Fiction Reviews: Week of 9/11/2006

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 9/11/2006

The Lay of the Land Richard Ford, Knopf, $26.95 (496p) ISBN 978-0-6794-5468-7 Frank Bascombe meticulously maps New Jersey with a realtor's rapacious eye, and he is an equally intense topographer of his teeming inner landscape. In the first of Ford's magisterial Bascombe novels (The Sportswriter, 1986), Frank staved off feelings of loss and regret with a dissociated "dreaminess." He graduated to a more conventional detachment during what he calls the "Existence Period" of the Pen/Faulkner and Pulitzer Prize–winning Independence Day (1995). Now we find the 55-year-old former fiction writer and sports journalist in a "Permanent Period," a time of being, not becoming. He's long adjusted to the dissolution of his first marriage to women's golf instructor Ann Dykstra (which foundered 17 years earlier after the death of their nine-year-old, firstborn son, Ralph) and settled for eight years with second wife Sally Caldwell in Sea-Clift, N.J. Permanence has proven turbulent: Sally has abandoned Frank for her thought-to-be-dead first husband, and Frank's undergone treatment for prostate cancer. The novel's action unfolds in 2000 over the week before Thanksgiving, as Frank bemoans the contested election, mourns the imminent departure of Clinton ("My President," he says) and anticipates with measured ambivalence the impending holiday meal: his guests will include his 27-year-old son, Paul, a once-troubled adolescent grown into an abrasive "mainstreamer," who writes for Hallmark in Kansas City, Mo., and his 25-year-old daughter, Clarissa, a glamorous bisexual Harvard grad who's unfailingly loyal to her dad. Frank's quotidian routines are punctuated by weird but subtly depicted events: he happens on the scene of a bombing at the hospital in his former hometown of Haddam, N.J., clenches his jaw through an awkward meeting with Ann, provokes a bar fight and observes the demolition of an old building. But the real dramatic arc occurs in Frank's emotional life—until the climax takes him out of his head. Ford summons a remarkable voice for his protagonist—ruminant, jaunty, merciless, generous and painfully observant—building a dense narrative from Frank's improvisations, epiphanies and revisions. His reluctance to "fully occupy" his real estate career ("it's really about arriving and destinations, and all the prospects that await you or might await you in some place you never thought about") illuminates the preoccupations of the boomer generation; for Frank, an unwritten novel and broken relationships combine with the dwindling fantasy of endless possibility—in work and in love—to breed doubt: "Is this it?" and "Am I good?" Frank wonders. The answers don't come easy. 150,000 announced first printing. (Nov.)

The not–Anna Wintour character in this much-hyped my-boss-is-famously-unpleasant roman à clef is not–Judith Regan—or, to be positive, is Vivian Grant of Grant Books, "the most hotheaded, ruthless woman" in publishing. She physically and verbally abuses her staff, is having an affair with a married New York City official (who dresses in drag) and has made a "fortune by producing tabloid-inspired blockbusters." And though up-and-coming literary fiction editor Claire Truman has heard all the gossip, she takes a job as an editor at Grant Books and quickly discovers Vivian lives up to her reputation as a foul-mouthed, über-demanding, tantrum-throwing tyrant. Claire tries to maintain some semblance of a life (she's engaged to dreamboat Randall Cox, who went from big man on campus to big man at Goldman Sachs, even though she's really in love with Luke Mayville, a sensitive writer/unrecognized genius), but vicious Vivian keeps her within spitting (and swearing) distance 27 hours a day. Clark, who worked at Regan Books, nails the dark side of the vulgar, spiteful boss archetype, and though the plot is as shopworn as the characters, those in the Page Six and Lloyd Grove set will appreciate this devilish read. (Feb. 12)

The ninth and final installment in Whyte's Camulod (Camelot) series offers an imaginative if rambling account of the end of the Arthurian era. Narrated by Clothar of Benwick (Lancelot), King Arthur's best friend and loyal companion, the novel is grounded in the author's "interpretation of Lancelot" as "an archetypal hero." Faced with fractious local rulers and Saxon invaders, Arthur hopes to unite Britain to fend off the invasion. But two regional kings—the treacherous Symmachus and the ambitious Connlyn—unite to frustrate, and ultimately destroy, Arthur's dream. The basic plot, however, is overburdened with a stew of subplots and backstories: Clothar's affair with a betrothed woman adds heft but not substance, and the detailed recounting of the paternity of Arthur's son, Mordred, the fruit of an unwitting incestuous affair with his half-sister, is distracting. The author also sends Clothar off on a seven-year detour to Gaul where he trains a cavalry force and saves his cousin's kingdom from the Huns. Clothar returns to Britain to find that events have taken a dangerous turn and a final showdown looms with Camulod's enemies. Fans of Whyte's exhaustive retelling of the Camelot legend will welcome this final chapter. (Jan.)

Focusing on a little-known WWI-era government campaign to imprison women who'd contracted "social diseases," Lowenthal (The Same Embrace; Avoidance) follows the travails of a 17-year-old Boston girl as she's put through the system's wringer. Frieda Mintz is a bundle wrapper at a department store living on her own when she meets Felix Morse, an army private. After a date at a Red Sox game, they sleep together. Not long after, Mrs. Sprague from the "Committee on Prevention of Social Evils Surrounding Military Camps," hounds Frieda at her workplace because Felix, during an inspection that uncovers he has an infection, names Frieda as his "last contact." After her case of "the whites" flares up and she loses her job, Frieda follows Felix to Camp Devens, where she's arrested and put into quarantine. Behind bars, she befriends Flossie Collins, and the two are sent to a detention camp, where they undergo crude medical treatment and perform mandatory manual labor alongside a host of other quarantined women. As her body heals and conditions worsen at the detention center, tensions rise to a wrenching climax. Lowenthal ably captures the transformation of a naïve adolescent into a woman in his provocative story. (Jan.)

