The trial at the heart of Bringing Down the Colonel offers a glimpse into life during the Gilded Age and, more importantly, how women can bring about important social change. Madeleine Pollard, the woman at the center of the trial, truly puts the whole system on trial when she sues Colonel Breckinridge for “breach of promise,” demanding that he be held to the same standards as she is. Many women—before, alongside, and after Madeleine Pollard—also helped bring down this system, making this book about more than one woman’s quest for justice: it is inspiration for when the fight seems futile.
Because I am adopted, I dread most narratives about adoption, which usually involve lots of weeping. Alice Stephens’ Famous Adopted People bucks all these traditional narratives, in both goofy and profound ways. Famous Adopted People is the first adoption novel that I’ve read that centers around the adoptee, Lisa, more than the relationship between the adoptee and her parents. However, Famous Adopted People isn’t just wonderful because it has a unique point of view: the dialogue is witty, the descriptions are sharp, and the plot is thrilling. This book is not just Bookseller Approved, but Adoptee Approved.
Ben Macintyre does not disappoint with his newest book, The Spy and the Traitor (Crown, $28). Very much a complement to his 2014 A Spy Among Friends, which tells the story of double agent Kim Philby’s betrayal of MI6, The Spy and the Traitor features KGB-agent-turned-British-spy, Oleg Gordievsky. Ben Macintyre immerses and inspires, allowing readers to understand Gordievsky’s ideological transformation and empathize with a double agent’s inability to share his innermost thoughts with his friends and family. Macintyre also includes the perfect (and infamous) foil to Gordievsky’s ideological turn: the tale of the mercenary CIA turncoat, Aldrich Ames. Even if Ames’s story is familiar to you, Macintyre ties Ames to Gordievsky’s tribulations, shedding new light on the human consequences of Ames’s betrayal. The Spy and the Traitor lends new perspective to infamous Cold War moments and tells an impossible-to-put-down story that will impress, thrill, and terrify its readers.
