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WINTER WORK

by Dan Fesperman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

An engrossing, deep-in-the-weeds thriller.

The Berlin Wall has just fallen, but following the murder of a close colleague, disillusioned Stasi veteran Emil Grimm finds that escaping his life in East Germany is as risky as ever.

In the chaos following the historic event, intelligence is up for grabs, pitting Russians against Americans against Germans for the names of thousands of agents in the field. Emil lives in a dacha in the woods north of Berlin with his bedridden wife, Bettina, who has ALS, and her caretaker, Karola, who, with the tacit approval of Bettina, has become a second wife to Emil. Among their neighbors is Emil’s former boss, renowned spymaster Markus Wolf (one of the real-life figures in the book). After the murder of Lothar Fischer, his friend and co-conspirator, Emil reaches out to CIA agent Claire Saylor, who has been dispatched to East Germany in hopes of learning the identity of a mole at Langley. He promises to swap her crucial information in return for her getting himself, Bettina, and Karola—who proves to be a great partner in surprising other ways—to freedom. In a kind of woodlands pas de deux, Claire (the protagonist of Fesperman's 2021 gem, The Cover Wife ) becomes increasingly invested in Emil’s cause. Until the thrilling climax, what’s at stake—what the pitched strategic battles are about—is treated almost as an afterthought. It's the gamesmanship that matters most. Emil's secret meetings with Wolf have the color and bounce of a much finer wine than the one they’re drinking. A local cop bonds with Emil even as he is being played by him. When a recently retired spy named Clark Baucom says to Claire, “This is all getting pretty complicated,” she’s not at all unhappy about that.

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-593-32160-7

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | ESPIONAGE | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | GENERAL FICTION

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THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEVLINS

by Lisa Scottoline ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 26, 2024

As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.

The ne’er-do-well son of a successful Irish American family gets dragged into criminal complications that suggest the rest of the Devlins aren’t exactly the upstanding citizens they appear.

The first 35 years in the life of Thomas “TJ” Devlin have been one disappointment after another to his parents, lawyers who founded a prosperous insurance and reinsurance firm, and his more successful siblings, John and Gabby. A longtime alcoholic who’s been unemployable ever since he did time for an incident involving his ex-girlfriend Carrie’s then 2-year-old daughter, TJ is nominally an investigator for Devlin & Devlin, but everyone knows the post is a sinecure. Things change dramatically when golden-boy John tells TJ that he just killed Neil Lemaire, an accountant for D&D client Runstan Electronics. Their speedy return to the murder scene reveals no corpse, so the brothers breathe easier—until Lemaire turns up shot to death in his car. John’s way of avoiding anything that might jeopardize his status as heir apparent to D&D is to throw TJ under the bus, blaming him for everything John himself has done and adding that you can’t trust anything his brother has said since he’s fallen off the wagon. TJ, who’s maintained his sobriety a day at a time for nearly two years, feels outraged, but neither the police investigating the murder nor his nearest and dearest care about his feelings. Forget the forgettable mystery, whose solution will leave you shrugging instead of gasping, and focus on the circular firing squad of the Devlins, and you’ll have a much better time than TJ.

Pub Date: March 26, 2024

ISBN: 9780525539704

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024

SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE

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by Lisa Scottoline

Awards & Accolades

New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

THE SILENT PATIENT

by Alex Michaelides ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 5, 2019

Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.

A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.

"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.

Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

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by Alex Michaelides

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StarTribune

Review: 'winter work,' by dan fesperman.

Many a Berlin-set spy novel comprises a tale of two cities which plays out during the heated tensions of the Cold War. Dan Fesperman's latest spy thriller, "Winter Work," offers a refreshing variant on this by immersing its reader in the murky corners and wooded surroundings of the German capital at a brief yet pivotal stage in the city's history seldom depicted in fiction.

It is February 1990 and the Cold War is thawing. The Wall has recently fallen, East Germany is coming undone, and Stasi agents are either lying low or selling state secrets to the highest bidder. One disaffected Stasi agent, Emil Grimm, finds himself with other matters to think about when he comes across the body of his neighbor and colleague, Lothar Fischer, near his dacha in a patch of forest north of Berlin.

Two officers on the scene reveal their differences: One young detective is determined to catch a killer; the other is more concerned about fighting the new political order. Emil's priorities are twofold: He needs to complete a high-stakes mission that he and Lothar started, and he has to find a CIA agent he can trust — one with whom he can barter a file of sensitive information in exchange for safe harbor and a new start for himself, his sickly wife, and her caretaker.

That agent turns out to be Claire Saylor, who is in Berlin as part of a "mop-up action" against her agency's defeated enemies. When she first makes contact with Emil there is inevitable discomfort — they are "two people trained to mistrust, searching for any sign that it might be safe to do otherwise." In time, though, they suspend their doubts, pool their resources and set out to ensnare several particularly vengeful "comrades in arms."

Occasionally Fesperman's prose comes across as either lofty (men are "fellows") or perfunctory ("his eyes as cold as January"). And despite all the dark deeds and cloak-and-dagger intrigue, the book lacks both the subtlety and the complexity of a more nuanced John le Carré work.

However, there is still a great deal to relish, not least a number of precision-tooled set pieces, from a taut safe-breaking scene to an exciting assault on a safe house. Berlin — "spying's most storied theme park" — is vividly rendered, as is a time of convulsive change and the hopes, anxieties and machinations of those caught up in the chaos.

Malcolm Forbes has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Winter Work

By: Dan Fesperman

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 352 pages, $28.

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Winter Work by Dan Fesperman- Spy Thriller Review

Spy Book Review by Shane ‘C' Whaley – Station V

Fesperman not only riffs off this operation, which was dubbed one of the CIA’s greatest triumphs, but he also peppers the book with expertly researched elements of East German life to give it that air of authenticity. It is worth noting that Dan Fesperman worked in Berlin during the early nineties as the foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, and he draws on that experience to expertly create the Berlin of 1990. Shane Whaley – Spybrary

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Those readers who enjoy a well-crafted cold war Berlin spy novel have been spoiled rotten this year. Three of the top American spy writers working today, thats Messrs Kanon, Vidich, and now Dan Fesperman, have published spy stories set in that era and in that city.

Following on from Berlin Exchange and The Matchmaker – A Spy in Berlin, I was keen to get stuck into Fesperman’s latest book, Winter Work. The story is set in 1990. East Germany is collapsing and in chaos, soon to become a ghost state. Our protagonist, ex-Stasi officer Emil Grimm discovers the body of his neighbour in the forest where they live, just north of Berlin. Both officers served in the HVA, the Stasi’s foreign intelligence service headed by the infamous ‘man without a face’ Markus Wolf.

Grimm suspects foul play, which sets in place a chain of events that sees the former colonel ‘finishing off the job alone’ that he started working on with his neighbour, the now deceased Lothar. CIA agent Clare Saylor is ordered to Berlin to contact a ranking Stasi officer in the race for Stasi secrets. Her mission and that of Grimm’s intersect to give us a gripping, suspenseful yet plausible spy which involves the crafty old spymaster Markus Wolf himself.