This debut novel from Charles Darwin's great-great-granddaughter combines fiction, history and family legacy. Having lost a leg at the Battle of Waterloo, Stephen Fairhurst, ensconced at Kersey Hall, is not surprised that Hetty Greenshaw rejects his marriage proposal. But he is caught off guard when he finds he can share his darkest thoughts with Hetty's independent, artistic sister, Lucy Durward, who is fascinated by early attempts at photography. When Lucy accompanies Hetty and Hetty's new husband to Europe, Stephen escorts them around the battlefield where he once fought. Alternating with Stephen and Lucy's tale is the story of 15-year-old Anna Ware, left at Kersey Hall with her Uncle Ray in 1976 while her mother vacations. Uncle Ray has just shut down Kersey Hall School and taken in Anna's grandmother, a cruel drunk. Anna befriends neighbors Eva and Theo, who introduce her to photography and teach her about love. Darwin describes art, photography and warfare in meticulous detail. A gifted observer and novice storyteller, she loses her narrative way focusing on secondary characters (Stephen's mistress, the neglected boy Cecil), but she finds it in Anna's voice, Stephen's story and her portrait of Lucy. (Jan.)

This debut, set in Ecuador, mines the rich territory of the secret lives of teenage boys. Anti, an English expatriate, is a student at the Quito International School, where he meets Fabián, a talented and attractive classmate. Fabián takes a surprise liking to Anti, and the two soon develop a language and world of their own, in which the lines between reality and fiction blur. In the compelling stories within this story, Fabián returns time and again to his parents' deaths, convinced his mother escaped the fiery car crash that also killed his father. Anti, seeking to calm his friend's increasingly wild speculations, produces a fake newspaper clipping about an amnesia clinic where victims of memory loss are cared for. The two go in search of the clinic, where they imagine, or pretend, they might find Fabián's mother. Their trip, which begins as a promising and fun escape, eventually goes awry, leaving Anti to patch together a suitable story from the wreckage. Scudamore admirably portrays the braggadocio, sexual fantasies and obsessions of 15-year-old boys. Like his characters, he is a fast, funny, efficient storyteller; he appears more comfortable in the book's lighter first half than in its darker conclusion. Nonetheless, this story is tough to forget. (Jan.)

In this trial of post-9/11 America, a Jordanian couple enjoys the spoils of freedom until fate curdles their dreams. Living in Tucson, Ariz., husband Jassim is a hydrologist with an immigrant's-eye view of the States as a place of "stainless steel promises... and possibility." His wife, Salwa, also believes in a country where anything from "a house in the foothills to sex with a co-worker" could be yours. But after the "crazy suicide" that destroys the Twin Towers, their idyllic lives are torpedoed; paranoid bigotry, patriotism run amok and a baseless FBI investigation are only the beginning. Compounding the suspicion, Jassim is involved in a fatal car accident and Salwa—haunted by a miscarriage and confused by the affections of another man—sends large amounts of money back home. Halaby (West of the Jordan) uses this second novel to zero in on clashing cultures and lob rhetorical Molotov cocktails against the land of "antennas to God." Her prose crackles, but at the expense of her characters, whose inner lives are unconvincing even as their circumstances are awfully real. (Jan.)

Love's unfortunate side effects dominate the majority of stories in Parker's latest (after If You Want Me to Stay), in which characters, haunted by romances past, are frequently driven to extremes. In "I Will Clean Your Attic," Laura, desperate for companionship after her husband leaves her, befriends handyman B.R. Bradshaw after a freak winter storm buries her Southern town in snow and ice. In "Muddy Water, Turn to Wine," college dropout James, who is just beginning to recover from a year-old breakup, takes waitress Erin on a road trip to her father's funeral the morning after their one-night stand. In "The Right to Remain," Sanderson is so devastated by the departure of his girlfriend that he burns his house down in a bid to win back her affection. Though most stories sympathetically treat emotionally wounded or stunted characters, "Hidden Meanings, Treatment of Time, Supreme Irony, and Life Experiences in the song 'Ain't Gonna Bump No More No Big Fat Woman' " is an unwieldy one-off in the form of a critical essay penned by a jilted woman. Parker's prose is pristine, but readers may tire of similarly suffering protagonists. (Jan.)

A clever, Jane Austen–like 19th-century English romance filled with parlor-room wit, Morgan's second novel (after Passion) follows the sharp-tongued and attractive Caroline Fortune as she's sucked into and spit out of a scheme cooked up by her father, Captain Fortune, to make them rich. The plan consists of installing Caroline as the companion (and potential heiress) to Sophia Catling, the wealthy and childless widow of one of the captain's old military chums. After arriving at Sophia's estate, Caroline finds Sophia to be a bitter hag whose nastiness only intensifies when Caroline receives a letter from an estranged aunt informing her that her father has died. Caroline leaves Sophia to live with her aunt's family at Wythorpe Manor, where she makes friends with the luminous Isabella Milner, who is preparing for her wedding to Richard Leabrook. Caroline soon realizes she's crossed paths with Isabella's intended and is torn between sparing Isabella's feelings or telling her about Richard's philandering ways. Caroline also attracts the attention of Isabella's brother, Stephen, a callous young man who enjoys trading barbs with her. Romances bloom and wilt in familiar fashions, but Morgan's colorful cast and sharp wordplay make the read a joy. (Dec.)

