IRELAND AssASSINS: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England, Julie Kavanagh’s photo. (Atlantic Monthly, $28.) Nineteenth-century Ireland was plagued by poverty and famine; Conditions were made worse by the brutality of British rule. Kavanagh’s fascinating history draws on this context to recount the 1882 murders of Irish nationalists against Britain’s Irish general secretary and Irish senior official. “Julie Kavanagh has deftly deciphered the intricacies of history,” writes John Banville in her review, “and her book is both admirable for its scholarship and delightfully obscene.”
OTHER BLACK GIRL, Zakiya Dalila Harris’s photo. (Atriya, $27.) In Harris’ powerful, genre-bending debut novel, a lonely Black woman at a New York City publishing company is surprised by the arrival of a new colleague. As they discover their commonalities, readers can expect a big twist. “You may not agree with every view or every statement made in this work, but you will turn pages and pages in your enthusiasm to unravel this unique story,” our critic Oyinkan Braithwaite writes. “If you’re open to that, this novel will make you review what your own prejudices might be, regardless of whether your complexion is Black, white, or orange.”
RAZORBLADE TEARS, by S. A. Cosby. (Flatiron, $26.99.) This sprawling, baroque-style pastry thriller is about two fathers, one Black, one white, and both ex-cons who decide to avenge the murder of their son. Cosby writes with a generous opulence and a cheerful spirit of abandonment, and unlike many film noir writers, he does not shy away from operatic sentiment. “At the end of the novel,” Adam Sternbergh writes in his review, “I bet you’ll want more. In this way, detective writers set up: By preparing readers to be excited about the next step. If that’s the true measure of making a name for yourself, then Cosby is already there.”
BATH HAUS, by P. J. Vernon. (Double day, $26.95.) In Vernon’s white-fingered novel about love and infidelity, a young man’s decision to cheat on his partner sets in motion a series of frustrating events. “Bath Haus” is a smart, steamy thriller filled with confusing questions about control and shame. “Vernon tells most of the story with Oliver’s voice, and that’s the power of the novel,” writes Daniel Nieh in his review, Daniel Nieh: “a grumpy narrator who struggles between breaking the rules that stifle his desires and hating himself for wanting what he thinks he can do. doesn’t have it.”
KILLER DR. CREAM: The Hunt for a Victorian Serial Killer, by Dean Jobb. (Algonquin, $27.95.) In this true crime investigation, Jobb tells the story of Thomas Neill Cream, a Canadian obstetrician who killed an unknown number of people on both sides of the Atlantic between the 1870s and 1892, as well as law enforcement, poison, early forensics, and surgery. “Despite its gruesome subject matter, Jobb’s excellent storytelling book is a delight to read,” WM Akers writes in his review. “Jobb amplifies his narrative with captivating supporting characters… and takes palpable delight in the Victorian papers’ weakness for wordplay.”