Skuya Zephier

Helene Tursten An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good Soho Crime Trans. Marlaine Delargy I first picked up Swedish writer Helene Tursten’s collection of stories for its title and for its length; I was intrigued by the promise of scandalous whimsy and comforted by the accessibility of the short, pocket-sized book. Soon, I found that I couldn’t put the book down because of its simultaneous candor and sweetness, which Tursten imbued into the five-part narrative.

Lesley M.M. Blume / Photo © Oberto Gili / Courtesy of HMH Books “The opportunity to learn from history’s tragedies has not yet passed.”—Lesley Blume Released on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima, Japan, Lesley M.M. Blume’sFallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World (Simon & Schuster, 2020) is equal parts historical narrative, cultural commentary, and character piece.

Tara Isabel Zambrano’s debut collection of flash, Death, Desire, and Other Destinations (Okay Donkey Press, 2020), is a journey through desire’s relationship with the body: the exhaustion after desire courses through us, and the surprising places—both hidden and public—desire centers itself, like some wily, ethereal character peeking around the corner, reminding us of its omniscience.