Monroe (God Don't Like Ugly) and McGlothin (Down on My Knees) each contribute a short novel to this curiously packaged product. Monroe's Nightmare in Paradise features 31-year-old Renee, a second grade teacher and self-proclaimed "Miss Goody Two-Shoes" who, with wild best friend Inez, goes to the Caribbean to "get loose." Frustration with her own meek nature and an admission by Inez—she slept with Renee's husband before they married—propel Renee into a one-night stand that results in her arrest for prostitution. When husband Leon won't pony up the fine, Renee is jailed for three months—plenty of time to decide who stays in her life. Monroe's earnest melodrama suffers, however, from its proximity to McGlothin's dazzling Bad Luck Shadow. Set in 1946, the story's hero is Baltimore Floyd, a dashing scoundrel with charisma to burn. Fleeing Harlem and a gambling debt, Baltimore steals into a neon-lit Kansas City, where he holes up in old love Franchetta's cathouse and plans the takedown of a high-stakes card game. McGlothin's tale is sophisticated and sexy, with the plotting and pacing of first-rate noir. If cross-promotion is the impetus for this project, Monroe may earn a few new readers, but McGlothin's fan base is sure to swell. (Dec.)

From the formidable imagination of Scott (Pulitzer Prize–finalist The Manikin, etc.) comes a collection of 10 stories that stalk across the 20th century to document love and its consequences. In "Heaven and Hell," a bride and groom seal their vows with a lengthy kiss after he returns home, blind, from WWI. "The Lucite Cane" sees an elderly man navigating a slew of literal and metaphorical modern-day hazards in June 2000. A young Harlem mother abandons her daughter to join a cultlike church in "The Queen of Sheba Is Afraid of Snow." The teenage grifter at the center of "Or Else" travels from New York to Europe and steals from her benefactor. In the title story, a New York advertising executive sent upstate to finalize a contract encounters trouble on his drive home to his wife and baby. Although the characters struggle differently, they are almost all observed by a Paul Bowles–style godless eye-in-the-sky that lays bare human frailty with almost unbearable acuity; the two first-person stories, "Yip" and "Across from the Shannonso," don't convey the same gravitas. But Scott's craft can be breathtaking—and her perceptions uncanny. (Dec. 11)

The same rhetorical bomb throwing that drew attention to Baraka for his poem "Who Blew Up America" shoots through these stories written from 1974 through the present. Baraka works over issues of politics, race, sex and the afterlife, though the focus is always on ideas and wordplay. In "Conrad Loomis and the Clothes Ray," the narrator's friend Conrad reveals his new invention, a "clothes ray" that zaps the illusion of natty clothing onto the body of a naked person. Loomis describes himself as "outtelligent," which is superior to plain intelligence because it represents a brightness focused outward rather than inward. He also explains that while most people can understand problems, he can both "over and understand them." Linguistic ticks and characters like Loomis represent the engaging but intellectually imprecise core of this collection. At their best, these stories stretch language and churn out grimly whimsical notions, but Baraka also misfires, tweaking language into meaninglessness, or, for instance, melding The Matrix with hoary 9/11 conspiracy theories. (Dec.)

Set on a small Midwestern state college campus in the fall of 1959, Frederick's story follows graduate student and freshman English teacher Ted Riley as he navigates the McCarthy era. After losing his ladylove, Sally, in a plane crash, Ted makes halfhearted stabs at meeting his graduate program requirements and falls into a deep funk. Andrew Kesler, a lonely, "prickly" Polish library worker, offers friendship and tall tales, though his rumored homosexual preferences and shifty demeanor put Ted on the defensive. Acquaintance Marty Reindorf introduces Ted to Dori Green, a relatively new addition on campus who, like Ted, is a horror flick aficionado. Ted becomes smitten with Dori while an increasingly unstable Andrew pops up in unexpected places and Ted's father, Jack, reappears after a 14-year absence. As in Frederick's previous works (Accomplices, etc.), finely tuned characters are at the heart of this novel, and the authentic period backdrop adds a lushly atmospheric complement to the ever-present undertone of paranoia mixed with melancholy. (Dec.)

Set in October 2002, bestseller DeMille's can't-put-it-down fourth thriller to feature ex-NYPD detective John Corey (after 2004's Night Fall) involves an American right-wing plot to suitcase-nuke two U.S. cities. The idea is to provoke an existing government plan called Wild Fire that automatically responds to nuclear terrorism in the homeland with a nuclear attack that will wipe out most of the Middle East. That such a plan probably exists, according to an opening author's note, heightens the tension. Corey and his FBI agent wife, Kate Mayfield, set off to find antiterrorist agent Harry Muller, who has disappeared after being assigned surveillance duties at the Custer Hill Club, a rich man's hunting lodge in upstate New York. John and Kate are a wisecracking, affectionate, deadly duo, with a new resolve born in the tragedy of the World Trade Center bombing. This tour de force of relentless narrative power neither stops nor slows for twists or turns, but charges straight ahead in the face of danger. (Nov.)

Nineteenth-century Norwegian artist Lars Hertervig painted luminous landscapes, suffered mental illness and died poor in 1902. In this wild stream-of-consciousness narrative, Fosse delves into Hertervig's mind as the events of one day precipitate his mental breakdown. A student of Hans Gude at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, Germany, Hertervig is paralyzed by anxieties about his talent and is overcome with love for Helene Winckelmann, his landlady's 15-year-old daughter. Marked by inspiring lyrical flights of passion ("I walked into her light") and enraged sexual delusions, Hertervig's fixation on Helene persuades her family that he must leave. Oppressed by hallucinations and with nowhere to go, Hertervig shuttles between a cafe, where he endures the mockery of his more sophisticated classmates, and the Winckelmann's apartment, which he desperately tries to re-enter. The novel's second section finds Hertervig lost in madness and planning an escape from Gausted Asylum in Norway; a brief and less satisfying coda reveals the life-transforming consequences of Hertervig's art for a late–20th-century writer named Vidme. Fosse's prose, which often affects a childlike quality, might put off some readers, but many gorgeous passages and Fosse's pursuit of the "glimmer of the divine" in art make this a powerful book. (Nov.)

