Reviews of notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

- A friend of the Allentown worker accused of staging a noose on her own desk at City Hall is speaking out. Josie Lopez was a vocal supporter of the woman when the noose was found.

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

A welcome break from the heat continues this week with several more rounds of rain likely.