Connelly, Michael. The Late Show.

NY: Little, Brown, 2017.

Okay, so LAPD Detective Harry Bosch has been in retirement for the last several volumes of this long-running series (though it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down much), and Harry’s half-brother, Mickey Haller (the “Lincoln lawyer”), never really bloomed as a character the way the author presumably hoped he would. So Connelly decided to come up with a new cop, one young enough to last awhile but senior enough to have interesting cases. Enter Renée Ballard of Hollywood Division (the same place Harry started), now in her mid-30s and a pretty good detective.

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Eisner, Will. Life, in Pictures: Autobiographical Stories.

NY: Norton, 2007.

Eisner is very much the godfather of the modern graphic novel. There’s a reason the field’s most important award is named for him. This fat compilation volume brings together five previously published pieces, two of them quite long, which are drawn from his own life and ancestry — and if not entirely in a factual sense, then in tone and in general approach.

Clowes, Daniel. Patience.

Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2016.

Clowes is probably best known for Ghost World, but he’s done a number of other graphic novels, too. This one is sort of science fiction. It’s 2012 and young Jack Barlow, who is scraping a living by handing out flyers on the street, comes home to find Patience, his wife, murdered. The cops decide he did it, and he spends many months in jail before they give up trying to make their case and cut him loose.

Backderf, John. My Friend Dahmer.

NY: Abrams, 2012.

Jeffrey Dahmer wasn’t the only serial killer America produced in the late 20th century but he was one of the most disturbing ones, if only because, after he was caught in 1991, he was candid and forthright about what he had done. Unlike Gacy and others who come to mind, he didn’t make excuses or try to shift the blame. But he really didn’t know why he had killed sixteen men, either.

Tayor, Jodi. A Symphony of Echoes.

Abercynon, Wales: Accent Press, 2013.

The first volume of the “Chronicles of St. Mary’s” series, Just One Damned Thing After Another, was a hoot — a galloping time-travel adventure larded with British-style understated humor and peopled with some of the most original and entertaining characters I’ve seen in a while. This second outing mostly avoids the problems that are common with sophomore novels, continuing the story of St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Institute a generation or two in our future.

Dessen Sarah. The Truth About Forever.

NY: Penguin, 2004.

I’ve become a fan of Dessen’s books, which are marketed as “young adult” but the themes of which are of interest to all readers. While there’s always a romantic element, it’s never cut-and-dried and absolutely never clichéd. Certain themes recur, too: The sibling who is either much more perfect than the narrator, providing a role model it’s impossible to live up to, or else a complete disaster, which reflects on the sibling and makes her life more difficult.

Gaiman Neil. Norse Mythology.

NY: Norton, 2017.

Like Gaiman — like most of the geekier sort of adolescent boys, in fact — I went through a period of reading everything I could find about mythology as a kid, beginning with Edith Hamilton’s classic work on the Greeks and Romans. But, also like Gaiman, I developed a strong preference for the Nordic deities — Odin, the All-Father, who is very wise but can’t be trusted, and Thor, not the sharpest god in Asgard but a good person to have on your side, and especially Loki, who seems the most human of the gods with his talent for making mischief. And there’s Ragnarok, the final battle in which the gods will be destroyed so that the world can start over again.

Dessen, Sarah. Saint Anything.

NY: Viking, 2015.

I’ve become thoroughly hooked on Dessen’s novels, for all that they’re marketed for young adults. Her narrative and character-development skills make her books engaging reading for any age group. There’s rather more trauma this time, though. Seventeen-year-old Sidney Stanford used to practically worship her older brother, Peyton, the local golden boy, but that was before he started making bad decisions and getting arrested.

Moon, Fabio & Gabriel Ba. Daytripper.

NY: DC Comics, 2014.

This beautifully written and beautifully drawn work by a pair of Brazilian twin brothers is without doubt the most engrossing and most innovative graphic novel I’ve come across in several years. It certainly deserves the Eisner Award it won. Blas de Oliva Domingos, an aspiring novelist, is the son of a famous author but the only writing he can make a living at is newspaper obituaries. He has a talent for dealing with death — which is a good thing,

North, Claire. The Sudden Appearance of Hope.

NY: Orbit, 2016.

North got my attention with The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and nailed it completely with Touch. Both were highly original science fiction, and this third book under that nom de plume is both more of the same and very different. In each story, she considers people who are deeply human but also different in a single special way from everyone around them. They try to live human lives while dealing with their personal predicaments.