ON CORRUPTION IN AMERICA: AND WHAT IS AT STAKE by Sarah Chayes (Knopf). Journalist, is what she and her publisher call Chayes. The job description, scholar and philosopher of expensively attired, agreeably smiling rapacity, isn't to be found in economics textbooks. Chayes understands the commonalities between the crude corruption in baby nations in other parts of the world and the silky functioning of America's wealth foundry and distribution machinery for the benefit of a tiny few. This is a few, Chayes has noticed, so deep into their assumed entitlement to all that's diverted from the mighty flow of American wealth into their private catchpools, that it doesn't seem wrong, any more—not only to them, but to many of us. Trump is a minor character, here (so's Biden, actually), and it isn't only great corporations and platinum-lined hedge funds, it's, for just one other example, elite universities. And more. So, well …I can't promise that you'll come out the other end hopeful of change; but just a few months ago, I'd have said that about our medieval healthcare system, and systemic racism, and…we still have those, of course; but hope is rising, no?

WHY VISIT AMERICA: STORIES by Matthew Baker (Holt). Literary science fiction—emphasis on literary. Unshowily beautful writing, fearlessly dry, quietly (until it's startlingly) original. I know of nobody else doing this sort of fierce, sad, unsettling fantasizing about (or anyway in the midst of) the real world we're living in, now.

MIGRATIONS by Charlotte McConaghy (Flatiron). Another new work of genuinely literary science fiction, a novel of the climate sub-category, but—though not optimistic about our (near) future, still wonderfully enjoyable to read because beautifully written and full of adventure and pleasure in characters you'll believe in.

THE SILENT WIFE by Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins). Slaughter seems to be alternating, now, between Will Trent, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, novels, and standalone thrillers. Whatever: never skip one. She's that strong and tough and, well, just brilliant. This one is Will Trent and the usual cast, and as usual starts with a gobsmacking jolt of violence and then some charming domesticity, and rises and dives and stomps and dances.

WHAT ROSE FORGOT by Nevada Barr (St. Martin's). Paperback reprint of this rousing stand-alone thriller by the author of the Anna Pigeon series of “outdoor crime novels” (I've called them). And one of her best ever, about a grandmother locked in a mental hospital with no memory of why, but plenty that makes her know she isn't what they believe she is: an Alzheimer's patient. And, of course, plenty of inner resources to bring to bear; this is an old-ish woman, but a Nevada Barr woman.