Adult

Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome. A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

On UrbanMyth, an anonymous discussion board grouped by zip code, the residents of Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Side disclosed it all --- things they would never share with their friends or their spouses. So when a “hacktivist” group breaks into the forum and exposes the real identity of each poster, the repercussions echo down Park Avenue with a force that none could have anticipated. And someone ends up dead. Is the murderer Heather, the outsider who would do anything to get her daughter into the elite’s good graces and into their even better schools? Norah, the high-powered executive failing to balance work with the emotional responsibilities of motherhood? Or Poppy, whose perfect-on-the-outside façade conceals more than her share of secrets?

Two crimes have rocked the sun-drenched island of Ischia. And once again, the island’s denizens have called upon Nonna Maria, the espresso-brewing, sage-counsel-giving sleuth. A wealthy woman alleges that a valuable necklace has been stolen from her hotel room, and she blames Nonna Maria’s goddaughter as the most likely suspect. Nearby, the body of a woman is found on a curved road near the borough of Barano. The woman is not known to anyone on the island. The one potential suspect is a young friend of Nonna Maria’s who drove by the area that very night and thinks he might have hit something --- perhaps the woman in question. It’s up to Nonna Maria to string together the clues and solve these two mysteries before death comes to Ischia again.

When her marriage fizzles out, Heather Willette decides to leave her husband and rent a cottage on Nantucket. Her plan is going perfectly --- until her son, Ross, announces he’s moving to Nantucket to work at his girlfriend’s family’s construction business instead of going back home to work with his own father. Worst of all for Heather, this means having to get along with her. Kailee Essex is thrilled that Ross is willing to move to her hometown. She has big hopes for their happily ever after, especially now that her parents are finally showing interest in her career. She’s less thrilled, however, about his mother living nearby. Kailee has clashed with Heather since the day they met. But anything is possible in the summer sun and sea breezes of Nantucket --- even reconciliation.

Faith Ferguson is New York’s most in-demand wedding planner. But as much as she enjoys her work, her two failed engagements leave her with no desire to get married herself. She finds fulfillment in her close relationship with her twin sister, Hope; her role as a mentor for her assistant, Violet; and her career. This year, new clients have flocked to her, and she signs up an extravagant reception, a mid-sized gathering and an intimate soirée, in addition to her mother’s next marriage and Violet’s modest ceremony. Faith finds herself forming bonds with her new clients and their loved ones --- most notably the handsome brother of one of her grooms. But in no time, Faith is grappling with private quarrels, unplanned pregnancies, family scandals, dark secrets and the possibility of canceled ceremonies.

The islands of Prospera lie in a vast ocean, in splendid isolation from the rest of humanity --- or whatever remains of it. Citizens of the main island enjoy privileged lives. They are attended to by support staff who live on a cramped neighboring island, where whispers of revolt are brewing. But for the Prosperans, life is perfection. And when the end of life approaches, they’re sent to a mysterious third island, where their bodies are refreshed, their memories are wiped away, and they return to start life anew. Proctor Bennett is a ferryman, whose job it is to enforce the retirement process when necessary. He never questions his work, until the day he receives a cryptic message: “The world is not the world.” These simple words unlock something he has secretly suspected. They give him the unshakable feeling that someone is trying to tell him something important.

Virginia, 2004. Gore is entering his second term as president. Our narrator, Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the estate of renowned lawyer and World War II hero Robert Ableson. When news breaks that scientists funded by the Gore administration have discovered a cure for death, it calls into question everything Martin thought he understood about life, not least his work as a historian. Who is Ableson, really, and why did he draw Martin into his orbit? Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil?

In this dual collection of short stories, Alexander McCall Smith brings his trademark humor and warmth to inventive tales of spying and vengeance. In one story, a spy dropped deep into enemy territory manages to disguise himself --- quite convincingly --- as a nun. In another, an invitation to join the Vatican Secret Service sends a prospective operative down a rabbit hole of controversy and confusion. A third story finds an author, on the brink of public ruin, seeing the error of his ways after an act of kindness saves the day. A keen observer of humanity imbued with a sparkling imagination, Smith illustrates throughout that transparency is paramount and forgiveness is restorative.

Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew and then disappears for 23 years. Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books, reconnects with his uncle and --- remembering the comic book he saw when he was five --- draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero. Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie. Cue the cast: We meet the film’s extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE --- or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment --- a highly popular, highly controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games.