Fiction Reviews: Week of 10/16/2006

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 10/16/2006

Strong Is Your Hold
Galway Kinnell. Houghton Mifflin, $23 (80p) ISBN 978-0-618-22497-5

Throughout his long career, Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winner Kinnell has returned to themes of death, love and the New England landscape and in this, his thoughtful and appealing 11th collection (and his first book of new poems in over a decade), these concerns announce themselves from the start: "I, who so often used to wish to float free / of earth now with all my being want to stay." Occasionally the poet veers too far toward silly, snapshot moments, but for the most part Kinnell injects the mundane—blown-out light bulbs, stubborn old nails, a snake residing in a brush pile—with meaning and passion.

Readers familiar with Kinnell's poetry will be acquainted with his children, daughter Maud and son Fergus, who appear in many of these poems. Kinnell continues to write about parental love in ways that reflect the everyday and the transcendent, understanding that "His [Fergus'] birth and the birth of his sister / had put me on earth a second time, / with the duty this time to protect them / and to help them to love themselves." At the heart of the book is Kinnell's now-famous long poem about September 11, 2001, and the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, first published in the New Yorker. While it is difficult to imagine, five years later, what art could encompass the evil and human suffering of that terrible day, "When the Towers Fell" treats the subject with reverence, realizing the event to be a sad "corollary, a small instance in the immense/ lineage of the twentieth century's history of violent death." Rendered carefully over 13 harrowing sections, with lines borrowed from Celan, Crane and Whitman (from whom the book's title also comes), among others, the events of that day are recounted and imagined with powerful feelings of empathy and sorrow.

A CD of the author reading the book in its entirety is also included. Just as he might at a live reading, Kinnell (A New Selected Poems, 2000) offers introductions and anecdotes before many of the poems on the CD. Like the work itself, Kinnell's voice is strong and soulful, and often tinged with melancholy. Longtime fans and new readers alike will find this collection a powerful addition to an important body of work. (Nov. 8)

A country estate again provides Dilke (The Inheritance) with fertile ground for excavating the high expectations and underlying emotions of a wealthy English family. In 1974, two brothers are all that's left of the oldest generation of St. Clairs: Hector, an aging war veteran attended by his elderly manservant, and Lionel, one of several attorneys in the family who (with wife Eleanor) has produced four children (one deceased), all married with children of their own. As the novel opens, the 20-something cousins—who include impetuous Liza, who wants to be a singer; Charlie, on track to become the next St. Clair lawyer; Kitty, who has captured Charlie's heart, but wants Max's; and Max, who seeks refuge with his cousins when his parents' separation promises to become a painful, public divorce—congregate at Uncle Hector's annual garden party to fondly remember childhood games. But the "discreet patina of wealth" soon peels back to reveal resentments, jealousies, selfishness and desire. Accusations pass between Max's parents, declarations of love and hate between cousins. Attempting to avert future disaster, Hector confesses his own generation's secret tragedy. Small psychological insights, inserted with an ironic twist, add a welcome dimension to this perceptive melodrama. (Apr.)

A late adolescence of fierce, sweet turmoil provides the inspiration for McGhee (Shadow Baby), who also writes YA novels. His legs recently paralyzed in an accident, 16-year-old, wheelchair-bound Joseph works in a Minneapolis bakery with Zap, a boy of 17, and is pelted with questions by Enzo, a girl of nine whom no one seems to be looking after. After the accident, Joseph left upstate New York and his troubled mother to live with a father he barely knows. Enzo, who desperately wants Joseph to be a superhero hurt performing a feat of derring-do, persists in trying to unravel the accident's mystery. Mai, a lovely teenage girl with a growing crush on Joseph, and her younger brother, Cha (who is locked in an interior world of his own, add to the mix. McGhee renders their insular world delicately, but the narrative gets saturated with that world's atmosphere, and the characters often come across as too young for their years. Readers willing to suspend some disbelief will be charmed by McGhee's tender and affecting coming-of-age tale. (Mar.)

Horses and lost love propel this confident debut novel about Alice Winston, a 12-year-old loner with family troubles in Desert Valley, Colo. Her mother hasn't left her bed since Alice was a baby; her father struggles to keep their horse ranch solvent; and her beautiful older sister, Nona, has eloped with a rodeo cowboy. Alice resists befriending the rich girl who takes riding lessons from her father, becomes obsessed with a classmate who drowns in a nearby canal and entangles herself with adults whose motives are suspect. Kyle imbues her protagonist with a genuine adolescent voice, but for all its fluidity, her prose lacks punch, and too often, somber descriptions of Colorado's weather and landscape are called upon to underscore themes of human isolation, jealousy and pain ("Tomorrow, the sun would rise and deaden the land beneath its indifference"). The coupling of female adolescence with the stark West produces its share of harsh truths, though Kyle overstates the moral: love hurts, it's a dangerous world and the truth is hard to swallow. (Mar.)

On the centennial year of Samuel Beckett's birth, Auster's new novel nods to the old master. We open with a man sitting in a room. The man doesn't remember his name, and a camera hidden in the ceiling takes a picture of him once a second. The man—whom the third-person narrator calls Mr. Blank—spends the single day spanned by the book being looked after, questioned and reading a fragmentary narrative written by a man named Sigmund Graf from a country called the Confederation who has been given the mission of tracking down a renegade soldier named Ernesto Land. During the course of the day, a former policeman, a doctor, two attendants and Mr. Blank's lawyer visit the room, and Mr. Blank learns he is accused of horrible crimes. (His lawyer claims he is accused of everything "from conspiracy to commit fraud to negligent homicide. From defamation of character to first-degree murder.") But this may or may not be true—the narrative veers toward ambiguity. While Auster's lean, poker-faced prose creates a satisfyingly claustrophobic allegory, the tidy, self-referential ending lends a writing-exercise patina to the work. (Feb.)

