The collision of worlds can provide rich fodder for storytelling. Not in the literal sense, of course (although plenty of excellent speculative fiction has sprung from just such a scenario), but rather finding new ways to combine contexts in the service of a compelling tale.

Take “Secret Identity” (Flatiron Books, $28.99), the new novel from Alex Segura. It’s a mystery with noir elements, only set in the world of comic book publishing in the mid-1970s. It might sound strange, but these oddly shaped pieces have been fit together to form something altogether different, a story both of and beyond its parts.

Fast-paced and quick-witted, it’s a novel that takes full advantage of its disparate elements, finding room for moments seedy and sublime alike as it takes the reader on a twisting and thoughtful ride.

“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

There’s an undeniable magic to the city of Paris. And while there has always been a romanticism attached to it – particularly by folks from this side of the pond – one could argue that one of the peaks of that magic came in the 1920s. The arts were alive and thriving, with expatriated folks from all over the world finding their way to the fabled City of Lights.

In his new book “The Paris Hours” (Flatiron Books, $26.99), author Alex George offers a look at the magic of the city through the perspectives of four people who live there. Over the course of a single day in 1927, he shows us some of the ways that a city such as this one can shine, but also recognizes that a place with so many lights casts a multitude of shadows.

Through the eyes of this quartet, we get a sense of the place in terms both general and specific. We get to know them and the challenges they face even as they cross paths – fleetingly or otherwise – with some of the preeminent figures of the era, luminaries like Proust and Stein and Baker and Hemingway. And yet, titans though those luminaries may be, they serve as supporting characters here, moving in service to the stories of our central foursome as they live their relatively everyday lives.

Superheroes have been ingrained in popular culture for nearly a century. Decades of extraordinary powers and extraordinary tales. Comic books led the way, of course, but superheroes have become key components in just about every entertainment medium, dominating televisions and especially movie screen over the past 15 years or so.

These characters and narratives benefit from being represented in a visually-oriented medium; brightly-colored costumes and superhuman feats of derring-do lend themselves well to the pages of a comic book, the animated cels of a cartoon or the CGI-powered exploits of a movie.

Meanwhile, the superhero hasn’t made the same sort of cultural inroads into the literary realm, though that too has begun to shift in recent years.

The latest effort in that direction comes from the pen of debut novelist T.J. Martinson. “The Reign of the Kingfisher” (Flatiron Books, $27.99) is a literary crime thriller, one shaded by the lengthy shadow cast by the titular Kingfisher, a largely-forgotten vigilante whose death, some three decades in the past, becomes central to a horrific murder spree in the present day.

An exploration of the dark side of superheroism, evocative of the work of comics legends like Frank Miller, the book digs deep into the ethical and moral quandaries that permeate the notion of vigilantism – costumed or otherwise – and offers a look at the consequences therein, some obvious, others less so.

Debut novel a powerful, beautifully-written effort

As readers, we all have authors, styles and genres that sit in our respective wheelhouses. These are the books with proven track records in our eyes, ones that we can feel confident about going in.