2026 reading list 02

Loren Estelman, Motown. NY: Open Road, 2012. The second Detroit Crime novel jumps ahead to the 1960s, when a new generation has taken over -- though Connie Minor does make an appearance. This time, disputed control of the numbers racket leads to the Kercheval incident -- which became famous as a trial run for the nationally-know riots a year later. Loren Estleman, King of the Corner. NY: Open Road, 2012. Bringing Detroit Crime into the 1980s, where Doc, the Tigers’ star left-hander now getting out of prison after serving time for throwing a party where someone overdosed in an election year, is dragged into the consequences of the prior generation’s sins. L. Sprague deCamp, Tower of Zanid. NY: Airmont, 1958. Anthony Fallon is a rogue. He once had a kingdom on the planet Krishna, and he wants it back. To fund the project, he undertakes a dangerous mission to penetrate the sacred Tower of Zanid. Loren Estleman, Edsel. NY: Open Road, 2012. It’s the end of the 50s, and after his exile from journalism at Prohibition’s end, Connie Minor has been an ad man. The best photo he ever took gets him hired at Ford, making this an insider account of the namesake automobile. Mikhail Bulgakov (trans. Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhovsky), Master and Margarita. NY: Penguin, 2001. The Devil went down to Moscow -- of this, there can be no doubt, as the trail of arson and murder shows. To what end? Releasing an unpublished writer from an asylum? Well, of course it never happened. You imagined it. Paul Somendinger, Greatest New York Yankees by Uniform Number. Tijeras, NM: Artemesia, 2026. While I don’t recall seeing this approach before, it’s an easily-replicated method for slicing up all the players in a team’s history for high level abstract consideration. For Yankees’ fans, though, the only surprise might be Bobby Murcer over Billy Martin wearing #1. Kurt Vonnegut, Ryan North, & Albert Monteys, SlaughterHouse-Five. LA: Archaia, 2024. This graphic novel is a stunning adaptation of Vonnegut’s effort to understand Dresden’s bombing during World War II. So it goes.