The Broken Teaglass

In Arsenault's quirky, arresting debut, two young lexicographers find clues to an old murder case hidden in the files at their dictionary company. Billy, the narrator, is a “strapping” recent grad with a football player's physique, a penchant for philosophy and a painful chapter in his past that he hasn't quite closed. Mona is a girls' college grad with an ambivalent relationship to her stepfather's wealth and a habit of falling for older, wiser men. The two are drawn together by tantalizing clues left—they assume by a former employee—in the company's citation files. As Billy and Mona spend more and more time hunched over the mysterious “cits” from a book called The Broken Teaglass , they realize the murder may involve colleagues and acquaintances who are still roaming around the office, and Billy struggles to overcome the challenges of entering the adult world and leaving his old life behind. The result is an absorbing, offbeat mystery–meets–coming-of-age novel that's as sweet as it is suspenseful. (Oct.)