Meat and Kidneys
In this month's mini-plugs, organs are for sale in a world where fairies wear kilts.
By Anneli RufusA murdered female priest is found hanging from a chain in her church in The Blood Spilt (Delacorte, $22), an Arctic Circle thriller by Asa Larsson, now emerging as the next Swedish mystery-writer to watch. ... Transdniester, a pullaway state in Moldova, is the illegal-weapons capital of the world. Oh, and 20 percent of Japanese schoolteachers have knowingly bought counterfeit famous-label clothes. And desperate refugees sell their kidneys. Factoid-packed, Moisés Naím's terrifying Illicit (Anchor, $14.95) tracks illegal global commerce in fakes, nukes, live human organs, and more. ... Two kilt-clad eighteen-inch fairies visit a terrible violinist and help a shoplifter who has Crohn's disease in The Good Fairies of New York (Soft Skull, $13.95), a novel written by Martin Millar and endorsed by Neil Gaiman. ... She was genitally mutilated with scissors that made a sound like "a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat." Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, now under death threats for criticizing Islam, recounts her journey in Infidel (Free Press, $26). ... But hey! Plus-size models and the very old get stretchy in Yoga for All of Us (St. Martin's Griffin, $17.95), by Peggy Cappy, who does it on TV.
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