I write plausible because the plot in Winter Work is based on and inspired by real-life events. Watching the Stasi offices in Berlin being ransacked by angry East Germans on his television, the then President, Bush the Elder stated, ‘I hope we are getting some of that!’ This led to Operation Rosenholz, designed to grab as many of these secrets as possible, with the main prize being a list of the agents working for the HVA in the West. Fesperman not only riffs off this operation, which was dubbed one of the CIA’s greatest triumphs, but he also peppers the book with expertly researched elements of East German life to give it that air of authenticity. Whether it is a brand of DDR cigarettes or ‘kaffee komplett’, which is the East German name for coffee with milk and sugar. It is worth noting that Dan Fesperman worked in Berlin during the early nineties as the foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, and he draws on that experience to expertly create Berlin in 1990. Winter Worl includes the usual trope of the spy not telling their superior everything and acting alone in the field. In this case, CIA officer Clare Saylor forms a bond with Grimm and veteran CIA agent Baucom. But it does work, it does not feel forced; Saylor genuinely cares for the East German. That also goes for me as a reader. Fesperman’s talent for creating convincing characters had me rooting for the ex-Stasi officer.  Fesperman plays with our emotions, though, as Grimm recalls a story from his past where he sought vengeance on a nosey neighbor which made me question whether I should be backing the protagonist.

There is limited action in this spy story which suits me just fine.  Regular readers know I prefer the more gritty, realistic side of spy fiction.  Yuri Volkov provides the action, a hired KGB hood. Without veering into Spoilerstrasse, there is one particularly gruesome murder which cranks up the suspense of this story, this is not the type of KGB agent who fires a bullet into the back of your head. That would be too neat and easy for this assassin. He is hot on the heels of Grimm, leaving the reader to wonder how this will play out. Fesperman teases us  until the final page.

If you enjoy engaging realistic, cerebral cold war spy reads, then Winter Work is for you and should sit proudly alongside Vidich and Kanon’s 2022 Berlin offerings in your spy bookcase.

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BookBrowse Reviews Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

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Winter Work

by Dan Fesperman

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A thrilling tale of espionage set in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Dan Fesperman's novel Winter Work is set during the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which sparked the reunification of East and West Germany about a year later. After World War II, East Germany was sealed behind the Iron Curtain and became a police state similar to the USSR. Loyalty to the state was everything, and neighbor spied upon neighbor; the atmosphere was one of constant fear and paranoia. As Fesperman writes, "Buy a book and someone always had to know which one, and then made a note of it. Make a phone call and you assumed it was overheard. Say something critical, even in passing or in jest, and perhaps someone would get the wrong idea. If you heard nothing about it later, was that good or was that worrisome?" The Stasi, East Germany's secret police, was responsible for the enforcement of the loyalty requirement. At one point, the organization is thought to have had about 90,000 employees and 170,000 informants (see Beyond the Book ). All this changed in little more than the blink of an eye. Although discontent had been building for decades, the dismantling of East Germany's system of government happened in just a few months. One result of the rapid collapse was the demise of the Stasi, which in turn initiated a mad scramble by the United States' CIA and the USSR's KGB to snap up as many of the organization's secret files as possible (the KGB so it could leverage operatives already in place, the CIA to expose them). Both offered payment and sometimes relocation to former Stasi officials in exchange for information. The protagonist of Winter Work is one such Stasi officer. Fifty-seven-year-old spymaster Emil Grimm fears he'll face imprisonment for his past actions if he can't dig up some valuable material to give the CIA; he's hoping for amnesty and a new identity and life in the USA. He and a coworker, Lothar Fischer, have uncovered exactly what they need to ensure their security, but Lothar is murdered before they can establish contact with the CIA. The crime sets off a cat-and-mouse game as Emil seeks to identify the murderer, retrieve the hidden information and place it in the hands of the CIA before he shares Lothar's fate. Claire Saylor (who has appeared in two of Fesperman's other novels, Safe Houses and The Cover Wife ), is a CIA agent tasked with establishing contact with former Stasi personnel and evaluating their proffered information. After an encounter that doesn't go as planned, her superiors doubt her abilities but give her one last chance to succeed. As her storyline merges with Emil's, she bets her career that he's the "real-deal," and aids him despite her boss's objections. There's a lot to love about this novel. First, the author paints a truly vivid portrait of time and place; as the title suggests, the action is set during the winter, and coupled with grim depictions of life in the former Soviet Bloc country, the atmosphere throughout is palpably cold and bleak. Beautifully descriptive phrases (e.g., "A doughnut glaze of ice already coated the shallow end of the lake") pepper the narrative, adding to the effect. Fesperman also captures the chaos that followed the wall's destruction, particularly from the standpoint of those who'd been heavily invested in East Germany's bureaucracy pre-fall. The other highlight is the author's ability to create complex, multi-layered characters. Emil in particular is drawn with nuance, establishing a fine balance between the man who's lost a friend and the man who's a ruthless, calculating spymaster. The only disappointment I had with the book was how some of the minor characters were portrayed. Claire's CIA superiors are cartoonishly hostile, and the bad guys are absolute caricatures. The author is certainly capable of creating characters with depth, so I'm puzzled as to why these are so poorly drawn. Fortunately, their appearances are brief, and their flatness doesn't detract from my overall opinion of the novel. Although the book isn't exactly a page-turner, the narrative pace is excellent and I found the story engaging from start to finish. The plot is complicated with enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing, but not so intricate that it becomes confusing. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed Winter Work . Its focus on a pivotal moment in world history makes this a great selection for anyone interested in the time period, and its complex plot will appeal to readers who enjoy espionage thrillers.

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Beyond the Book:    East Germany's Secret Police: The Stasi

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, winter work.

• About the Book

An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall --- from the acclaimed author of THE COVER WIFE.

On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.

Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She'll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe.

With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows. 

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

• Publication Date: December 12, 2023
• Genres: Fiction , Suspense , Thriller
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Vintage
• ISBN-10: 0593466950
• ISBN-13: 9780593466957

Winter Work

By dan fesperman, by dan fesperman read by dan fesperman, category: spy novels | suspense & thriller, category: spy novels | suspense & thriller | audiobooks.

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About Winter Work

An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall—from the acclaimed author of The Cover Wife On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.   Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She’ll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe.   With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows. 

An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall—from the acclaimed author of The Cover Wife “Fesperman accurately depicts the corrosive effect of life under a surveillance society, debasing both the watchers and the watched…. Most Cold War spy novels focus on the Manichaean ideological struggle between East and West; this one successfully explores a grayer era.” —Ben Macintyre, The New York Times On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day. Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She’ll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe. With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows.

