THE MINISTRY OF SPECIAL CASES—Nathan Englander—A powerful, poignant novel not designed as light reading (although there are light parts). The book centers on a Jewish Family in the 1970s Argentina, a time of military dictatorship for that country in what was known as ‘the dirty war’. The only child, a son, is kidnapped and mother and father both of extremely differing temperaments, try to deal with the loss and locating him. In doing so they reach the governmental religious and other cultural roadblocks which individually and collectively make their tasks ever so much more difficult. As mentioned, this is not light reading, but a book worth reading. Fascinating, also, are the reviews at Amazon. com and Barnes & Nobel . com, which include such descriptions as “staggeringly mature work’, ‘harrowing and brilliant first novel’ ‘mesmerizing rumination on loss and memory, ‘chilling book of intrigue” ‘vibrant, exquisite, quirky and devastating historical novel’, among many other phrases of praise.