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Consider these books for your next read

Cari Mora

Thomas Harris

Penguin, 2019, pp 320, Rs 599

Twenty-five million dollars in cartel gold lies beneath a mansion on the Miami beach waterfront. Ruthless men have tracked it for years. Leading the pack is Hans-Peter Schneider. And, as he closes in on the treasure, he becomes infatuated with Cari Mora, the caretaker of the house.

The science of fate

Hannah Critchlow

Hachette, 2019, pp 245, Rs 599

What if free will doesn’t exist? What if our lives are largely predetermined, hardwired in our brains — and our choices over what we eat, who we fall in love with, even what we believe are not real choices at all? This helps us understand who we are and empowers us to shape a better future for ourselves.

Recursion

Blake Crouch

Pan MacMillan, 2019, pp 336, Rs 990

New York City cop Barry Sutton learns that
memory makes reality as he investigates the
devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed
‘False Memory Syndrome’ — a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

The costliest pearl

Bertil Lintner

Westland, 2019, pp 325, Rs 699

Beijing’s re-entry into the Indian Ocean
is part of Xi Jinping’s ‘Belt and Road’ project. He
has invested trillions of dollars in infrastructure
projects around the ocean rim. And its archrival, a group of countries in the Asia-Pacific, including India, has started a confrontation.

Body and blood

Urmilla Deshpande

Penguin, 2019, pp 200, Rs 270

Each story in this collection takes you into

a realm where people are prompted by love,
desire, jealousy, hatred and, at times, a strange
compassion, to throw out the old, conventional
rules, and make their own.

Falter

Bill McKibben

Hachette, 2019, pp 335, Rs 699

Falter tells the story of converging trends and of the ideological fervour that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, the book offers some possible ways out of the trap.

The never game

Jeffery Deaver

Harper Collins, 2019, pp 416, Rs 996

A 19-year-old student is kidnapped from a park.
An investigator, Colter Shaw, is running out of time.
And murderer killer is playing a dangerous game. This killer isn’t following the rules; he’s changing
them. One murder at a time…

No laughing matter

Edited and selected by Unnamati Syama Sundar

Navayana, 2019, pp 405, Rs 599

This collection of over hundred cartoons from
India’s leading publications, drawn by Shankar,
Enver Ahmed and R K Laxman, among others,
represents the thoughtless hostility Dr B R Ambedkar
often contended with.