Chicago

In Chicago, David Mamet has created a bracing, kaleidoscopic page-turner that roars through the Windy City's underground on its way to a thunderclap of a conclusion. Here is not only his first novel in more than two decades, but the book he has been building up to for his whole career. Mixing some of his most brilliant fictional creations with actual figures of the era (among them Al Capone), suffused with trademark "Mamet Speak," richness of voice, pace and brio, and exploring--as no writer can--questions of honor, deceit, revenge and devotion, Chicago is that rarest of literary creations: a book that combines spectacular elegance of craft with a kinetic wallop as fierce as the February wind gusting off Lake Michigan.