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A legal thriller with a shocking twist

By / For the Washington Post

In the publicity material for William Landay's Defending Jacob, its publisher and several advance readers liken the novel to Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent, arguably the finest of American legal thrillers. The hype is justified. I don't think Landay's novel has quite the elegance or gravitas of Turow's, but it's an exceptionally serious, suspenseful, engrossing story that deserves and should achieve a large audience. The similarities start with the fact that Turow and Landay are lawyers who began as prosecutors, and each novel is narrated by a prosecutor who… 0

February 19, 2012
Living
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February 20, 2012

On My Nightstand

Ilya Ilvich Oblomov might be the laziest character in literature. He wakes, sits up and thinks about getting up, but doesn't for hours. In the meantime he thinks deep thoughts, entertains a stream of visitors and argues with his servant,… 0

February 19, 2012

The French do everything better

Hmph. Not only do French women never get fat but they apparently also grieve more fetchingly than we do. In Delicacy, by Parisian author David Foenkinos, a breathtaking young woman named Natalie is in an uncommonly happy marriage with Francois:… 0

February 19, 2012

Short stories reflect mastery

Quick: Name a writer of Polish roots who immigrated to London, learned English on the fly, wrote about hard-to-parse, faraway places, and became one of the most distinguished English novelists of the 20th century. Joseph… 0

February 19, 2012

A legal thriller with a shocking twist

In the publicity material for William Landay's Defending Jacob, its publisher and several advance readers liken the novel to Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent, arguably the finest of American legal thrillers. The hype is justified. I don't… 0

February 19, 2012

Game of life

At least since the 18th century, there have been periodic complaints that the world has been drained of enchantment. Once, every meadow, grove and stream seemed appareled in a celestial light. People believed in some sort of natural supernaturalism… 0

February 19, 2012
Concord

From meat to plants and back again

A vegetarian's hunt for sustance

Tovar Cerulli stood on shore, reeling in his fish as he had hundreds of times before since he was a kid. He then, like always, trundled the wriggly catch the short distance to his house… 4

February 16, 2012

Moderators in moderation

a110312 Northfield 02 am

Thomas Jefferson was a fan. Town meetings, he wrote, "have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and… 0

February 12, 2012

Under the covers

Editors seldom earn much notice outside the world of publishing. Edward Garnett fostered the careers of Joseph Conrad and D.H. Lawrence, but, I suspect, far more people remember his wife, Constance Garnett, the first great translator of… 0

February 12, 2012

Novel gets caught in tangled webs of shady business

If a 21st-century version of Monopoly or Risk were invented, players wouldn't acquire and trade Park Place and Marvin Gardens, or even corporations like Microsoft and Deutsche Bank. The real money is in faceless corporations with bland… 0

February 12, 2012

'The Flame Alphabet' flames out

Many a reader is bound to balk at the premise of Ben Marcus's second novel, The Flame Alphabet: In a United States bearing a vague similarity to the real thing, the speech of children kills adults. If this were a droll take on the wearing… 0

February 12, 2012

'The Flame Alphabet' flames out

Many a reader is bound to balk at the premise of Ben Marcus's second novel, The Flame Alphabet: In a United States bearing a vague similarity to the real thing, the speech of children kills adults. If this were a droll take on the wearing… 0

February 12, 2012

Entering the dark forest of fairy tales

Only the tragically misinformed would ever sigh over the night's first star and wish for a real fairy-tale ending. Long before Julia Roberts made prostitution look so romantic and Disney sauteed the Little Mermaid in marshmallow fluff,… 0

February 12, 2012
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