ANGEL OF VENGEANCE: The Girl Who Shot the Governor of St. Petersburg and Sparked the Age of Assassination By Ana Siljak, St. Martin's Griffin, 370 pages, $21.99
In 1878, young aristocrat Vera Zasulich walked into the office of St. Petersburg governor Fedor Trepov and shot him to death in revenge for his treatment of a political prisoner. After "the trial of the century," she was - astonishingly - acquitted, and fled to Switzerland, inspiring a generation of revolutionaries to embrace violence and martyrdom.
MONTREAL CONFIDENTIAL By Al Palmer, Véhicule, 165 pages, $12
First published in 1950, this is a tour of after-dark Montreal's cabarets, restaurants and late-night bars, and the singers, dancers and underworld figures who populated them in the 1940s, conducted by a reporter who covered the entertainment and police beats for two newspapers.
A SHADOW ON THE HOUSEHOLD: One Enslaved Family's Incredible Struggle for Freedom By Bryan Prince, Emblem, 280 pages, $21
Prince, a descendant of slaves and a resident of Buxton, Ont., tells the heart-rending story of the Weems family, torn apart by slavery in 1847, and their struggle against impossibly long odds to reunite in freedom. Prince's details of the time and place bring the family lovingly to life.
MADAME DE STAËL: The First Modern Woman By Francine du Plessix Gray, Atlas & Co., 246 pages, $16.95
The charismatic Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (1766-1817) was born in Paris of Swiss parents and spent her life conducting salons and writing novels, literary criticism and political treatises, including a number of broadsides at Napoleon, whom she opposed vociferously.
YOU BETTER WATCH OUT By Greg Malone, Vintage Canada, 366 pages, $21
Malone, one of the founding members of the comedy troupe CODCO, takes us back to St. John's in the 1950s and '60s in this funny, moving memoir about a boy who survives a Christian Brothers school, neighbourhood bullies and his own family.
DECODING THE LOST SYMBOL: The Unauthorized Expert Guide to the Facts Behind the Fiction By Simon Cox, Touchstone, 233 pages, $19.99
An A-to-Z guide to the real people, symbols, monuments, histories, organizations and themes in Dan Brown's latest novel, The Lost Symbol.