Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix

Published in France in 2023; published in translatino by Mariner Books on April 21, 2026

Small Boat is a novel of conscience. A woman lives with her guilt by denying her wrongdoing, by claiming — as so many people do when they make offensive or insensitive comments about members of groups to which they do not belong — that she was only saying what everyone else was thinking. But deep within her shriveled heart, she knows she was wrong — or does she?

The story is built upon a real-world event. In November 2021, migrants on an overcrowded rubber dinghy were attempting to cross the English Channel from France to England when their motor failed. As the dinghy began to take on water, a migrant made frantic calls to the rescue services of the British coastguard and the French Navy.

After some jurisdictional squabbling about whether the migrants were in French or British waters, it became clear that no British vessel was close enough to rescue the migrants. A French trawler spotted the dinghy and asked the dispatcher what it should do, but the trawler’s crew were told that a French vessel was on the way. The French Navy dispatcher, however, declined to send help and seemed annoyed that the migrants kept pleading for rescue.

Recordings reveal that the dispatcher told the migrants “Don’t you get it? You won’t be saved.” When a migrant protested “I’m up to my feet in water,” the dispatcher answered, “It wasn’t me who told you to leave.” Nobody rescued the migrants. In the days that followed, 27 bodies were recovered, most of them Iraqi Kurds. They would have been saved, but for the dispatcher’s obstinate refusal to act.

The first and last parts of the novel are narrated by a fictional version of the French dispatcher. In the first part, the dispatcher is questioned by police officers who are investigating her negligent (or perhaps willful) failure to send a rescue vessel to help the migrants. The dispatcher offers multiple excuses — she claims to have believed that the dinghy was in British waters or soon would be — and fails to take responsibility for her actions.

The dispatcher’s job is to save people, not judge them, but she has no patience with a police investigator who seems to be judging her. The dispatcher doesn’t believe it was her responsibility to “weep, weep for their wretchedness and the drowning of their dreams, weep with them and for them, which most certainly would not have saved them, but at least, apparently, would have saved me, would have saved my soul.”

The novel’s second part is a brief but horrifying third-person account of the passengers on the dinghy. The focus is on the young man whose cellphone still worked, who repeatedly called both England and France for help before he and the raft sank into the water, the initial event in his slow journey to death.

The last section reveals more of the dispatcher’s inner thoughts. She finds herself metaphorically drowning as she struggles to justify her inaction. She carries a resentment toward the world that seems to stem in part from her failed relationship with her daughter’s father, a white French nationalist. “When Eric left, when I had to ask him to leave and in the end he actually did, and I found myself alone with my daughter, and I couldn’t manage all alone with my little girl, and I was going under, who came to my aid, who tried to save me? No one.” She is entirely self-absorbed and thus has no time for the problems of migrants.

The dispatcher also believes that her interrogator judges her so she can feel better about herself. In the dispatcher's view, the interrogator wanted her to send help “so humanity could be reassured about itself, so humanity need not doubt its humanity, and so she would not have to fear what she’d become, that is to say, a woman like me, like the one I’ve become.”

The narrator also wonders whether there is any point to her job: “Why save one, ten, twenty; it’s all the same, since you can’t save them all. There is always one left. … And the one that you save will perish tomorrow or the day after, here or elsewhere. So why bother?” She is still in denial but is clearly haunted by thoughts (perhaps ghosts) of the dead migrants. “The night is full of voices calling, mingling with the sound of the waves which do not cradle me. All these voices like waves above the waves. Voices of men, women, cries, sobs, prayers and farewells. A great babbling in English, always the same words, the beseeching sea.”

Vincent Delecroix’s prose adds a lyrical quality to a powerful story. He illustrates how, in some people, self-justification overrides conscience and acceptance of responsibility. But the story also forces us to understand that every person who ignores the plight of migrants seeking refuge also shares responsibility for their fate. Small Boat is a short but intense examination of how the absence of compassion destroys lives, including the lives of those who are condemned to live with the guilt they try to suppress.

