The browser: A quick look at recent releases

The '00s may have been lousy, but they also saw the emergence of Irish-born thriller writer Adrian McKinty. Each of his three books boldly mixed genre violence, compelling characters, globe-hopping locations, perfectly paced plots and gorgeous writing. In his newest, McKinty starts with two violent chapters, one describing a deadly interrogation in Wyoming, the other a bloody encounter involving Mexicans entering the United States across a New Mexico desert hazy with heat. Once he has that out of his system, he turns to a mostly nonviolent, thoroughly engaging and believable story about Detective Mercado, a Cuban cop who seeks permission to leave the island for a week's visit to Mexico. Visa granted, she crosses the border and heads to a Colorado town thick with Hollywood types in huge second homes that are cleaned by illegal Mexican maids. She is on a mission, aided by her brother, a gay Cuban journalist, to find the person responsible for killing their father in a hit-and-run that was covered up by the local sheriff in cahoots with a movie star and his manager. McKinty does a terrific job of inhabiting the psyche of his female protagonist, whose Cuban upbringing has left her torn between suspicion and hope, between cynicism and a desire for truth. The bulk of the novel takes place in Colorado. But he also writes beautifully about Cuba, a poor tropical paradise crawling with informants. He gets plenty of mileage from the stark contrasts between communist Cuba and the United States, and the United States is far from the clear winner. Each of McKinty's books has been better than the last. Here's hoping for more to come in the '10s.

CLAUDE PECK, SENIOR CULTURE EDITOR

My secret indulgence is not chick lit; it's Irish chick lit. I pick up these books for the descriptions of Dublin and the charming Irish turns of phrase, but I often put them down again after 25 or 30 pages because, well, they're usually not all that interesting. "The Brightest Star in the Sky" kept me going, though, because its characters are vivid, and because some of the book is laugh-out-loud funny. (The author's mocking description of Anita Brookner's novels is quite hilarious.) This is more Maeve Binchy than Candace Bushnell; the story traces two months in the lives of half a dozen people, most of whom rent flats in the same Dublin townhouse. There are all sorts: a couple of Eastern European immigrants, a hard-as-nails cabdriver from County Meath, an elderly woman who answers calls for the psychic hot line, and a young couple who curl up in bed each night and earnestly record the day's random acts of kindness in their journals. The book is a romance, with multiple pairings and unpairings, but its message is serious and the tone gradually, deliberately moves from lighthearted to ominous as it hurtles toward a crime and its horrific aftermath. Being chick lit, though, it does not leave you there, but ends with a tidy, satisfying resolution.