Few debuts make the splash that Taylor Stevens’s The Informationist did, especially in the crowded field of thrillers. The Texas-based author hit all the right notes with her story of Vanessa Michael Munroe, a woman who specializes in selling information about developing countries to corporations. Booklist called the novel “dazzling,” and Publishers Weekly said it was a “blazingly brilliant debut” and a “high-octane page-turner.”

In real life, Stevens spent her childhood living all around the world in what she’s called “a communal apocalyptic cult,” before escaping to the United States and settling down in Texas. Stevens endows her protagonist with the same back-story. In the book, an oil billionaire asks the information specialist to find his daughter, who disappeared in Africa. Munroe can’t say no, and she returns to a region of the world she never thought she’d see again. And right back into the danger she left behind. 6:30 p.m. Murder by the Book, 2342 Bissonnet. For information, call 713-524-8597 or visit www.murderbooks.com. Free.

Thu., March 17, 2011

This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2011.