It’s an eclectic fiction day, with a 19th-century mystery, short stories, a woman doctor fighting the establishment and a creepy tale for middle-grade readers.

(Courtesy of the author)

“In the Exile Zone”: by George Rabasa (Calumet Editions, $18.99)

A small world, indeed, Carlos thought — the exile zone. He was not surprised that they had recognized him from the public revelations of bribery and theft that so many years later still seemed so recent. He wanted to see their faces before they fled; perhaps he would recognize them as well. He was turning toward the man on his right when he felt a sharp pain on his shins as his legs were kicked back…” — From “The Exile Zone”

Two-time Minnesota Book Award winner Rabasa, who was raised in Mexico, divides his time between St. Paul and the Yucatan Peninsula. So it’s not surprising the dozen short stories in his new collection cross borders and boundaries between distant places. These are satisfying stories because they don’t leave the reader hanging. They have a beginning, a middle and at least the hint of what happens in the future.

George Rabasa (Courtesy of the author)

The two-part title story tells of a husband and wife who fled Mexico after the husband made a fortune by skimming from his job in the public works department. Now the wife, who is 70 and a devotee of spas and facial rejuvenation, pities her fat husband. But they are partners in his crime and it looks like someone is coming for retribution. In the story “Ask Senor Totol,” a divorcing couple is dividing their possessions but neither wants the hairy egg they bought years earlier. “The Relic” is sort of a romp about a woman who visits her old friends, a married couple, while trying to reach a buyer for what she claims is a precious relic. In other stories a tour guide holds tourists hostage in a creepy cemetery and a teenager tries to find her mother, missing from their hotel in Cancun.

Rabasa is known as a master storyteller whose collection “Glass Houses” received the Writer’s Voice Capricorn Award and the Minnesota Book Award. His novel “Floating Kingdom” also won a Minnesota Book Award. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of national literary magazines and anthologies. “In the Exile Zone” is scary and humorous, sometimes strange, with fully realized characters.

(Courtesy of the author)

“A Most Perilous Journey”: by Kathleen Ernst (Level Best Books, $16.95)

Soon, the full blue-black shades of night descended. A barred owl sitting on a branch overhead stared at them with its unblinking yellow eyes. Tree limbs whispered in the night wind as if urging them on. This is not a dream, Hanneke told herself. I am truly plunging ever deeper into a pathless forest with a freedom seeker, running from a slaver. — from “A Most Perilous Journey”

The pretty cover of award-winning Ernst’s new novel looks like it is a cozy (mystery subgenre), but it’s closer to a thriller. In her third book featuring Wisconsin widow and German emigrant Hanneke Bauer (after “Lies of Omission” and “The Solace of Stars”), the author explores the 19th-century Underground Railroad traveled by escaped enslaved people making their way to the North.

Kathleen Ernst (Courtesy of the author)

Hanneke, an independent woman who lives alone on the farm since the death of her husband, has always believed in the abolitionist movement and leaves food in a secret place in her barn for escapees. So she agrees to accompany a taciturn man transporting a “lamb” (code for an escapee) to a safe house along the Wisconsin underground railroad. The fast-moving plot involves the murder of a mean man who was also an abolitionist, deadly slave hunters hounding Hanneke and the mysterious man whom she accompanies, as well as the secrecy and risks in which the abolitionists worked. Even though Hanneke wants to hide an enslaved fugitive girl, she is told she must leave the lamb at the safe house and never look back. Rescuers must not become emotionally attached to those they are helping.

Ernst, who lives in Middleton, Wis., is the author of 20 historical novels and mysteries for young readers from American Girl, 11 books in the Chloe Ellefson Historic Sites mysteries, and nonfiction history and poetry. She spent more than a decade working as an educator and curator for the Wisconsin Historical Society.

“A Perilous Journey” is a vividly told story of Hanneke’s miserable nights in the cold rain, cuddling a runaway child, near misses as someone tries to kill her, and close calls when the slave hunters track the rescuers. A thriller for sure.

“Poised”: by Cheryl Bailey (Calumet Editions, $18.99)

(Courtesy of Calumet Editions)

Shelly had the sense that she was completely, utterly alone in her assessment. It stunned her that she could be so wrong, but these folks marched to one anthem, and Shelly couldn’t even hear the beat. And they were so good-natured about it all! The duplication of effort, the ridiculous hours, and the endless inefficiencies were invisible. Nothing fazed them, from the medical students to her senior fellow. Not a single complaint. Shelly was losing her mind. — from “Poised”

The word “poised” has many meanings for oncologist Shelly Riley in this debut novel from a St. Paul-based author. Shelly is poised to finish her long years of education by completing a two-year fellowship. She’s poised to hand an instrument to a senior doctor in the ER. She’s poised to offer ideas on how to make the hospital more efficient, but that isn’t going to happen.

Set in 1990s Kentucky, Shelly’s story is a reminder of how far women doctors have come and the hard path of those who preceded them. Shelly is socially awkward but a whiz in the operating room and, most of all, she loves her cancer patients. She was ready to lead teams during her fellowship, but she hadn’t counted on the resistance of the male doctors in charge, who avoid change and give her the most work because they don’t want their comfy world changed.

Cheryl Bailey (Courtesy of Calumet Editions)

The author, a retired gynecologic oncologist, takes readers into the operating rooms, the lives of some of Shelly’s patients and the long days worked by her and her medical students. Although she believes she is alone, it turns out there are people on the staff who are on her side. Adding poignancy, the narrative is interspersed with obituaries of some of the patients Shelly could not save, showing them as human beings and not just names on a medical chart.

This is a novel to keep you up long past bedtime as you root for a doctor whose patient you’d want to be.

“Exit Nowhere”: by Juliana Brandt (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing House, $17.99)

About a dozen stairs above them was a small landing, and on that landing crouched a boy. — from “Exit Nowhere”

(Courtesy of the author)

Four kids are stuck in a haunted house and have to play games with a 5-year-old ghost in this middle-grade novel. Barret Eloise used to have friends, but in fourth grade something changed and she’s feeling alone even though she’s known as the smartest in the class. When the teacher assigns a research project about a local

landmark, Barret Eloise and her former friend, along with two boys, choose the scary old Rathfield Manor. Things don’t go well when the house, ruled by the ghost of a boy, turns on them. The rug turns into lava, doors close and lock by themselves, the child ghost insists they play games with him and they will never get out of the house because he will always win. They play hide-and-seek and a version of Snakes and Ladders (with real snakes) and the kids realize they might have to lose to win. The two boys disappear. Then there’s a second ghost, an adult who’s been in the house 60 years. Does the child ghost just want to return to his dead siblings? It’s a night of terror for the kids in Rathfield Manor, but the creepiness is offset by Barret Eloise’s renewed friendship with the girl who was her first friend. School Library Journal calls this “a fun horror novel with just the right amount of spooky for kids wanting to dip their toes into the genre.”

Juliana Brandt (Courtesy of the author)

Among Brandt’s previous books are “The Wolf of Cape Fen” and “Monsters in the Mist.”

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