Salomé

A vacationing journalist stumbles across a global conspiracy in Baird’s dizzying debut. Courtney intends to spend a week in Paris catching up with her old study-abroad roommate. On the flight to France from Raleigh, N.C., she meets an alluring seatmate named Salomé. Courtney and Salomé talk for hours, and by the time their plane lands, Courtney has agreed to stay a few nights with Salomé at her widowed mother Nathalie’s house in Châteaubriant. Though Courtney finds Salomé captivating, Nathalie proves odd: dotting her home’s interior are security cameras installed by her snake-oil salesman boyfriend, Marco, who claims to be on the cusp of curing death. Soon, Courtney starts sleepwalking and having nightmares. When Natalie falsely accuses her of stealing, she leaves for Paris. However, the reporter in Courtney can’t resist researching Marco—an instinct that may prove fatal. What begins as a tantalizing slow-burn transforms into a paranoia-fueled speculative thriller when Courtney learns that Marco’s strangeness reaches far beyond the walls of Nathalie’s home. The result is an unpredictable if disjointed reading experience bolstered by Courtney’s increasingly freaked-out first-person narration. This deserves credit for its ambition, even if it doesn’t hang together. Agent: Mackenzie Williams, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (May)