Bestselling novelist Ann Patchett’s latest novel State of Wonder (HarperCollins, 354 pp.) tells the story of Dr. Marina Singh, a pharmaceutical employee who travels to the Amazon to investigate the mysterious death of a colleague. Monitor critic Yvonne Zipp calls the book “easily Patchett’s best novel since Latin American terrorists took over the Japanese embassy in ‘Bel Canto.’ ” (CSMonitor.com, 6/14/11)