British travel writer Harding (Tranquebar: A Season in South India) makes her fiction debut with this slim, shimmering historical. In 1616, the whaler Heartsease sets out from England, bound for the Greenland coast. During the voyage, the experienced, much-respected Thomas Cave strikes up a friendship with young Thomas Goodlard, the crew's least-experienced member, who is another Suffolk native. As winter approaches, the crew, having loaded up on whale oil and other tradestuffs, prepares to leave, but a friendly disagreement among them—about whether a human being had ever wintered on the Svalbard coast—darkens and escalates. In a charged moment, Thomas Cave bets £100 that he can survive the winter alone on an uninhabited island. They leave him, with plenty of provisions, to return the following spring. This cold-weather Robinson Crusoe tale (minus Friday) unfolds with spare grace, along with Thomas Cave's past, which includes a lost wife and lost son. In a free and direct style that touches on period dialect but is never heavy-handed (and that is bookended by two first-person remembrances from Thomas Goodlard dated 1640), Harding probes Cave's solitude and his responses to a landscape that, in a heartbeat, can be unrelentingly bleak or dazzling. It's a simple story of spiritual purification, and it is handled beautifully throughout. (Feb.)

Freelance writer Redmond Hatch loves his young wife, Catherine—he is 40 and she is 22 when they wed in 1981—and adores his infant daughter, Imogen, but in Irish author McCabe's eighth novel (his prior work included Breakfast on Pluto and The Butcher Boy, both shortlisted for the Booker Prize), Redmond's happy slice of the world cruelly crumbles. A few years into wedded bliss, Redmond's wife cuckolds and then divorces him; he feigns suicide, assumes a false identity and disappears into a sad-sack life that spirals sharply downward after he reads a newspaper account of the suicide of convicted child murderer (and creepy acquaintance) Ned Strange: Redmond's suddenly haunted by nightmares and hallucinations in which Ned molests him. He stalks his former family and, in 1991, kidnaps and kills his estranged daughter, burying her in the isolated countryside—their imaginary "winterwood"—and visiting her grave over the next decade. Redmond, however, has yet to bottom out. Despite a fractured, hard-to-follow chronology, this tale about a man's descent into madness is both artfully repellent and hypnotically compelling. (Feb.)

Short story writer Joseph's first novel begins with a weekend tryst in Florida in which barely-out-of-college Paul Foster wants his lover, Kent McKutcheon (who is nearly a decade older and married), to acknowledge his feelings and homosexuality. Kent, however, is annoyed with Paul for pressuring him and with himself for his infidelity. The feelings fester as, back in Atlanta where both men live, Paul returns to his cancer-stricken former professor and jealous sugar daddy, Bernard Falk, while Kent goes home to his saintlike Mennonite public defender wife, Maggie. Kent and Paul continue their affair, and Paul, wanting to get closer to Kent, befriends Maggie. After an awkward dinner for three at Kent and Maggie's, Kent, furious with Paul, reveals their relationship to Bernard, which provokes a violent confrontation between Paul and Bernard. The next day, Bernard is found murdered and Paul is the main suspect. Maggie, who has an inexplicable crush on Paul, takes him on as a client. Unfortunately, the murder mystery plot lacks urgency, and Joseph's portrayal of homosexuality hinges on the bedroom, while homophobes—cops, especially—rarely rise above stereotype. The aftermath of the imploding love triangle may surprise. (Feb.)

Gold takes chick lit office politics along on a country weekend in this affable debut about a size-12, 33-year-old aspiring Martha Stewart. After her boss announces her impending retirement, Delilah White finds herself in the running to become executive producer at Domestic Bliss, a TV show that's filmed in New York City but aims the catchphrase "Now that's bliss" at middle-aged, middle American women. Her competition: Margo Hart, a high-maintenance redhead who's not willing to go down without a fight. When the rivals end up at the same Fourth of July gala in the Catskills, they call a truce and Delilah scores a date with the hostess's cute cousin, Jack. But the women can't play nice for long, and the battle of the domestic divas sets the pace for a fun and breezy read. It's easy to root for Delilah as she schemes to put Margo (a believable but consistently evil villain) in her place. Meanwhile, Delilah may have found something worth pursuing with Jack—if only she can figure out where they stand. The ending leaves the door open for a sequel. (Feb.)

The heroine of Doyle's 1996 bestseller, The Woman Who Walked into Doors, returns long widowed (abusive husband Charlo having been killed fleeing the Irish police) and four months sober. Those absences and old relationships mark the year we follow in Paula's new life: she worries that her daughter, Leanne, is following in her footsteps; negotiates her resentment of her bossy older daughter, Nicola; and reconciles with her son, John Paul, now a recovering heroin addict with two kids of his own. Doyle, Booker Winner for Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha and author of The Commitments, does a lot in this novel by doing little: it is John Paul's quiet distance, for example, that serves as a constant reminder of the horrendous mother and pitiful alcoholic Paula used to be. The newfound prosperity of Ireland affects Paula's day-to-day life on the bottom of the economic scale—which suddenly looks a lot different. Paula's inner life lacks subtler shades, and her outer life is full of tiring work, abstinence from liquor and family. These aren't elements that automatically make for a have-to-read novel, but in this wholly and vividly imagined case, they do. (Jan.)

Believer co-editor Vida again explores violence, its aftermath and the curative powers of travel in her bleak second novel. (Her debut, 2003's And Now You Can Go, sent a young woman to the Philippines after a traumatic event.) But this time readers are nearly a hundred pages in before the long-ago physical violence is revealed. Clarissa, home after her father's funeral, finds herself deeply alone. Her developmentally disabled brother has never spoken, and her mother walked out on them 14 years before. Digging through family papers, she finds her birth certificate, which lists a stranger as her father. The hunt for him—and the resumption of a search for her mother—lead Clarissa to far northern Europe, where the days are short, the reindeer are plentiful and her mother had once felt "connected." Clarissa's travels in her mother's steps—seeking that connection, stumbling, finding it and finally severing it—are bleak. Vida's fan base will welcome this novel, and the twin questions of what Clarissa's amateur sleuthing will turn up and how each discovery will affect her might draw a few new readers through this slim, austere work. (Jan.)

When the death toll of serial killer "Mack the Knife" exceeds 100 victims along historic Route 66 in America's heartland, Kathy Mallory, on vacation from her job with the NYPD, decides to give the locals a hand in bestseller O'Connell's exciting ninth thriller to feature the frosty, unapproachable detective (after 2004's Winter House). Aided by her longtime partner Riker and police psychologist Charles Butler, Mallory butts heads with just about everyone, pursuing the case as if it were hers and hers alone. She makes little progress until the killer starts leaving a new calling card, depositing fresh kills on the highway, all with one hand chopped off and replaced with the tiny hand bones of a previous victim pointing to a new grave. Stylish prose and a magnetic lead character more than compensate for an overly complicated plot that drags in spots, particularly in the second half. For readers who have never followed Mallory, this is as good a time as ever to get acquainted. Author tour. (Jan.)

