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When their artist father must leave suddenly on business, three children, ostracized since the mysterious disappearance of their mother, find their way to a great aunt's holiday residence in a castle keep. There, they attempt to rescue the "Kneebone Boy," a legendary prisoner of the castle, and, in doing so, discover secrets about their own family. Told with delightful wit and attitude by one of the three children (who is honor-bound not to reveal his/her specific identity), this book is both a wonderful mystery and a poignant tale of sibling

This is an astonishingly imagined and well-researched book. Octavian Nothing's life is chronicled in the style of a slave narrative, but at times reads like a futuristic nightmare. Though living in apparent luxury, Octavian and his mother are slaves to an experiment by a group of rational philosophers in pre-revolutionary Boston. The craven nature of this relationship is both shocking to read and clearly metaphorical. While examining notions of freedom, scientific ethics, and rationality, as well as national- and self-delusion, this haunting book will stay with you for months to

Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence is a classic in children's fantasy, and the entire series is wonderful. But I have a special fondness for the very first in the sequence, Over Sea, Under Stone. While visiting their mysterious "Great Uncle Merry" at his seaside home in Cornwall, three children find an ancient map that begins an epic quest involving the forces of light and dark. Subtle magic and hints of Arthurian legend make this a captivating lead-in to the mythic

Great crime fiction challenges us; not just our armchair detective skills, but our notions of justice, our assumptions of societal norms. The Turnaround is great crime fiction. Suspenseful, yes, almost painfully so, but not in a heart-stopping, breathless-action sort of way — the suspense and drama are more heart-stretching. I followed this story with a sense of dread, knowing no good could come from the inevitable showdown. And yet, George Pelecanos reveals himself to be a crime writer concerned not just with the evil in the heart of man, but the goodness that resides in spite of

Ruth Bussey's story is so bizarre, the police don't know what to make of it: her boyfriend insists he's killed a woman she knows to still be alive. Is she mad? Is her boyfriend mad? Is the woman he claims to have killed mad? Or is one or more of them conspiring some elaborate, disturbing hoax? The Dead Lie Down is a gripping novel from acclaimed British poet and novelist Sophie Hannah. Like the extraordinary psychological novels of Ruth Rendell, Hannah puts the reader inside the world of fragile, damaged people compelled to act on a perception of reality skewed by their own unspeakable

Norwegian author Karin Fossum is an exquisite writer of psychological suspense, and The Water's Edge may well be her finest work. Sixth in the series of Inspector Sejer mysteries, the novel follows the investigation and events that unfold in a community after the discovery of a young boy's body beneath a stand of trees. Fossum writes with heartbreaking perception and imagination, at times seeming to channel the blood and tears of her characters directly onto the