New in Paperback: Mistress of the Ritz and No Visible Bruises

THE BODY IN QUESTION, by Jill Ciment. (Vintage, 192 pp., $15.) According to our reviewer, Curtis Sittenfeld, the “many pleasures” of Ciment’s novel about an affair between two jurors sequestered during a murder trial include “how knowingly but matter-of-factly Ciment depicts class distinctions,” her view of human fallibility and her unexpected ending. “I was left unsettled by this deft and gripping novel, and also deeply impressed.”

MISTRESS OF THE RITZ, by Melanie Benjamin. (Bantam, 400 pp., $17.) A young American actress arrives in 1920s Paris and marries the soon-to-be manager of the Hotel Ritz; they host Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Coco Chanel — until the Nazis set up shop there in 1940. What follows, our reviewer, Susan Ellingwood, wrote, is “a vividly imagined thriller about two enigmatic people” with tantalizing secrets.

NO VISIBLE BRUISES: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Louise Snyder. (Bloomsbury, 336 pp., $17.) In this investigative tour de force, one of our 10 Best Books of 2019, Snyder dismantles the myths of “intimate partner terrorism,” from the titular one about bruises to the notion that women choose to stay. The Times critic Parul Sehgal compared it to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in its literary indelibility: “I read Snyder’s book as if possessed, stopping for nothing, feeling the pulse beat in my brain.”

FALL: Or, Dodge in Hell, by Neal Stephenson. (Morrow, 896 pp., $21.99.) Our reviewer, Charles Yu, described this sci-fi novel about how reality might be simulated — “gradually sucking all of humanity into the Matrix in the process” — as a “staggering feat of imagination, intelligence and stamina.”

FIRST: Sandra Day O’Connor, by Evan Thomas. (Random House, 496 pp., $20.) In this “revelatory” biography of the first woman on the Supreme Court, our reviewer, Jeffrey Toobin, wrote, Thomas reminds readers that it was O’Connor’s vote as a swing justice that saved abortion rights, her vote that preserved affirmative action and her vote that in 2000 “delivered the presidency to George W. Bush.” He also lands this scoop: While at Stanford she received a marriage proposal from William Rehnquist.

TRUST EXERCISE, by Susan Choi. (Holt, 272 pp., $15.99.) This National Book Award-winning novel set at a performing arts high school is about “misplaced trust in adults,” “female friendships gone dangerously awry” and “cruelty,” the Times critic Dwight Garner said. “Satisfyingly, it’s also about revenge.”