Purgatory Bay, Bryan Gruley ’79 (Thomas & Mercer). Call it Jubilee Rathman’s revenge. After losing her family to a brutal murder, the Ivy League scholar-athlete plots elaborate retribution against those she holds responsible. In his fifth suspense novel, Gruley remains rooted in the fictional small towns of northern Michigan that have provided fertile territory for previous thrillers like Bleak Harbor and his Starvation Lake trilogy. Jubilee’s indiscriminate plans will give readers complicated feelings for the protagonist in a mystery that Gruley agreed, quoting a Goodreads reviewer, could be called more of a why-dunit than a whodunit.
Eidetic Transubstantiation, William J. Palmer ’65, ’69Ph.D. (Anaphora Literary Press). Michael Edwards, the main character in Palmer’s 10th novel, possesses almost magical abilities that make him indispensable to the American government and a major figure in events spanning decades from the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy assassination to the fight against cyberterrorism. In what Kirkus Reviews calls an “unbridled period adventure,” the Purdue University emeritus professor of English tells a story at once historical and existential as the infinitely adaptable Edwards struggles to find himself.
Born to Coach: The Story of Bill Squires, the Legendary Coach of the Greatest Generation of American Distance Runners, Paul C. Clerici (Meyer & Meyer Sport). Squires ’56, a member of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame, competed and coached his way to iconic status among runners. It was not an easy road. He suffered physical and emotional trauma as a child after being born with a heart defect that was later misdiagnosed. He struggled academically at Notre Dame while training so hard he once tasted his own blood on the track. A two-time cross-country All-American, Squires really established his legend as a coach, co-founding the Greater Boston Track Club in 1973 and mentoring marathoners such as Bill Rodgers, Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley and Greg Meyer.