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About Dan Fesperman

DAN FESPERMAN’s travels as a journalist and novelist have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won The Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger award for best first crime novel, The Small… More about Dan Fesperman

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BEST OF THE YEAR: Amazon’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2022 • Amazon Editor’s Choice • Oprah Daily’s Favorite Books of 2022 “This masterful historical thriller blends espionage, domestic drama, and murder. In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the final coda to the Cold War and ushered in massive geopolitical and social change. . . . This evocative murder mystery vividly captures what happened on the Eastern side of the wall on a political level—including how the cache of secrets ultimately found its way to the CIA—and a personal one, from the perspective of an unusual protagonist, a sympathetic East German spy with a complicated and messy home life.” — Oprah Daily , “Our Favorite Books of 2022” “ Winter Work is a gripping, tightly plotted old-school spy novel. . . . Claire [Saylor] makes a welcome return from Fesperman’s last book, The Cover Wife. . . . Berlin—’spying’s most storied theme park’—is vividly rendered, as is a time of convulsive change and the hopes, anxieties, and machinations of those caught up in the chaos.” — Minneapolis Star-Tribune “[A] well-paced thriller. . . . Fesperman accurately depicts the corrosive effect of life under a surveillance society, debasing both the watchers and the watched. . . . Most Cold War spy novels focus on the Manichaean ideological struggle between East and West; this one successfully explores a grayer era.” —Ben Macintyre, The New York Times “ Winter Work is Mr. Fesperman’s 13th novel of spycraft and international intrigue. Like its predecessors, it does not disappoint.” — The Wall Street Journal “A well-crafted examination of truth, honor, and loyalty in a shifting world.”  — The Christian Science Monitor , “Ten Best Books of July” “The story leads to an exciting conclusion—a thoroughly surprising spin on the typical spies-on-the-run finale—but it is the relationships among the principals that give the novel its depth andpower. Like Joseph Kanon in The Berlin Exchange , Fesperman builds his story around the inner lives of his characters, an approach that transforms typical espionage tropes into universal human drama.” — Booklist *starred* “[A] superb spy thriller. . . . The action builds to a deeply satisfying denouement. Cold War-era spy fiction doesn’t get much better than this.” — Publishers Weekly *starred*   “An engrossing, deep-in-the-weeds thriller.” — Kirkus Reviews *starred* “Dan Fesperman is one of my favorite thriller writers, and Winter Work is a brilliant addition to his magnificent oeuvre. Intelligently written and plotted, based on fact as gripping as any fiction and only improved by Fesperman’s deft writing, Winter Work left me spellbound and hungry for another pass at his older books to relive these intense adventures.” —Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Sierra Six “ Winter Work vividly captures those chaotic first months after the Berlin Wall came down, with East Germany in free fall and once feared Stasi officers running for cover—into the hands of their former enemies. An entertaining thriller about a society turned upside down.” —Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author of Istanbul Passage and The Good German “ Winter Work is just fantastic. With a meticulous eye for detail and a true feel for the unsettled tension of the times, Fesperman pulls the reader deep into the chilly world of an empire crashing with an utterly compelling story. Out-of-work Stasi officer Emil Grimm is one of the best characters I’ve read in years.” —Olen Steinhauer, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Tourist

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The First Stop for Literature Lovers

“Winter Work” by Dan Fesperman – A Melee for Dying Secrets

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

• Short Summary

Dan Fesperman has gained immense amounts of knowledge from his work as an international reporter, and he has put it to excellent use for his career as a writer, penning one bestselling thriller after the next. In his latest novel, Winter’s Work , he tells the story of two agents on different sides of the Cold War, each tasked with their own dangerous assignment, and the unexpected ways in which their fates intersect.

Table of contents

Dan fesperman heats up the cold war, portrait of an era in winter work, a cacophony of spies, the final verdict.

Never was there a time in human history when espionage prospered as much as it has during the Cold War. Those short few decades gave rise to so many techniques and prominent masters, we’re still sifting through the secrets they left behind, whether they escaped, were extradited, imprisoned, or executed. In Winter Work by Dan Fesperman , we are taken to the very end of said war, where chaos begins to reign supreme.

The novel begins right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and introduces us to Emil Grimm, a Stasi colonel who feels none too welcome in the new world order he’s about to become part of. Perhaps more alarmingly, he just discovered the body of his neighbour, Lothar, a fellow Stasi officer. Despite the scene looking like suicide, Emil knows better; he’s looking at a cold-blooded murder.

A few months earlier, things would have been different, and he would have known what to do. Now, however, his status as a Stasi is his greatest liability. Him and Lothar were involved in a clandestine mission of great importance, and despite his partner’s untimely demise, Emil is hell-bent on finishing the job alone, in a world where all allegiances don’t mean much anymore.

On the other side of the fallen curtain, the CIA agent Claire Saylor finds herself in Berlin to assist with the mopping up of her agency’s East German opponents. Upon her arrival she receives her assignment, the entire reason she was sent for in the first place: to become the sole designated contact for an extremely high-ranking foreign intelligence officer.

Unfortunately for Claire, her first rendez-vous already turns sour, leading to a near catastrophe right from the start. With little information to work with, she realizes she has found herself in a rather delicate situation, and it doesn’t help one bit that her path is about to intersect with Emil’s in ways neither of them could have possibly predicted.

I guess it wouldn’t be much of a revelation if I said that I myself never witnessed the Cold War, just like many of you I’m certain. The amount of people who have lived through and remember those days is drastically diminishing, but I feel like overall, they’ve done a tremendous job at chronicling the events of those tense few decades, whether through official documents or word-of-mouth.

I think I speak for many people when I say that it would be interesting to go back in time as a simple observer, just to see and feel what it was like to live in a world which, from today’s modern perspective, seems so distant and drastically-different. While nothing could actually equal a time machine, Dan Fesperman certainly tries his best to turn Winter Work into something of the kind.

From the first few pages it becomes blatantly obvious that the author must have conducted an incredible amount of research into the subject, also likely drawing from his own experiences as well (he was born in 1955). He has a true talent for depicting settings with the sort of care and detail one can only achieve when they have a crystal-clear picture of what they’re trying to convey.

Naturally, the author explores both sides of the Cold War , as is mandated by the nature of the topic itself. While I can’t personally vouch for the accuracy of what he has shown here, I can say that he illustrates it all with such convincing specifics that it feels truly realistic, as if the author decided to novelize a history book.

Naturally, with this novel being an espionage thriller, there are limits to how much Dan Fesperman can show of such a complicated period in human history, but rest assured, the action always lines up with the standards and expectations he creates with his portrayal of the era. Like I said before, nothing can really beat a time machine, but this novel comes about as close as one could get.

Even he does take some detours here and there for the sake of world-building, Dan Fesperman mostly allows it to happen naturally through the development of the plot and the actions of the many characters we come across. Some are more important than others, quite obviously, but all of them come together and play an irreplaceable role in making this espionage novel an actual thriller.

