I love dreaming myself into movies, so I was already more than sympathetic to the plight of Daniel Bloom in Todd Hasak-Lowy's witty and hilarious debut novel, Captives [Spiegel & Grau, Oct.]. Bloom is a screenwriter who pens a new screenplay about a sniper who picks off corporate bad guys. Bloom suddenly realizes that the screenplay reflects his real thoughts: he really would like to kill thieving billionaire corporate heads and dirty fear-mongering politicians. Not being able to use a gun, Bloom decides to do some soul searching in Tel Aviv. This is only one of many droll flights of fancy in Captives. Buoyed by unbelievably frank and funny dialogue from mercilessly self-absorbed characters, I raced through this book and laughed all the way. I wholeheartedly recommend this honest and captivating novel about how middle-aged folks sometimes need to escape into fantasies if they want to remain sane.