Fiction Reviews: Week of 10/2/2006

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 10/2/2006

Medicus
Ruth Downie. Bloomsbury, $23.95 (400p) ISBN 978-1-59691-231-1

The salacious underside of Roman-occupied Britain comes to life in Britisher Downie's debut. Gaius Petrius Ruso, a military medicus (or doctor), transfers to the 20th Legion in the remote Britannia port of Deva (now Chester) to start over after a ruinous divorce and his father's death. Things go downhill from there. His quarters are filthy and vermin-filled, and his superior at the hospital is a petty tyrant. Gaius rescues and buys an injured slave girl, Tilla, from her abusive master, but she refuses to talk, can't cook and costs more to keep than he can afford. Meanwhile, young women from the local bordello keep turning up dead, and nobody is interested in investigating. Gaius becomes a reluctant detective, but his sleuthing threatens to get him killed and leaves him scant time to work on the first-aid guide he's writing to help salvage his finances. Tilla plots her escape as she recovers from her injuries, and just when Ruso becomes attached to her, she runs away, complicating his personal life and his investigation. Downie's auspicious debut sparkles with beguiling characters and a vividly imagined evocation of a hazy frontier. (Mar.)

A simple, straight-faced love story about a brave coward and a scarlet woman drives actor Wilder's touching debut novel. (His memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger, appeared last year.) It's 1918, and Paul Peachy, an unassuming train conductor and amateur actor in Milwaukee, finds his marriage has run out of steam, and decides to enlist as a dough boy. At nearly 30, Paul has seen little of the world, as his naïve and candid dispatches from the French trenches make clear. Paul, who speaks German, is brought in to interrogate notorious German spy Harry Stroller. Soon sent into the front line, Paul deserts and, in an extraordinary sequence, passes himself off as Harry Stroller. Taken to the local schloss and treated like royalty by the German officials, Paul is given a French whore, Annie Breton, for comfort, and he gradually comes to care for her once she reveals herself to him more than physically. Despite some ensuing heroism, the game's soon up for Peachy, and the novel takes the form of the final, eloquent notebook of a man still finding out who he is. (Mar.)

Folksy, slyly erotic and immensely entertaining, York's sequel to 2004's The Piano Teacher revisits Swan's Knob, N.C., as returning heroine Wilma Swan takes charge of her granddaughter, Star, and Star's hustler father, Harper, rumbles into town in 1988—eight years after Wilma married the town's leading (and wealthiest) citizen, Roy. Wilma's daughter, Sarah, asks Wilma to watch Star while she travels to the Far East, and soon, smooth-talking Harper arrives and convinces Roy to allow him to use the family farm for a bluegrass festival. Wilma hardly has time to protest before her beloved husband has a near-fatal stroke and falls into a coma. Enter Delrina Kay, a fading country music star whose thirst for the wine from Roy's vineyard is nearly as well-developed as her bosom. Following Delrina's and Harper's wine-fueled late-night trip to the hospital, Roy comes out of his coma, sparking a dispute about who and what is responsible for Roy's recovery. Quixotic hijinks, quirky characters and affecting romance (both adolescent and geriatric) afford insights into the imbroglios of smalltown types searching for happiness. (Mar.)

David Carter grows up happy in post-WWII Coventry, England, where he combs bomb sites for things to collect and dreams of one day running his own museum. He lands a job at a local museum and, at age 22, learns from a mentally ill family friend that he was adopted as an infant. Irate and bewildered, David struggles to comprehend "how such a lie had been incorporated into official history" as he begins his adult life. His marriage to Eleanor provides some direction, but the couple is often rudderless, and McGregor (If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things) charts with a calculated dreariness David's frustrated attempts to locate his birth mother, Eleanor's terrible depressions, their professional letdowns, a few moments of happiness and the way "it wasn't what they'd imagined, this life." Once retired, David is introduced to the Internet, which yields a promising lead in his quest to find his birth mother. Melancholy permeates every page; readers looking for an earnest downer can't go wrong. (Mar.)

Popular biographer Weir (Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc.) makes her historical fiction debut with this coming-of-age novel set in the time of Henry VIII. Weir's heroine is Lady Jane Grey (1537–1554), whose ascension to the English throne was briefly and unluckily promoted by opponents of Henry's Catholic heir, Mary. As Weir tells it, Jane's parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset, groom her from infancy to be the perfect consort for Henry's son, Prince Edward, entrusting their daughter to a nurse's care while they attend to affairs at court. Jane relishes lessons in music, theology, philosophy and literature, but struggles to master courtly manners as her mother demands. Not even the beheadings of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard deter parental ambition. When Edward dies, Lord and Lady Dorset maneuver the throne for their 16-year-old daughter, risking her life as well as increased violence between Protestants and Catholics. Using multiple narrators, Weir tries to weave a conspiratorial web with Jane caught at the center, but the ever-changing perspectives prove unwieldy: Jane speaking as a four-year-old with a modern historian's vocabulary, for example, just doesn't ring true. But Weir proves herself deft as ever describing Tudor food, manners, clothing, pastimes (including hunting and jousting) and marital politics. (Mar.)

Sachs revisits in her fiction debut many of the themes she explored in A House on Dream Street, her memoir about living in Vietnam in the early 1990s. The story begins in Wilmington, N.C., where Xuan Mai has built a successful Asian grocery business in the more than 20 years since she fled Hanoi. Estranged from her family in Vietnam and reluctant to form new connections in America, Mai doesn't know what to make of Shelley Marino, an American customer who asks a lot of questions about Vietnam. It turns out that Shelley is trying to adopt a Vietnamese boy. However, Shelley's husband, Martin, who has two grown sons from a previous marriage, forces Shelley to choose between him and adopting, prompting Shelley to urge Mai to accompany her to Vietnam to complete the adoption. Once there, Mai discovers a land very different from the war-torn, impoverished country she left in the late 1970s. The novel, alternating Shelley's and Mai's narration, comes alive when the setting shifts to Vietnam, revealing the author's love for the rapidly changing country. Mai's reconciliation with her past is absorbing, Shelley's story is less so, and the adoption plot line relies too heavily on bureaucratic dysfunction for its drama. (Mar.)

