At the beginning of Casebook, from PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Mona Simpson (Off Keck Road), teenage narrator Miles Adler-Hart and his twin sisters are told their parents are divorcing. The separation isn't as bad he'd feared, as the adults have remained amicable. But when Miles's mother, Irene, begins dating the elusive Eli Lee, the family starts to feel the change.
Eli claims to work for the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., but travels regularly to see Irene in Santa Monica, Calif. Eli showers her with sweet talk and, as Miles notes with dismay, orders red-pepper flakes for her in restaurants; Miles wants his mother to order for herself. He and his best friend, Hector, suspect Eli is not as he seems, and the boys decide to do some snooping. Their amateur tactics don't reveal enough, so they eventually hire a sympathetic private investigator, Ben, and discover things about Eli they wish they could unlearn.
It's a bit precious for Miles to call his mother "the Mims" and his twin sisters "the Boops," and Sherlock Holmes fans might be further distracted by the mother's full name--Irene Adler--but Simpson's coming-of-age tale is otherwise striking for its restraint, effectively conveying a sense of heartbreak. Miles observes that Eli's life story is sad, but "in a way that had no poignancy." Casebook itself is certainly poignant; it shows that pain can transform us, and sometimes we have to go through it to find what we need when we least expect it. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd