** Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto

The heroine of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is a little not-so-old lady (the young author should have made her a decade older, in my mind!) who sets about to solves the mystery of a dead man found in her tea shop. While the police is mostly uninterested, she brings together a small group of family and foes of the man’s and sets about to vet their alibis, set them up with jobs, girlfriends, boyfriends, and generally meddle in their affairs in a charming and successful manner. The first two thirds of the book are endearing and quirky. The end is a little too conveniently arranged to my taste, but it’s a fun read with lots of local San Francisco flavor.

** All You Have to Do Is Call by Kerri Maher

All You Have to Do Is Call tells the story of a group of women who are active in a pre-Roe clandestine abortion service. I found the historical context very interesting, especially the complex entanglements amongst the city elite and mafia to protect the service. The actual story felt contrived, with carefully contrasting characters and situations and a rose-colored conclusion.

** Baumgartner by Paul Auster

Baumgartner opens with a wonderful first chapter featuring an aging philosophy professor, a kitchen disaster, a dangerous staircase and a kind gas meter reader. I thought the story would continue lineraly, but it’s more of an evocation of said professor’s love affair with his dead wife and his episodic adventures in the present. Quite lovely; I would have preferred something a little more finished or polished.

** The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto

The Premonition stars a young woman who moves in with her quirky aunt in a quest to elucidate her origins. She knows more than she’s been told, and the entire story is told in a spare and indirect style, which I liked.

** Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Romantic Comedy stars a writer for a disguised Saturday Night Live show (why don’t novels just use the names of real things?) who improbably starts a romance with a charming pop star. The first part of the book reads a bit like a documentary. There is a brief and sweet interlude at her stepfather’s house during the pandemic, then a fanciful sweeping off her feet in a Los Angeles mansion that reads a bit like a romance novel. I was not a fan but it’s well-written escapism and there are some funny and touching bits…

* Hangman by Maya Binyam

The hero of Hangman travels from his unnamed adopted home, which seems to be the US, to his unnamed birthplace, also unnamed, somewhere in Africa, and is caught in a evil spiral where he loses all his possessions, and his mind, it seems, at the hands of various nefarious actors. I had trouble finishing this slim story, which reads like a bad dream.