Isabel, a promising and dedicated medical student, is intent on becoming a heart surgeon, but she takes a detour when she meets Al, a washed-up movie director who now clerks at a video store. The two meet at a midnight showing of his one and only film (a cult hit) and embark on an intense, sexually driven relationship. They soon realize they bring out the worst in each other ("dysfunctional, whipped idiots," according to Al), but after every breakup, they get back together, prompting Isabel to concoct a scheme to finally break it off: they are to go on 10 ideal dates with each other, and then "part amicably." As they work through the list, each begins to see the other differently and the list gets extended. The date ideas get more involved (group sex, going to the planetarium after eating psychedelic mushrooms) and the charged sexual chemistry between Isabel and Al morphs into abusiveness. Despite the satisfyingly dark buildup, Ison (A Child Out of Alcatraz) only partially succeeds in constructing her characters' psychological underpinnings, which shortchanges the climax's intensity. (Mar.)

True love confronts Gilded Age class hierarchy in Jakes's latest engaging historical potboiler. Railroad tycoon Sam Driver sets out to conquer the summer resort of Newport, R.I., at the 1890s pinnacle of its glamour—and snootiness—in order to avenge its snubbing of his dead wife and find a prestigious match for his daughter, Jenny. It's a world ruled by New York socialites, where the slightest blemish of background or breach of protocol triggers ostracism. Sam struggles to conform while fending off the efforts of an old rival to exclude him, but Jenny throws a monkey wrench into things by falling in love with a handsome, lower-class Irishman. Jakes serves up a melodrama—and satire—of the tyranny of social convention with a girl-power ending. It doesn't always ring true, especially when Sam pressures Jenny to marry the obviously villainous Count Orlov, and action set pieces like a tennis match and a carriage race are less than gripping. But Jakes is a fluent storyteller, and his meticulous reconstruction of fin-de-siècle excess will have fans savoring the lavish details of jewelry, fashion, food and follies. (Nov. 7)

For Charlotte Black, there are some good things about being married to the "world renowned" Rev. Curtis Black (whose flashy, trashy life Roby has dished in earlier works). Her husband's bestselling books and flourishing ministry allow her a life of luxury, but Curtis is always away on publicity tours, and Charlotte suspects he's cheating. Of course, she's cheated, too—one affair yielded 12-year-old Matthew, while five-year-old Marissa, a budding pyromaniac (Charlotte assured Curtis the girl is his), is the demon spawn of her tryst with mentally ill Aaron. Charlotte hires a private detective to catch Curtis in the act. Meanwhile, Charlotte's best friend and co-narrator, college professor Janine, has man trouble of her own: freeloading boyfriend Antonio turns her living room into a drug den and takes up with another woman. Janine eventually calls the cops and gets her locks changed, and Antonio promises revenge. A farcical array of misfortunes (a death, a near-deadly stabbing, another illegitimate child born, etc.) rock the cast as the book lumbers toward its conclusion. Astonishingly, none of this gets in the way of the happy ending; all the trouble, it turns out, was worth it. Readers may not be so sure. (Feb.)

Bestseller Swofford explores teenage love in his uneven first novel, which opens in 1989 at Yokata Air Base outside Tokyo (the title comes from the name of a nearby train stop). Severin Boxx, a 17-year-old military brat, plays football and pines for Virginia Sachiko Kindwall, the half-Japanese daughter of the American base commander, who's also his coach. Virginia's involvement in some not-so-petty crime (her heroine is Faye Dunaway of Bonnie and Clyde) leads her into serious trouble, which separates the young lovers seemingly forever. Swofford, as one might expect from the author of the acclaimed Jarhead (2003), his memoir of being a Marine sniper in the first Gulf War, clearly knows the U.S. military culture, though some readers may find his view of it overly harsh. He also does a good job of depicting the strange mélange where Japanese and American cultures coexist, but he's less convincing in his portrayal of Boxx's adult life (and doomed marriage) in San Francisco, while the ending is much too neat to be truly compelling. 7-city author tour. (Jan.)

Maryam is the willful daughter of an Iranian general who backed the Shah of Iran during the (U.S.-backed) 1953 coup that toppled Iran's prime minister, Mossadegh. In the midst of the turmoil, and with the threat of an arranged marriage hanging over her, Maryam is sheltered one night by her father's trusted assistant, Ali, a young man near her age—16—for whom she feels a shy attraction. And though still a virgin the next morning, their feelings for each other are clear. Maryam is sent away by her aloof father ("she is no daughter of mine"), a painful memory that, decades later, shatters her settled marriage to an understanding if pained British husband, and bewilders and angers her own daughter. A 40-year separation from Ali and a tender reunion in a remote village are just a few turns of the intense plot, full of tragic coilings and romantic passion, that make this a wonderfully intricate debut novel. Crowther, daughter of a British father and an Iranian mother, powerfully depicts Maryam's wrenching romantic and nationalistic longings, exploring the potency of heritage and the pain of exile. (Jan. 2)

Bestseller Patterson's new thriller with its focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been overtaken by events (there's no mention of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 or the recent fighting across the Lebanese border), but the underlying political issues may be enough for most readers to put the real world aside and suspend disbelief. Harvard-trained attorney David Wolfe, a San Franciscan on the verge of a congressional campaign, has his plans derailed when his law school classmate (and one-time lover), Palestinian Hana Arif, asks him to defend her from charges that she led a conspiracy that assassinated dovish Israeli leader Amos Ben-Aron. Inspired by idealism and lingering passion, Wolfe jeopardizes his political future by taking the case. His suspicion that the suicide bombers who attacked Ben-Aron were aided by a security breach leads him to Israel and Lebanon. While Patterson (Conviction) attempts to portray the issues fairly, the introduction of a soap-operaish subplot undercuts his intended high purpose, and the resolution of the mystery is too predictable to surprise. 10-city author tour. (Jan.)

Restless and unfulfilled, Alice Coleman jumps at the chance to spend a year away from London and her officious, workaholic developer husband, Robert. Accompanied only by her young children, Jack and Emmy, Alice arrives in Temerosa, Ariz., a ghost town her husband bought, to oversee the renovation of the decrepit property into a resort. Unprepared for life in the remote desert community, Alice finds herself immersed in a harsh climate filled with deadly wildlife, illegal immigrants, immigrant traffickers and vigilante border guards. The construction crew working on her expansive property, she suspects, are illegals, as is the maid she hires in a fit of "wretched middle class guilt." Meanwhile, Alice is drawn into a flirtation with handsome local crew leader Henry Duval, whose rugged charm covers his own dark secrets. Robert joins the family in Temerosa and gets sucked into a murder investigation involving Henry, and things get dire. Pollen (Hunting Unicorns) creates a scorching landscape and a large, finely drawn cast, and her portrayal of the pressure-cooker atmosphere along the border is notable for its lack of preachiness. The ongoing immigration debate can't hurt sales potential. (Jan.)

