Some writers put out shoot-em-up thrillers, like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. Some of us experience catharsis through such books by watching justice served up close and personal.

The best historical novels mesmerize readers. They cast their spell and whisk us out of the present and into the bygone days of the past.

A friend offered me a book recently, one that I found mildly intriguing.

Every once in a while, a novel hits me with a punch I never saw coming, perhaps even one unintended by its author. 

This one’s going to be interesting. I’ve got a book whose author lives right down the road. David Joy and I both live in Tuckasegee, here in Jackson County, and his new novel “Those We Thought We Knew” (Putnam, 2023,  388 pages) takes place right here and with all the familiar places and faces — Pressley, Hooper, Allison, Dill, Luker, Darnell, Bates. 

During the summer, dusk sometimes calls me to the front porch of the house where I live.

Aware of a presence behind her, an X-ray tech from the old days looks over her shoulder in the darkroom and sees her deceased grandmother seated on a stool by the wall.

“The Novel, Who Needs It?” (Encounter Books, 2023, 152 pages) is the latest work by Joseph Epstein, master of the essay, author of 31 books, 86 years old, and still going strong.

Imagine yourself at one of those jewelry counters that once adorned all American department stores.

Sometimes a great book just falls into my lap, which is what happened recently with Sherri Mitchell’s “Sacred Instructions” (North Atlantic Books, 2018, 227 pages).