Mysteries Every Thinking Woman Should Read

Postmodern terrorists are money hungry, media conscious, and hard to pin down, as Gerhard Self, an aging private detective, comes to realize in Self's Deception (Vintage), a darkly intriguing new murder mystery by Bernhard Schlink (The Reader). As entertaining as the story is (what role did the attractive, elusive Leonore Salger play in an explosive underground plot; who is the charismatic man in the mirrored sunglasses; what did the map show...), the deeper mystery in this novel is Self himself, a finicky, impatient, guilt-ridden former government prosecutor who can't come to terms with his past.