Blond, blue-eyed contemporary Muscovites are being kidnapped, driven to remote areas and bashed in the chest with hammers that have iceblock heads; the victims are being "cracked" by their assailants, who want to free their hearts to "speak"—literally. The "empties" (those whose hearts are silent) are left to die; the others (whose hearts spontaneously utter a word or two in the 23-word "heart language") are recognized by their assailants as fellow "heart speakers." Over the course of this bizarrely beautiful novel, three "heart-speakers" —Lapin, Nikolaeva and Borenboim—are instructed by Khram, the mentor of Russia's heart speakers, in the tenets of their new life, in which they love one another and hammer humans to achieve the apocalypse. Khram herself was "hammered" by a German S.S. officer in a WWII slave labor camp, and in a long flashback, she returns to Stalin's Russia to secure the Siberian ice needed for hammering and to exploit the gulag for heart speakers through mass murder. In stripped down, poker-faced prose, Sorokin registers a world in which the inhumanity of man to man is exploited by a murderous emerging race who are, by contrast, in sweet mutual harmony with one another. This is a Master and Margarita for the age of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Jan.)

Sakey's brilliant debut, a crime novel set in Chicago, is a must read. From the thrilling opening, a horribly botched pawnshop robbery by childhood friends Evan and Danny, to the riveting ending, the tension ratchets up to almost unbearable levels. After the robbery, Evan serves prison time while Danny turns over a new leaf and eventually earns a responsible management job in a construction company. Seven years later, Evan is out and comes looking for Danny for payback. Using their past ties as leverage, Evan tries to drag Danny back into their partnership. Sakey convincingly portrays the bonds forged in adolescence and the gulf wrought by prison for one and hard work for the other. In a battle of wits and wills, the stakes escalate as Danny fights to preserve his new life and the ruthless Evan counters every attempt Danny makes to break free. The collateral damage is high in a page-turner that has already received plaudits from Lee Child, George Pelecanos and T. Jefferson Parker. Author tour. (Jan.)

After five nonfiction bestsellers, Browne leaps into fiction (with assistance by Bottom Dollar Girls creator Karin Gillespie) and delivers a GEN-U-WINE page-turner of a novel. Fans won't be surprised that Browne's combination of bawdy humor and self-empowerment affirmations easily translates in novel form. An unexpected delight is how deftly Browne creates fully dimensional supporting characters surrounding her first-person narrator, Jill Connor. (In her nonfiction adventures, all the other queens are named Tammy and intentionally blend together.) Beginning in 1968 with five high school misfits thrown together, Browne traces the core members of the Sweet Potato Queens through two decades of weddings, funerals and disastrous relationships. While readers learn the origins of "The Promise" and the motto "Never wear panties to a party," Browne also invents some new lingo (tyrants at work are "bossholes" and men adept in bed "know about the little man in the boat"). Fans of the Queen's artery-choking recipes are in luck; after the final chapter, Browne offers menu items from Rest in Peace, a restaurant the Queens would love to open that would only serve food found at Southern funerals. Browne's hilarious and heartwarming debut sets sturdy groundwork for future fictional follies. (Jan.)

The cover's spoof of A Million Little Pieces sets the tone for this comic collection of writerly kvetching and obvious corporate parody. Kun (A Thousand Benjamins) is a trial lawyer in L.A.; many of the 22 rifflike pieces satirize forms of legal communication, including the companywide e-mail. There's a weirdly threatening notification of the death of one "Iris Magruder of Albany, New York" (whose "intellectual property" includes sayings like "maybe next time you'll like your mother more"); the lame corporate award: "When I was first informed that I'd been nominated in the category of Best Interoffice Email (Nonviolent) (Nonsexual), I was touched"; and an instruction manual for a paper shredder: "Remember, the Whisper Shred 1600 is not a toy, it just looks like one." Sandwiched between each of the pieces are "Publisher's Notes," the kind of encomium-like letters that sometimes are tacked to the front of galleys: "You can certainly understand why we'd pay $50,000 for that one. Or why the Bloobedy-Bloodbedy Society would award Michael the Blah-Blah-Blabbedy-Blah Prize for it." The Corrections this certainly isn't, and many pieces aren't really stories, either. But there are chuckles to be had as Kun hits huge targets with a birdshot-spraying air rifle. (Jan.)

It all starts with an anonymous Valentine's Day love note that Sherry Seymour, a Michigan community college English teacher and recent empty-nester, finds in her school mailbox. Mystified and flattered, Sherry lets her husband, Jon, in on the notes as they accumulate, resulting in a dramatic uptick in their sex life that advances in kinkiness after Sherry's son's friend tips off Sherry about the alleged identity of the note writer. An affair ensues, aided by Sherry's rental of an apartment near school (to avoid the commute between campus and the Seymour home in the country) and Jon's encouragement (her trysts excite him). But Sherry's life begins to spin out of control as she becomes more entangled with her possessive lover and learns who really wrote the notes. However, the tension Kasischke (The Life Before Her Eyes) cleverly builds throughout the narrative collapses at the book's climax, when Sherry and Jon are drawn into the aftermath of an accidental death. Save for the far-fetched ending, Kasischke has proven herself again to be a bold chronicler of dark obsession. (Jan.)

Making her fiction debut while working on her Ph.D. in East Asian lit at Yale, Choong, a Malay-American, riffs on myths of fire and water as manifested in eight contemporary women's lives. An Indian woman Lakshmi (or "fire"), marries a man for passionate love and ends up having a forced abortion (because she is carrying a girl) and being burned alive (after refusing her brother-in-law sex ). In an awkward framing device, her soul finds Nin, a 31-year-old Malay-Chinese-American photographer who, as a memorial to her little sister, Mien (who drowned at a tapioca factory at five), undertakes a six-month globe-spanning journey to complete the FireWife project, a "personal photo essay" documenting the lives of such women as young prostitutes like Ut (innocence) and Table (stability), and the anorectic data-entry worker Maria (mother). There are eight women in all, each presented in incantatory first person, alternating with chapters from Nin. Nin's mission connects her to what seems distressingly like an eternal feminine conflict between desire, exploitation and self-debasement, one that recalls Nin's own struggle with survivor's guilt after Mien's death. The connection is tenuous, and the journey can be hallucinatory and downright mystifying, but it's also often forthright and sexy. (Jan.)

