The Spies Of Warsaw (Random House, $15) is set in 1931 when the Nazi menace is mounting, but Hitler’s intentions are still unclear. French diplomats, German SS officers, and Russian agents angle for strategic advantage; and an engineer from a panzer factory is led down the slippery slope of betrayal. The professional spies are smooth and calculated operators, displaying dignified and noble bearing; but while patriotism is one motivation for espionage, self-interest and self-preservation prove more compelling. Alan Furst describes his characters’ most subtle dimensions and hooks the reader with their moral duplicity from the very first pages.
It can be disconcerting when life imitates art. So it was with Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games (Harper Perennial, $16.95), published a year before the horrible attacks in Mumbai last fall. No mere police procedural this, but a deeply political and social commentary on the state of Indian society, with Mumbai as the central character. The book is narrated in chapters which alternate between Ganesh Gatoinde, the Godfather, who tells his fearsome stories of gang warfare, and the honest policeman, Sartaj Singh, who represents the effort to hold back the tide of corruption and religious fanaticism that threatens to engulf India. An important theme is the humiliation that many suffered during Partition. When you embark on a long plane ride or on vacation, Sacred Games will be a perfect companion.
In Ladies Of Liberty (Harper Perennial, $15.99) Cokie Roberts picks up where she left off in Founding Mothers: George Washington is dead, and the young nation is struggling to keep itself together during the transition. Luckily, our plucky heroines Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, Martha Jefferson Randolph, and others are there to encourage, push, nag, and prod their husbands in the right direction. With the women’s sacrifices, our country becomes unified and strong, and while the ladies haven’t always gotten the credit they deserve, Ms. Roberts’s delightful book does a great job of giving them their due.
