Jonathan Tropper’s latest novel, This is Where I Leave You (paperback: Plume, July 2010), mines the hilarity from dysfunction in a belated coming-of-age story. After patriarch Mort Foxman passes away, the Foxman clan is forced to sit through what might be the craziest shiva of all time.

Published posthumously, this international bestseller is the first novel in a trilogy of crime thrillers by Swedish activist-journalist Stieg Larsson. A publisher struggles to clear his name and save his magazine by helping a rich businessman investigate the mystery of his missing niece.

Two recent debut novels, Joe McGinniss Jr.’s The Delivery Man and Charles Bock’s Beautiful Children, are both set in Las Vegas, but this singular city wreaks different havocs on each book’s characters.