John Powers

An FBI agent in a dead-end job suddenly finds himself in the middle of a huge conspiracy. This new 10-part series is a cross between a paranoid thriller from the '70s and a twisty TV show like 24.

Birnam Wood is a whooshingly enjoyable new novel by Eleanor Catton, a New Zealander whose previous book, The Luminaries, made her, at 28, still the youngest person ever to win the Booker Prize.

John Powers says the movie starts off like a sentimental fish-out-of-water story about a young woman's search for her roots. But it quickly becomes clear that we're seeing something stranger and stronger.