Born to an aristocratic family in imperial Russia, Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861–1937) became a well-known writer in Europe and real-life muse to the likes of Nietzsche, Rilke and Freud. Von der Lippe, a Norton senior editor who translated Salomé's memoir of Rilke (You Alone Are Real to Me), defines Lou by her relationships to the men around her: a doomed first love with a married clergyman, her fraught friendship with psychologist Paul Ree, the one-sided relationship with Nietzsche (who proposes marriage twice), her dramatic but sexless marriage to translator Friedrich Carl Andreas, her great love and long correspondence with Rilke, and her later involvement with Freud's circle. In capturing Lou's voice, von der Lippe uses stream-of-consciousness spiked with overripe metaphor ("How much of us does the world hold? No more, I think, than those words inscribed in the blood of memory") and odd tics (characters repeatedly say each other's names during exchanges). A framing device —a woman named Anna Kane writes Lou's life and wonders about Lou's connection to Anna's grandmother—feels unnecessarily tacked on and leads to a contrived twist at the end. Lou's correspondence with Rilke has just been published by Norton; interested readers should start there. (Jan.)

Those hoping for a more original plot than that found in Twining's first book, The Double Eagle, will be disappointed with this thriller again featuring Tom Kirk, a London-based ex-CIA agent and former professional art thief. Kirk is trying to go straight when he's recruited for a British MI6 operation to thwart a group of neo-Nazi extremists known as Kristall Blade. Tom wants no part of it until shown that his longtime enemy, Harry Renwick, is one of the conspirators. Soon Tom and partners Archie Connolly and the lovely Dominique de Lecourt are off on a Da Vinci Code–like treasure hunt complete with maps, codes, secret safety deposit boxes, car chases, gun fights and those favorite WWII staples, Eichmann's "gold train" and the lost Russian Amber Room. Veteran thriller readers, especially those who specialize in the Nazi subgenre, will find few surprises. Kirk, a muted, low-key character, spends far too much time brooding about his complicated backstory; the man could use a strong dose of caffeine and less shopworn material to break him out of his lethargy. (Dec.)

Bestseller Pottinger (The Final Procedure) craftily plays on the metaphorical bigness of Texas in this oversized thriller—big egos, big money, big love triangles, all fueled by big oil. The biggest ego of all is that of 38-year-old Jack "Spin" Patterson, a good ol' boy from Houston who has scratched and scrounged his way to the top of Gulf-Tex Oil. He's got money, women and a shadowy past he's trying desperately to keep hidden. Love him or hate him, Spin's the sort of man who takes over a room, as well as a novel. Spin's nemesis is Max McLennon, a former protégé who thrives under his mentor's wing until he discovers Spin's greed and ambition know few bounds. McLennon lays a trap designed to bankrupt Spin and scuttle his boss's latest invention—a gold mine of a device dubbed Black Eyes that can detect oil fields at far greater depths than existing technology. Juicy sex, high-stakes vengeance and taut action will keep readers turning the pages. (Dec.)

A fictional stranger asks a woman to carry a package onto an airplane; a real '70s housewife sublimates her ambitions through the preparation of extravagant French cuisine; a poet writes of "Hearing News from the Temple Mount in Salt Lake City": this year's gathering of small-press fiction, essays and poetry from venerable stocktaker Henderson is uneven, if sporadically edgy. Standouts center on identity and include Dina Ben-Lev's memory of anti-Semitic pig farmers in Quebec; Mary Karr's confession of her unlikely conversion to Catholicism; and Katherine Karlin's story about a lesbian oil worker trying to be one of the boys in a Delaware Valley refinery. Also noteworthy are Benjamin Percy's short story about smalltown boys who join the reserves and end up in Iraq—with their fathers; Karen E. Bender's tale about a routine TriBeCa sublet that goes awry after September 11; Jonathan Carroll's story about how a lawyer's obsession with scaffolding leads to a Kafkaesque metamorphosis; and Philip Levine's tribute to the late poet Thom Gunn, a narrative dominated by the attention-grabbing John Berryman. Some pieces are unsatisfying (such as David James Duncan's rant on fundamentalism), but this sampler whets the appetite for nonmainstream publications and perspectives. (Dec.)

Set in Ross River, a tiny Canadian Yukon settlement, Pyper's subtle thriller develops a sense of dread more from the menace of uncontrollable forest fires and lurking grizzlies than the human predator who remains anonymous until the end. The local fire chief, Miles McEwan, is a loner whose hidden past is revealed when Alex, his vengeful former lover, arrives in Ross River with their five-year-old daughter, Rachel. Meanwhile, a retired executive and his wife come to town for a grizzly hunt, and it's wildfire season. As several fires combine to threaten Ross River's stubbornly independent inhabitants, the firefighters, the hunting party and the bears, an individual is plotting murder. Pyper (Lost Girls) writes beautifully about the splendor and dangers of the wilderness. He doesn't anthropomorphize, but his understanding of bears and fire imbues both with a life force. A bestseller in Canada, this novel offers excellent pacing and credible characters, though readers should be prepared for some horrific violence. (Dec.)

The middle-aged woman's postdivorce rebirth plot is given a rejuvenating jolt by Kelman (Every Step You Take) in this uplifting bathtub read. Maggie Strickland's emotions shift from shock to grief to rage when she discovers her husband, Harold, an ethics professor, survived an office fire because he was not at work but instead was canoodling with a graduate student. Divorce proceedings soon follow, and though Maggie's children are sympathetic to her plight, they are too busy with their own lives to offer much support. But a chance encounter with Anthony "Wop" Sinclair, a grade-school classmate with an unfortunate nickname who has transformed into a megasuccessful entrepreneur, provides Maggie with welcome distraction. Anthony's marriage, too, is in trouble, and his interest and attraction flatter Maggie as Harold mounts an aggressive campaign to settle the divorce quickly. Just before the divorce becomes final, Maggie learns the reason behind Harold's urgency. The brisk pace, witty narrative and likable if exaggerated characters keep the reader turning pages until the expected happy ending. (Dec.)

