John Powers

Critic at large John Powers has speed through both seasons of Jack Ryan, which he says serves up something reassuringly nostalgic.

Rather than rehash the 1980s superhero comic, series creator Damon Lindelof preserves the original's mood, themes and tricky structure — but uses them to tell an engrossing, totally new story on HBO.

Attica Locke's new novel centers on a black Texas ranger's effort to find the vanished son of a white supremacist. Heaven, My Home offers an unsettling American spin on a complicated crime story.