RECOMMENDED

Shadow Strike by Brad Taylor

Published by William Morrow on April 21, 2026

It’s been a minute since I last read a Pike Logan novel. They haven’t changed much, which is the sign of a series gone stale. To elevate the excitement, Pike and his team (with an assist from Mossad) help the world avoid not one, but three terrorist attacks, including the assassination of Israel’s prime minister and America’s secretary of state. Just another day in Thrillerworld.

Like other novels I’ve recently read that pit tough guys against Iranian or Lebanese terrorists, Shadow Strike is already dated. A scene near the end has Israeli fighter jets and bombers flying over Iran as the heroes worry about whether they’ll be shot down. That’s less of a worry now. Ironically, Brad Taylor notes at the novel’s end that his original plot was overtaken by events, so he needed to change it. The replacement plot still has some relevance to the real world but doesn’t account for the US joining with Isreal to attack Iran or for Israel’s relentless bombing of perceived Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

So here’s the now dated story. After criminals who have the bad sense to steal Pike’s computer get their comeuppance — a mandatory introductory scene to establish tough guy bona fides — the plot swerves to a terrorist known as the Ghost. Pike captured the Ghost ten years earlier and Pike’s Taskforce, never even slightly concerned about obeying the law, stashed him in one of their own “black site” jails. Now the Ghost has escaped from custody in rural Utah with the assistance of a local biker gang. The overseers of the Taskforce are in a tizzy because the Ghost’s clandestine captivity, if revealed, could send a lot of people to prison (which, in a rational world, would be a sensible punishment for imprisoning a man without due process).

The Ghost’s biker-assisted escape was orchestrated by a faction of Hezbollah that needs an assassin who is off the radar. They apparently believe that ten years of captivity will not have dulled his skills. His assignment is to kill the prime minister of Israel while he’s attending a celebration in Argentina. The US secretary of state will also attend. She’s been known to bump uglies with Knuckles, a member of Pike’s team, but they have no opportunity to renew that acquaintance in this book.

The assassination plot is part of a three-headed terrorist attack. The second attack will occur in Washington D.C. Pike send Knuckles to stop it (even though the Taskforce has no domestic operational authority) because there are no federal law enforcement agents in D.C. who meet Pike’s standards of competence. It seemed to me that Knuckle’s contribution was something that others would likely have done, although Pike assures us that only Knuckles could have figured out how to thwart the far-fetched scheme.

The third attack involves a dirty bomb in Gaza, a false flag operation that even the Ghost views as extreme, given that Palestinians will be the victims. While Israel does the mopping up, it is Pike’s work that saves the day.

Pike is joined in Argentina by Aaron and Shoshana, Mossad agents who have made regular appearances in the series. Shoshana is a hotheaded psychopath who vibes well with Pike but is particularly enamored with his wife Jennifer. Shoshana sees auras around people, a superpower that the novel’s characters take seriously. Whether readers do so is unclear to me, although a surprising number of thriller writers like to give quasi-superpowers to some of their characters.

Everyone but Pike, Jennifer, and Aaron lives in fear of Shoshana, although she seems to have toned down her impulsive violence. Pike has anger management issues of his own, a trait that passes for character development in a tough guy who otherwise has little personality. When Pike feels his rage spike, he either kills someone or Jennifer talks him down, the fairer sex being the stereotypical antidote to toxic masculinity.

To be fair, Pike is not alone in his morally questionable approach to killing. Knuckles murders a wounded, helpless man near the novel’s end as an act of revenge. In Thrillerworld, that makes Knuckles “tough,” as opposed to morally impaired.

The story follows the series’ formula, in that Pike is ordered not to do things that he regards as necessary and so does them anyway, preferring to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. The plot is about as plausible as most modern thrillers (meaning not very), although it glosses over the Ghost’s ability to smuggle two suicide vests loaded with Semtex past multiple layers of security at the Jewish Center where Israel’s prime minister will speak. I also question the remarkable ease with which the terrorists nearly wipe out D.C. — if it’s as easy as the story suggests, I imagine it would have happened already.

In another scene, as Pike rushes to the Jewish Center with Soshana, he insists on fighting his way in when a quick phone call would have prevented the prime minister from taking the stage, thus ending the threat. Sometimes action heroes need to be action heroes to satisfy action junkies, but the scene is so devoid of credibility that it harms the story. Of course, that’s nothing new in Thrillerworld.