Continuing the story of Eve (Colony Girl; Eve in the City), Rayfiel's fourth novel is a dark, hit-and-miss snapshot of young motherhood. Eve, now 27, is overwhelmed: her unexpected pregnancy resulted in marriage to older doctor Harvey Gabriel and ambivalence about caring for Ann, her seven-month-old daughter. Eve is a far cry from the supermoms she encounters at the park ("Ow! You little bitch!" she snaps when Ann bites her breast), and her relationship with Harvey has cooled. The reappearance of her ex-boyfriend Mark (a contractor who is her age exactly, and who is now married to a dancer named Iolanthe) forces her to confront her feelings and her past. Rayfiel has Eve's voice down: her turmoil and what may be postpartum depression come through loud and clear, and her rehashing of her childhood at a religious colony rings true. A side plot that has Eve's closest friend, Marjorie, fleeing town with kids in tow during a nasty divorce is less convincing, but the ending has a nice (if small) twist, and Eve remains a complex character with conflicting feelings whose voice sustains the novel. (Jan. 9)

Edgar-winner Rozan (Absent Friends) draws on her experience as a professional architect in this complex thriller that focuses on New York City's construction and development business. Ann Montgomery, an officer in the New York Department of Investigation, shows up on former partner Joe Cole's doorstep with a file containing evidence pointing to a murder at a Mott Haven construction site. She needs Joe's help, but he's fresh off a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence connected to an earlier DOI investigation and wants nothing to do with the case. Meanwhile, the mayor of New York, Charlie Barr, is having problems with the press and political opponents who are questioning his dealings with big-time developer Walter Glybenhall, the mayor's pal and chief financial contributor. This is a New York story, steeped in political intrigue, ripe with descriptions of the city and its history. The payoff will be particularly rewarding for readers interested in big machines, both the kind that move earth and those behind political parties. (Jan.)

Bestseller Lescroart's latest legal thriller falls short of its recent predecessors (The Hunt Club, etc.), after a promising opening. Successful outdoor author Stuart Gorman finds himself the prime suspect in the murder of his wife, Caryn, whose nude body he discovers near their hot tub at their San Francisco home after returning from a weekend at his mountain retreat. Feeling that he has nothing to hide, Stuart is frank about the tensions in his marriage, and those admissions, coupled with a history of domestic disturbance and a huge life insurance payout, prompt a close friend, California state assemblyman Jedd Conley, to recommend a lawyer, even before Stuart's arrest. The attorney, Gina Roake, is eager to sink her teeth into a major case as a way of overcoming a traumatic personal loss, and she soon turns investigator when evidence suggests that something amiss in Caryn's professional life as a doctor may have triggered her death. Unremarkable courtroom scenes and a clumsy gimmick to uncover the real killer make for a less than compelling resolution. (Jan.)

Between running her Manhattan yarn shop, Walker & Daughter, and raising her 12-year-old biracial daughter, Dakota, Georgia Walker has plenty on her plate in Jacobs's debut novel. But when Dakota's father reappears and a former friend contacts Georgia, Georgia's orderly existence begins to unravel. Her support system is her staff and the knitting club that meets at her store every Friday night, though each person has dramas of her own brewing. Jacobs surveys the knitters' histories, and the novel's pace crawls as the novel lurches between past and present, the latter largely occupied by munching on baked goods, sipping coffee and watching the knitters size each other up. Club members' troubles don't intersect so much as build on common themes of domestic woes and betrayal. It takes a while, but when Jacobs, who worked at Redbook and Working Woman, hits her storytelling stride, poignant twists propel the plot and help the pacing find a pleasant rhythm. (Jan.)

In this devastating ensemble novel, Whitbread Award–winner Cusk (Saving Agnes) exposes the roiling inner lives and not-so-quiet desperation of young mothers in the well-to-do London suburb Arlington Park. The book's single day begins with an epic rainstorm that wakes part-time private-school English teacher Juliet Randall, who spent the previous evening at a wealthier neighbor's home and was told, in front of husband Benedict, "You want to be careful.... You can start to sound strident at your age." As Amanda Clapp strains to maintain her house's empty perfection, a multi-kid play date gets out of control. Maisie Carrington feels "imprisoned for life" by her frosty, upper-crust childhood, and can barely contain her violent feelings toward her own daughters. Christine Lanham, a newcomer to the class distinction her marriage has brought her, abhors the hypocrisy that surrounds her, but knows she will never leave her family. The story line coils around each woman's home until it gathers the group for a drunken dinner party, where husbands express pleasure with their privilege while fretting that something feels amiss, and children, exhausted by their mothers' alternating neglect and desperate love, sleep like the dead—leaving the women holding hot coals of their silent insights. Their plight is an old story, but Cusk makes it incisively vivid. (Jan.)

This compelling stand-alone thriller from British author Goddard (Play to the End) opens in 1981 with the kidnapping of two-year-old Tamsin Hall and the hit-and-run death of Tamsin's seven-year-old sister, Miranda, in the ancient town of Avebury, at the foot of two massive, mysterious monoliths, part of a Neolithic stone circle. Fast forward to the present, where historian David Umber, who witnessed the double crime and later married the children's nanny, hears from now retired Chief Inspector Sharp of the Wiltshire constabulary, who has received an anonymous letter with clues to what happened that center on the identity of an 18th-century political gadfly known by the pseudonym Junius, the subject of Umber's Ph.D. research. Umber's realization that his wife's suicide years before may actually have been murder spurs him to join Sharp in pursuing this new evidence. The solution to both the identity of Junius and the perpetrator of the crimes against the children is satisfying, intelligent and refreshingly straightforward. (Jan.)