Opening with the landing of an odd assortment of aristocrats and adventurers on the Virginia Coast in May 1607, the maiden installment of Minkoff's trilogy provides a fumbling fictional account of the establishment of Jamestown. Captain John Smith, who narrates, comes off as a comic opera hero as he bemoans others' inadequacies and brags of his role as the swashbuckling savior of the colony. When not pounding his chest, Smith relates the colonists' trials—disease, war with the Indians, famine, fire and foolish politics. Underlying the main story—which is sparse in detail and often subordinates, glosses or obscures dramatic events—is Smith's relationship with Pocahontas, who, as the legend goes, fell in love with him and saved his life. Minkoff's attempt to ape Jacobean argot is marginally successful, but the narration is plagued with strained metaphors and aphorisms. The greatest problem, though, is that the story stops abruptly with the colonists facing another hard winter, political turmoil threatening destruction and Smith's status very much in question. Difficult and sometimes tedious, this novel emerges as a noble but unsuccessful effort. (Dec. 1)

At the start of Hodge's darkly comic second crime novel (after 1999's Wild Horses), smalltime actor Jamey Sheppard, who's driving from California to Arizona to get married, makes a fateful pit stop at a highway "Gulp 'n' Go," where a drunken deputy mistakes him for Duncan MacGregor, the real-life crook Sheppard played on TV's American Fugitives. After the deputy accidentally shoots himself dead in a pitiful effort to arrest Sheppard, our decent, bewildered hero goes on the lam. Trying to make sense of his senseless circumstances, Sheppard suffers numerous travails, including capture by a crazy family out for reward money. Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, Sheppard's malevolent younger sister plots to kill him so she can own total film rights to his ongoing story, which has attracted national attention. Acidic commentary on "reality crime" helps offset weak motivation (the hatred Sheppard and his sister feel for each other isn't sufficiently explained) and a convoluted resolution. (Dec.)

The sparks fly between Cara Kim, "the oddest attraction in all of Vegas—the virgin stripper," and Seamus Fox, a 371-year-old uptight Irish vampire who hasn't had sex in 200 years, in McCarthy's droll follow-up to High Stakes. Seamus, who's the campaign manager for Ethan Carrick, the president of Vampire Nation, must turn Cara into a vampire in order to save her life after she becomes collateral damage in a nasty pre-election skirmish connected to Roberto Donatelli, who's running against Carrick. Donatelli is so eager to unseat conservative Carrick, he'll stop at nothing, even if it means driving a stake into someone or drugging an associate. Though Cara initially finds Seamus controlling and his blood too arousing, she soon finds herself and her five pets, including a devilish Chihuahua, doing more than just a shadow dance in this cute paranormal treat. (Dec.)

The latest offering from legal thriller master Turow began life as a serial story in the Sunday New York Times Magazine and won't be mistaken, even by devoted fans, for his finest work. As with his previous novels, the action centers on the fictional Kindle County in Illinois, and he revives some familiar characters, including George Mason from Personal Injuries and Rusty Sabich, the hero of his acclaimed fiction debut, Presumed Innocent. Mason is now an appellate judge, faced with the challenge of crafting the decision in a high-profile case involving a sexual assault that reawakens his long-suppressed guilt over his role in a similar incident decades before. To compound his inner turmoil, Mason finds himself the object of threatening e-mails from an unknown source. While Turow's writing is assured as ever, the plot and the legal dilemmas interwoven into it aren't up to his usual high standards, and whodunit fans who loved the brilliant twist that highlighted his debut are likely to be disappointed by the mystery's resolution. (Nov.)

After solving her first murder case in 2006's Case of Imagination, former North Carolina beauty queen and budding PI Madeline "Mac" Maclin is swamped with three mysteries in this charming but chaotic second installment in Tesh's cozy series. Mac's search for missing eccentric inventor Kirby Willet becomes ominous when she discovers that he hid a large sum of money before he disappeared. Meanwhile, a production company comes to Madeline's small town of Celosia, N.C., to film a horror movie, parts of which might feature the exterior of the house she shares with her romantic interest, Jerry Fairweather. But a death on the set makes the thrills and chills all too real. Finally, Madeline puzzles over the mysterious deaths of Jerry's parents two decades earlier. Tesh does a good job of juggling the various subplots, though the plethora of characters at times muddles the action. (Jan.)

The fluent, suspenseful second in the Nathaniel Gye series (after 2005's The Nature of Rare Things) by prolific British author Wilson finds the Cambridge University ghostbuster trying to uncover the truth behind the rumors surrounding a fatal late night mishap in an undergraduate dormitory. Sir Joseph Zuylestein, newly installed as Master of financially strapped St. Thomas College, anxiously prevails upon Dr. Gye to use his expertise in parapsychology to investigate Professor Hockridge's tumble down the stairway outside the former room of Paul Sutton, a vindictive youth who was murdered 10 years earlier amid allegations of drug dealing—and whose spirit may still be walking the halls. Gye and his partners, ex-lawyer Barny Cox and graduate assistant Jenny Collard, probe the evasions of Sutton's doting parents and Gye's own distinguished colleagues. Complete with a gothic-style hidden passageway and mysterious key, Wilson's tautly written whodunit leads to a stunning conclusion. (Dec.)

At the start of Hart's entertaining, unpredictable 14th mystery to feature lesbian restaurateur and amateur sleuth Jane Lawless (after 2005's The Iron Girl), movie star Joanna Kasimir returns home to Minnesota to perform in a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at her friend Cordelia Thorn's St. Paul theater. As it turns out, Joanna has a lot to be afraid of—her ex-husband, Gordon, who once served prison time for stalking her, may be back to his old tricks. Joanna enlists her old chum Jane to tail Gordon. Meanwhile, Jane's best friend, David—who happens to be Joanna's brother—shows up in the Twin Cities carrying secrets that he's afraid to reveal even to Jane. When Gordon turns up dead, David looks like the most plausible suspect. In fact, any number of Joanna's adoring fans might have bumped off her stalker. Hopefully, Jane's long-distance relationship with girlfriend Kenzie, who's mostly offstage, will receive more attention in the next installment. (Dec.)

