This year, the first Tuesday of November is something more than Laydown Day for new books—it’s also the day of the presidential election, when no one is going to be paying attention to the latest fiction releases. But there are some exciting novels slipping into bookstores that day, beginning with Two Times Murder (Severn House, Nov. 5), the second novel in a mystery series by Adam Oyebanji. The hero, Gregory Abimbola, describes himself as “a bi-racial Russian of African descent pretending to be English.” He’s also a former Russian agent hiding out in Pittsburgh, teaching at a private school and—no surprise—getting mixed up in a variety of murders. Our starred review says this book is “not to be missed.”
The title of Andy Marino’s chilling novel, The Swarm (Redhook, Nov. 5), refers to a brood of cicadas that appears in upstate New York a year before they’re due. There’s a dead body whose teeth and nails have been fully removed and who’s suspiciously untouched by insects. There’s a young woman caught up in a cult. There’s a forensic entomologist and a tech company founder trying to figure out what’s going on. “Readers who savor bugs and body horror will find plenty to enjoy here,” according to our review. “Shaggy, kinetic, and relentless.”
With any luck, we’ll know the next president by November’s second Laydown Tuesday, and we’ll have more attention to spare for books. One to consider: Richard Price’s Lazarus Man (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Nov. 12), his first novel since Lush Life in 2008. When that book came out, our reviewer said, “There oughta be a law requiring Richard Price to publish more frequently. Because nobody does it better.” (In 2015, he published The Whites using the pseudonym Harry Brandt.) Perhaps he’s been writing this new book ever since he finished Lush Life, since it’s set in 2008, and follows a Harlem community in the aftermath of a building collapse. Our starred review calls it “an affecting novel by a literary urbanologist in top form.”
It’s been six years since Haruki Murakami published a novel, and his latest, The City and Its Uncertain Walls (translated by Philip Gabriel; Knopf, Nov. 19), harkens back to an even older work, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1991). In a mysterious walled city, a young man interprets dusty dreams and then, returning to a more recognizable world, he grows up to become a librarian working with tangible books. Our starred review calls it “another beguilingly enigmatic tale from Murakami, complete with jazz, coffee, Borgesian twists, the Beatles, and other trademark motifs.…One of his most satisfying tales.”
Juhea Kim’s first novel, Beasts of a Little Land (2021), was a historical epic encompassing decades of 20th-century Korean history though a group of women trained by a renowned courtesan. Her enchanting new book, City of Night Birds (Ecco, Nov. 26), couldn’t be more different: Taking place in the world of Russian ballet, it follows one celebrated ballerina’s tumultuous career. Our starred review calls it “another brilliant page-turner.”
Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