Nine stories from the author of The Master, The Blackwater Lightship and three other novels explore what happens when mothers and sons confront one another as adults. The sons include a middle-aged petty criminal, a young alienated pub musician and a regular guy whose drug-fueled mourning takes him into new sexual territory. The mothers include a widow who married above her class, a woman whose son's depression hangs over her and her husband's lives and a woman whose son is a priest being charged with abuse. In "The Name of the Game," the widowed Nancy Sheridan finds herself saddled with three children and a debt-ridden supermarket. In "Famous Blue Raincoat," former–folk-rock sensation-turned-smalltime-photographer Lisa is distressed by her son Luke's interest in her band, but refuses to tread on his curiousity, which forces her to reconfront the band's painful end. Longing, frustrated expectations and an offhandedly gorgeous Ireland run steadily throughout—except in the concluding, near-novella-length "A Long Winter," set in a Spanish village, and featuring Miguel, his younger brother, Jordi, and their mother, whose drinking may not be the only secret Miguel discovers during preparations for Jordi's departure for his military service. Wistful, touching and complex, these stories form a panoramic portrait of loss. (Jan.)

London-based journalist Williams writes for In Style, and her debut novel features flawlessly chic celebrity moms who go deep into Gwennie-and-Apple competitive territory. Thirty-one-year-old Amy Crane, six months postpartum, is stuck between two groups of mommy friends. On one side are the women from her childbirth class, dedicated mothers whose chubby figures and comfy clothes declare, "We now put someone else's needs before our vanity." On the other side is Amy's new friend Alice, a so-called "yummy mummy," who, with her similarly slim and elegant West London friends, takes Amy on as her newest project. Soon, Amy is caught up in a whirlwind of designer shoes, fad diets, Pilates classes (complete with a troublingly handsome instructor) and Botox injections, all of which alienate Joe, her longtime boyfriend and the father of her daughter. Amy's misadventures are, for the most part, endearing, and her comic attempts to regain her pre-pregnancy lifestyle stay just this side of satire. Williams weighs in on nearly every maternal controversy (from extended breastfeeding to the return to paid employment), further prolonging Amy's inevitable decision as to the kind of mummy she wants to be. Fortunately, Williams's wit and Amy's appealing foibles will make readers stick around for her occasionally laborious journey. (Jan.)

Set in 1969, Reaves's new crime novel opens impressively, as world-weary Chicago detective Mike Dooley seeks the man responsible for the savage, sadistic murder of Sally Kotowski, a mobster's ex-girlfriend. Despite a quick official wrapup of the investigation, Dooley remains skeptical that the guilty party has been punished, and he defies warnings from both sides of the law by continuing to turn over stones in pursuit of the real killer. Distracted by his worries over his eldest son, who's stationed in Vietnam, Dooley recklessly risks his family life by a prolonged flirtation with an attractive friend of the dead woman. That subplot and the author's penchant for starting each chapter with a litany of headline events of the day detract from the gritty beginning, while the disappointing resolution has more to do with the motive for Kotowski's being silenced than her actual killer. Reaves (Fear Will Do It) is also the author of Lying Crying Dying under the pseudonym Dominic Martell. (Jan.)

In this crackling, flamboyant third novel from Ian Fleming's nephew (Thomas Gage), Charlie Doig is the unlikely product of a Scots-Russian union, who lives in his ancestral Smolensk "Pink House" in Russia as the Romanov dynasty wanes. Under the tutelage of German naturalist Hartwig Goetz, Charlie pursues the "holy cause" of Darwinism and captures a rare "bronzy blue-shouldered" bore beetle—an omen of an even rarer apprehension, his oft-delayed marriage to comely Cousin Elizaveta. Amid a parade of hilarious secondary characters (including the Mongolian manservant Kobi and the potentate Count Igor Rykov), Charlie wrests Elizaveta from a rival, and the passion of the newlyweds is finally consummated at the novel's climactic midpoint. The appearance, in the winter of 1917, of the cunning Prokhor Glebov, a Bolshevik and the novel's avenging angel, sets up the book's lingering final turn. Charlie recognizes that Marxist rule in Russia will be a bitter corrective interval at best: "Civilization," says Charlie, "... cannot be restored until the possibilities of barbarism have been displayed in their full bestiality." In the book's wintry denouement, Charlie's narration pulls slowly back on events—the revolution's settling of scores and literal severing of ties with the czarists—and then freezes. It's funny, sad and magical. (Jan.)

Hansen (Confessions of an Enron Executive with Lynn Brewer) makes his fiction debut with a predictable thriller about the legendary North American ape-man Bigfoot. After a fire set by humans claims the lives of a male Bigfoot's family, the creature goes on a rampage of revenge, killing and devouring countless victims in the Pacific Northwest. The authorities first get a sense that something unusual is transpiring when several people disappear, and large, mysterious tracks are found in the vicinity. Three men with different agendas track the beast: Ty Greenwood, a former software mogul shunned after he earlier reported sighting a Bigfoot; Chief Ben Eagleclaw, a Native American actor with a spiritual connection to the creature; and sheriff's detective Mac Schneider, who first finds concrete physical traces of the rampaging animal. Light on science and full of gruesome violence, this isn't in the same league as Jurassic Park, Jaws or Philip Kerr's Esau, an intelligent speculation concerning Bigfoot's Asian cousin, the Abominable Snowman. (Jan.)

Even readers not yet sated with apocalyptic thrillers may be disappointed by Gregory and Tintori's first collaborative novel, which attempts to use the Jewish tradition of the Lamed-Vovniks, the 36 pure souls whose existence protects all of humanity, as the catalyst for a Da Vinci Code–like plot. Georgetown University professor David Shepherd, who routinely rubs elbows with the high and mighty, finds himself haunted by strange images of names. When an old friend's suggestion leads him to a rabbi in Brooklyn, Shepherd learns that the rabbi possesses an ancient biblical gemstone linked to the Lamed-Vovniks, and that a mysterious cabal has been systematically killing those righteous figures to usher in a new satanic age. Thin characterizations, rampant clichés and unlikely action sequences make for a less than satisfying read. Under the pseudonym Jillian Karr, the authors have written two suspense novels, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, which was made into a CBS-TV movie, and Catch Me if You Can. 75,000 first printing; rights sold in 11 countries. (Jan.)