The author captured quite well in Winter Work what I imagine must have been an incredibly turbulent time in intelligence agencies, with officers running for cover left and right, looking for new masters and engineering final betrayals. One can never be certain of the true intentions behind anyone’s words or actions, and the reader is pushed to become, in a sense, a detective, trying to figure out what game is truly being played behind the curtains.

I will admit, some of the characters weren’t as fleshed out as I would have liked them to be, leaving a few important blanks to fill in regarding their motivations and back stories. On the other hand, I completely understand the need to trim the fat away, so-to-speak, and maintain the novel’s rapid pace. Additionally, I can’t say I don’t entirely appreciate the author leaving some things up to my imagination.

Emil and Claire make for excellent protagonists, though I’d have to say I found the former a lot more intriguing, if only for the fact that he is shrouded in mystery, one we must try and decipher by his actions, which sometimes seem a little senseless until further down the line. This isn’t to say Claire had nothing to offer, but I clearly found myself drawn to one more than the other.

Generally-speaking, I’m not a huge fan of reading espionage novels with a huge cast of characters ( John le Carre made sure of that), but in this novel it actually works because it’s approached in the right way. We’re always made aware of whether someone is important or forgettable, making it much easier to keep track of the right people and watch as their curved roads intersect at the unlikeliest of places, leading to some of the more exciting showdowns I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a spy novel.

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman is a top-notch Cold War espionage thriller , one which succeeds in transporting the reader back through time with its moving depiction of settings and characters, as well as in offering some of the more exciting clashes between intelligence agencies in recent memory.

If you’re a fan of Cold War spy novels and are in search of a quality new addition to your collection, then I think this book will be straight up your alley.

Dan Fesperman

Dan Fesperman is a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun, but more importantly, the author of several thrillers, many inspired by his own work on international assignments. He is the recipient of the 1999 The John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first novel for Lie in the Dark , the 2003 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller for The Small Boat of Great Sorrows , and the 2006 Hammett Prize for The Prisoner of Guantanamo .

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David Ben Efraim (Reviewer)

David Ben Efraim is a book reviewer living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and co-owner of Bookwormex , as well as the Quick Book Reviews blog, along with Yakov Ben Efraim. With a love for literature reaching across all genres (except romance), he has embarked on the quest to share its wonders with the world by helping people find their way to books which truly speak to them, whether they be modern sensations or relics from a bygone era.

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An Appraisal

John Barth, a Novelist Who Found Possibility in a ‘Used-Up’ Form

By merrily using fiction to dissect itself, he was at the vanguard of a movement that defined a postwar American style.

By Dave Kim

Dave Kim is an editor at the Book Review.

Nobody likes the comic who explains his own material, but the writer John Barth, who died on Tuesday , had a way of making explanations — of gags, of stories, of the whole creative enterprise — sing louder and funnier and truer than punchlines. The maxim “Show, don’t tell” had little purchase with him. In novels, short stories and essays, through an astoundingly prolific six-decade career, he ran riot over literary rules and conventions, even as he displayed, with meticulous discipline, mastery of and respect for them.

He was styled a postmodernist, an awkwardly fitting title that only just managed to cover his essential attributes, like a swimsuit left too long in the dryer. But it meant that much of what Barth was doing — cheekily recycling dusty forms, shining klieg lights on the artificiality of art, turning the tyranny of plot against itself — had a name, a movement.

For many years, starting in the 1960s, he was at the vanguard of this movement, alongside writers like Thomas Pynchon and William Gaddis. He declared that all paths for the novel had already been taken, and then blazed new ones for generations of awe-struck followers. He showed us how writing works by letting us peer into its machinery, and reminded us that our experience of the world will always be dictated by the instruments we have to observe and record it. While never abandoning narrative, he found endless joy in picking apart its elements, and in the process helped define a postwar American style.

Were Barth the author of this article, for example, he might pause here to point out that the lines above constitute what journalists like to call the nut graf , an early paragraph that provides larger context for the topic at hand and tries to establish its importance — and is sometimes wedged in last-minute by a harried writer or editor ordered to “elevate” a story or “give it sweep.” Then Barth might explain why this one is lousy, why the whole business of nut grafs is more or less absurd.

The constructive disruption, the literary public service announcement: It became something of a signature for Barth, and it’s best expressed in his story collection “Lost in the Funhouse” (1968). The title piece, a masterwork of metafiction, follows a teenage boy lurching about the revolving discs and mirrored walls of an amusement-park fun house, where he realizes, dolefully, that he is better suited to construct such contrivances than experience them.

Throughout, a comically pedantic narrator critiques the very tale he’s telling by identifying the flashy tricks of the “funhouse” that is fiction: symbolism, theme, sensory detail, resolution. The story is simultaneously a rigorous analysis, vivid example and ruthless dismantling of how literature operates.

“Is anything more tiresome, in fiction, than the problems of sensitive adolescents?” the narrator asks, in his fiction about a sensitive adolescent. “And it’s all too long and rambling.”

David Foster Wallace called the collection a “sacred text,” even drafting one of his stories in the margins of his copy. Although he later, in an act of literary parricide, denounced his hero as a stagnant has-been, Barth’s influence is unmistakable in Wallace’s work, as it is in that of so many others, including Zadie Smith, Jonathan Lethem, Jennifer Egan, George Saunders and David Mitchell — writers who hauled postmodernism off its ivory tower, who integrated Barth’s fourth-wall breaches, parodic masquerades or typographical pyrotechnics into more accessible, more sincere and, fine, more marketable narratives.

Barth himself was a writer who wore his influences on his sleeve, though he was careful to make his tributes his own, often with an awl-sharp irony. “You do not mistake your navigation stars for your destination,” he said in a 2001 interview with the critic Michael Silverblatt. “These are compass points that you steer by, but you’re not trying to be Joyce or Beckett or Nabokov or Calvino or Borges just because you steer by those stars. They help you fix your own position.”

In 1967, he wrote an essay called “ The Literature of Exhaustion ,” a state-of-the-union address for Western letters that would come to be known, to Barth’s befuddlement, as a manifesto for postmodernism. It is one of those loosely read, perennially misinterpreted early-career works that both forge their writers’ reputations and drive them nuts for the rest of their lives.

In it, he points to the “used-upness” of literary forms, the exhaustion of creative possibilities, as a rousing opportunity for new methods based on pastiche and revival — “by no means necessarily a cause for despair,” he insisted. But many readers still took it as a death knell for the novel. Barth had to write a follow-up years later to set the record straight.

Much of his raw material actually came from writers of classic texts, not the modern and postmodern navigation stars he steered by. He was Dante reworking the “Aeneid” into “The Divine Comedy” — if Dante were a shiny-pated, bespectacled Marylander with a police-detective mustache. “The Sot-Weed Factor” (1960) is an epic imitation of the 18th-century bildungsroman, something A.I. bots might aspire to if the prompt were, say, “‘Tom Jones’ plus ‘Tristram Shandy,’ but hornier.” (It’s great.) His 2004 story collection, “The Book of Ten Nights and a Night,” is a “Decameron” set in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Scheherazade, whom Barth called his “literary patron saint,” is a regular presence in his work.