In this second fictional outing (after eight nonfiction titles and 1929: A Novel of the Jazz Age), Turner evokes the debauchery of New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century with intoxicating period detail. The grip of longtime vice lord Tom Anderson on the Storyville District's diversions of booze, half-hour whores and high-class brothels is challenged by the arrival of the Parker brothers, whose gangster money and thug muscle have Anderson's crew looking over their shoulders. Francis "Fast-Mail" Muldoon, the lost-soul protagonist, was a champion runner as a boy (hence the nickname) and then a city cop, before he was crippled in a shooting and falsely accused of cowardice; now he's Anderson's "man about town." But he's reluctant to be drawn into the escalating turf war, and his loyalty to the man who gave him a job after he hit bottom shatters when he uncovers his boss's ongoing romance with a young saloon singer (the object of Muldoon's own stunted affections) whom Anderson had first taken as a lover when she was his teenaged stepdaughter. Fast-Mail's redemption in the bloody finale is the soul-warming center of this emotionally complex page-turner. Turner's sense of time and place—including a cameo by real-life prostitute photographer Bellocq—imbue the novel with atmosphere as steamy as a New Orleans summer day. (Nov.)

At the start of the highly entertaining new Parker novel from Stark (aka MWA Grand Master Donald Westlake), Parker is on the lam from the botched robbery in Nobody Runs Forever (2004) when he meets up with reclusive Tom Lindahl, who helps him escape a posse of Massachusetts lawmen and their pack of howling dogs. Tom rescues Parker because he has a scheme to rob a local racetrack where he was fired after blowing the whistle on illegal money laundering, and he needs the aid of a professional thief. Parker joins in not only because he knows a good heist when he hears it, but because Tom offers him a way out of a tight situation. As with any Parker novel, things go to hell in bits and pieces as the tight-knit plan unravels, while Parker, ever the cold-blooded professional, deals with the pitiful attempts of amateurs and law enforcement alike to bring him down. Why do readers love this heartless bad guy? Because he's so damn good at what he does. (Nov.)

The power of friendship and love prevail against unlikely odds in Lokko's overstuffed, globe-trotting family epic. The saga, which begins in 1972 London, primarily focuses on lonely Amber Sall and her friends, artistically gifted Becky Aldridge and poor, intelligent Madeline Szabo. Amber yearns for the approval of her illustrious father, Max, but he's too occupied with his work and second family in Rome to notice. Amber's half-sister, the gorgeous Paola, grows into a vixen, and the two compete over everything, including, eventually, Tendé Ndiaye, a West African business associate of their father. Years blur together as Amber and friends embark on their own lives, rarely making contact with one another aside from infrequent visits; Madeline becomes a doctor, Becky finds work in a gallery and Amber becomes a journalist before marrying Tendé. Paola never outgrows her licentiousness, and it proves, predictably, to be her undoing. Political strife in Mali, meanwhile, portends possible disaster for Tendé, but help from an unexpected source saves the day. Stilted pacing slows an already meandering plot, though the few surprise turns should keep readers going. (Nov.)

Biographer and journalist May (Adventures of a Psychic) turns to fiction to offer a privileged woman's view of religion, spirituality, sex and marriage in the time of Christ. May imagines 14-year-old Claudia Procula living with loving parents and holding a secret devotion to the goddess Isis and a gift for seeing the future. Six years later, Claudia marries the handsome and ambitious Pontius Pilate just before her family falls from imperial favor. While Pilate busies himself with affairs of state (and those of the extramarital variety), Claudia chats with her Jewish slave Rachel, visits her gladiator lover Holtan, tangles with the conniving Empress Livia, dines at Herod's palace and attends Jesus' wedding. Though blessed with the ability to see the future, Claudia never manages to prevent the tragedies she foresees. May is at her best when unencumbered by literary or historical precedent; Claudia's sister, the unwilling Vestal Virgin Marcella, for example, is better realized than the shallowly rendered Caligula, and descriptions of Antioch and Caesarea are more compelling than those of well-known locations like Pompeii. (Nov.)

At the start of Grabenstein's riveting third novel (after 2006's Mad Mouse), ad exec Scott Wilkerson makes the fatal mistake of complaining about his driver after a wild taxi ride to Newark airport. Lucky Seven cabs are dispatched from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where "Thieves in Law," a Russian exile mafia, rule the roost. Driver Nicolai Kyznetsoff (aka "Grandfather Frost" with a Santa hat) plans to settle the score with Scott at his "dacha," a broken-down cabin in the Pennsylvania woods. A gripping subplot finds off-duty FBI agent Christopher Miller on the trail of the "Man in the Moon," a serial killer who has been taking out cab drivers with every full moon on the Jersey shore where Scott and his family live. These two intrigues connect after Miller uncovers a money-laundering scheme in Brighton Beach. Not for the weak of stomach, this Christmas-season thriller involves raunchy strip shows and graphic KGB-style executions. (Nov.)

Two women in crisis learn important lessons about "life and death and the nature of love" in Braffet's brilliant second novel (after 2005's Jack and Josie). Anne Cassidy, a 48-year-old New Age devotee living in Sedona, Ariz., knows something major has gone wrong when her daughter, Miranda, a college dropout and aimless drifter currently in Pittsburgh, Pa., doesn't answer her calls and Randa's phone is later disconnected. After two months, Anne must face a mother's worst fear—that her daughter has vanished. Meanwhile, Randa has crashed her car and left it to start a new life after accepting a ride from "George," an odd stranger who's either a serial killer or a covert CIA operative. George drops her off in Lawrence Beach, Va., where she takes a chambermaid job at a cheap motel. At the end of the tourist season, Randa's reduced to living in a friend's van while female bodies continue to surface in the seaside community. In Pittsburgh, Anne hunts for clues to her daughter's disappearance and revisits the equally disturbing disappearance of Nick, her pilot husband, in 1984. Fluid prose, vivid characters and suspenseful twists lead to a hopeful denouement. Author tour. (Nov.)