In MWA Grand Master Kaminsky's psychologically layered fifth Lew Fonesca mystery (after 2005's Denial), the Sarasota, Fla., process server and occasional PI emerges from his clinical depression to start tracking down the hit-and-run driver who killed his wife, Catherine, in Chicago four years earlier. But moments after his tow-truck-driver brother-in-law, Franco, picks him up at Midway Airport, they realize a car is following them. Digging up the past proves to be dangerous work, as Lew finds himself caught between two warring assassins-for-hire who believe Catherine, a prosecutor, had compiled a file of evidence against them and that Lew might know of its existence. Kaminsky paves Lew's road from depression to acceptance of Catherine's death with sufficient bumps and frissons to keep readers hurtling along to the very end. (Dec.)

Set in 1930s French-occupied Syria, Highland's engrossing third novel (after 2003's Ghost Eater) centers on the efforts of Nikolai Faroun, "chief of the Damascus Prefecture," to solve the murder of Vera Tamiri, a beautiful, modern woman from a prominent Damascus family. That a jealous lover is the culprit is only the most obvious explanation, and Faroun suspects more complicated motives behind the demise of a philanthropic woman working for social change in a politically volatile city. His inquiries disturb the unwritten rules and double standards—especially regarding women—of the many closed societies uneasily coexisting in Damascus. Born to a Maronite Christian father from Beirut and a Russian mother, Faroun is an unusual protagonist. While some of the murky intrigue is hard to keep track of, it adds to the sense of mystery. (Dec.)

In this story collection from former prison chaplain Lister (Blood of the Lamb), his fictional alter ego, John Jordan, a chaplain at a north Florida jail, investigates seven "cases" that range from standard fair play tales to explorations of faith. Some stories, such as "Bad Blood," which involves a murder on the prison grounds, are reminiscent of Ed Hoch's impossible crime tales and demonstrate talent at traditional mystery writing. Others, however, are pure parable: in "A Fountain Filled with Blood" Jordan attempts to ascertain if a 10-year-old African-American girl who survived Hurricane Katrina is really the second coming of Jesus Christ, and "Image of Blood," a study of the Shroud of Turin, has only the barest fictional trimmings. Lister's collection will appeal more to a Christian audience than general mystery readers. (Dec.)

In an impressive debut, Fredrickson introduces Vlodek "Dek" Elstrom, an intrepid investigator of Norwegian extraction who has neared bottom with his failed marriage and battered reputation. When a $3-million home explodes at Crystal Waters, the gated Chicago community where Elstrom's ex-wife still lives and from which he was expelled, powerful Anton "the Bohemian" Chernek, an attorney who fixes problems "too thorny or embarrassing to entrust to ordinary retainers," hires Elstrom as window dressing to cover possible liability. Publicly, the explanation's a gas leak, but an extortion note suggests another cause. But the homeowners' board, fearing a drop in property values, wants the police kept out and the threat to disappear. Another threat and another explosion bring the Feds and the police anyway, and Elstrom finds himself a prime suspect while he tries to trace the roots of the case back to the construction of Crystal Waters. Smartly plotted, briskly paced and laced with humor, this accomplished first marks Fredrickson as a mystery writer to watch. (Nov. 30)

Ragtime suffuses the very air of 1899 Sedalia, Mo., in Karp's sweet-natured historical featuring Scott Joplin and the fictional 16-year-old white boy Brun Campbell, who ignores the racial divide in his determination to play piano Joplin-style. Brun runs away from home in Oklahoma and stumbles on the body of a young woman just hours after arriving in Sedalia. He carelessly grabs a locket and a money clip off the corpse, but soon learns that the objects will incriminate Joplin. To protect his idol, Brun decides to find out who the real murderer is. Karp (First, Do No Harm) does a wonderful job of depicting a town steeped in music history and in portraying Joplin, but the mystery plot pivots on a point that most readers will find hard to swallow, and the identity of the killer comes as little surprise. (Nov.)

Knight chronicles the gritty coming-of-age story of the dragon Wistala (sister to Auron, from 2005's Dragon Champion) in the second Age of Fire novel. When her young family is betrayed and decimated by a clan of dwarfs while father AuRel is away, Wistala must carry the awful news north to him. But she finds AuRel badly wounded after running afoul of the very same dwarfs, and before she can nurse him back to health, a hunter called the Dragonblade kills him. Once again, Wistala must run for her life, vowing vengeance, even though she knows a year must pass before she's grown enough to carry out her revenge plan. Befriended by the elf Rainfall of Hypatia, she matures and gains the wisdom to temper her plans. Coming-of-age themes such as personal responsibility and family give the novel a strong YA slant, but Knight makes the story complex enough to entertain readers of all ages. (Dec.)

British Fantasy Award–winner Williams describes his virtuoso, grotesque nightmare of a book as a "paean to the novels I grew up on in the 1980s." It's an unnecessary observation: readers will immediately recognize the influence of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub and Ramsey Campbell. Playing on humanity's deepest fears and taboos, Williams plunges the reader deep into a hellish near-future where creatures banished five centuries ago rise again to lay eggs in the few people they don't consume alive, turning London into a cross between hive and abattoir. Caught up in the grisly madness are photographer Bo Mulvey, who goes looking for excitement and gets more than he bargained for; Sarah Hickman and her beautiful, disturbed daughter, Claire, on the run from a hit man with an amputation fetish; and Gyorsi Salavaria, a cannibalistic child killer determined to become the mate of the invaders' new queen. Williams (Use Once, Then Destroy) is so good at what he does that he probably shouldn't be allowed to do it anymore, for the sake of everyone's sanity. (Nov.)

Sixteen cautionary, sensual stories of love, reversal and revenge upend fairy tale conventions in Nazarian's lush collection (after 2003's Lords of Rainbow). Some pieces retell classic stories: "Absolute Receptiveness, the Princess, and the Pea" compellingly subverts the cliché of the tender princess into a disturbing rape fantasy. "Beauty and His Beast" recasts the beast as an ugly but perceptive princess. Other stories approach myth. In "Sun, in Its Copper Season," the avatar of the sun falls in love with the man who brings the four seasons, and in "Lore of Rainbow," a wife seeks her missing husband, only to discover that he is the personification of a color. Adventure stories skirt the edges of the expected: in "The Slaying of Winter," a woman seeks revenge on a god for her family's destruction, only to find forgiveness; and in the near-future "Rossia Moya," a woman and Russia itself both rediscover their heritage. Sumptuous detail, twisty plots and surprising endings lift these extravagant tales. (Nov.)

