Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer endures as a detective ahead of his time.

Ben Lerner's 2011 debut set a fine tone for postmodern irony, but it grows repetitive.

Irishman Flan O'Brien managed to introduce Disney to Swift in a comic vision of death.

Haruki Murakami sticks to three-decade-old themes — by now shopworn — in his latest novel.

American Jack Livings, in his debut, digs deep under China's modern-day cuticles.

Amos Oz's interlocking stories are parables for a brilliant, haunted nation.

Irish writer Keith Ridgway is beautifully uncompromising in his pitch-perfect thug chronicles.

What's most impressive about Teju Cole's debut is its modulated darkness.

Lydia Davis has a problem: she can't not display her ingenious bravura.

Hermann Broch's novel of the life and times of a 1920s mathematician is sadly overlooked.