Oatley's subtle and insightful debut novel, which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, explores human psychology through three perspectives—that of the title character, an accomplished young woman traumatized by guilt at her role in the death of a British diplomat, who was her lecherous guardian; Sigmund Freud, whom she consults to ease her mental suffering; and Sherlock Holmes, enlisted by his brother, Mycroft, to probe the man's death. The author manages to make each narrative convincing, and for readers used to poor imitations of the Watson voice by numerous pasticheurs, Oatley's rendition of the Baker Street duo will be a pleasant surprise. The book has more in common with less conventional, deeper looks at what makes Holmes tick, like Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind, and will linger longer than with lighter fare like Nicholas Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. (Nov.)

These rough-cut tales from Santa Fe author Jaramillo paint a grim portrait of disenfranchised native New Mexicans. New money Santa Fe enrages locals like the young Hispanic narrator of "Whisper of a Spider," whose alcohol-and-resentment-fueled tirades are about all there is of him. ("I always feel oppressed no matter what," he bemoans, when thrown out of a bar.) In another dispiriting first-person tale, a young man acts as a gigolo ("a very lucrative endeavor in Santa Fe for a young virulent Latin spic") to a woman he calls the Brit—one in legions of "wealthy older lonely desperate white women residing in the subterranean foothills... [and] willing to pay for a young brown man's superior sex organ." Both act out in increasingly ugly, destructive ways. "Spirit of Madness," the long, tedious, sad diary of a young man's slow death by drug addiction, records the obliteration of will and personality in the face of society's apathy. Uncouth and unvarnished, Jaramillo's speakers can all agree with the narrator of "Living Briefly in Paradox," who notes of his family: "We all knew we had no future in Santa Fe." (Nov.)

Keeble (Yellowfish; Broken Ground), a veteran writer of the modern West, links the nine stories in this Prairie Schooner Book Prize–winning collection through recurring characters; names appear in one story's background and become central to the next. The first story, "The Chasm," introduces Jim and Diane Blood, who are trying to build a ranch house during a tough eastern Washington winter. In their attempts to forge relationships with their new neighbors, acclimate to the land and maintain their marriage, they set the stage for many of the book's continuing themes. "Chickens" visits Jim's early life in a small Saskatchewan town, where he witnesses the townspeople's cruel treatment of a German immigrant. The Bloods reappear again in "Freeing the Apes," the unsettling novella that ends the book. Other stories include "Zeta's House," a short but intense picture of a house in mourning, and "I Could Love You (if I Wanted)," which follows an unemployed single mother as she struggles to raise her two daughters while her mother grows increasingly ill. Like the setting, this book is rich and rewarding, but doesn't give itself over easily. (Nov.)

In Meier's disjointed 13th Lucy Stone mystery (after 2005's New Year's Eve Murder), the Tinker's Cove, Maine, newspaper reporter has a whole subdivision of peculiar neighbors around her once peaceful farmhouse, and anonymous letters are arriving at her office. The unknown penman alleges that the new football coach, Buck Burkhart, is condoning unsavory behavior by the high school's senior football players toward the junior players and the cheerleaders, one of whom is Lucy's daughter, Sara. But no one is talking or listening, as the coach launches his lackluster team into a victorious season. Then Lucy finds Burkhart's neighbor, one of her volunteer bakers, knifed to death in her kitchen. And what about the homeless man? The philandering veterinarian? The victim's bad-tempered husband? The author makes only a halfhearted effort to connect all the dots, while the one big break in the murders comes, unpleasantly and literally, through Lucy's dog, Libby. (Dec.)

Philosophy professor Gregorio delivers a stellar debut, a mystery set in 1804 that cunningly incorporates the ideas of the great thinker Immanuel Kant into a twisty, fast-moving whodunit plot. Wisely, the elderly Kant is not the main focus, instead serving as the cryptic mentor to a young rural Prussian magistrate, Hanno Stiffeniis, who receives a royal summons to Königsberg to take over the search for a serial killer who has spread terror in that city. The dead, found without a visible wound, are rumored to have been victims of the devil, and the supernatural aspects of the crimes only heighten the level of fear in an area of Prussia already on edge because of the expected arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte's invading army. Admirers of quality intellectual fiction should embrace this book, with its pitch-perfect period detail and psychologically complex protagonist. Hopefully, readers won't have to wait long for a sequel. Foreign rights sold in 11 countries. (Nov.)

At the start of Wilson's strong third mystery set in Seville featuring police Insp. Jefe Javier Falcón (after The Vanished Hands and The Blind Man of Seville), the mutilated body of a nude male turns up in a municipal dump. Before Falcon has time to investigate, a huge bomb explodes in a mosque and flattens an apartment complex and a day-care center. Was it an Islamic bomb-making operation gone awry? A specific attack against Muslims? Or the work of separatists fighting to return Andalusia to Muslim rule? Falcón has a dark and tangled personal history that provides several side plots, some of which are incorporated into the terror investigation and some of which are left to be taken up in further installments. Falcón 's investigation is as detailed and meticulous as the writing, which makes for a dense tale that demands close attention, but will reward careful readers with a story that has not only plenty of plot but also in-depth character intrigue. Author tour. (Nov.)