And, of course, there’s Barth’s opus “Giles Goat-Boy” (1966), a bonkers Cold War allegory that draws from the Bible, “Oedipus Rex,” “Don Quixote” and “Ulysses,” among other works. I tried to summarize its many forking paths for a curious bartender once and started to feel dizzy midway through. A bitterly divided college campus is overrun by a tyrannical computer system called WESCAC, and the only one who can save humanity is a boy named George Giles, who was raised as a goat and somehow turns out to be the offspring of WESCAC and a virgin named Lady Creamhair. (It’s great.)

Giles tries his best to live up to the mythic hero archetype, but soon learns, over and over, that simply being human is complicated enough. For all of Barth’s outrageous experiments, he always seemed to find his way back to the basic moral question that every great fiction writer has tried to wrangle: How should one be?

His second novel, “The End of the Road” (1958), is a profound deliberation on the dominant Western philosophy of its time, existentialism, which Barth, in a Camus-like story of a marital affair, first seems to value and then exposes as obscenely inadequate. Anchoring even his most arcane metafictions are recognizable characters who try to commit to a principle or an identity — and often fail spectacularly.

In this way, Barth was closer to the comforts of traditional fiction than he was given credit for. A true postmodernist, he wrote in 1980, keeps “one foot in fantasy, one in objective reality.” His books are long — the novels tend to gallivant far past the 500-page mark — and laborious. But like an abstract painter proving he still has some realist portraiture left in him, he could sometimes play it straight and write fiction that, as he put it, “just tells itself without ever-forever reminding us that it’s words on paper.” Take a peek at “Ambrose His Mark” (from “Lost in the Funhouse”) and “Toga Party” (from his 2008 collection “The Development”) for superb examples.

But Barth’s most memorable writing remains the stuff that works on both levels: the gently rising and falling slopes of narrative and the zany mirror maze of self-reflexivity. You get the sense that he found the latter a wearying realm to read in, let alone write in, but couldn’t help veering into it, that the phoniness of the whole endeavor, including his own persona as the artist, had to be accounted for. “It’s particularly disquieting to suspect not only that one is a fictional character,” he wrote, “but that the fiction one’s in — the fiction one is — is quite the sort one least prefers.”

Reading Barth is like taking a cross-country flight while sitting in the cockpit with the pilot, a journey made more thrilling by our observation of the mechanisms that make it possible: We can stare in awe at the instrument panels, or just look out the window. But, through it all, his impossible desire to be his own reader, a naïve experiencer of his own narrative, never waned. One imagines the maestro himself snapping his fingers impatiently at the text. “Enough with the diversions,” he might say. “On with the story!”

Calls grow louder for B.C. mayor to resign over residential school book incident

First nations in b.c.'s cariboo region say they won't work with quesnel until mayor ron paull steps down.

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There are growing calls for Quesnel Mayor Ron Paull to resign after revelations his wife has been handing out a book that, according to promotional material from its publisher, questions whether residential schools were fundamentally harmful to Indigenous communities and people who attended them.

More than 200 people marched outside city hall Tuesday evening before packing into an emotionally charged council meeting in the city of roughly 23,000 people, located in B.C.'s Cariboo region about 400 kilometres north of Vancouver.

"We can no longer work with this mayor and we will not work with the City of Quesnel until [the] issue has been resolved," said Lhtako Dene Chief Clifford Lebrun. 

"We can't have a community that hands out hate literature and expect people to listen to us and to take it seriously."

Calls grow louder for Quesnel mayor to step down

The meeting also heard from the mayor's wife, Pat Morton, and one of the authors featured in the book who had travelled to Quesnel to speak to council.

The controversy is a blow to reconciliation efforts, which have been at the forefront of city business.

Council began a process of working with the Lhtako Dene in 2015, formally acknowledging them as partners on whose land the city was built. In the years since, it has taken other steps toward what it calls "true reconciliation," which include restoring ownership of a downtown park to the First Nation and being the first city to officially co-host the B.C. Winter Games with an Indigenous community earlier this year.

But those efforts have been threatened after a March 19 meeting where council received a letter of concern from the Lhtako Dene about a book being distributed in the community by Morton.

The book, titled Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools),  by authors C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan, contains essays that its publisher says challenge several assertions made about the harms of residential schools. 

In publicity material for the book, publishers True North and Dorchester Books say statements that residential schools traumatized Indigenous people across generations and destroyed Indigenous languages and culture are either "totally false or grossly exaggerated."

• Quesnel city council condemns controversial residential school book distributed by mayor's wife

It also promises to challenge the notion that Indigenous people were forced to attend residential schools and whether the residential school system can appropriately be defined as genocide.

"Whoever wrote that book, they didn't go through residential school with us," Lhtako Dene Elder Bryant Paul told council this past Tuesday, while holding an eagle feather. "[At residential school] they beat us, sexually abused us."

Residential school survivor calls for Quesnel mayor to resign

Nazko First Nation Chief Leah Stump choked back tears as she addressed the council table.

"We deserve better than having to come here to prove we went to residential school, to prove that we were hurt and broken," she said.

In 2021, the federally-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released a report into the schools after six years of testimony received from more than 6,000 attendees across the country.

• Residential schools, day schools, day scholars: what you need to know

It found more than 4,100 children died while attending these schools, most due to malnourishment or disease.

It also heard testimony that many of the children who attended the schools were physically, sexually or psychologically abused, ultimately characterizing the system as a "cultural genocide."

The book was unanimously denounced by Paull and council at its March 19 meeting, when the council reaffirmed their relationship with the Lhtako Dene and formally accepted the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The rally held at city hall on April 2 was described as one in support for truth and reconciliation. Afterward, council was addressed by First Nations leaders and elders, some of whom held back tears as they described the personal impacts of residential schools.

"We have a whole room full of elders and survivors here," Chief Lebrun said during the meeting. "They could go on all night and tell you what they went through. It hurts them that much that they would relive that, just to let you know."

• More people aware of residential school harms but work still needed, report finds

Lebrun said the Lhtako Dene would be stepping back from their partnerships with the city until further notice.

Morton, the mayor's wife, also stepped up to the microphone to speak.

"I'll say I'm sorry my actions sharing this book have upset you," she said. "I'm hurt I'm put in this position. I believe in love not hate."

Mayor's wife gets into heated exchange with Quesnel councillors

She asked two of the city councillors why they hadn't come to speak to her directly if they had concerns about the book, rather than bringing it up during a council meeting.

Frances Widdowson, one of the contributors to the book, also travelled to Quesnel to speak to council. 

She accused the city of spreading misinformation because council had read a letter from the B.C. Assembly of First Nations into the record, which included a reference to unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Residential School. 

In 2021, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced preliminary results of ground-penetrating radar work at that school, which they said showed approximately 200 potential burial sites on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. 

