Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. – Barbara Ellis
‘Questioner,’ by Steve Posner (Whiplash, 2025)
‘Questioner’ is a legal thriller that unflinchingly takes on one of the scariest questions of our time: What happens when AI wakes up and escapes the sandboxes we’ve built to contain it? This is an intriguing, clever thriller with well-developed characters (both human and otherwise), crisp dialogue, and a fast-paced plot. I was drawn in from the opening sentence, and looked forward to each interchapter of conversations between the author and an AI system. Posner clearly knows his subject matter. I can’t wait for the sequel. (As an Iowa public librarian for 35 years, I know a special book when I see it.) — 4 stars (out of 4); Ginnie Peters, Aurora
‘The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II,’ by David Nasaw (Penguin Press, 2025)
Nasaw draws on interviews, memoirs, oral histories, letters, contemporaneous new reports, archives, military records, psychiatric studies and more to document the impact of World War II experiences on not only service members but also on their families. He first provides a survey of the war itself to set the stage for individual experiences, which changed people profoundly, from the randomness of violence in combat to new roles for women at home to the shocking freedom of racially integrated societies encountered abroad. Many returning veterans brought home physical disabilities; others suffered from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, which mid-20th-century medical professionals struggled to treat. Nasaw also explores the social impact of various post-war measures, such as the GI Bill (which provided for educational, health care, disability and loan benefits) and the numerous National Housing Acts. But as these measures targeted primarily white, male veterans, they resulted in widening the gender and racial gaps in American society. An important contribution to further understanding our Greatest Generation. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
‘Long Island Compromise,’ by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Penguin Random House, 2024)
One morning in 1980, Carl Fletcher, head of one of the richest Jewish families in Long Island and owner of a local plastics factory, is ambushed and kidnapped from his driveway. Several days later, his pregnant wife, Ruth, throws their toddler into the car and drops off the ransom, and Carl is returned home, more or less whole but emotionally damaged beyond repair. The couple agrees never to discuss this event with their young family; indeed, his overbearing mother insists that Carl view the kidnapping as something that happened to his body, but not to him. Nevertheless, the trauma is felt over the years by their two sons, who struggle with their own mental health, and by the daughter who hadn’t been born yet. The author of “Fleishman Is in Trouble” takes the reader on another poignant, often hilarious journey of a privileged family struggling to protect their wealth, while others devise myriad ways to relieve them of those riches. (A Best Book of the Year by Oprah Daily, The New York Times and others.) — 3 ½ stars (out of 4); Karen Goldie Hartman, Westminster
‘Helm,’ by Sarah Hall (Mariner Books, 2025)
I’ve never known a wind to be the protagonist of a book. Helm is the curious, mercurial, impish, affectionate and dangerous air current of the English Pennines, swooping over the Eden District from prehistory until now. Hall’s writing is splendid and inventive. Scattered through the book is a catalog of trinkets collected by Helm, wending through eight storylines exploring the effect of matter around us, and our effect on matter. Hall challenges my perspective (and my vocabulary) in delightful and sometimes devastating ways. This unusual novel deserves its inclusion on the longlist for the 2026 Climate Fiction Prize. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
‘Wolf Hour,’ by Jo Nesbo, translated by Robert Ferguson (Alfred A. Knopf, 2026)
This novel is a departure from Nesbo’s traditional genre, sometimes called “Nordic noir.” Set in Minneapolis, “Wolf Hour” is structured as a frame story, whose narrator travels from Norway to the Twin Cities, ostensibly to research a true crime story that he plans to fictionalize. The central narrative is that crime story, which unfolds in both novelists’ telling. A clever device and a clever story, to boot. Sadly, there is little chance of a sequel, as Nesbo neatly resolves the disparate futures of all the main characters. (Nesbo has been awarded the Raymond Chandler Award for lifetime achievement.) — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
