The King Is Dead: The King Is Dead

Sarah Shankman. Pocket Books, $5.99 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-671-73460-2

Her disappointing fifth outing finds amateur sleuth and writer Samantha Adams at a Barbecue Cookoff in Tupelo, Miss., where death assails the eccentrics gathered there. (Sept.)

Featured Fiction Reviews

André Alexis

Windham-Campbell winner Alexis (Fifteen Dogs) dazzles with these stark and enchanting stories, many of which feature Trinidadian immigrants in small-town Ontario. In Continue reading »

Markus Werner

This effervescent 1985 novel from Swiss author Werner (On the Edge), who died in 2016, follows a ruined middle-aged man haunted by the ghost of his father. Franz, a divorced Continue reading »

Ocean Vuong

Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful story of a troubled young man. “The hardest thing in the world Continue reading »

Richard Bausch

Bausch (Playhouse) delivers a wondrous collection of stories about the tempestuous lives of ordinary people. The narrator of “In That Time” reminisces about his trip to Cuba in Continue reading »