed that his father had fought the Devil all the time." This struggle is both grotesque and entertaining; it pervades the novel, and the Devil always wins.

Editor's Note: Karin Slaughter is a New York Times bestselling author. Her books include Undone, Beyond Reach, Triptych, and Faithless. Her new novel, Criminal, is an epic tale of love, loyalty, and murder that encompasses forty years, two chillingly similar murder cases, and a good man's deepest secrets. Here, she talks about our natural interest in violence and a frightening, awakening moment in her own life.

I've long thought that it's in our genetic programming to take notice of violence. We slow down for car accidents. We watch reality TV shows. We are obsessed with runaway brides and murdered spouses. In particular, women seem to be drawn to these stories, which doesn't make a lot of sense considering they're generally about women experiencing something really, really awful.

In both Snatched, my novella, and Criminal, my new book, I talk a lot about the impact of violence against women and children. Don't get me wrong -- these books are written to be enjoyed, but there's also a deeper meaning there if you're looking for it. As a writer, I've always felt it's my job to be extremely careful when writing about victims, especially women. I also have to remind myself that they can be offenders or, at times, their own worst enemies. The familiar trope of the woman in peril doesn't really interest me. I want to show what these cases do to the investigators, the medical examiners, the detectives, the families -- all the victims that are left behind.

I suppose my interest in the impact of violence on communities comes from growing up during the time of the Atlanta Child Murders. I was just a kid living in the suburbs, but my whole life changed when these children's bodies started being found. I went from a fairly carefree life to having to constantly check in with my parents. There were certain streets I could no longer cross, and we all started looking at strangers in a different way.

This is the ripple effect that you seldom see on the news. The salacious details are generally the focus, and after the bad guy is caught or the trial is over, the viewer or reader goes back to feeling that brief sense of safety before the next child is threatened or woman is taken.

Like I said, it's in our programming to be interested in these things -- to mark where a violent situation might arise, to be aware of the darkness that's just around the corner. One might argue that our survival depends on knowing about these things, which leads us to the obvious conclusion that people who don't read thrillers are not as evolved as those of us who do.

Do you remember your first kiss? Falling in love? Your proudest achievement? Of course you do. But Christine Lucas doesn't. In fact, she doesn't remember anything. Each day she wakes up terrified, not knowing who or where she is, not recognizing her husband, Ben. Each day she must relearn how she got to this damaged point. S. J. Watson's addictive page-turner, Before I Go to Sleep, is fraught with tension; he'll have you hooked the moment Christine discovers her secret journal and reads the ominous words she can't recall writing: "Don’t trust Ben."

From that point, this unnerving story is told through the prose of Christine's journal, which a mysterious Dr. Nash, who is treating her unbeknownst to her husband, has urged her to keep. Ben has explained that they are happily married and have shared a lifetime together. As a result of a hit-and-run car accident, she has a rare form of amnesia, one that allows her to form and retain memories only during her waking hours, which then evaporate as she sleeps, and so it begins the next day. Unbelievably, she has lost twenty years of memories. Her journal is her only lifeline, though she must trust Dr. Nash to remind her daily of its existence.

And the journal is indeed helping. Christine begins to have flashes of fragmented memories that she can hold onto. Through these glimmers and her own writings, she realizes there are contradictions in what her husband and her doctor are saying. Dr. Nash insists that her amnesia was the result of an incident much more horrific than a hit-and-run. Ben tells her they have no children … until the day he tells her they did have a son who died. And then denies their child yet another day. Perhaps he is protecting her from the grief she would relive anew each day upon hearing of this tragedy. As Watson's tale unwinds, we see that between love and obsession lies manipulation.

Without the benefit of reliable memories to form her identity, Christine is gripped by the bone-chilling fear that her mind may simply be inventing scenarios to fill in the blanks. She -- and, ergo, the reader -- feels consumed with a frenzy of questions. How can she know what is true and who to believe? Did she really spend years paranoid, violent, in a psychiatric hospital, as Dr. Nash says? Does her son exist and is he dead? Why are they keeping her from her best friend, who may have the answers to her past? And how can Christine trust these men who each claim to have her best interest at heart, when she can't even trust herself?

There is panic laced within Watson's writing, the threat of unspoken conspiracies. He has crafted a uniquely suspenseful novel, so creepily good, you'll have a hard time forgetting it well after the chilling ending.

Hi there. Have you found yourself unexpectedly dead? Do you have some lingering anger or unfinished business that you just can't let go of which is keeping you from moving on? Just so you know, there's a guy who can help. They call him Odd Thomas; he lives out there in Pico Mundo, California. You can usually find him working over in the diner, back behind the grill. He has a reputation for helping out the recently dead. He can see things that others can't. Just to warn you though, he's young — only twenty years old — and honestly looks like he should be hanging out at the beach rather than helping out ghosts, but he has other things up his sleeve and is definitely more than he seems.