Setting aside my concerns that the story offers nothing new in this long-running series, I give Brad Taylor credit for adding occasional nuance to a fast-moving action story. I was particularly impressed with his ability to convey the Ghost’s moral ambiguity. He kills for a cause, not for pleasure, and his dedication to the Palestinian cause has been shaped by decades of oppression and loss. He longs for the simple life of a fishmonger, making him a surprisingly sympathetic version of a terrorist. The Ghost is more interesting than the protagonist, but that — as much as the action — makes the novel worth reading.

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Cat on a Hot Tin Woof by Spencer Quinn

Published by Minotaur Books on April 14, 2026

Cat on a Hot Tin Woof is the latest Chet and Bernie mystery. While Chet and Bernie Little are the only employees of the Little Detective Agency, Chet is paid in Slim Jims. That suits Chet, because Chet is a dog. Anything suits Chet as long as he’s with Bernie. Like all good dogs, Chet is happiest when he’s with his human. Adding a Slim Jim to the equation makes for a perfect moment, but Chet is never unhappy with Bernie by his side.

Chet is no fan of cats, although he regards them with less disdain than horses, the prima donnas of the animal world. When Chet hears the phrase “Cat got your tongue?” he checks his tongue to make sure it’s safe from feline deviltry. Chet is therefore skeptical when Bernie agrees to take a case that requires him to find a missing cat.

Miss Kitty isn’t just any cat. She’s an internet celebrity, like Grumpy Cat. Miss Kitty wears a Zen expression on her face that her fans love to see. Miss Kitty’s teen owner, Bitty Pond, is making bank from Miss Kitty’s followers and the sponsorships her agent has scored.

Bitty lives with her mother Evelyn. Bitty’s father, Phillips Pond, lives in a trailer with a shotgun-toting woman named Yolanda. Evelyn divorced him before Bitty and Miss Kitty began rolling in money.

Figuring out why Miss Kitty disappeared doesn’t require much brainpower — a plus for Chet, whose attention span is fleeting, although he “brings other things to the table,” including a nose that recognizes Miss Kitty’s unique scent. The story follows Bernie and Chet as they chase down clues to Miss Kitty’s whereabouts. The investigation leads them to a couple of dead bodies and a dispute about the ownership of rare earth materials that may be present in mining tailings.

The plot of a Chet and Bernie novel is always secondary to Chet’s narration. He delivers a running commentary on the world from an upbeat canine’s perspective. Chet likes almost everyone. One of the best things about humans, he explains, is that they are messy eaters. Stand around a table where people are eating and sooner or later, a piece of food will fall to the ground, if Chet doesn’t catch it first.

Chet has amusing opinions about everything, including toilet plungers. “The rubbery end of the toilet plunger has a certain appeal, but to be fair so does the wooden stick.” When Chet hears that tailings are part of the mystery, he is briefly worried, as Chet has very little control over his own tail, which tends to wag madly when he isn’t looking. Rarely does a chapter go by without a laugh-out-loud moment, triggered by Chet and his descriptions of his own behavior, the animal kingdom, or the human world.

Chet occasionally embarks on a harrowing adventure of his own. This time, he sneaks out of Bitty’s house after spending the night comforting her, chases down a suspect who is surveilling her house, and ends up at a veterinary clinic. As always, Chet develops critical information about the case — this time, the identity of the driver who is watching Bitty’s home — but a language barrier keeps him from sharing it with Bernie. Of course, being Chet, he soon forgets about his encounter with the suspect. He probably wouldn’t remember what the case is about if it didn’t involve a cat.

Dog lovers might regard Chet and Bernie mysteries as essential reading. The stories are a light alternative to weightier mysteries and Chet might be the most lovable character in crime fiction. All the Chet and Bernie mysteries I’ve read have been fun and engaging. Cat on a Hot Tin Woof easily meets that description.

RECOMMENDED

Spies and Other Gods by James Wolff

Published by Atlantic Crime on April 14, 2026

Spies and Other Gods is already dated. An Iranian living in Paris tells his friend that tourism in Iran “is definitely increasing.” Not so much now.