Magic and high tech collide in this exciting military SF novel from bestseller Weber (War of Honor) and Evans (Far Edge of Darkness), the first of a new series. Two human societies, the Sharona and the Union of Arcana, have evolved in parallel universes without encountering another civilization, human or otherwise. The Sharona exhibit a level of technology roughly analogous to the late 19th century, with psionic abilities thrown in for seasoning, but the Arcana have harnessed magical energies down to the consumer level. Astonishingly, it's the magical society that suffers the greater shock when one of their companies encounters a small Sharona civilian survey team and is almost annihilated by the enemy's repeating firearms. The authors treat both societies sympathetically and realistically, with human vices and virtues evenly distributed. The narrative bogs down slightly under the weight of the world building necessary for later installments, but is uncompromising in sacrificing even strong, sympathetic characters to the demands of the plot. (Nov.)

Veteran horror writer Shirley (Cellars) swaps gory for glory in this inventive if politically heavy-handed left-wing answer to Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins's evangelical Left Behind series. Child slavers, genocidal soldiers and corrupt statesmen have fourth-dimensional visions and abandon their wicked ways in the first part of the novel, narrated by Sacramento Bee reporter Jim Swift and his conspiracy-nut friend, Ed Galivant, in a style oddly reminiscent of C.M. Kornbluth's "The Silly Season." Readers of all persuasions will relish the repentance of these universally acknowledged bad guys, but once the good guys ascend to a better place, most of the people left behind are Republicans, Scientologists, oil company CEOs and anyone "fundamentalist, hard-line, inflexible." By dispensing justice along party lines, Shirley limits his audience to a choir that won't mind 300 pages of very pretty preaching. (Nov.)

Similar in tone and style to Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams (2005), Valente's baroquely layered fantasy tells an earthy tale of heroes and monsters. Banished from heaven, Japanese trickster god Susanoo-no-Mikoto, a kami with powers over the wind and the oceans, bemoans his fate and travels across mundane lands hoping to find solace with his mother, Izanami-no-Kami. Then a peasant couple beg him to rescue their daughter, who was kidnapped by a great eight-headed serpent—the same serpent that took her seven sisters before her. When the peasants tell Susanoo he may take the eighth daughter as his wife, he agrees. He trails the serpent to the village of Hiroshima, where he slays it and creates the Grass-Cutting Sword from its spine, even as his new wife ignores his lordly reassurances and mourns the monster. This lyrical, language-driven novella alternates between the awkward ("peasant-colored" people) and the sublime, as when Susanoo departs Hiroshima: "footprints flaming over the city, burning white and sere... and a hot wind followed after them." (Nov.)

The ancient and decadent City Imperishable teeters on the verge of obliteration in this inventive fantasy from the prolific Lake (Rocket Science), if not from the armies marching toward its gates, then from the dark, bloodthirsty gods reawakening within its walls. Three haunted and imperfect men must stand against the destruction of everything they know: Jason the Factor, a businessman and sometime civil servant who's in love with pain; Imago of Lockwood, a feckless lawyer who puts himself forward as a candidate for the centuries-dead position of Lord Mayor; and Bijaz the Dwarf, an embittered and self-hating half-man whose lips have been sewn shut. As random supernatural assaults are perpetrated on innocent citizens, these three must uncover the City Imperishable's blackest secrets, not knowing whether or not their actions will save what they hold dear. Filled with violence and some seriously perverse sex, this grand guignol of a book should appeal to fans of such authors of urban fantasies as China Miéville and Jeff VanderMeer. (Nov.)

In this enjoyable, thought-provoking science fiction adventure, interspace ambassadors Vincent Katherinessen and Michelangelo Kusanagi-Jones have been sent by the Old Earth Colonial Coalition to the renegade planet of New Amazonia, a planet where women rule and men are kept as worker bees and house breeders. Because Old Earth treats its women as subservient, they have no female ambassadors, but Angelo and Vincent are gay—or "gentle"—and though they are shunned by the dictatorial government they serve, they're the only negotiators acceptable to the Amazonian rulers. The two men arrive ostensibly to return stolen art, a show of goodwill that will hopefully reopen long-stalled diplomacy between the two governments. In truth, they have been sent in an effort to secure, by any means necessary, the secret to the mysterious power source that runs Amazonia. Playing the deceitful powers against each other, however, Angelo and Vincent are really working toward an agenda of their own, one that will decide the fate of humanity itself. Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universe that blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion. (Dec.)

Roberts's paranormal Circle Trilogy concludes with the "circle of six" warriors—the sorcerer Hoyt, Hoyt's vampire brother Cian, the witch Glenna, the warrior Blair, the shape-shifter Larkin and Larkin's scholar-princess cousin Moira—preparing for battle against the evil vampire, Lilith. Having traveled back through time to Moira and Larkin's ancient kingdom of Geall, Moira raises the sword from the stone to take her place as queen. With her five warrior companions by her side, Moira leads her people into battle against Lilith's army of vampires, who are intent on destroying Geall. Meanwhile, Moira and Cian give in to powerful feelings of love, stealing nights of passion that could spell ruin for both of them. As war befalls the kingdom, Roberts brings the same precise, resonant energy to battle scenes that make her sexual interludes shine, grounding magic, dragons and vampires in a believable world. The truest moments of this novel, however, belong to Roberts's fully formed characters, especially in the love sacrifices of Moira and Cian. Completing her series with the real-world complications of selfless, star-crossed love, Roberts has crafted a fantasy-romance trilogy with strong appeal for romance fans of all stripes. (Nov.)

The best speculative fiction reaches beyond the bells and whistles of the genre to explore the deeper complexities of the human condition. The original stories selected in this year's "Writers of the Future" contest include strong attempts to do just that, as well as some promising work that doesn't quite measure up. Standouts include Judith Tabron's Bradburyesque "Broken Stones," the story of a woman facing a crisis of faith when her fellow Muslims, colonists who left Earth centuries ago to escape social and religious persecution, aim that same prejudice toward the indigenous life of their adopted planet; Diana Roland's "Schroedinger's Hummingbird," the heartbreaking tale of a young woman who dooms herself to relive her past again and again in an attempt to save her only child; and Lee Beavington's "Evolution's End," an old-school science fiction romp about a group of explorers who discover a simple cellular organism whose evolution has made it the greatest—and deadliest—of survivors. Also included are four short essays offering advice to young writers and artists. Except for Orson Scott Card's illuminating "Are We at the End of Science Fiction?" these essays are rudimentary at best, condescending at worst. Illustrations are adequate, with special mention going to Daniel Harris and his artwork for Roland's story, and Eldar Zakirov for his work for Joseph Jordan's excellent story of faith lost and found, "At the Gate of God." (Nov.)

