Kathy is a writer. Kathy is getting married. It’s the summer of 2017, and the whole world is falling apart. CRUDO unfolds in real time from the full-throttle perspective of a commitment-phobic artist who may or may not be Kathy Acker. From a Tuscan hotel for the superrich to a Brexit-paralyzed United Kingdom, Kathy spends the first summer of her 40s adjusting to the idea of a lifelong commitment. But it’s not only Kathy who’s changing. Fascism is on the rise, truth is dead, the planet is heating up, and Trump is tweeting the world ever-closer to nuclear war. How do you make art, let alone a life, when one rogue tweet could end it all?

READ ME holds a sinister mirror up to the ways in which we observe, judge and influence people. Leo Benedictus' prose draws readers into the dark, manipulative mind of a serial stalker as he targets women across London, escalating his efforts until he settles on Frances --- a bright young professional whose career is set to take off --- whose life he proceeds to unravel from the inside, out.

Democratic Senator Bruce Jansen has been elected president of the United States. For 14-year-old Dorothy "Doggie" Rogers, Jansen's election is a personal victory: a job in the White House, proof to her Republican father that she was right to support Jansen, and the rise of an intelligent, clear-headed leader with her same ideals. But the triumph is short-lived: Jansen's pregnant wife is assassinated on election night, and the alleged mastermind behind the shooting is none other than Doggie's own father. When Jansen ascends to the White House, he is a changed man, determined to end gun violence by any means necessary. With the country in chaos, Doggie finds herself fighting for the life of her father, who just may be innocent.

Eight months after confronting Pendulum, John Wallace is losing himself in a dangerous warzone in a misguided attempt at penance for what he has done. But an assassination attempt makes Wallace realize that he has been targeted for death once again. This time, Wallace is prepared; tracking down his would-be assassin, he discovers a link to his nemesis, Pendulum. The link is the missing piece of a puzzle that has tormented FBI Agent Christine Ash ever since they confronted Pendulum, but with no Bureau support she has been unable to pursue her case. Wallace's proof breaks it, but also exposes them both to terrible danger.

West Berlin, 1979. Helen Abell oversees the CIA's network of safe houses. Her world is upended when, during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two agents speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities far beyond her comprehension. Before the day is out, she witnesses a second unauthorized encounter, one that will place her firmly in the sights of one of the most ruthless and powerful men at the agency. Her attempts to expose the truth about what she has seen will create repercussions that reach across decades and continents into the present day, when two people are gruesomely murdered. Now Helen's daughter, Anna, aided by a jaded Washington fixer, must chase down what is buried in her mother's past and face the chilling fact that old secrets never die.

In 1937 Hollywood, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham’s star is on the rise, while literary wonder boy F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career is slowly drowning in booze. But the once-famous author, desperate to make money penning scripts for the silver screen, is charismatic enough to attract the gorgeous Miss Graham. Like Fitzgerald’s hero, Jay Gatsby, Graham has meticulously constructed a life far removed from the poverty of her childhood in London’s slums. A notorious drunk famously married to the doomed Zelda, Fitzgerald fell hard for his “Shielah” (he never learned to spell her name), who would stay with him and help revive his career until his tragic death three years later.

Kif Kehlmann, a young, penniless writer, thinks he’s finally caught a break when he’s offered $10,000 to ghostwrite the memoir of Siegfried “Ziggy” Heidl, the notorious con man and corporate criminal. Ziggy is about to go to trial for defrauding banks for $700 million; they have six weeks to write the book. But Ziggy is easily distracted by his still-running “business concerns” --- which Kif worries may involve hiring hitmen from their shared office. Worse, Kif finds himself being pulled into an odd, hypnotic and ever-closer orbit of all things Ziggy. As the deadline draws near, Kif becomes increasingly unsure if he is ghostwriting a memoir, or if Ziggy is rewriting him --- his life, his future and the very nature of the truth.

The last person Alice Shipley expected to see since arriving in Tangier with her new husband was Lucy Mason. After the accident at Bennington, the two friends haven’t spoken in over a year. But there Lucy was, trying to make things right. Alice has not adjusted to life in Morocco, too afraid to venture out into the bustling medinas and oppressive heat. Lucy helps Alice emerge from her flat and explore the country. But soon a familiar feeling starts to overtake Alice --- she feels controlled and stifled by Lucy at every turn. Then Alice’s husband, John, goes missing, and Alice starts to question everything around her: her relationship with her enigmatic friend, her decision to ever come to Tangier, and her very own state of mind.

In Rome, a passenger train speeds into the city’s main station, its first-class car full of dead bodies, the macabre discovery of which falls to Deputy Police Commissioner Colomba Caselli. The police then receive a claim of responsibility and the threat of more murders to come. But neither Caselli nor her eccentrically brilliant ally, Dante Torre, are ready to buy the terrorist link. Dante’s bizarre and traumatic past enables him to see what others miss, and in this case, to connect with a kindred spirit of sorts, a woman named Giltine who also experienced an intense trauma --- one from which she emerged damaged and full of murderous intent.

In an idyllic suburb, four young families quickly form a neighborhood clique, their friendships based on little more than the ages of their children and a shared sense of camaraderie. When one of the couples, Paige and Gene Edwards, adopt a four-year-old girl from Russia, the group's loyalty and morality is soon called into question. Are the Edwards unkind to their new daughter? Or is she a difficult child with hidden destructive tendencies? As the seams of the group friendship slowly unravel, neighbor Nicole Westerhof finds herself drawn further into the life of the adopted girl, forcing Nicole to reexamine the deceptive nature of her own family ties, and her complicity in the events unfolding around her.