You’re a Police Procedural Fan

Want a weighty non-fiction book or some family fun

Hi friends,

If your basketball brackets are already busted, may I recommend checking out The Tournament of Books? From an explainer:

“Over the course of 18 matches — one each weekday — two works of fiction go head to head, with one of our judges deciding which book moves forward in the brackets, according to whatever criteria matters to them. Along the way, the judges reveal their biases and interests, any connections they have to the participating authors, and, most importantly, an elaborate explanation of how they decided between the two books.”

The bracket this year is filled with interesting — and in some cases surprising — picks and I love reading smart people weigh in on them. Plus! The author of the winning book is offered a LIVE ROOSTER as a prize, but I don’t think anyone has ever taken it. 

And, now, what to read if …

You Love a Police Procedural

Blackwater Falls by Ausma Zehanat Khan

My poor friends have all heard my b-side on why genre fiction (i.e. crime, romance, sci-fi) deserves more respect. As I wrote in Jungle Red Writers, “One of my biggest pet peeves is the claim that genre fiction is somehow lesser because it’s formulaic, but to me that’s proof of an author’s skill. Making a story that’s been told hundreds of times — a murder mystery or a love story — feel fresh and new is a real skill that should be recognized and celebrated.”

Ausma Zehanat Khan shows just how to put a different twist on an old genre — the police procedural — with Blackwater Falls. The book’s protagonist, Detective Inaya Rahman of the Denver police department, and her colleague Lieutenant Waqas Seif have been assigned to Blackwater Falls, a small town in Colorado where immigrant girls keep disappearing. The local police department slow rolls the investigation until the body of a star student, Razan Elkader, is found at a mosque and the authorities can no longer ignore the community’s outrage. As Inaya investigates Razan’s death and the other girl’s disappearances, she expects to face obstacles from the sheriff and the town’s motorcycle gang, but she grows increasingly suspicious of Waqas as he seems to block her efforts too.

I thought of Blackwater Falls when Margot Douaihy talked about the surge in crime fiction that “centers questions of identity — who am I in this world? And then the investigative sensibility matches those existential questions.” Inaya’s identity as a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf is “too brown for the badge, too blue for her coreligionists.” Khan, a veteran mystery writer, avoids making this mystery as simple as locals opposed to an influx of immigrants. It’s a layered story with multiple threads and I’m hoping we get more books starring Inspector Rahman.

You Want a Meaty Nonfiction Read

All the Frequent Trouble of Our Days by Rebecca Donner

In All the Frequent Trouble of Our Days, Rebecca Donner documents the life of her great-great-aunt, Mildred Harnack, an American who became a leader of the German resistance from 1932 until she was executed — on Hitler’s orders — in 1943. It’s a remarkable work of reportage, drawing on letters Donner’s family kept, notes smuggled out of Berlin and recently declassified intelligence documents to illuminate Mildred’s extraordinary work.

After a childhood in Milwaukee, Mildred married her husband, Arvid, a German man studying with her at the University of Wisconsin. The pair moved to Germany and, appalled by the rise of the Nazi party, began to build a decentralized “circle” of dissenters and objectors who secretly — and bravely — worked to resist the governing party. They posed as the “ideal” Nazi couple and so convinced the author Rebecca West of their sympathies, she kicked them out of her house. Mildred even tutored a high-ranking Nazi official in English, using their learning sessions to glean information about the Party’s plans.

Historians agree Mildred was the only American to serve as a leader in the German resistance. Yet her story has mostly remained untold, in large part because she destroyed her records (also possibly because she and Arvid worked with the Soviets). Donner fills this gap and also showcases other members of the resistance movement — including an 11-year-old American tutee of Mildred’s who smuggled documents — who did what we all hope we would do when faced with evil. They acted, at great personal cost.

You’re Looking for Fun for the Whole Family

Regarding the Fountain by Kate Klise and Sarah Klise

I first read Regarding the Fountain when I was in third grade. I immediately fell in love with the epistolary novel — written in memos, newspaper clippings and meeting minutes — filled with punny names and charming characters. I decided to revisit it last year and was delighted to learn that 1) I enjoyed it as an adult and 2) sisters Kate and Sarah Klise published four sequels that I have since devoured.

Regarding the Fountain is about Dry Creek Middle School’s attempt to replace its leaky water fountain with a new one. If that plot sounds, well, dry, stay with me. Principal Walter Russ requests a catalogue (this book was first published in 1999) from Flowing Waters Fountains, Etc., only to learn the company, headed by designer Flo Waters (remember what I said about the names), installs only custom-made fountains, not the simple one the principal envisioned. Over his objections, Flo plows ahead with the project and forges a relationship with the school’s fifth-grade class. When she asks the students to look into the town’s history for her, what they find changes Dry Creek forever.

It's a charming book, filled with the type of Easter eggs that are fun to find as a kid — and as an adult. Returning to it now, it’s easy to see why it appealed to me when I was younger: it was about a group of writerly, nerdy kids making a real difference in their town. Now, I remain impressed with how clever it is. A great pick for your next family book read.

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Thanks for reading! You can catch up on last week’s recs here and my Q&A with Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, author of Sounds Like Titanic, here.

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