Parnell's lighthearted eighth installment in her cruciverbalist series (after 2005's Stalking the Puzzle Lady) finds feisty, grandmotherly Cora Felton charged with plagiarism and murder—accusations she'll have to do some fast talking and sleuthing to defy. But Cora, who poses as the Puzzle Lady while her niece Sherry Carter actually writes the crosswords, prefers solving mysteries to puzzles. So when smalltown crook Benny Southstreet first claims she stole his crossword puzzle (retaining her lawyer in the suit), and then turns up dead, she relishes the challenge. The tangled plot involves stolen antique chairs, incriminating photographs of Cora and her prints on the murder weapon, but the irrepressible heroine emerges unscathed. Hall includes several crossword puzzles that will have fans sharpening their pencils. (Nov.)

Swierczynski chronicles a long, frenzied and near-fatal night in Philadelphia in his fast-paced if far-fetched sophomore effort (after 2005's The Wheelman). The narrative cuts back and forth between journalist Jack Eisley, who's poisoned at a Philadelphia airport bar by the beautiful blonde of the title, Kelly White; and Mike Kowalski, a supersecret operative for a covert government agency, who must find a scientist who has gone into hiding—in order to kill him, and bring back his head—and take Kelly into custody as well. The common thread: a dangerous nanotechnology tracking device. Mike's handlers are interested, and Kelly is infected with the nanites that will automatically cause her to kill if she's left alone. Hence her decision to dose Jack and keep him shackled to her with the promise of an antidote. Rapid-fire pacing, hard-boiled dialogue and excellent local color make up for the unlikely twists and turns of this entertaining thriller. (Nov.)

Not just dog lovers should enjoy Conant's carefully crafted 17th mystery to feature the Cambridge, Mass., dog trainer and amateur sleuth, Holly Winter (after 2004's Bride and Groom). Soon after Holly agrees to housebreak Dolfo, a golden Aussie huskapoo, for Ted and Eumie Green, quirky therapists as much in need of therapy as their patients, Holly finds Eumie dead of a drug overdose on one of her visits to their home. While the death appears to be an accident, Eumie's daughter from her first marriage, a reclusive, overweight Harvard coed, suspects murder. Ted's moody teenage son from his earlier marriage cares little that his stepmother has died. Plenty of interesting facts about Holly's favorite breed, the Alaskan malamute, coupled with the humorous portrait of the Boston-area therapeutic community, help make this a particularly delightful cozy. (Nov.)

Mystery writer and amateur sleuth Maggie Kelly gets an unseasonable Christmas package in her fifth outing (after 2005's High Heels and Homicide), a blithe mix of romantic fantasy and whodunit plotting. With the help of the Viscount Saint Just (her fictional Regency Era creation miraculously come to life as a handsome, protective suitor), her ex-boyfriend, NYPD detective Steve Wendell, and her publisher, Bernice Toland-James, Maggie figures out she's not the only mystery writer to receive a dead rat and death threat in the mail. Maggie wonders about a recently deceased colleague, an apparent suicide, and her suspicion becomes alarm when another writer turns up murdered. Maggie's wit and Saint Just's antics will raise the holiday spirits of Michaels's fans. (Nov.)

Modesitt's concluding volume to the Corean Chronicles (after 2005's Cadmian's Choice) brings the fantasy saga to a thunderous, satisfying climax. The High Alector Dainyl is now a Marshal, charged with keeping peace among the infighting alectors on the planet Corus, a world they've settled and developed after exhausting the resources of their home planet, Ifryn. This final episode also continues the story of the Mykel, a human Major who possesses some psychic talent (like the alectors') in addition to his military prowess. The alector leaders have chosen to move the bulk of their population to a planet other than Corus, leaving Corus to chaos, with various human and alector factions fighting it out for survival. But it's the winged native Soarers, or Ancients, who will determine the fate of their planet and all its inhabitants. Modesitt's panoramic, battle-filled final installment ranks among his best work. (Nov.)

The shape-shifting Morgans and Haskell witches emerged battered but triumphant from the final showdown against the sorcerer Tupash in 2005's Dragon's Eye, but something survived that battle and is back for more blood in this imaginative sequel, set in the contemporary village of Stonefort, Maine. When the corpse of a young woman—the first of several—turns up in the woods, Stonefort cop Kate Rowley mistakes it for her dead teenage daughter, Jackie, whose ghost continues to haunt her. Dan Morgan, who's most comfortable in the shape of a seal, and his brother, Ben, worry that the punk girlfriend of Ben's son, Gary, is connected with the murders. But Kate and her lover, Alice Haskell, with the help of Alice's niece, Caroline, learn that Tupash's dark force has taken over Jackie's body in a bid for power. Hetley's fresh, skillful sequel will whet fans' appetites for more magical episodes in the Morgan and Haskell story. (Nov.)

As an orphaned child in the slums of the Dredge, Varis somehow survived the touch of the deadly White Fire that killed so many others in Palmatier's debut fantasy, The Skewed Throne (2006). Now in the exciting sequel, the former thief, bodyguard and assassin has become the latest Mistress of Amenkor, a coastal city on the edge of starvation and civil war, thanks in part to the Skewed Throne. The throne is the seat of every ruler of Amenkor from time immemorial and a device that stores the minds of all those previous rulers as well. With the aid of Eryn, the previous mistress (who may be insane), and a few loyal guards and Seekers, Varis must cope with a growing food shortage as winter approaches and find out what's attacking the merchant ships that normally keep the city well supplied. Despite a complicated backstory, this novel grips the reader with a swift-moving tale of political intrigue and economic survival in a world where the most dangerous secrets are never forgotten. (Nov.)

