Globe & Mail/Ben McNally Books Authors' Brunch

Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean by Alex Von Tunzelmann

During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the USA and the USSR acted out the world's tensions in the Caribbean. What neither superpower bargained on was that their puppets would come to life. Red Heat tells the gripping story of the men responsible for this rude surprise, including the charismatic Fidel Castro and his mysterious brother Raúl; the ideologue Che Guevara; the capricious psychopath Rafael Trujillo; and François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, a buttoned-down doctor with interests in Vodou, embezzlement, and torture.

Frontier Justice: The Global Refugee Crisis and What to Do About It by Andy Lamey

Frontier Justice is a gripping, eye-opening exploration of the world-wide refugee crisis. Combining reporting, history and political philosophy, Andy Lamey sets out to explain the story behind the radical increase in the global number of asylum-seekers, and the effects of North America and Europe’s increasing unwillingness to admit them.

Who Killed Mom? by Steve Burgess

Memoir, biography, and outrageous comedy make for a perfect blend in the debut book from acclaimed writer Steve Burgess. Telling the tale of his mother’s life and death, and along the way laying bare his own struggles, Burgess delivers a moving meditation on life and family.

Who Killed Mom? brims with uproarious anecdotes and one-liners. Whether he’s relating how an ice cream product saved him from a gruesome death on the Trans-Canada, sizing up the rebranding efforts of a woeful Manitoba motel, or depicting daily life in a retirement community, Burgess infuses his tales with plenty of laughs. But beneath the book’s hilarity is a penetrating examination of eternal themes: family, mortality, fate, and the enduring value of love.

Bad Animals by Joel Yanofsky

Joel Yanofsky tried for years to start this memoir. "It's not just going to be about autism," he told his wife, Cynthia. "It's going to be about parenthood and marriage, about hope and despair, and storytelling, too."

"Marriage?" Cynthia said. "What about marriage?"

A veteran book reviewer, Yanofsky has spent a lifetime immersed in literature (not to mention old movies and old jokes), which he calls shtick. This account of a year in the life of a family describes a father's struggle to enter his son's world, the world of autism, using the materials he knows best: self-help books, feel-good memoirs, literary classics from the Bible to Dr. Seuss, old movies, and, yes, shtick. Funny, wrenching, and unfailingly candid, Bad Animals is both an exploration of a baffling condition and a quirky love story told by a gifted writer.