Murder City

Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields

by Charles Bowden (Nation Books)

News from the border city of Juarez is usually bad — three people with links to the US Consulate there were recently killed; 2,660 people were murdered in the town last year; and the drug war shows no sign of letting up. Journalist Bowden embeds himself into the fabric of a city in anarchy, dedicating the book to Armando Rodriguez, a newspaper reporter gunned down in 2008. Bowden tells us, “After filing 907 stories on the murders of that calendar year . . . his last story appeared hours after he was killed.”

Solar

by Ian McEwan (Nan A. Talese)

From the author of “Atonement” and “Saturday,” among others, comes corpulent Nobel physicist Michael Beard, who’s been coasting on his reputation for some time. He takes in large lecture fees, joins respected science groups — in name only — reluctantly leads a group on global warming and gets involved with alternative energy. But his fifth marriage is failing, with his wife having an affair. Something’s got to give — and a conference in New Mexico may hold the answer.

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm

Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I

by Miranda Carter (Knopf)

When King George V changed his German surname, “Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,” to the British-friendly “Windsor,” first cousin Kaiser Wilhelm made his only known recorded joke: that he hoped to attend “The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.” Author Miranda Carter delivers this anecdote and many others about the two leaders and their other cousin, Czar Nicholas — all three men were grandsons of England’s Queen Victoria — as she chronicles the end of Europe’s dynastic ways during the era of WWI.

Jenniemae & James

A Memoir in Black and White

by Brooke Newman (Harmony)

If you haven’t heard of James Newman, he was the genius mathematician who came up with the numerical concept of google. He was a diplomat and womanizer who counted Albert Einstein as a close friend. He was also the author’s father. Jenniemae Harrington was an illiterate black maid from Alabama who worked for the Newmans in their Washington, DC, home in the 1940s and ’50s. She also liked numbers, specifically the digits in an illegal, undeground lottery called Policy. They formed an unlikely bond of friendship.

A Week in December

by Sebastian Faulks (Doubleday)

When we last heard from Sebastian Faulks a couple of years back, he had assumed the late Ian Fleming’s mantle with a new James Bond adventure, “Devil May Care.” Now Faulks has returned to his own characters in a sprawling, satirical look at contemporary London through the lives of seven people. Fictional events mirror current events — a big bank is failing — as Faulks’ characters include a hedge fund manager and a Muslim student planning a terrorist act.