More from Lauren Baratz-Logsted:

I started out the week with one lousy book after another, but then, just when I was at the end of my reading rope, the book gods of the universe shined down on me with a string of hits.

The Cadaver’s Ball, by Charles Atkins. I reviewed Dr. Atkins’ first two novels for Publishers Weekly (The Portrait; Risk Factor) and only wish I was working for them now so I could review this one as well, because this psycho-medical novel of revenge ranks right up there with his earlier works and belongs on the shelf of any reader who has ever enjoyed the work of Robin Cook or Michael Palmer.

The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor, by Penny Junor. I’ll admit to having a soft spot for the Royal Family, all the while recognizing the absurdity of feeling so. I’ve never met them, of course, but the more prominent members in the family were characters in a book I wrote back in early 1997 called Falling for Prince Charles, an alternative-universe romantic comedy about a Jewish cleaning lady from Danbury who becomes entangled with the heir to the throne, a book that was good enough that a vice-president at one of the Big Five in New York called to tell me she loved it but her publisher couldn’t buy it – and that no one would be able to – following the death of Princess Diana in August of that same year. Despite the frustration of having an entirely good book forced into hiding, I go on loving the Windsors and this new Junor book provides much validation for that love. True, there’s the usual rehashes and retread gossip, but the figures alone on how many charities Prince Charles et al are associated with and how much money is raised in their names each year for those charities provides for an impressive record of indirect philanthropy on the highest order. Now if only one day I could see my book about them published.

Case of Lies, by Perri O’Shaugnessy. I never read any of the previous legal thrillers by this pseudonymous sister team until someone gave me this latest about the search for the responsible party in the accidental shooting during the course of a robbery of a pregnant woman. Now I’m a convert. Is it because this particular mystery has a lot of fun stuff on math in it? (I’m currently a card-carrying Sudoku freak.) Is it because I was really drawn into series heroine Nina Reilly and want things to go well with her and her son as well as in her romantic life? (I’m a card-carrying mother and romantic.) Whatever the case, this is a particular kind of book that is sure to satisfy a particular kind of genre itch.

Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager’s Story, by Said Hyder Akbar and Susan Burton. For all those readers out there who made Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel The Kite Runner such a massive international hit, this is the perfect nonfiction companion piece. Co-written by a 20-year-old college student and a highly respected journalist, this is an unusual book about coming of age in post-9/11 Afghanistan.

Out, Natsuo Kirino. Nearly every review of this winner of Japan’s Grand Prix for Crime Fiction refers to the book as being “gritty.” I wish I could be more original than that, but this thriller about four female factory workers who, one way and another, all become involved in murder and the factory-like disposal of bodies is gritty. It’s also beautiful/ugly, funny/horrific, exquisite/nauseating and pretty much any other literary paradox you can think of. Highly recommended to readers across the board but be sure to keep an airsick bag handy.

Off to read book 299.