Writer accuses Quesnel council of misinformation

One of the criticisms in Grave Error is that a number of early media reports referred to these sites as unmarked graves without including context that they were unconfirmed, which the authors say have helped shape a false public narrative even as work continues at Kamloops and sites across the country to confirm the preliminary findings.

"There is no evidence of unmarked graves," Widdowson told council, a statement she repeated as people in the gallery started to drown her out with drumming. "Does council support misinformation?"

In response, Coun. Laurey-Anne Roodenburg pointed out Widdowson had been fired from Mount Royal University in Calgary after espousing the benefits of residential schools.

"You really have no place here," Roodenburg told Widdowson. "We really don't want to hear from you."

• Educate or prosecute? Two Anishnaabe weigh in on how to deal with residential school deniers

Roodenburg was one of three councillors, along with Scott Elliot and Tony Goulet, who formally asked Paull to resign during the meeting.

"Mr. Mayor, you have lost the trust of our First Nations, myself, and the vast majority of our community," Elliot said. "I have no choice but to ask for your official resignation, so we can repair the damage done by you and your wife."

Elliot and Goulet accused the mayor of handing out the book at a local government meeting, a charge that Paull denied, saying he had simply brought it up during a discussion of what books should or should not be available at a local library.

"I have not distributed the book," he said. "If you're going to accuse me of a lie, I'm going to fire right back at you because you lied. "

Near the end of the meeting, Paull apologized and said he wanted to make reparations, but that he would not stand down.

"I'm not a quitter," he said. "Quesnel is in my heart and I'm not about to abandon it."

"I see this whole incident as being an opportunity ... This incident has spawned a whole new desire in pursuing reconciliation," he added.

While there is no mechanism to force a mayor to resign, Quesnel council directed staff to report back with options for censure and sanctions. Paull was elected to office in 2022 after previously sitting as a councillor.

Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by the latest reports.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at  www.hopeforwellness.ca .

Corrections

• A previous version of this story stated that Frances Widdowson had been fired from Royal Roads University. In fact, she had been fired from Mount Royal University. Apr 06, 2024 9:03 AM PT

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Leigh Bardugo’s latest is a magical tale based in real Spanish history

In her new novel, ‘the familiar,’ the author of the grishaverse series has crafted an essential read about oppression and liberation.

Leigh Bardugo has made a career out of writing about oppressed people who wield uncanny powers. Those concerns loom large in her young-adult Grishaverse series about a downtrodden minority who command a world-shaping magic, and the hero of her adult debut, “ Ninth House ,” is also lifted up from poverty thanks to unique abilities. But her latest adult novel, “ The Familiar ,” explores this theme with an even greater depth and sensitivity.

“The Familiar,” which is set in late-16th-century Spain, is centered on a young servant named Luzia who has the power to create milagritos, or small miracles. When Luzia’s power is accidentally discovered, influential people want to use her for their own advancement, and soon she’s entangled in political intrigue, as well as competition with other miracle-workers. Through it all, Luzia must hide the true nature of her power, which comes from reciting refranes, or old sayings, in Ladino (a Sephardic dialect of Spanish mixed with Hebrew and other languages). Nobody can know that Luzia is a conversa, a Jew whose family was forced to convert to Catholicism.

Stories about subaltern people who can work wonders often serve as a way to think about the multifaceted nature of power — how total agency in one realm can give way to helplessness in others. But they are also a window into the dual nature of stigma, which often assigns improbable power and usefulness to the most-stigmatized people. This common fantasy trope — see these five recent novels about powerful underdogs — allows us to have it both ways, rooting for a hero who is an underdog but also unbeatable.

And yet “The Familiar” feels distinct from similar tales — including Bardugo’s own — because it explores a brutal and shameful real-life history. Bardugo unsparingly depicts the violence inflicted on Jews and other non-Christians by the Spanish Inquisition, and the toll that hiding imposes on people. “The Familiar” hits hardest when it shows Luzia’s father succumbing to madness, and her constant fear that she will be found out as a conversa. Bardugo brilliantly explores the wavy line between the supernatural and the divine: Magic is forbidden, but miracles come from God.

Luzia’s status as a scullion, or kitchen servant, also shapes how she moves through the world. She pretends to be illiterate, when in fact she can read Latin as well as Spanish, and puts on an exaggerated humble persona. She quickly befriends Santángel, the mysterious supernatural bodyguard to a powerful nobleman who is the familiar of the book’s title.

At one point, Santángel warns Luzia that her lowly-servant act has gotten so good that she risks believing in it: “I know what it is to lower yourself, to keep your eyes downcast, to seek invisibility. It is a danger to become nothing. You hope no one will look, and so one day when you go to find yourself, only dust remains, ground down to nothing from sheer neglect.” These words fuel Luzia’s hunger to show the world who she really is, despite the cost.

At times, the two halves of “The Familiar” are in an uneasy tension: Its escapist narrative about a lowly person whose power raises them up chafes against the much darker real-life story of the hateful Spanish Inquisition. Bardugo has clearly done a lot of research, but she uses it sparingly, and her breakneck pace sometimes means sacrificing immersion. Some of the political wranglings fail to fully come into focus, and one major development falls a bit flat as a result. (I couldn’t help contrasting it with Anne Rice’s historical fiction, which takes its time and shows every nook and cranny.) And yet, when Bardugo chooses to venture further into the darkness, it’s that much more devastating because of how much fun the reader has been having. In fact, she is a master of anticlimax: She builds apprehension for huge events that do not come to pass, then blindsides the reader with something totally unexpected instead.

“The Familiar” is strongest when it pulls back from Luzia’s perspective and becomes more of an ensemble novel. Luzia’s aunt Hualit, who has successfully hidden her Jewish origins and become a glamorous mistress to Santángel’s patron, has a fascinating arc. And Luzia’s former employer, Valentina, finds herself reevaluating her whole life. These smaller stories add considerable weight to the heroic journey of Luzia and Santángel.

Fans of Bardugo’s work will find “The Familiar” a thrilling addition to her canon about oppression and liberation, and anyone interested in this historical period and the themes she’s exploring will find it engrossing. This is a story about the suffering that results when the majority imposes its religion on everyone else, using coercive authority to control the very identities of all. That, alone, makes “The Familiar” an essential read.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of “Promises Stronger Than Darkness,” the final book in a young adult trilogy that began with “Victories Greater Than Death.” Her other books include “The City in the Middle of the Night” and “All the Birds in the Sky.” She’ has won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus awards

The Familiar

By Leigh Bardugo

Flatiron. 385 pp. $29.99

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Ripley review – Andrew Scott is absolutely spellbinding

This scintillating and noirish adaptation leaves Matt Damon’s 1999 version in the shade. It’s largely thanks to Scott – who is just mesmerising

H ere he is, then: every ounce of his talent, ineffable charm and lightly reptilian hotness on display. Andrew Scott steps up to play Patricia Highsmith’s titular antihero in Netflix’s eight-part adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley (the first volume of a series of pulpy novels now known as the “Ripliad”).

