Kelly Verheyden

Job: Manager, Kensington-normal Heights Library, San Diego Public Library She recommends: “Eight Perfect Murders” by Peter Swanson (William Morrow-harpercollins, 2020; 270 pages)

Why? Malcolm Kershaw is a bookseller and mystery reader. In fact, he is such a fan of mystery novels, he wrote a blog post ranking the eight perfect murders committed in works of fiction, including “Strangers on a Train” by Patricia Highsmith. One snowy day, an FBI agent visits his shop with the theory that someone is committing murders based on the eight perfect murders he identified in the novels. Malcolm is not the innocent bookseller you think at the beginning of the book, but that only makes you want to read more and find out why the killer is targeting him. The plot moves quickly, with many twists and turns. I like to try to figure out the identity of the killer before the author tells the reader and I didn’t quite get there with this novel, making this an unpredictable read.

Seth Marko

Job: Owner, The Book Catapult He recommends: “Matrix” by Lauren Groff (Riverhead Books, 2021; 272 pages)

Why? Lauren Groff’s 2015 National Book Award finalist, “Fates and Furies,” was one of my favorite books from that year. “Matrix” is absolutely nothing like it and is somehow an even better book. I’m not sure how Groff managed the pivot from that previous contemporary novel of marriage to this 12thcentury story of a nunnery, but “Matrix” is an absolute masterpiece of historical fiction. Marie is cast out from the court of Eleanor of Aquitane to a nunnery in the English countryside, where she becomes a visionary prioress devoted to the protection of her sisters and the sustainability of her faith and the utopian abbey she creates. Remarkably (or perhaps, predictably) this 800-year-old story of female ingenuity, power and resiliency in a male-dominated society rings true and timely today. It’s powerful, ambitious and lovely — I wasn’t sure what it would be when I started, but I found it so utterly compelling and gorgeous, it’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Welcome to our literary circle, in which San Diegans pass the (printed) word on books