Liars and Saints

  My husband is fully smitten with his sister's grown children; when these two visit, he is radiant. He does interpretive dance, makes jokes about Taylor Swift, and volunteers to watch rom-coms. He tries to lay out professional plans for these kids; he worries, in an endearing way. He proposes a slumber party--and if his invite is declined, he is undeterred. For these reasons, I had a great time with "You Only Call When You're in Trouble," a new novel about a gay man and his grown niece. The man--Tom--cares maybe too much about his "uncle" duties. He designs a guest house on his property--and he uses a blueprint that his niece (Cecily) created when she was ten years old. Tom's boyfriend, Alan, actually walks away because he is tired of playing second fiddle. And Tom daydreams about taking charge of Cecily's problems--just swapping bodies, so that he can manage certain professional storms in the place of a confused thirtysomething. Cecily is as compel...

 I was lucky to pick up some good books in the past few weeks; if you're on the lookout, here are things I'd recommend: *"Heat," by Ed McBain. The word on McBain is that "saying this guy writes well is like saying the Colosseum is a decent building." Or something along those lines. A McBain novel is like a particularly strong episode of "Law and Order: SVU." Flawed cops struggle with an impenetrable mystery; as the story unfolds, we get snapshots of the private lives of our cops.  "Heat" occurs during a terrible spell of humidity, in August, in New York City. (The city is renamed "Isola.") Someone seems to have committed suicide after having switched off the A/C--but why wouldn't you want a cool breeze in this weather? At the same time, a cop is nearly certain that his spouse is cheating--and he makes some odd choices as he launches his investigation. Something I love is McBain's attention to ego; a certain scene centers...

 I can't let Pride Month finish without putting a spotlight on Stephen McCauley. McCauley writes comedies; his protagonists tend to be gay men with problems. One loses his lover and finds his waist thickening in middle age; he is also on the verge of losing a little carriage house in San Francisco. Another McCauley protagonist works with wealthy pre-K students at a school like Collegiate; the entitled parents pose problems. One claims to have talked with his estranged wife; "we switched our days around, and you can release little Oliver to me." This is a kidnapping plot--but how do you say no to a power broker who owns a townhouse in the East Seventies? (I, for one, enjoy this kind of story.) McCauley invents a private "college applications counselor." This guy recalls a favorite statement from a teen: "My primary educational goal is to move far away from my parents." Also, the counselor has learned that the way to sell anything in America is to attach...