All the elements that have made the author's signature Kate Shugak crime series successful shine in this 15th entry (after 2004's A Taint in the Blood): Kate's personal growth as a woman and as an investigator; the Alaskan environment in all its unforgiving beauty; and a mystery whose solution remains in doubt until the end. The story opens with a brutal murder. The culprit, Louis Deem, who has managed to avoid justice for past crimes, is so odious that his presence is a cancer in the little Niniltna community Kate calls home. Stabenow's rich cast of supporting characters include natives and longtime settlers as well as those newcomers so unprepared that Kate refers to them as committing "suicide by Alaska." There is rough humor, a rich heritage of the community necessary for survival, and at the same time a remarkable tolerance for the many idiosyncrasies of those attracted to the harsh realities of Alaskan life. Kate Shugak is becoming a leader among her people and is already a leader in the sorority of women detectives. (Jan.)

Reading like an offbeat criminal justice version of the talking-head film My Dinner with Andre, attorney Hollon's latest takes an intriguing look at the nature of mental capacity. The bulk of the novel consists of psychiatric sessions conducted in prison by Dr. Ellis Andrews with inmate Joel Stabler, accused of the murder of his brother, Danny. Joel's uncanny intelligence enables him to turn the tables on his interrogator, manipulating the doctor into empathizing with the accused, who claims that he took his sibling's life to spare Danny from the ravages of mental illness that devastated their father. The reliability of Joel's memories is called into question, leading to a satisfyingly ambiguous ending. The author's gift for understated dialogue makes the conversations between doctor and patient particularly compelling. (Jan.)

The second collaboration by bestsellers Jonathan and Faye Kellerman (after Double Homicide) offers two thin novellas that dedicated fans will most appreciate. In the first, My Sister's Keeper, Faye Kellerman's LAPD detective Peter Decker makes an extended cameo role in an inquiry into the murder of an activist lesbian California state representative, Davida Grayson. Grayson, who was the focus of threats from politicians and members of the radical right opposed to her support for stem-cell research, is found shot to death in her Berkeley office; an uninspired pair of local police find that the dead woman's personal relationships, rather than her politics, may have motivated the killer. The second story, Music City Breakdown, gives Jonathan Kellerman's consulting psychologist, Alex Delaware, a little more to do after Nashville detectives probing the stabbing murder of recording artist Jack Jeffries learn that Delaware had been treating the dead man. The solution is as unsurprising as that of My Sister's Keeper. (Nov. 21)

By the time of her 1994 death, Hull, then 40, had already inspired a sect of admirers; her third and best book, the posthumous The Only World (1995), made sure the admiration would last. A teen runaway from Newark who struggled with heroin during the 1970s, Hull tried to mix the late-Romantic fire of Hart Crane, realist detail and the seductiveness of jazz. Hull painted her natal city as "just one big hockshop" with its grilled storefronts amid "intangible empires of fear and regret, sudden/ crests of tenderness," while a tribute to doomed trumpeter Chet Baker asked, "Why court the brink & then step back?" Hull's earlier verse examines her parents' troubled lives and their East European immigrant heritage; later, wilder, better poems confront her own rough past, a "dizzy trip through the ripped underside of things." The seven-part "Suite for Emily" remembers a girl Hull knew, now dead from AIDS, on Newark's "carnivorous streets," contrasting the friend of her youth to Emily Dickinson; a Prague verse travelogue offers praise "for/ everything damned, for everything human & lovely." Hull may not have discovered a whole new style, but her passion, and her power to depict emotional extremes, justifies the high regard in which she is held. (Nov.)

Stefans's multigenre Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics (2003) has already emerged as a major text on its subject, and his digital poems would make most cognoscenti's top 10 lists. Published simultaneously with Stefans's essay collection Before Starting Over (Salt Books), this set of five chapbooklike sections of poems reads like a "real playstation/ or organic whist" that treats history as a kind of textual joke; every line signals a deep, playful, Frank O'Hara–like imbrication in the 20th-century's pains and pleasures : "Pound's flopping of oars... crises that approach with the grace/ of guttural, 32-bit Nazis, or with jodi.org's antique 'pro-situ' strains." The section "The Window Ordered to be Made" contains "They're Putting a New Door In" (which made The Best American Poetry 2004) and "Poem Formerly Known as 'Terrorism' " ("I'm hurt like Rocky," notes its speaker). There's a set of 15-line poems documenting the travels and travails of a figure named Pasha Noise, who also appears in a concluding comic strip (with illustrations by Gary Sullivan). These new poems broaden the range of Stefans's wonderfully supersaturated sensibility. (Nov.)

The poems in Olstein's Hayden Carruth Award–winning debut inhabit haunted interiors where "[g]arage doors open and close of their own volition," and landscapes where "everything blooms coldly" and "the sun shines through like a moon." Olstein constructs an almost impersonal, dreamlike atmosphere tinged with malaise, inertia and a sense that anything could happen but very little does. She is drawn to fluidity (references to water abound) and transitional states (from sleep to waking, from day to night); she is devoted to paradox, wonder and uncertainty. Such interests are nothing if not lyrical commonplaces, but Olstein's doggedness and focus lend them, here and there, a fresh vitality: "We huddle for warmth as if in a cave made of snow." The poems sometimes threaten to dissolve into a cloud of their own devising ("I'd never seen it so clear,// so gusty, so overcast, so clear, so calm"), but Olstein reins in her haziness with studiously regulated line lengths and stanza shapes. She is at her best—and certainly most distinctive—punctuating the book's cultivated vagueness with a blast of vivid, arresting detail: "April's first bee stumbles newly minted from its vault." (Nov.)

Christensen's sprawling, cosmically ambitious, book-length poem became a national hit in Denmark soon after its 1969 publication, and it's not hard to see why. The segments' diverse shapes—prose litany, chiming quatrains, stuttering free verse, telegram, prose diary—show mastery enough for almost any taste, while the overarching ideology—liberation for the whole human person from institutions, laws, mere forms—perfectly fit the late '60s' radical mood. Christensen begins by describing the creation of the whole world, narrows her focus to modern Danish society, then imagines recreating it, first in lyrical fragments ("A happy machine/ A wild imagination/ A fantastic din") and then through extended parables in which patients from an insane asylum learn to love one another and orchestrate social protests involving mass nudity. Drawing on Nietzsche, quoting Blake and Novalis, Christensen promises "crowns of gold for the holy/ fables for the freedom of matter," and argues that "the completely unreasonable activity is in reality reasonable, because it ends in a vision." Nied (who also translated Christensen's Alphabet) duplicates the Danish poem's mathematical schemes while also conveying its freshness and sense of freedom. Poet and classicist Anne Carson contributes a helpful introduction. (Nov.)

