Three Great Books #45

I already found one of my favorite reads of 2025.

City of Bohane, by Kevin Barry

This 2011 novel is set in the fictional Irish town of Bohane, in 2053, following some unspecified bad event that seems to have left the world, or at least the west of Ireland, without modern technology (but still with very spiffy clothes). Gangs rule different parts of town, and Logan Hartnett, who’s head of the powerful Hartnett Fancy gang, faces potential challenges from his henchmen. His wife, Macu, is about ready for him to step back and spend more time with her, but he’s loathe to give up the action. Meantime, Logan’s ancient, hotel-dwelling mother, Girly, is still pulling the puppet strings, while a whip-smart 17-year-old named Jenni Ching is watching the delicate balance of power and figuring out her own next move. And Logan’s old rival Gant Broderick is back in town, with an unknown agenda. The writing is electric, atmospheric and full of dialect that I settled into very quickly. This is cinematic, violent and a great deal of fun. (And it will certainly be on my list of best books I read in 2025.)

Kill for Me, Kill For You, by Steve Cavanagh

I’ve never read Patricia Highsmith’s “Strangers on a Train” or seen the Hitchcock adaptation, but I definitely have seen the “Law & Order” episode where two women meet at a cafe and decide to murder the other’s husband. (It’s a banger, even before Lennie Briscoe announces his retirement.) This psychological thriller begins with the same premise: Two women, Amanda and Naomi, meet at a bereavement group and learn that each has lost a daughter to men who weren’t punished by the criminal justice system. After several drinks, they agree to murder the other’s target, and very soon, Naomi tells Amanda she’s done her part and that it’s her turn. Separately, we hear about Ruth, who was violently attacked while home alone by a man with “fierce blue eyes,” and then sees him again, in a hotel restaurant, where she’s dining with her husband. The less I say about where these two plots go and how they intersect, the more you’ll enjoy the book. Goodreads tells me I read this in three days, but if I didn’t have any other responsibilities I’d have done it in one sitting.

Nobody’s Hero, by M.W. Craven

I will say up front that if you don’t want to read about vitreous humor — the clear fluid that fills the eyeball — in the context of a fight, you should not read this book. But if graphic violence isn’t one of your red flags, this is a fantastic espionage thriller to curl up with on a cold weekend. It’s the second novel by Craven to feature Ben Koenig, a former U.S. marshal with a rare condition that keeps him from feeling fear. (No need to read the first in the series to appreciate this one.) The book kicks off with four seemingly unrelated set pieces: a history professor is kidnapped by people who want to know about a mysterious meeting; an apparently homeless woman foils an apparent assault in London and ruthlessly kills the two would-be attackers before fleeing with the intended victim; Koenig is surprised in a NYC internet cafe by some very bad cops who want to collect the $5 million bounty on his head; and a father-daughter assassin duo stage the suicide of an man with a “boring government job”. The threads come together in a nefarious plot that, of course, needs foiling, with a lot of twists along the way.