How forensic science came of age in Jazz Age New York. Praising Blum's "extraordinary narrative alchemy", our columnist Sarah Weinman calls it "an unexpected yet appropriate open-sesame into a world that was planting seeds for the world -- with lethal toxins and cutting-edge tools -- that would later, darkly bloom."

A welcome new translation of an ingeniously constructed fiction by a neglected Latin American master. The work of the Argentinian Fernandez (1874-1952), seen as an influence of Jorge Luis Borges, is held in the highest esteem in his native land.