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Maggie Shipstead mocks the pretensions of New England WASPs, while Jessica Lott executes unexpected riffs on the student-professor relationship plot. Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two stellar fiction newcomers.

After "Robert Galbraith" was revealed to be the pen name for J.K. Rowling, many readers have been circling back to a "debut" novel they'd initially overlooked. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the mystery is respectable, but she will shelve it in the "I've read worse, but I've read better" category.

Michael Gruber's new novel, The Return, is a tale of memory and revenge: hero Rick Marder, a New York literary type with a medical death sentence, heads south to settle old scores with the narcotraficantes who killed his in-laws. Reviewer Alan Cheuse calls Gruber a "master of the genre."

News & Notes kicks off a monthlong series on hip-hop with a free-wheeling and, at times, combative interview with music mogul Russell Simmons. He joins Farai Chideya for a heated discussion about spirituality, business principles and negative language in rap music.

Elizabeth Strout is best known for her short story collection Olive Kitteridge, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2009. Her new book is a novel, and critic Maureen Corrigan says it's a different type of winner.

In a new memoir, James Lasdun describes how a former-student-turned-friend stalked and slandered him online. Give Me Everything You Have is a meditation on what it means to control your reputation on the Internet — and the book is Lasdun's attempt to fight back.

As accusations of sexism ricochet through the book industry, Nell Freudenberger continues to craft wonderful literary fiction, writes Maureen Corrigan. Freudenberger's latest novel, The Newlyweds, tells the story of an Internet-arranged, cross-continental marriage.

If you want to know anything about America's greatest city, you've got to be willing to get grimy, says critic Maureen Corrigan. Two new books about New York — a novel and a narrative history — do more than put up with filth, they positively wallow in it.

Peter Cameron's new novel about a young nurse is a consummate English country home novel. Put the kettle on and settle in — but don't get too comfortable: Cameron's writing is full of sharp angles and unanticipated swerves into the droll and the downright weird.

Russell Banks' latest is an uneven effort to excavate and redeem the dregs of modern society. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the novel — about porn addiction and sexual predators — is compelling in a low-grade, nightmarish sort of way.