When we first meet him, Tom Ripley is living in a borderline flophouse in New York and scratching an inelegant living as a petty, white-collar criminal; diverting people’s post and cheques, and running fake debt collection agencies. But you can’t keep a bad man – or a good fraudster – down for long. When Dickie Greenleaf’s father offers him the job (the only one of Dickie’s friends who will entertain the idea) of heading out on an all-expenses paid trip to Italy to try to persuade his son (played by Johnny Flynn ) to give up his wastrel life in Europe and come home, he grabs the opportunity. By which I mean: runs with it clutched to his chest with both hands, as far as it will take him.

Soon, Tom has inveigled his way into Dickie’s life, gaining his trust and gently moulding himself around his friend’s personality and needs, while the golden boy’s coolly appraising girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning), watches with increasing suspicion from her increasingly sidelined position. Fans of the book and what has come to be seen – until, possibly, now – as the definitive screen version of it, Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley (released in 1999, starring Matt Damon as Tom, Jude Law as Dickie and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge), will know the plot. But its fresh execution is quite something.

Ripley is shot entirely in black and white, and the noir element is not soft-pedalled. Rainy nights abound. If there are puddles, we will see Ripley reflected in them. We hear every hiss and crackle of every cigarette, and watch every plume of smoke from those resting in (occasionally fateful) ashtrays. It looks, as we swan around Italy, utterly gorgeous.

It also moves incredibly slowly. For those who can lean in and appreciate the capture of a sensibility summarised in Graham Greene’s description of Highsmith as a “poet of apprehension”, this will be one of the best things about it. The careful mapping of Tom’s every move, whether in furtherance of his deceit or the covering up of his crimes, allows the tension to mount exquisitely. That’s even before Inspector Ravini (Maurizio Lombardi) arrives to investigate the death of Freddie Miles (Eliot Sumner) – at which point you may have to take a breather and nip for a walk round the block. Doubts and shadows gather in corners. The details of massed lies accumulate, any one ready to be plucked out by an astute girlfriend, police officer or bank teller, bringing the teetering pile down. Malevolence bleeds into everything. Every moment of beauty ultimately ends up poisoned. It’s wonderful.

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At the heart of it all, and in virtually every scene, is Scott. He has said in interviews that he didn’t want to diagnose or define Ripley too closely , which could have been a recipe for either blandness and confusion. Instead, it makes him a wellspring of possibilities. There is something for everyone to relate to in him – a dark everyman figure. There is the natural envy of the fortunate. There is the curdling into rage and hatred when they do not appreciate it or when, like Freddie, they seem to take joy in excluding others from their world of comfort. Is Tom in love with Dickie – or just his way of life? Is assuming his friend’s identity better than being with him, or did extraneous circumstances just force him into it? Or are we attributing too much of our own humanity to a sociopath, who takes from others because it is as natural to him as breathing? Scott’s Tom is everything and nothing, and mesmeric either way.

The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, too. Flynn’s Dickie is not a mere spoilt brat; rather, he is a weak but still warmly likable man. We may hope that Tom gets away with everything, but not because his victim deserves his fate. Fanning’s Marge radiates intelligence of the specific kind that tells her not to move against Tom until she can be sure of winning. And Lombardi is compelling, going toe-to-toe with Scott in their many scenes together. You can’t take your eyes off either of them.

With those who find it initially slow, or the relentless monochrome beauty slightly exhausting or pretentious, I understand entirely. But stick with it; allow yourself to yield to both and let Ripley seduce you. There is magic at work here.

• Andrew Scott

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The 18 most interesting startups from YC’s Demo Day show we’re in an AI bubble

Springtime means rain , the return of flowers and, of course, Y Combinator’s first demo day of the year. During the well-known accelerator’s first of two pitch days from the Winter 2024 cohort, a covey of TechCrunch staff tuned in, took notes, traded jokes and slowly whittled away at the dozens of presenting companies to come up with a list of early favorites.

AI was, not shockingly, the biggest theme, with 86 out of 247 companies calling themselves an AI startup, but we’re reaching bubble territory given that 187 mention AI in their pitches.

From AI-generated music and grant applications to neat new fintech applications and even some health tech work, there was something for everyone. We’re back at it Thursday for the second day of pitches. Until then, if you didn’t get to watch live, here’s a rundown of some of the best from day one.

TechCrunch’s staff favorites

• What it does: Uses AI to help companies find and apply for grants
• Why it’s a fave: Landing grants isn’t easy. Max Williamson, Peter Crocker and Greg Miller know this well: They’ve worked between them at The Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where grants are common currency. Finding and applying for grants involves sifting through mounds of paperwork and submitting countless forms — an expensive and time-consuming process. So why not have AI help with it? That’s the idea behind their startup Aidy, which is focused exclusively on Rural Energy for America Program grants for now. After asking a few questions, Aidy evaluates an organization’s competitiveness for grants by navigating eligibility requirements and scoring criteria, then takes a first pass at filling out any relevant forms. Aidy is clearly in the proof-of-concept stage, judging by the state of its tooling. But the concept’s an interesting one — assuming the platform’s AI doesn’t make too many mistakes.
• Who picked it: Kyle
• What it does: Serves as a banking platform for nonprofits
• Why it’s a fave: If you’re in the nonprofit space, compliance and regulatory requirements force you to do finances a little differently. That’s where Givefront comes in. Co-founded by Ethan Sayre and Matt Tengtrakool, who previously launched a startup to help loan-takers based in Nigeria, Givefront offers banking, spend management and financial governance services for nonprofits. Specifically, Givefront provides accounts to nonprofits to store money and integrate donations, payments and reimbursements, as well as features for automatic reporting and annual regulatory filings. Givefront certainly isn’t the only nonprofit banking option out there. But it appears to be one of the first built from the ground up for this purpose — which certainly has its own appeal.
• What it does: Software that links databases and large language models
• Why it’s a fave: There’s a lot of attention in the market on companies that make large language models — the bigger, the faster, the smarter; you get the idea. But when it comes to actually deploying modern AL models inside of a company, you run into data issues. For example, Skyflow, one startup I covered recently, is working to keep sensitive information out of the wrong users of LLMs. Buster was eye-catching because it appears to be working on a problem that a whole mess of companies are going to run into. Sure, new models are cool, but selling software picks and shovels during the AI gold rush is probably a darn good business model. I dig it!
• Who picked it: Alex
• What it does: Banking services for contractors in emerging markets
• Why it’s a fave: Creating better payroll solutions for remote and international workers isn’t new, but Numo’s approach of focusing on contractors in emerging markets specifically stands out. It’s also smart that Numo is building a banking product on top of its payroll system so that these contractors, many of whom would be based in countries with currencies that fluctuate frequently, have a more secure place to store their earned funds.
• Who picked it: Becca
• What it does: Uses AI to help consumer packaged goods brands aggregate retail fees and dispute invalid ones
• Why it’s a fave: Many CPG brands, especially emerging ones, have very small margins that are squeezed by numerous fees that cover shelving, packing incorrect quantities and shipping damaged products. Intercept says that spotting and flagging invalid fees could give CPG brands back an average of 15% of their revenue that would have otherwise been spent on inaccurate fees. This seems like a problem worth solving.

