Jean Thompson, author of  the short story collection Throw Like a Girl , highly recommended, has a new novel out titled The Humanity Project - the title is from one of the characters, an old lady, starting a rather fuzzily conceived do-good  foundation. The broad array of characters have encompassed every present-day calamity in American life - that might be my only criticism of this book. It's still very good & worth reading.

     You Are One Of  Them, excellent first-time novel by Elliot Holt, about a young woman who goes to Moscow, ostensibly for grad school work, actually to track down the truth about her childhood friend Jennifer, who achieved world wide celebrity in the fifth grade by writing a peace letter to Yuri Andropov, visiting the then-Soviet Union, and getting killed in a plane crash on the way back home. A decade later she finally begins to realize all may not have been as it seemed;

               "She was ten years old," I said. "She wasn't a spy."
               "Nyet," said Sveta. "But her father was."
               "That's ridiculous," I said. "He was a consultant."