This lighthearted historical romance, the third in a series (after 2004's A Rogue in a Kilt), takes on loyalty, love and lies in 15th-century Scotland. Kate Templeton, an unmarried London tutor blessed (or is it cursed?) with the gift of foresight, is masquerading as the widow of a Scottish lord to gain information on her imprisoned friend, King James I of Scotland. Incarcerated in the Tower of London for the past five years, James seems to have been abandoned by his people. Kate, his loyal tutor, has decided on her own to travel to Stirling Castle in Scotland and determine why the Scots have ignored the crown's ransom demands, and who among the court James can count on to help him. Kate has been warned to stay away from Scotland's "Thief of Hearts," Ian MacKay, but his heart-stopping good looks make that hard to do. Ian works as the eyes and ears of the regent Albany, an ass of a man and an enemy of James, but what Kate doesn't know is that Ian is secretly working to restore James to the throne. As Ian and Kate begin to uncover their shared agenda, duplicity and dilemma drive them apart. Though the abundance of Scottish dialect can distract, Blair's attention to historical and regional detail supports a fine balance of action and romance, making this political potboiler a winning read. (Nov.)

Baker, the outrageously talented Eisner- and Harvey Award– winning artist behind such diverse projects as King David, Plastic Man and cult classic Why I Hate Saturn, has turned his attentions to more personal matters with this full-color collection of cartoon vignettes about family life. The family in question, based on Baker's own, consists of three irrepressible children and the harried couple who are their parents. In this world of alternately angelic and screaming kids, no detail of domestic life is too petty for good-natured skewering. Feeding techniques, getting kids dressed, and secret tips for frustrating parents all make an appearance. No surprise that Daddy Baker, who comes complete with dreadlocks and credit card, is frequently depicted with a smile bordering on a grimace. The tumult and confusion of this world is implied rather than spelled out. The brief comics are virtually text-free, with exaggeratedly cartoonish yet expressive artwork doing double duty as both explication and illustration. The physical comedy of the family's silent movie exploits gives the cartoons a soothingly retro feel that echoes the antic humor found in Mad magazine. This combination of Baker's inventive visual gags and chuckling familiarity makes the project endlessly appealing. (Jan.)

In Canadian artist Ollmann's new b&w collection, characters run the emotional gamut from loneliness to self-loathing and back again, with only the occasional flash of hope to light their way. Using a slightly grotesque style (bodies are generally lumpy, faces creased, mouths agape) in a tight and claustrophobic nine-panel pattern, Ollmann creates starkly told little worlds isolated in frozen angst. In "They Filmed a Movie Here Once," a devout and lonely young woman living in a small town falls for a mysterious drifter; in "Big Boned," a fat woman fights social invisibility. "Day Old" and "Oh Dear" are less successful, trading in fairly stock situations that may have made for a decent college workshop short story, but are too undeveloped to stand on their own. Ollmann finishes things off well with the final story, "En Retarde (Delayed)," about Dennis, a mechanic from a rabidly dysfunctional family (which he's tried to escape) who is forced to take care of his slow older brother when his alcoholic mother ends up in the hospital. There's not a lot of uplift here amid the shame and self-flagellating guilt, but more than enough uncompromising honesty to fill an entire book. (Nov.)

Jin-Ho is a stubborn high school senior with a strong sense of right and wrong. Hae-Young is his beautiful homeroom teacher, equally headstrong and determined, still struggling to deal with her father's abandonment. After a chance meeting at a local bookstore, their lives are suddenly hopelessly intertwined and their fiery personalities continue to clash. From entering the wrong bathroom to an embarrassing spectacle at the local bath, Jin-Ho continues to make a fool of himself as Hae-Young reaches out to him in ways that only serve to flare up his notorious temper. Lim creates likable characters and injects them in the most awkward and embarrassing situations possible, while forcing them to deal with more serious issues of growing up and coping with stress. Lee's artwork adds a fun and flirty touch. The female characters all look like models, with shapely figures, tight-fitting clothing and a few too many panty shots. The fan service works with the book's campy, over the top humor. A fun and lighthearted read, this formulaic manhwa still sports a quirky sense of humor. (Oct.)

A prequel to Yuki's popular Godchild, The Cain Saga is an anthology of five different tales all set in the same 19th- and early 20th-century London locale and concerning the young mystery-investigating earl, Cain C. Hargreaves. "Forgotten Juliet," the opener, is a ghost story about grave robbers, a dead girl, some green poison that isn't what it seems and a romance that shouldn't have been—the already knotty story line is further confused by some poorly organized artwork. "The Youths Who Stopped Time" is a more engaging mystery set in a posh boarding school circa 1918 and taking its atmosphere of naughty schoolboys and secret societies straight from the film Young Sherlock Holmes (as Yuki admits in one of her chatty columns sprinkled throughout). Yuki also admits to being a huge Twin Peaks fan, whose influence shows itself throughout, especially the closer one gets toward the final, Laura Palmer–inspired story. The tone overall registers in high camp. Although Cain will have no trouble pleasing fans of Godchild, it's hard to imagine those already not well-versed in that story having much patience with this fast-paced but garbled collection. (Oct.)

Spanish cartoonist Max uses some of the most cherished pieces of high art as the catalyst for his character Bardin's funny and thoroughly humane adventures. In the first story, Bardin is taken to the superreal world by the Andalusian Dog, who complains about his misuse by Dalí and Buñuel. But Bardin also learns from this strange canine that he is the new custodian of this even stranger world. In another strip, pondering Brueghal's The Triumph of Death reassures Bardin about his own life. Max has designed Bardin with a large, essentially bald head perfect for drawing all kinds of emotions, ranging over fear, terror, righteous anger, and jocularity in the face of the truly weird. Almost all of the last half of the book is taken up by "The Sound and the Fury," a silent strip in which Bardin must fight through many bizarre situations as a knight complete with sword and helmet. Each page has four large panels for the action, so even though the ideas might be peculiar, the story reads clearly. As in the rest of the book, Max takes what can be impenetrable and uses some fine cartooning to make it accessible and enjoyable. (Oct.)