Loyalties are tested and truth must be distinguished from dangerous lies in the gritty second book of the Bridei Chronicles (after 2005's The Dark Mirror), set in a land resembling early Scotland. Hoping to gain the support of nearby chieftain Alpin of Briar Wood in the fight against the invading Dalriada, King Bridei of the Priteni sends an offer and a bride: Ana, a fosterling "hostage" from the distant Light Isles raised in his court. Bridei's personal bodyguard and spy, Faolan, accompanies Ana on the arduous journey, saving her life and struggling to control his growing feelings for her. When problems arise at Alpin's rude court, Ana secretly finds solace with Alpin's mysterious brother, Drustan, long believed to be insane, who has been imprisoned for the murder of Alpin's first wife. Skilled world-building and characterization set Marillier's historical fantasy at the head of the pack. (Oct.)

Like "The Narrative of Dr. Shackle and Mr. Lye," an invented tale of horror described in one of this book's 13 stories, the contents of Schow's latest collection (after Zombie Jam) seesaw between "elbow-jabbing one-liners and almost clinically detached slaughter and corpse disposal." Most unfold events that are grim and ghastly, but never so bad that Schow can't tease a thread of graveyard humor out of their horrors. In "The Absolute Last of the Ultra-Spooky, Super-Scary Hallowe'en Horror Nights," marauding gangs crash an amusement park's Halloween theme night and get their comeuppance when real monsters pop up among the actors and props. "Expanding Your Capabilities Using Frame/Shift™ Mode" mixes chills and chuckles in its portrait of a voyeuristic video-hound undone by a DVD remote with supernatural circuitry. The darkly funny "Obsequy" suggests that having lived a dead-end life is good preparation for returning from the grave as a zombie. In all, this is a solid and imaginatively varied outing from one of horror's most dependable writers. (Oct.)

In this well-done tale of politics in near-Earth orbit from Rosenblum (The Stone Garden), Ahni Huang, a class nine empath, cyborg and daughter of the ruler of Taiwan, has been sent up the space elevator to the synchronous platform New York Up to avenge the supposed murder of her brother. There she finds herself enmeshed in a complex web of political intrigue as various factions struggle for control of the platform's future. She also meets Dane Nilson, New York Up's charismatic chief agronomist, who sees himself as the midwife to humanity's next evolutionary step, and Koi, who may well be that next step. The major plot threads—a space colony's attempt to gain freedom from a domineering Earth government, human distrust of the Other, the importance of balancing the environment—aren't particularly new, but the author uses them nicely to create an entertaining tale. Rosenblum, who also writes mysteries as Mary Freeman, provides a fascinating picture of how humanity might develop in zero gravity. (Oct.)

The unlikely tale of an unsuccessful cop, a cute grocery check-out girl and her dead boyfriend gives Doolittle (Raindogs) plenty to chew on in his latest crime novel. Officer Matthew Worth, a divorcé with little going for him—careerwise in particular—works security at an Omaha supermarket, where he's developed a crush on check-out clerk Gwen. Innocent flirtation turns messy when Gwen kills her abusive boyfriend and turns to Worth for help, pleading self-defense. Instead of calling it in, Worth decides to cover up the murder, leading to trouble with two dirty narcs who were involved with the murder victim in a money-laundering scheme. From there, secrets, lies and murders pile up, pushing Worth from every direction at once. Doolittle has penned a character-driven yet suspenseful novel about choice and consequence, with a well-crafted lead and a narrative style that's punchy and sincere. Though Worth's motivation is sometimes unclear (even, at times, to himself), readers looking for a tense crime drama—hold the procedure—will enjoy getting inside the head of this well-meaning sad sack. (Nov.)

Dumas fans eager for further details of the lives of his swashbuckling musketeer heroes may enjoy this first in a series of historical mystery novels that transforms those men of action and intrigue into the king's detectives. The concept is less far-fetched than it might seem; in one of Dumas's own sequels to The Three Musketeers, The Viscount of Bragelonne, D'Artagnan displays almost Holmesian powers of deduction. But D'Almeida has not yet realized the potential of her conceit. By choosing to wedge her plot into the midst of the well-known original—chronicling D'Artagnan's first adventure with Athos, Porthos and Aramis—she has constricted herself, making the central elements of her plot disappointingly familiar. The whodunit posed for her four heroes—a young woman who closely resembles the queen has been murdered by an unknown assailant—is not especially tricky due to a paucity of plausible suspects, and the colloquial language can jar. Nonetheless, the idea is interesting enough that both musketeer and mystery fans can hope for improvements in future entries. (Nov.)

Newcomer Benedict (A Forbidden Love) introduces two delightful characters in her sophomore historical romance: Damian Westmore, known as "The Duke of Rogues," is a debauched sensualist who delights only in the pleasures of the flesh; Mirabelle Hawkins, a fiery young sailor, is determined to become a pirate like her brothers. Damian is the newest crew member aboard the Hawkins brothers' ship, the Bonny Meg, where he's to serve as the navigator, much to Mirabelle's consternation. What Mirabelle and the rest of the crew don't know is that Damian's brother, Adam, was killed at sea by pirates, and Damian has concealed his identity and learned sailcraft in order to find the murderous villains. While aboard, however, Damian finds himself falling in love with Mirabelle, distracting him from his plan for revenge. Soon he discovers that the Hawkinses may in fact be the very pirates responsible for his brother's death. Benedict has not only picked a fresh setting for her historical, she's brought considerable chemistry to the romance between Hawkins and Westmore, both convincingly detailed characters. Supporting turns by the Hawkins brothers are keen and comical, and dialogue is both snappy and strong. Fans of historical romance will thoroughly enjoy this fresh take on the genre and likely come back for more of Benedict's work in the future. (Nov.)

The predictable plot of Thompson's new suspense thriller makes it a disappointing follow-up to her well-conceived Fade the Heat. A promising opening finds returning heroine Luz Maria Montoya, a Hispanic community activist based in Houston, barely surviving a savage assault. By coincidence, the officer investigating the case, Grant Holcomb, has reason to begrudge obstinate do-gooder Montoya: Holcomb's partner committed suicide after Montoya alleged that the partner was responsible for a series of brutal attacks on prostitutes. As they work on the case together, growing romantic feelings complicate their mutual antipathy, forcing the policeman to cross a number of ethical lines to protect his charge from a savage stalker. Unfortunately, the relationship and the whodunit plot are equally underdeveloped; Thompson doesn't put much effort into developing plausible suspects, so the twist revealing the stalker's identity will surprise few. (Nov.)

