Reviewers often call Roberto Bolaño the leading Latin American writer of his generation. Chilean by birth (1953), he spent a decade in Mexico (1968 to 1977) where he co-founded the Infrarealists, a group of surrealist/dada-styled literary activists. Bolaño became infamous more for his attacks on established writers than for anything he wrote. He might have become just another forgotten poet had he not, after moving to Spain and fathering a son, turned to fiction for profit, penning 10 novels and three short-story collections in the 10 years before his death in 2003. Only in 2007 did his masterpiece, the novel “The Savage Detectives,” appear in English to rave reviews, followed now by the ballyhooed and posthumous “2666.”

“2666” reprises features from “Detectives”: the ad-hoc group pursuing some questionable lost ideal, violence threatening at any moment, the social tolerance of unspeakable horrors, sexual undertow devoid of sentiment, scathing satire of academics and intellectuals, and the denunciation of elite assumptions concerning the arts. The novel even recycles the voyage to northern Mexico, Bolaño's particular heart of darkness, where ideals mire in brutal indifference. Readers also will find intriguing characters that drop out of the narrative as if the author tired of them, a string of skillfully constructed anecdotes that substitute for a plot, the almost epiphanies that become opaque before revelation, masterfully paced prose and a unrelenting dedication to realism – a welcome departure from the magical realist fiction U.S. publishers have foisted off as the real Latin American writing. Bolaño abhorred “well-constructed modernist literature,” so summarizing his novel is difficult. Like anthology-style films – “Babel” or “Amores Perros” – the five parts of this book are loosely related through characters more than plot.

The figure is staggering: 70. That's the number of mystery and suspense novels that Bill Pronzini has written over the course of his distinguished career. Yet even more noteworthy is the fact that he has succeeded in combining quality with quantity, producing fiction that is subtly plotted, deftly written and rich in characterization.

His latest literary thriller meets the high standard he has set for himself. In it, Pronzini deals with his favorite breed of human being – the loner, the alienated, the dispossessed. They are represented here by Rick Fallon, who is facing a midlife crisis. His beloved son has died in an accident, his wife has filed for divorce and he's weary of his dead-end job with a corporate security firm. Fallon's solution: sell his house, quit his job and embark on a vagabond existence.

At the time of year when skulls and skeletons get their due, Russell Shorto's new book, “Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason,” seems to have good timing. But any links to Halloween or the Day of the Dead are, admittedly, nonexistent.

Nonetheless, true to its title, the philosopher's bones are central to Shorto's saga. And for Rene Descartes (1596-1650), one of the inventors of modern secular culture as we still know it, it's somehow fitting that his skull was separated from the rest of his skeleton about 16 years after his death. Much of Descartes' fame hinges, after all, on his 1637 essay “Discourse on the Method,” with the words “I think, therefore I am” – the essay that set up the split between mind and body, which has been central to Western culture ever since.