Agota Kristof's stunning trilogy depends on short, mesmerizing accounts of World War II survival.

Daniel Mendelsohn's beautifully brings his Holocaust past into contemporary focus through detective work.

In postwar Britain, Michael Chabon gives Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a run for his detective money.

Lebanese-Canadian Rawi Hage's novel stitches enough rough themes and clunky sentences to sink the whole.

Vincent Lam doesn't break much of sweat in these disappointing (and award-winning) hospital tales.

Half-a-century of well-observed stories from a professional expat who made Paris her home away from Canada.

Alexandra Fuller provides insight into Africa of the hardscrabble, post-colonial 1970s.

Chandler Burr takes a whiff, and then engagingly studies the origins of smell.

Maria Thomas' stories afford comic insight into life in Africa — minus the stereotypes.