Collecting four of Eisner's later graphic novels—New York, The Building, City People Notebook and Invisible People—this volume takes as its subject the city Eisner lived in and drew for most of his life. Eisner treats the city like a lover; its flaws are on display, its cantankerous nature is well-known, but the abiding tenderness that comes from lifelong intimacy is evident on every page. In New York, people on trains fantasize about one another while never making eye contact in "An Affair on the BMT Local"; while in "Worm's Eye View," two pairs of feet come together and move apart in a wordless narrative. These little moments of witnessed connection are the heart of the collection, and Eisner's eye for humanity amid the grind of the city is always on target. In the vignettes of City People Notebook, time, smell, space and streets all have their own special sets of rules in this hectic city. Much of the collection touches on the slightly magical nature of cities, and Neil Gaiman's very personal introduction adds the context of Eisner's enormous influence on contemporary comics and graphic novels. (Oct.)

This is the could-be-true story of your basic never-been-kissed geek who, prompted by an uncharacteristic act of courage and fairy godmothers in the form of an Internet chat community, finally manages to score a date. The real Train_Man's story created a media sensation in Japan, generating a bestselling novel, a blockbuster movie, a hit TV series and multiple manga deals, including three separate English-language treatments. By now, it's the stuff of pop-culture legend: when a drunken old man begins harassing female passengers on a train, Train_Man jumps to their defense, prompting one of the women—the younger, cuter one, natch—to send him a pair of Hermes tea cups by way of thanks. Unsure what to do, our young hero, a self-described "gamer/ anime otaku" who's never had a girlfriend, turns for advice to online buddies who send him notes of encouragement as well as advice on how to dress, where to go and, most importantly, how to screw up enough courage to call the young woman back and ask her out. No surprise that the ending to this particular story is happy, which helps explain its wild popularity. In this () version aimed at young men (seinen), the story's silly sweetness, as conveyed by Hara's efficient, uncluttered drawings, make it a fast, fun read. (Oct.)

The third in Adhouse's Project anthology series finds several dozen indie cartoonists taking on the idea of romance comics. Of course, modernity—and being indie—means that very few contributors offer boy-meets-girl/happily-ever-after scenarios, instead addressing the chaos and angst of love with tongue in cheek. In MK Reed's "Mrs. Jeremy Dellorso," for instance, a young woman tells her parents she's gotten engaged to a bear (who has terrible table manners). There's a wide range of styles and competencies on display here. Some pieces are design-based, like Brian Flynn's existential dialogue "The World of Ghosts and Robots" and Rian Hughes's "iGirl"; others are hand-scribbled, like Austin English's "Valentine." The prettiest artwork doesn't always go hand-in-hand with the most coherent stories, although Scott Morse's bold, kinetic wordless piece "Over Yonder" leaps out as a visual tour de force. Other highlights include "When I Was a Slut," an evocative anecdote about gossip and instant-messaging by Hope Larson; Kaz Strzepek's tale of flesh-eating zombie love, "Sewer Girls"; and Josh Cotter's one-page jokes about animals in love (tortoise to hare: "I feel like maybe we're moving too fast"). (Sept.)

Art d'Ecco, who has the square jaw that only comics can provide, and his triangular and singularly unintelligent roommate, Gump, stumble through misadventures shaped more by the clichés of comics and fine art than by any logic. In this collection, Roger Langridge, the Eisner and Harvey –Award–winning author of Fred the Clown, presents his early collaborations with his brother Andrew. The brothers have steeped themselves in high-brow culture and regurgitated it into sharp, boldly drawn satire—the frontispiece is a riff on the famous dadaist painting La trahison des images by Magritte. The comic is filled with characters from Art 101: the unintelligible Art Nouveau; the smiley-face Kitsch and his Pacman-like wife; the Escher-esque Esch (who has a pronounced lisp); and, of course, the title character, always drawn with straight, clean lines. The stories, from the one-pagers to the longer tales, take every convention of comics and turn them on their ear. The Langridges' work crackles with an exuberance that simultaneously entertains and baffles—sometimes careening into a secret world, but always singularly inventive. (Sept.)

This lavish, full-color art-comics anthology series gets thicker and denser with every volume. Editor Harkham's esthetic encompasses some more-or-less straightforward narrative comics, including his own deadpan heartbreaker "Lubavitch, Ukraine 1876." In general, though, it's much more concerned with freaky, stylistically unhinged pieces and contemporary art inspired by the spatial distortions and expressive linework of cartooning, like the surreal fairy-tale fetishism of Shary Boyle's "The Porcelain Figurine." A few of this issue's contributors are veterans of RAW, the granddaddy of this kind of anthology—there's a pervy half-drawn, half-painted piece by Jerry Moriarty, and some of Gary Panter's frenetic "Daltokyo" comic strips. As usual, Kramers features a handful of artists who obsessive-compulsively fill every square millimeter of the page with scribbly details, notably the team of Helge Reumann and Xavier Robel (whose "Elvis Studio" demands hours of stoned examination), Bald Eagles and the brilliant Canadian cartoonist Marc Bell. Although this collection surrenders a few too many pages to faux-naïf doodlers, Harkham also digs up some fabulous historical surprises: a selection of surreal, Hergé-influenced drawings by the late Dutch artist Marc Smeets and a lusciously colorful excerpt from a 1937 Japanese war-propaganda comic by Suihô Tagawa. (Sept.)