The return of pneumonic plague, the blob-like ooze of data centers, the revival of the rattail ’do—disasters seem to be looming around every corner right now. With that in mind, here’s a look at three new books shaped by catastrophes large and small.
The largest is the sinking of a luxury ocean liner called the Empress of Ireland in 1914, in which 1,012 lives were lost off the coast of Canada. That’s almost as many as went down with the Titanic, yet it’s been mostly forgotten. In Miss Wolcott’s Ghost, Louise Penny weaves together that disaster, a dead body found in a ghost town, and the life of an unconventional Victorian lady botanist in a complex investigation led by Armand Gamache, head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec. For anyone who’s counting, this is the 21st installment of Penny’s series featuring Gamache.