Books like A Marriage at Sea

This was my first experience reading Chris's stuff, and the moment I put it down I bought and read every Pavone novel (there are only a half dozen or so, so it's a highly doable thing). There are plenty of reasons to love his stuff, but for me the #1 reason is the sheer audacity and gorgeousness of his paragraphs -- his descriptions, especially, of scenes, of eras, of the essence of social moments, of social strata and the slices of humanity he looks at -- it's like a master class in narrative prose on every page. Frequently I'll read a paragraph and then stop to let the thing soak in. It's like I cannot read any further until I've fully digested the glorious virtuosity of the dang paragraph I just read! Truly a joy.

Of his other books, The Expats (his debut novel) was a fantastic read, probably… show more.

What's spectacular about this book is not the freakishly amazing research the author put in, or the dedication to inhabit the shoes of the dead, or the chiasmic way he tells the story - from both the beginning, middle, and end. No, what's spectacular is that he mostly likely - after a half century of the dead-in-the-water-ness of literally the coldest case ever, he actually, finally, at the end, most likely solves the case! He didn't know he'd do that going in! Then he re-paints the picture of what happened to put a final, super-convincing bow on it all, and the whole experience is rather satisfying - especially because he fools you, with some meandering, into thinking he won't get to the bottom of it all. There are few books out there with such a payoff, which is why this is such fantastic reading.