To call this book a "crime thriller" or a "techno thriller" or even a "murder mystery" is to do it an injustice. It starts out a bit slowly but builds by midpoint to one of those books you just can't put down. What at first looks like a closed-room mystery turns out to be a very meticulously built set of parallel stories that eventually come together in unexpected and explosive ways. The character of techno-punk, deeply damaged Lisbeth Salander has to be one of the most intriguing heroines to have graced the page in recent years.

How much sorrow and intentional pain can we witness without losing our souls? It's a highly personal question that award-winning journalist Kira Salak explores in her first novel, The White Mary. Knowing that Salak has herself spent much time in the heart of Papua New Guinea and covering atrocities in the Third World brings a sense of realism to this story that makes it all the more heartbreaking. It has some awkward tense changes in the beginning, and the character of Seb could have been better developed, but the plotting and pace of the book are impeccable and the story riveting. I highly recommend it.