Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is a fascinating story about a highly regarded Israeli neurosurgeon, Eitan Green, transferred from Tel Aviv to Beersheba because of hospital politics. Driving his SUV at high speed in the desert late one night, he hits an Eritrean immigrant walking by the side of the road, causing fatal head injuries. After failing to save him, the surgeon leaves the scene, unaware he has dropped his wallet. Sirkit, the Eritrean’s wife, shows up at Green’s home threatening to reveal his secret. Tensions from Sirkit’s demands are particularly problematic because the doctor’s wife, Liat, is a police officer assigned to investigate the hit-and-run. The book explores guilt, the plight of so-called illegals in Israeli society, inequities among Arabs and Israelis, Bedouin drug gangs, and more. Waking Lions is a thriller that leaves you wanting more from Gundar-Goshen.

No One is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood is a first-person narrative about a social media celebrity who travels globally on speaking engagements. She is addicted to the internet to prove her worth. The staccato stream-of-consciousness style evokes a generational image of someone leading a random, hollow life. Twitter has turned her brain from mush and chaos to raw humor and hot antagonism. Those who live on social media may find the protagonist totally relatable, but I did not, at least for the first half of the book. Then her pregnant sister learns her unborn baby has Proteus syndrome, a rare disease likely to severely limit her life expectancy. Suddenly the focus shifts from narrator’s virtual brain to the real life tragedy of the baby’s brain, sweeping the reader from the Twitter obsession trap to the nature of humanity and the mystery of transformational love. The second half of the book attempts to redeem the first. It gets partway there, but overall I found this is a peculiar and uncomfortable read.

Honor by Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between Us, is a tightly structured novel about a New York-based Indian journalist, Smita, who travels the world covering important stories, many with a feminist theme.  She interrupts a vacation when a friend and fellow journalist in Mumbai, facing serious surgery, calls her to return, presumably for support during her health crisis. The hospitalized friend actually wants Smita to cover for her on an important news story.  As the narrative peels back the layers of Smita’s family story, it reveals the deeply troubling underbelly of modern-day India – its rawness and lethal hatreds, Muslim-Hindu divisions, misogyny, and class/caste differences. It’s a turbulent stew of friendship, crime, ignorance, loyalty, and love. A gripping narrative, well told.

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