If you don't believe me, there are a couple of celebrity endorsements you can look into. Elvis Presley, for one, has been hanging around for years trying to get Odd to understand. Oh, right, one big rule. You're not allowed to talk to Odd. I don't know why, you just can't, so do the best you can with those pantomime skills you've developed over the years. Anyway, good luck.

Oh, wait. Before you go, there are a few other things you should probably know:

1. Odd has issues. What twenty-year-old doesn't, right? Just saying, he's dealing with some stuff so it may be difficult to keep him focused. Do the best that you can.
2. If you're really desperate and really need to get him to pay attention, you can pull out all the stops and become a poltergeist. If you end up with enough pent-up anger, this will give you the ability to start throwing things around. It's very effective, but only use it as a last measure. It's very dangerous and you could end up hurting someone.
3. Very important. There are bad things out there. He calls them Bodachs. They basically look like moving piles of smoke. If you see these guys, run. If you see a lot of them, run really fast. They are attracted to evil and if they're hanging around, you know something awful is about to happen.
4. Fortunately, if you need more information, Dean Koontz has written a number of books about Odd's experiences. You can start with the first book, Odd Thomas. If you feel the need to keep going, you can read Forever Odd, Brother Odd, and Odd Hours. There's also the Odd Thomas Series of all four books if you want to get through them all at once.

As I said, good luck! See you on the other side!

Imagine your child was accused of a heinous crime. How far would you go to find out the truth and protect him? At what point would you start blaming yourself? Noah Hawley's latest psychological page-turner, The Good Father, examines this scenario and poses heartbreaking questions about parenting, love's limits, and good versus evil. Told from the perspectives of both the determined, anguished father and his lost son, Hawley takes us deep into a family's history and unearths a tragic backstory, all the while keeping the reader guessing about the son's culpability until the shocking ending.

Dr. Paul Allen is a Chief Rheumatologist who specializes in diagnosing patients with mysterious ailments. One day, relaxing at his comfortable home in the Connecticut suburbs with his twin boys and his second wife, he sees his nineteen-year-old son, Daniel, from his first marriage, on the television news. It appears his son has assassinated the Democratic candidate for president. What follows is Dr. Allen's quest to vindicate his child, who he believes is innocent -- it must be a mistake that Daniel was caught on camera with a gun. Dr. Allen begins retracing his son's wayward journey toward this fateful day.

Dr. Allen uses his skills and background as a medical problem solver to try and piece together the clues of what truly happened, who the real killer is, and how his son may have been framed -- and it's fascinating. Simultaneously, he analyzes his first marriage and the aftermath of his divorce, during which he moved across the country, leaving Daniel in California with his irresponsible mother. All at once, Dr. Allen has to come to terms with his early experience of fatherhood, confront his guilt, and control his obsessive need to save Daniel, which is threatening his marriage and family life.

Though Hawley presents his story in a style reminiscent of a journalist -- he references multiple political assassins and terrorists from Sirhan Sirhan to John Hinckley to Timothy McVeigh -- it is emotionally harrowing as you viscerally sense the father's agony and the son's loneliness. And still, it is extremely readable. If you like Jodi Picoult's writing, this book will resonate with you.

Steel yourself though. Throughout this suspenseful novel, you will consider the nature of unconditional love and question the parenting decisions you have made in your own life. What would you do in the shoes of this loyal father, who, when faced with his son's demons, recognizes his own part in creating them? Could you give up everything to protect one of your children?

Critically acclaimed author Dan Chaon is back with an outstanding collection of short stories, Stay Awake. And if you think you don’t like short stories, this haunting collection will change your mind.

One of my favorites from the collection is Bees, in which a father's life begins to spiral out of control with the onset of his child's night terrors; this leads to his own inability to continue repressing the memories of his secret first wife and child, who he abandoned so long ago. It's riveting. Another brilliant selection is the title story, Stay Awake. A young couple gives birth to a baby who has a parasitic twin. At once heartbreaking and creepy, you won’t be able to shake this one for days.

I had the privilege of meeting Dan Chaon and he took the time to answer a few questions. Read on for his honest, funny, and sometimes twisted answers … just what you would expect from this uniquely talented author.

What author or book should we all be reading?
Lint, by Chris Ware. Most mind-blowing book of 2011, hands down.

