(Enlarge) Michelle Huneven returns with "Blame," a "quiet" novel about crime and punishment.

Summer is drawing to a close. The days are getting shorter, and school and work schedules are ramping up once again. Here are three books to help with the transition back to reality.

"Blame"

by Michelle Huneven

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25

Patsy MacLemoore, a young professor of cultural history, seems to have a bright future ahead of her. But she also has a habit of drinking until she blacks out. One morning, Patsy awakens in jail to find that she has killed a mother and daughter while driving on a suspended license. Patsy spends two years in prison. During that harrowing time, which Michelle Huneven evokes brilliantly, Patsy gets clean and resolves to become a better person. And at the end of her sentence, she goes about rebuilding her life -- until a shocking revelation threatens to change everything that came before.

Huneven, whose previous books include the novels "Round Rock" and "Jamesland," excels at portraying flawed individuals and the ways they connect. Her writing is almost note-perfect, except for a very young gay character whose overly arch personality doesn't ring quite true.

"Blame" is a quiet novel but a deep one, powered by Huneven's willingness to eschew cheap theatrics in favor of emotional truth.

"Losers Live Longer"

by Russell Atwood

Hard Case Crime, $6.99

Payton Sherwood's East Side private detective agency is not exactly thriving. Then he gets a call from George "Owl" Rowell, a P.I. famous for cracking high profile cases. Owl is tracking down a fugitive financier and needs Payton's help. But before they can meet in person, Owl meets with a fatal "accident."

Payton's quest to find the truth behind Owl's death leads him into the sleaziest corners of the city, where drug addiction, child pornography and murder will make this the case of his life -- assuming he survives it.

Russell Atwood, who first wrote about Payton Sherwood in "East of A," excels at bringing the classic detective novel into the present day, with all the ambiguity and discomfort that entails. Despite the often unpleasant subject matter, Atwood's cerebral wordplay and sense of irony lend a touch of class to the proceedings, and the final twist is almost metaphysical in its implications.

"Nella Last's Peace"

edited by Patricia and Robert Malcolmson

Profile Books, $15.95

In 1939, Nella Last, a 49-year-old housewife, signed up as a volunteer for Mass Observation, an organization dedicated to creating a self-portrait of modern Britain. Last wrote in a diary nearly every day, and each week sent her entries to Mass Observation headquarters. As becomes clear in this second volume of her diaries (following "Nella Last's War"), the end of World War II brought nearly the same anxieties as the war itself. In "Nella Last's Peace," readers are privy to the bitter deprivation of rationing and fuel shortages, but the hardships Last faces are not only physical. She worries about her two sons, Arthur and Cliff, and their struggles to find their way, and reflects on her discontent with her almost pathologically introverted husband, Will. And above these daily concerns loom larger ones, including the shortage of jobs for young men who have been recently demobilized -- and the prospect of a new kind of warfare unleashed by the atomic bomb.

Editors Patricia and Robert Malcolmson keep the entries flowing smoothly and provide plenty of helpful material, including a list of people mentioned in the diaries and a glossary of slang of the time. Through their careful work, Last emerges as a stoic and resilient woman who, despite her suffering, maintains a creative and empathetic spirit.

Rebecca Oppenheimer, a Towson University graduate and National Book Critics' Circle member, dives into the latest books from her home in Stevenson.

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