Degentesh's debut draws on Google by importing content from Internet searches into her poems to fill in the blanks of the MMPI. That's psych shorthand for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, sample statements from which—"I Feel Uneasy Indoors"; "I Am Not Afraid to Handle Money"—serve as titles for these 35 beautifully conflicted poems. Degentesh inhabits the poems' weirdly pathologizing psychic space with a deep love of overheard speech that's charged with unconscious (and sometimes not so unconscious) violence, longing and misunderstanding: "it was sloppy and bloody and all fucked up,/ when I try and translate it back into English/ it sounds like the Christian notion that we are born// to read stories of free, unhindered UnaBirths." Degentesh is a member of the Flarflist collective, a loose gathering of Google-obsessed poets who cast their poems in an ironic, deliberately "not ok" mold: "I loved my mother, and she did nothing/ as my father repeatedly beat me." The weird genius of these poems is that Degentesh encodes a sliver of identification within her deadpan sendups of cliché and banality surrounding real feelings, such that when one speaker says, "at the same time some poor wanker necro in half undress/ was kissing, fingering and licking Shelene's pussy," the reader feels a kind of celebration rather than censure. (Nov.)

Mullen's avant-garde word games, applied to the marrow of African-American experience, rightly won plaudits for Sleeping with the Dictionary (2002): poets and critics alert to innovation knew about Mullen a decade earlier, when three small-press volumes put her on the map. The contents of all three reappear in this collection, along with a brief new preface from Mullen. The first two (as she explains) build on Gertrude Stein's great modernist prose poems, full of non sequiturs and sexual puns, to make language undermine racist clichés: "The color 'nude,' a flesh tone. Whose flesh unfolds barely, appealing tan. Shelf life of stacked goods." The slightly longer paragraphs of the second volume (whose title means both "supermarket" and "sperm kit") are more complicated and self-conscious: "So this is generic life, feeding from a dented cant. Devoid of colored labels, the discounted irregulars." The ambitious if sometimes scattered Muse & Drudge abandons prose poetry for long chains of irregularly rhymed quatrains, taking on politics, poetics and history: "how a border orders disorder/ how the children looked/ whose mothers worked/ in the maquiladora." Linguistic experiment has rarely sounded so bluesy and cool. (Nov.)

The prolific Notley's newest book, following this year's career-spanning selected poems, Grave of Light, is a surreal, genre-bending novel written in verse and prose poems, or an epic narrative poem written mostly in prose. Divided into six section, each of which comprises many individually titled short pieces, the book follows Alma, a contemporary American goddess afflicted with a "fatal disease... called... pain perhaps," who is also a junkie (she shoots up through her forehead) and at times takes the form of an owl. She hangs out with, and sometimes is one of, "the dead women," a cast of undead feminists. Over the course of this difficult, lyrical narrative, Notley responds to 9/11, the Bush administration ("we pronounce Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Ashcroft Rice et al dead") and the war in Iraq. Notley's prose pieces (which often turn into verse midway) can be extremely dense, making this a slow read. Nonetheless, her writing is rife with crystal-clear moments: "what does the earth want me to sing/ to it?" Notley's impossible-to-categorize book-length work portrays the confusion, angst and sadness of our troubled times. (Oct.)

In this unusual collection of what are arguably prose poems, sketches or pieces of flash fiction, husband and wife Ball (March Book, 2004) and Björnsdottir introduce a charming yet gruesome pair of protagonists: Vera and Linus. They are childlike, living in a world where giving presents and playing are top priority, but they are also devoted lovers and perhaps siblings. Their twisted fairy tale world is as magical as it is disturbing: in it, a treasure chest opens up to reveal an entire lake inside, and children and animals are tortured for the protagonists' amusement. Episodes of violence ("Vera and Linus broke the dog's neck and put the body into a brown canvas bag which they tied neatly with great satisfaction") are often sewn seamlessly into scenes of fanciful beauty: "...their sorrows were carried away... to the court of the sea-king, and dined on there to much acclaim...." The light touch and often archaic feel of the prose owes as much to Kafka as to classic fairy tales. Certainly many readers will find this book unsettling, but most will also find it hard not to remember a time when the world was filled with this kind of fearful mystery and wonder, though hopefully not this kind of violence. (Oct.)

Moschovakis's playfully grim debut, a gathering of smart, sometimes puzzling poetic sequences, swears allegiance to fragments, open-ended inquiries, sudden juxtapositions and projects linked to analytic philosophy. The first sequence, "Thought Experiment," consists of slightly flirtatious short blocks of prose: "With progress, not only earthquakes but kisses will be predicted." Her last two, "Winter Songs" and the excellent "The Dead Man Looks into His Own Dead Ear," explore self-alienation and mourning in quirky, curt lines, distorting grammar as she goes: "Coiling around a stone/ in the posture of sleep/ I is getting wakier." Of the four sequences in between, the strongest, "The Blue Book," piles up single-line sentences as it vamps on queries from Ludwig Wittgenstein: "A language changes in appearances as I learn to decipher its characters." Moschovakis, an editor at Ugly Duckling Presse, has crafted a mix of sparkling moments and baffling structures; her first sortie of philosophical investigations promises much more to come. (Oct.)

Determinedly affable, chatty and low-key even when his subjects are bleak, Harrison's fourth volume stakes almost everything on the winning tone that pushes his almost prose-like, free verse poems. Often that gamble succeeds: viewing Manhattan on New Year's Eve, 2000, Harrison (Feeding the Fire, 2001) muses, "I wish I could give you/ this pale blue city under the glass/ of a plane window like a snowglobe," the sweet wish barely ruffled by the specter of 9/11. "Fork" recalls a decadeslong revenge against a malevolent writing teacher; "To Kenneth Koch" elegizes a great one, while seasonal verse discusses baseball ("Sometimes this is all it takes, moving a pile/ of screened loam"). These lighter subjects lead up to weighty poems about the poet's brother's suicide and his grandmother's dementia, topics which together occupy perhaps a third of the volume, including the moving sequence "An Undertaking," which narrates the day-to-day aftermath of the brother's death. These memoirlike poems have the bizarre details real grief always includes (the brother had "Enough socks/ for several lifetimes"), along with the sadness no verbal talent can assuage. (Oct.)

