When Among Crows

When Among Crows by Veronica Roth, 176 pages

Dymitr is a man with a heavy burden, and he hopes that by procuring a legendary flower and helping a cursed woman escape that which weighs her down, he'll also be able escape what troubles him. Set in Chicago and filled with the creatures of Polish folklore, this short book sets Dymitr and the cursed woman, Ala, on a one-night quest to save them both. There's not much more I can say about the plot without major spoilers, but I will say that it's an intriguing urban fantasy featuring creatures with which I wasn't previously familiar. It's definitely enjoyable, though I wish a few things had been fleshed out a bit more.

*This book will be published May 14, 2024.

The Mathematician's Shiva / Stuart Rojstaczer 366 p.

Rachela Karnokovitch, one of the twentieth century's great mathematicians, has just died, and her small but close extended family, all Polish-Jewish emigres, would like to mourn her in peace.  But it's entirely possible that at some point in her illustrious career Rachela has solved the celebrated Navier Stokes problem in mathematics without telling anyone, and has left behind the evidence in her papers.  During the seven-day period of mourning, Rachela's son Sasha is imposed upon in her tiny Wisconsin house by a horde of socially dysfunctional and intellectually greedy mathematicians.

Rojstaczser is a former Duke geophysicist writing his first novel here.  It's almost certainly autobiographical (the Sasha character is a climatologist), which I suspect is both blessing and curse.  The blessing is that he can write deeply and convincingly about his characters and their Soviet/Polish/Jewish emigre culture.  The curse is that it's all far too much for what could have been a slim but powerful story.  Too much detail dilutes the very little bit of narrative tension there is.  By the end one has the sensation of stepping outside after a pleasant but over-long family reunion.