This is a different kind of spy novel. The protagonist, Aphra McQueen, isn’t the kind of spy typically showcased in espionage fiction. She is a professor specializing in medieval history. For reasons not immediately shared with the reader, she takes a job as a researcher for Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, the entity charged with oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

The committee recently installed a complaint system that allows whistleblowers to report concerns about MI6. Aphra is tasked with investigating the first confidential complaint.

Sir William Rentoul is the Head of the Service. He has no use for oversight. His goal is to identify the whistleblower while obstructing Aphra’s investigation. To that end, he assigns Susan, a building escort who keeps visitors from straying into secure areas, to safeguard the files that Susan wants to review.

The file begins with a police report from 2017 that concerns the murder of an exiled Iranian journalist living in the Netherlands. His mutilated body is eventually linked to other murdered Iranians in various cities across Europe, raising the fear that an Iranian assassin has been targeting people living outside the country who are regarded as enemies of the state. The whisteblower’s complaint alleged gross negligence in MI6’s response to the assassinations.

Susan gives Aphra time to read only a few pages before spiriting her off to interviews with staff members who were involved in the botched mission. Rentoul doesn’t expect Susan to get far because “the organisation Sir William runs has decades upon decades of experience in frustrating outsiders intent on getting to the bottom of things.”

Susan learns that MI6 tracked travelers from Iran to the cities in which the assassinations occurred to search for a common pattern. Investigators identified a professor of chemistry at Tehran University (code name CASPIAN) as the potential assassin. The Service identified CASPIAN’s nephew, a 41-year-old MBA student in Paris named Ali, as a potential source of information about CASPIAN.

To avoid a diplomatic kerfuffle with France, MI6 wanted to make its pitch to Ali in the UK. To that end, undercover agents contacted a British-Syrian dentist named Zak who lived with Ali for a time during his childhood. Using a pretext, an agent persuaded Zak to put him in touch with Ali. The agent struck up a long-distance relationship with Ali, ostensibly to gather information about his MBA program, then thanked him by inviting him to attend a soccer game in Manchester, where the recruitment was made. Ali now serves as a paid source of information, not just about his uncle but about the Iranian regime. He is regarded as an intelligence source of high value.

Aphra’s investigation is cut short when Susan plants a file on her, causing Aphra’s immediate dismissal and the threat of an arrest. Aphra has a goal of her own, however, so she continues the investigation by contacting Zak and (on the pretense of being an MI6 operative) persuades Zak to travel with her to Paris so she can meet Ali.

The story follows the twists and turns of Aphra’s investigation and MI6’s attempt to thwart her. At some point, Sir William travels to France to gather information about Aphra and Zak, much to the displeasure of his underlings, who understand the diplomatic difficulty of spying in France without alerting the French authorities. Sir William appears to be in the early stages of dementia, so it isn’t surprising that he botches the job.

James Wolff follows the tradition of John LeCarre’s later novels by painting a picture of British spies (the ones in charge, at any rate) as inept bureaucrats. The story builds suspense as Aphra and Zak execute dangerous plans to find the assassin while Sir William makes bumbling efforts to obstruct them.

Spies and Other Gods isn’t a fast-moving action novel, but Wolff keeps the story moving and spices it with occasional action scenes. The plot dishes out rewarding surprises, both in Aphra’s motivation and in the assassin’s identity.

The story is told by a third-person narrator who seems to be something like the spirit of MI6, or perhaps of the building in which MI6 is housed. “When individuals come together, particularly under the umbrella of an organisation with a distinctive purpose and history, something new comes into being . . . This might be called an organisation’s spirit, or soul, or ethos, or character, or simply its identity.” Perhaps the narrator is a god (“Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, or whatever the line is, that’s where you’ll find me,” he says near the story’s end). Whatever the narrator might be, Wolff’s narrative approach adds another layer of interest to the story.

Wolff is a former British intelligence officer. British intelligence has produced some of the smartest spy novelists. Spies and Other Gods is my first encounter with a Wolff novel. I look forward to reading more.

RECOMMENDED

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu

Published by Tor Books on April 7, 2026

The Subtle Art of Folding Space may or may not take place in our universe (John Chu acknowledges that this is an open question). It is set on our Earth or one very much like it that exists somewhere in the multiverse. As Chu explains it, the multiverse is like a Russian nesting egg. Each universe has a skunkworks. Each skunkworks generates a new universe, layered over (or beneath?) the universe in which the skunkworks resides. That new universe has a skunkworks that generates another universe, and so on and on and on.

Each universe has its own skunkworks-generated principles of physics. In the novel's universe, quantum mechanics was only installed about a hundred years ago, which is a cute way of explaining why it physicists only recently discovered it.

Ellie is one of many maintainers who are charged with making sure the skunkworks function properly. Three types of maintainer are responsible for the skunkworks. “Architects design the configuration of gates and pipes that generate the next universe in.” Builders install and repair the gates and pipes. Verifiers make sure the architects and builders haven’t made a mistake. Ellie is a builder. She reroutes pipes, patches leaks, does whatever is required to make sure the universe is adhering to the rules that define it.

I grew a bit confused about whether maintainers repair the skunkworks in the universe in which they reside, or whether they repair the skunkworks in the universe that created their own. It seems they sometimes do both, or work in conjunction with maintainers from other universes. That this went over my head is probably more my fault than Chu’s.

Ellie learned her skills from the Chief Builder, her mother Vera. Vera’s brother had a son named Daniel who came to live with her as an infant. Although he is Ellie’s cousin, Ellie thinks of him as a brother. Daniel is a verifier, having also learned his skills from Vera. He tests the integrity of skunkworks modifications by materializing food items and tasting them. The foods he samples all sound delicious.

A rivalry has long existed between Ellie and her sister Chris, manifesting in Chris’ frequent attempts to kill Ellie. Chris explains these attempts as training exercises so that Ellie will be prepared to defend herself from the isolationists that lurk in the skunkworks. More recently, the rivalry extends to care for Vera, who is in poor health. Chris complains that Ellie doesn’t help her care for Vera, but the truth is that Chris prevents Ellie from doing so, perhaps so she can claim credit as the more dutiful daughter.

The plot begins with Ellie’s discovery of a glitch in the physics of her universe. With Daniel’s help, Ellie finds a seemingly new installation in the skunkworks that appears to be keeping her mother alive while, at the same time, making subtle changes in the operation of physics. This creates a moral dilemma. Should she repair the glitch and restore the proper operation of physics — something she believes her mother would want her to do — even if the repair will end her mother’s life?

That dilemma is resolved before the novel’s midway point, perhaps depriving the novel of drama for which the dilemma could have been milked. The rest of the story focuses on the reason the physics-changing installation was added to the skunkworks. Ellie’s attempt to research that question, assisted by Daniel and the Chief Architect, leads her to a new understanding of the isolationists and of Chris’ plan to change everything.

The Subtle Art of Folding Space is a clever, low-key story. Many science fiction novels engage in universe building, but this one shows us the literal process of building a universe. Kudos to Chu for coming up with that high concept.

Ellie and Daniel are engaging characters who may or may not be human — or perhaps they are variants of human from a universe that isn’t quite ours. Daniel and the Chief Architect seem to have powers (some shared by Chris) that make them resemble wizards. Ordinary humans, I assume, can’t transport themselves to the skunkworks.

The plot imagines a clash between selfless maintainers like Ellie who are dedicated to making the universe function for everyone’s benefit and maintainers who are furthering their own agenda, one that might require different principles of physics. While elements of science fiction are thus central to the story, this is fundamentally a novel about a dysfunctional family. Its dramatic tension derives from the clash between Ellie and Chris and Ellie’s belated discovery of the reason Chris has been so mean to her for so long. Ellie has always forgiven Chris because her mother wanted them to have a strong relationship, but Daniel believes Chris to be undeserving of the deference that Ellie accords her.

Science fiction fans who crave stories of humans overcoming alien invasions might not appreciate the smaller story that Chu tells. Science fiction fans who crave detailed explanations of the science that underlies the story may be disappointed by the gaps that Chu leaves. How was the first skunkworks created? Who chooses the maintainers? How do maintainers acquire the power to transport themselves into the skunkworks? How do architects make decisions about the physics that each skunkworks will install in the universe it creates? For sf fans who are content to read an entertaining novel about sibling rivalry in an unorthodox setting, The Subtle Art of Folding Space is a fun departure from the sf norm.

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