In Cloud of Bone by Bernice Morgan (Knopf), Kyle, a wild young man from St. John’s, Newfoundland, runs away from the navy during World War ii and is indelibly marked by Shanawdithit, the last of the Beothuk aboriginal group, who had died more than a century before.

Reading Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan (McClelland & Stewart) is like watching a slow-motion traffic accident: you’re not sure how it will end, but you’re sure it will end badly.

This deftly written, suspenseful tale by Michael Wallner is called April in Paris (translated by John Cullen; Doubleday). World War ii may be long over, but the shifting alliances and desperate situations in this story are still relevant today.

Fans who are missing Inspector Morse, the famous fictional British detective who, unfortunately, has been killed off, should try reading the Inspector Van Veeteren mysteries by Hakan Nesser (translated by Laurie Thompson; Doubleday).

Fans who are missing Inspector Morse, the famous fictional British detective who, unfortunately, has been killed off, should try reading the Inspector Van Veeteren mysteries by Hakan Nesser (translated by Laurie Thompson; Doubleday).

In Paradise Travel, by Jorge Franco, translated by Katherine Silver (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Marlon Cruz, a naïve young man from Colombia, finds himself alone in New York City when he has a fight with his girlfriend and storms out of their hotel room.

To reach a higher level, one must be both talented and brave, much like Tam Irving, one of Canada’s leading ceramic artists, whose life with clay is examined in Transitions of a Still Life: Ceramic Work by Tam Irving, by Carol E. Mayer (Anvil Press).

What if you lived in a country where no matter who was in power, citizens were tortured and executed, and even though you’re only a teenager you became an enemy of the state because you spoke out in math class, but you were rescued from the firing squad by a jailer who falls in love with you and compels you to marry him and become part of his family, a family who is much kinder to you than your own family, even though their son routinely tortures people?

Who would have thought that a white woman from Canada would be able to create a suspenseful, compelling and believable story whose main characters are a Burmese political prisoner, his sometimes brutal jailors and fellow prisoners, an orphan boy, and a pen and notebook?

Eventually Lucille Johnstone told her story to Paul E. Levy, who made it into a book, River Queen: The Amazing Story of Tugboat Titan Lucille Johnstone (Harbour), an absorbing read even for people who think they’re not interested in reading about business.