To his long eminence as a poetry critic, Yale professor Bloom has more recently added the mantles of expert in comparative religion (Jesus and Yahweh, 2005) and all-around literary sage (Genius, 2003). This expansive anthology takes advantage of all three Bloomian reputations, gathering verse on Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Native American spiritual, Transcendentalist and even agnostic themes, from 17th-century European colonists (one poet is Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island) to up-and-comers in contemporary verse. Pious readers will have no trouble finding high-quality poetry that confirms their beliefs—from the monk Thomas Merton, the Anglican T.S. Eliot, the Jewish liturgical poet Esther Schor and the Louisiana-based Christian poet Martha Serpas. Yet from the 19th century to the present, from the decidedly heterodox Emily Dickinson forwards, the anthology often highlights the ways in which American spirituality has challenged all doctrines about who God is and what God does. Herman Melville speculates about the eternal feud between "ape and angel"; John Ashbery's "The Recital" tells us not to care "whether prayers were answered with concrete events," and the Libyan-born Khaled Mattawa questions Islamic custom. More than half of the book is taken up by 20th-century poets, who offer varied takes on what religion has come to mean in America. (Oct.)

Long admired for his stewardship of Sheep Meadow Press, Moss has also earned acclaim for his own lyrical work, whose long-lined eloquence mixes autobiographical reflections, tributes to friends and places, and a temperate, self-assured humor. Though Moss's last volume, The History of Color (2003), was also a new-and-selected, this slightly slimmer gathering holds enough new poems to merit a look of its own: advancing years, the death of friends (especially eminent poets, such as Stanley Kunitz), Jewish history and Jewish liturgy provide recurrent themes for Moss's latest works, with which the volume (mostly) opens. (Moss's perhaps confusing arrangement offers new work first, the oldest last, "with exceptions" so he can group poems with similar subjects.) There are travels overseas—to Jerusalem and Israel, in particular, but also to Italy, China, Germany—and voyages backward in time, as Moss reanimates Ovidian themes. His best poems, however, are less about ethnic or religious heritage than about crafts and arts undervalued in their own time: "The Lace Makers," for example, and the new "An American Hero," which tells the startling story of James Hewlett, who "joined a Shakespeare theater of ex-slaves." (Oct.)

The most powerful poems in Weiner's second collection combine narrative and lyric elements and range across subjects and kinds of speech, as in an account of a son's baseball game on the White House lawn that somehow connects the dots between Pol Pot, Cal Ripken, our current president and the Wild Cherry refrain "play that funky music, white boy... till you die." A later long poem riffs on Berkeley in the '90s and intertwines the stories of a local "life-artist" called the Polka Dot Man and an overzealous activist killed by an overzealous cop. These poems aren't political in any easy way, but have politics, memory and language at their center in a manner that recalls former poet laureate Robert Hass's work. When the lines aren't tensed enough, or when Weiner (The World's Room, 2001) loses himself in reverie without pitting reason against it, the poems can edge toward cliché. But these moments are relatively few—Weiner's formal and lyric gifts both soothe and shock in these poems. (Oct.)

Graves's humorous, well-constructed 10th home improvement cozy (after 2005's Nail Biter) finds Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree, former money manager to the mob, still hard at work on her 1823 Federal-style house in Eastport, Maine. But she's got more to fix than a roof caving in: her dead ex-husband, Victor, is haunting the house and her friend Jemmy is on the run from hit men, including the ruthless Walter Henderson, who's also made his home in Eastport. A local young man who had been dating Walter's daughter has gone missing, and when Jake and her friend Ellie show up at the assassin's home, they make a grisly discovery in his barn. Graves weaves in plenty of home repair tips and a correspondence between two antiquarian experts concerning a mysterious book Jake has found in her cellar for an outing sure to please series fans. (Jan.)

Shamus-winner Parker's fourth historical Sugawara Akitada novel (after 2006's Rashomon Gate) deftly combines an action-packed plot with convincing period detail to bring 11th-century Japan to life. When Akitada is dispatched to a remote northern province to serve as its provisional governor, he encounters fierce opposition from the local authorities, who have driven off previous emissaries from the capital in an effort to preserve their corrupt self-governance. The murder of a local innkeeper and the apparent effort to frame three travelers for the crime give Akitada an opening to exert some power by beginning his own independent investigation. Fans of quality traditional mysteries, as well as those with a special interest in Japan, will savor this outing and look forward to the next entry in the series. (Dec.)

Looting of the royal tombs in the Necropolis sets the stage for murder in British author Doherty's involved fifth puzzle (after 2002's The Slayers of Seth) laid during Egypt's 18th Dynasty, in the third year of the reign of the fiery Pharaoh Hatusu. Charged with finding the tomb raiders, Chief Justice Amerotke makes connections between the thefts and the disappearance of four virgins from the Temple of Isis. These crimes dovetail with the death of the military hero General Suten, bitten by lethal horned vipers that may have been planted on his rooftop terrace. The professional assassins known as the Sebaus suddenly make attempts on Amerotke's life, as the prolific Doherty keeps the historical action boiling in his typically adroit and entertaining fashion. (Dec.)

Framed by a string of murders at the English country estate of Lord Mountbatten, Roberts's seventh Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Brown murder mystery (after 2004's The More Deceived) falls short of the high standard he set with his best work in the series. When the Nazis march into Vienna in the spring of 1938, Verity Browne, a foreign correspondent for the New Gazette, is deported as a known British Communist. Also headed to England on a visa arranged by Verity through her friend Lord Edward is Georg Dreiser, a young Austrian Jew who claims to have valuable information for the British military. But Georg's asylum proves short-lived when he meets a violent death at Lord Mountbatten's estate, where only a week earlier, Lord Edward and his nephew found the body of an up-and-coming artist. At times the author strains to connect plot elements, but as usual, his thorough knowledge of the period adds luster to the story. (Dec.)