Nuanced Inc.

• What it does: Helps detect deep fakes and misinformation
• Why it’s a fave: I’m curious about any technology that seeks to find ways to parse through the inevitable rise of deep fakes and misinformation we are already encountering. Artificial intelligence is becoming more sophisticated by the hour, and we are about to enter a world where right, wrong, fact and fiction have already started to get blurry. Deep fakes are of particular concern for women, as seen by what happened to Taylor Swift — and with slow government regulation in this space, I welcome any research and technology focused on trying to address our ever-increasing cybersecurity needs.
• Who picked it: Dom
• What it does: Custom LLM evaluation
• Why it’s a fave: One of my favorite things to read through when a new, major LLM comes to market is its benchmark stats. For example, Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus model has a 50.4% 0-shot CoT in “Graduate level reasoning, GPQA, Diamond.” It’s super clarifying stuff. Kidding aside, it’s not. That’s why I like the idea that Vectorview is working on, namely the ability to test LLMs and AI agents for a company’s particular use case. I suspect that by having its testing tools closer to the end user than the academic side of things, Vectorview could be onto something big.
• What it does: Uses AI to help lawyers go through legal documents quicker
• Why it’s a fave: Abel co-founder Sean Safahi said that this eliminates the need for lawyers to choose “depth over breadth.” I think any tech that helps lawyers make more informed arguments and decisions is a good thing. Speeding up the legal process and making it more accurate seems like a solid strategy. It’s worth noting that bringing AI and automation into the legal process does add a layer of privacy risk and users of Abel will have tread carefully.

Soundry AI , Sonauto

• What they do: AI-powered music generation
• Why they’re faves: Soundry AI’s technology could be incredibly useful to create music that sits neatly in the background. Muzak, elevator tunes, corporate learning soundtracks, whatever they play in loud restaurants that you can never quite make out, but might be a song that you know. It’s a big market, and I can see companies tuning their own mixes to get the right vibe. Then there’s Sonauto, a startup that wants to help you make hits. I am more skeptical here, mostly because the music I love the most takes a lot of humans working super hard to push the boundaries of what music can be. The latest Tesseract record is a good example. Goddamn, what an incredible piece of art. That said, I am open to being wrong here, and that the robots will eventually write better progressive metal and pop and experimental jazz than we humble meatsacks can. I love music, I love tech, so I presume that I am going to eventually love their union. (Though I also have copyright worries here regarding source material, I must add as I am no fun.)

Starlight Charging

• What it does: EV chargers and management software for apartments, condos and commercial buildings
• Why it’s a fave: Most EV charging happens at home, unless you live in a multifamily building, where infrastructure can be scant and forcing drivers to find power elsewhere. That’s not only a headache for drivers, it’s unrealized revenue for building owners. Starlight Charging centralizes key parts of the infrastructure to keep costs down. “Since our installation costs are so low, we can actually offer our solution for no upfront cost and still make money,” founder Andrew Kouri said. “Our payback period is less than one year. The company seems to be sweating the small stuff, too, offering its own charging equipment that adheres to the Plug & Charge standard for payments and comes with a removable cable that’s easy to swap in case of damage or vandalism. That should help with maintenance, something that’s tripped up many other EV charging networks.
• Who picked it: Tim
• What it does: Online video creation and hosting for AI-generated clips
• Why it’s a fave: I muted the Demo Day stream to give this a try — you can check out my creation here — because one thing I am constantly bummed out by is the dearth of new sci-fi films for me to watch late at night. We need more! So, video creation tools that lean on user prompts are super interesting to me. Mix in the fact that AI-generated stuff might not find a permanent home on mainstream video platforms (brand safety, copyright concerns, the list goes on), Eggnog could be onto something. Still, while my little video clip was neat, it is about as close to a feature film as my doodles are to the best animated series out there.
• What it does: Bundles small businesses so they can save on AWS
• Why it’s a fave: This is a great approach to help small and emerging companies get the cloud services they need without having to spend a significant portion of their capital on software. Pump’s decision to monetize through AWS, not the small companies themselves, is smart and makes it much more likely it could generate strong traction. It’s easy to get excited about a company called the “Costco of cloud compute.”
• What it does: Seeks to organize screenshots
• Why it’s a fave: It’s a favorite because I have, like, 13,000 photos on my phone, most of which are screenshots. And when I need to find a screenshot, I’m stuck searching through the abyss of my phone’s library. Having something that helps group these photos could be a lifesaver that allows me to attend to the important tasks, like sending out timely memes to the group chat. The founder billed this as Pinterest for screenshots, which also grabbed me as I am an avid Pinterest user. Anything that makes photo grouping and sharing easier and fun is a product I’m bound to use.
• What it does: Uses AI to help self-funded companies save 7% on health insurance
• Why it’s a fave: Health insurance costs are skyrocketing. Large corporations can “eat” the fees, but absorbing the high cost is much harder for small and medium-sized businesses. SMBs are often forced to pass a large part of what they pay to their employees. Seven percent may not feel like a lot, but since health insurance can cost thousands of dollars a year, the savings could be meaningful for a small business or startup.
• Who picked it: Marina

Manifold Freight

• What it does: Aggregates spot freight
• Why it’s a fave: The founders’ discovered demand for spot freight technology building a similar solution at Convoy and noted it was the only profitable part of the shuttered company that was snapped up by Flexport. Manifold Freight is focusing on companies that have 50 or more trucks, which means they are targeting a customer base that other freight software is overlooking. Plus, targeting larger carriers means their customers likely have more funds to spend on new technology.
• What it does: Personalized teaching assistant that combines human tutors with AI
• Why it’s a fave: I liked this because unlike other learning assistants, Shepherd works with academic institutions. This means the startup is not only authorized to tutor students, it also knows exactly what material needs to be learned. Shepherd also claims that it can help plan and manage students’ time. I would have liked to have had this when I was in college. It wasn’t always clear which learning task would be most challenging, and that ate up a lot of valuable time. Some of the countless hours I wasted learning to write code and get the program to work could have been better allocated to calculus, which wasn’t easy either.
• What it does: AI-powered knowledge base for customer support in regulated industries, starting with credit units
• Why it’s a fave: I hate being stuck on customer support calls. A conversation can seem to last forever as an agent puts you on repeated multi-minute holds to help figure out regulations or whatever other problems I’m trying to solve. If customer support specialists can quickly find an answer to an arcane regulation issue, it could save customers and banks (or insurance agencies) time and money.

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Winter Work: A novel Kindle Edition

• Print length 353 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Vintage
• Publication date July 12, 2022
• File size 2500 KB
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09JB7BM5F
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage (July 12, 2022)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 12, 2022
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 2500 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
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