HANNU RAJANIEMI – THE FRACTAL PRINCE

At night Armand lay in bed with a sadness in his heart that ballooned until there was room for nothing else. He thought with horror of the lying-down room... Paris; in the stifling August heat, Commandant Serge Morel is called to a disturbing crime scene. An elderly woman has been murdered to the soundtrack of Faure’s Requiem, her body then grotesquely displayed. At first this strange case seems to offer few clues; and Morel has problems of his own. His father – always a great force in his life – is beginning to succumb to senility; and he is unsettled by the reappearance of the beautiful Mathilde, the woman he once loved. Only origami can help calm the detective and focus his thoughts on this troubling crime. As the investigation progresses, the key suspects to emerge are a middle-aged man and a mute teenage boy who have been delivering religious pamphlets in the city’s suburbs. But as more elderly ladies are targeted, Morel will find his enquiries leading him back into the past, from the French countryside to Soviet Russia – and to two young boys with the most terrible of stories to tell...

Four friends get together to watch the 1998 World Cup final. One of them has an let's write down our wishes for the next few years, put them away, and during the next final - four years from now - we'll get them out and see how many we've achieved. This is how World Cup Wishes opens, and from here we watch what happens to their wishes and their friendships as life marches on. The four men's bond is deep and solid, but tested by betrayal, death,and distance their alliance comes under pressure. Each friend offers a different perspective, though not necessarily a reliable one... and as they and the world around them change, so do their ideas of friendship and happiness. By the end they are forced to ask whether wishes can really be fulfilled. Or will their story turn out to be a requiem - for a generation, for friendship, or even for one of the four young men? Once again, Eshkol Nevo has produced a novel suffused with charm, warmth and an astonishing wisdom.

Kristen Simmons' fast-paced, gripping YA dystopian series continues in Three. Ember Miller and Chase Jennings are ready to stop running. After weeks spent in hiding as two of the Bureau of Reformation's most wanted criminals, they have finally arrived at the safe house, where they hope to live a safe and quiet existence. And all that's left is smoking ruins. Devastated by the demolition of their last hope, Ember and Chase follow the only thing left to them―tracks leading away from the wreckage. The only sign that there may have been survivors. With their high profile, they know they can't stay out in the open for long. They take shelter in the wilderness and amidst the ruins of abandoned cities as they follow the tracks down the coast, eventually finding refugees from the destroyed safe house. Among them is someone from Chase's past―someone he never thought he'd see again. Banding together, they search for a place to hide, aiming for a settlement a few of them have heard about…a settlement that is rumored to house the nebulous organization known as Three. The very group that has provided Ember with a tiny ray of hope ever since she was first forced on the run. Three is responsible for the huge network of underground safe houses and resistance groups across the country. And they may offer Ember her only chance at telling the world her story. At fighting back.