“A Door in the Earth” by Amy Waldman, narrated by Roxanna Hope Radja, Hachette, 12 hours

More than a biography, the book is also a history of the Civil War in Missouri, its aftermath and the uses to which the Lost Cause of the Confederacy was put to celebrate a bandit and a killer. The brutal occupation by Federal troops of Missouri, a state more mixed in its Northern and Southern sympathies than any other, did much to incite anti-Union feeling; at the forefront were the brothers Frank and Jesse James and their sharptongued, iron-willed mother, Zerelda. James’ exploits were cast as heroic by newspaperman and Confederate propagandist John Newman Edwards, who, in covering his exploits as a bushwhacker and beyond, made him a star, though one who descended into paranoia — well-placed as it happens. James was assassi

Amy Waldman’s second novel is set in a mountain village in Afghanistan in 2009. Parveen, a young Afghan American woman and nascent anthropologist, has been inspired by the writings and reputation of an American doctor (and onetime embezzler), Gideon Crane, to study and help Afghan women. Crane is responsible for the village’s modern clinic, which, however, turns out to be useless for lack of female medical professionals. Soon Parveen discovers that Crane’s book is a selfaggrandizing fabric of lies. Worse, it has brought the village the unwanted attention of the occupying American military force whose “kind power” has lethal consequences. She also discovers the unrecognized power of translators, the ability to communicate unwarranted good news in order to retain the job which supports their families. Roxanna Hope Radja delivers the general narration at an easy pace in a sweet young-sounding voice and gives the various characters distinguishing accents and timbre that complement the story. Clear-eyed but uncynical, this engrossing novel delves deep into personal motivation, naive belief and moral confusion.