What book have you re-read more than any other?
Probably The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, closely followed by Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov, and The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. (Though I haven't actually read The Hobbit in about thirty years. Maybe now that the movie is coming out, I should revisit it?)

I have never read ________ and I am so ashamed.
Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust. (I’ve read the famous Madeline passage, but nothing else.)

I have read ____ and I am so ashamed.
Lostpedia — the Lost Encyclopedia in its entirety; as well as Bad Twin by Gary Troup; as well as Doc Jensen’s Lost blog for Entertainment Weekly. I was a huge fan of the TV show "Lost" and I still feel very betrayed and bitter about how they screwed it up. I know it’s been a long time since it mattered, but it still galls me.

Can you name five things creepier than twins?
a. Rick Perry;
b. Vegetable drawer full of forgotten potatoes that have begun to sprout tiny human eyes and fingers;
c. "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," esp. Taylor;
d. The corpse of your dead grandma, somehow animated, somehow alive, rotting and crouched in your closet, a sick smell that wafts over you when you are sleeping and then you open your eyes in the dark and you can hear her breathing, wetly chewing on something with her toothless mouth, and you try to convince yourself: Grandma loved me. Grandma wouldn't hurt me. This is not real.
e. That awful thing that is constantly staring at the back of your head but when you turn around it's not visible.

By the way, if you do a Twitter search for "Chaon" (which is pronounced "Shawn") you will find that it is an Urban Dictionary-type slang word. People say that something is, "Off the Chaon!" And that means that it is cool and funky. Thanks, Dan! You're the Chaon!

This post originally ran on Liz and Gianna’s Adventures in Book Land.

The John Grisham you’re used to is all legal, all business, all the time. He keeps you perched on the edge of your seat flipping pages in anticipation of the next thrilling moment. But in his latest novel, America's favorite storyteller throws a little humor into the mix, making The Litigators a guilty pleasure that is not to be missed.

Meet the “boutique” law firm of Finley & Figg, conveniently located next to a massage parlor in a distinctly low-rent district of Chicago. They lie. They cheat. They’ve been known to take a drink … okay, sometimes several drinks. And compared to the slick corporate lawyers they’re up against in a high-profile pharmaceutical case, they’re the good guys. The Huffington Post says it's "laugh out loud hilarious … proof positive that Grisham is not getting older, he is getting better."

If you're looking to wind down after a hectic day of holiday shopping, or about to board a plane for a holiday getaway, look no further than The Litigators for the perfect mix of high-spirited fun and classic Grisham courtroom suspense.

Bonus: Check out the trailer for The Litigators.

From The Litigators:

The law ?rm of Finley & Figg referred to itself as a “boutique ?rm.” This misnomer was inserted as often as possible into routine conver­sations, and it even appeared in print in some of the various schemes hatched by the partners to solicit business. When used properly, it implied that Finley & Figg was something above your average two-bit operation. Boutique, as in small, gifted, and expert in one specialized area. Boutique, as in pretty cool and chic, right down to the French-­ness of the word itself. Boutique, as in thoroughly happy to be small, selective, and prosperous.

Except for its size, it was none of these things. Finley & Figg’s scam was hustling injury cases, a daily grind that required little skill or creativity and would never be considered cool or sexy. Pro?ts were as elusive as status. The ?rm was small because it couldn’t afford to grow. It was selective only because no one wanted to work there, including the two men who owned it. Even its location suggested a monotonous life out in the bush leagues. With a Vietnamese massage parlor to its left and a lawn mower repair shop to its right, it was clear at a casual glance that Finley & Figg was not prospering. There was another boutique ?rm directly across the street—hated rivals—and more lawyers around the corner. In fact, the neighborhood was teeming with lawyers, some working alone, others in small ?rms, others still in versions of their own little boutiques.

F&F’s address was on Preston Avenue, a busy street ?lled with old bungalows now converted and used for all manner of commercial activity. There was retail (liquor, cleaners, massages) and professional (legal, dental, lawn mower repair) and culinary (enchiladas, baklava, and pizza to go). Oscar Finley had won the building in a lawsuit twenty years earlier. What the address lacked in prestige it sort of made up for in location. Two doors away was the intersection of Preston, Beech, and Thirty- eighth, a chaotic convergence of asphalt and traf?c that guaranteed at least one good car wreck a week, and often more. F&F’s annual overhead was covered by collisions that happened less than one hundred yards away. Other law ?rms, boutique and otherwise, were often prowling the area in hopes of ?nding an available, cheap bunga­low from which their hungry lawyers could hear the actual squeal of tires and crunching of metal.

Excerpted from The Litigators by John Grisham. Copyright © 2011 by Belfry Holdings, Inc.

Read more from The Litigators here.