The collision of cultures and religions in the seething city of Johannesburg, South Africa, provides the backdrop for Kunzmann's impressive debut, which teams an incongruous pair of police officers: Harry Mason, a Christian Englishman, and Jacob Tshabalala, a Christian tribesman who knows that the beliefs of his countrymen are not mere superstition. As the two policemen investigate the ritual killing of a young girl whose organs were harvested from her living body, they find themselves on the trail of an albino figure of almost mythic dimensions, who controls a criminal organization (drugs, prostitution, smuggling, etc.) through fear and intimidation. The complex narrative perhaps switches directions too often to briefly follow a minor character or reveal a snatch of Harry or Jacob's traumatic past. Still, the author does a fine job of depicting the city's combustible mix of poverty, ignorance, intolerance and crime and the handful of brave men who seek to douse the flames when that mix ignites. (Dec.)

Set in the spring of 1811, Barron's ninth Jane Austen mystery (after 2005's Jane and His Lordship's Legacy) finds both detective and author in sparkling form. Jane is at the London theater during a visit to her brother Henry when she glimpses a Russian princess gazing intently at the box of prominent politician Lord Castlereagh. That night, the princess is found dead outside Castlereagh's home. Unconvinced by the appearance of suicide, Jane begins inquiries that eventually encompass high society and their servants, politicians of every stripe and even courtesans. When a chance act brings Jane a threatening visit from the Bow Street Runners, her search for the truth intensifies still further. The book's intricate plotting is satisfying right to the last revelation, and the variety of secondary characters depicted with affectionate irony adds humor and historical depth. Like Regency great Georgette Heyer, the author excels at both period detail and modern verve. Aping Austen's cool, precise and very famous voice is a hard trick to pull off, but Barron manages it with aplomb. (Dec.)

In Lethal Intent (2005), Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner foiled an assault on a member of the British royal family, uncovering a nest of traitors. In this hard-hitting sequel, Jardine's 16th police procedural to feature the Edinburgh detective, Skinner is tapped by the head of MI5 to investigate the security breaches highlighted in Lethal Intent and root out those who supported the conspirators. Newcomers would do well to read the previous book first, while series fans should be prepared for a distracting subplot about a stalker who has targeted Skinner's daughter, some stilted dialogue and less-than-credible characters. (Dec.)

The eagerly awaited conclusion to Birmingham's popular Axis of Time trilogy (after Designated Targets and Weapons of Choice) deftly explores how a temporally displaced 21st-century naval battle group changes the outcome of WWII, both militarily and socially. In 1944, the Germans and the Japanese may be close to developing an atom bomb, while the swift Russian advance in the east threatens to engulf all of Europe. Admiral Kolhammer and his future warriors, veterans of 20 or so years of the war on terror, can be just as ruthless as the Axis. How the social changes inspired by Southern California's multicultural "zone" will fare in the face of opposition from the followers of the outed (and self-slain) J. Edgar Hoover remains an open question. Since the western Allies are left facing a Soviet Union that refuses to accept the judgment of history, it's clear that the author has the makings for a sequel. Alternate history fans can only hope Kolhammer and crew will soon be back. (Jan.)

British author Millar offers fiercely funny (and often inebriated) Scottish fairies, a poignant love story as well as insights into the gravity of Crohn's disease, cultural conflicts and the plight of the homeless in this fey urban fantasy. Due to the machinations of the obnoxious Tala, Cornwall's fairy king, only a few humans can see the 18-inch-tall fairies who alight in Manhattan: Magenta, a homeless woman who thinks she's the ancient Greek general Xenophon; Dinnie, an overweight slacker; and Kerry, a poor artist/musician who hopes her Ancient Celtic Flower Alphabet will win a local arts prize. Fairies Heather MacKintosh and Morag MacPherson scheme to put Dinnie and Kerry together, rescue fairy artifacts and prove that in love or war, music is essential. Neil Gaiman provides an appreciative introduction. (Dec.)

Grimsley's intricate, well-crafted sequel to 2004's Lamba Award– winner, The Ordinary, chronicles the rise of a war between epic forces; on one side is the powerful Mage, ruling an interplanetary empire that includes the interdimensional Anilyn Gate and the planet Aramen. There, the Mage orchestrates a redistribution of wealth between rich and poor, much to the dismay of the wealthy merchant Fineas Figg, the guardian of Keely File, a traumatized but strangely talented 10-year-old boy. But Fineas must soon worry about more than his money, as giant mantis creatures perpetrate a genocide that began as a rebel uprising against the Mage. Keely and Fineas team with the former rebel Kitra Poth and the priest Dekkar, who realizes that a powerful being known as Rao is orchestrating the mantis attack in a challenge to the Mage. Rao is also after Keely, but Dekkar is determined to protect him. The inconclusive ending to this complex work of world-building and large-scale politics seasoned with gore and desperation will have readers anxiously awaiting the next installment. (Dec.)

In McCaffrey and Scarborough's action-packed, kid-friendly sequel to 2005's Changelings, Murel and Ronan Shongili, telepathic 10-year-old twins with the ability to change into river seals, rescue the inhabitants of the environmentally degraded planet Halau and bring them to their home world of Petaybee. The sentient planet's adaptation to the refugees provides dangerous adventures for the twins, their friends and their parents, geneticist/selkie Dr. Sean Shongili and former Company officer Yana Maddock-Shongili, coadministrators of Petaybee, who discover an aquatic alien race. Meanwhile, off-planet, the Intergalactic Enterprises Company arrests their friend Marmion, who helped transport the refugees from Halau. A cliffhanger ending, ecological lessons, anthropomorphic animals and simplistic good vs. evil morality will speak to middle-school readers but not adults. (Dec.)

Three-time Stoker-winner Piccirilli (Headstone City) takes a very Hollywood gamble with this uneven collection of 18 movie-themed horror tales from screenwriters, actors and directors, who write with more veteran authors. The self-referential stories by former child zombie actress Kyra M. Schon ("Arlene Schabowski of the Undead" with Mark McLaughlin) and B-movie star William Smith ("Humps in the Field" with Del Howison) fall flat. Queen of the B movies Linnea Quigley does better, teaming up with Michael McCarty on the beautifully grotesque "Wizard of Ooze." The bloody penalties for cinematic ambition are detailed in prolific writer-director Mick Garris's "Ocular," John Shirley's "Seven Knives" and Piccirilli's own "Shadder." The most successful contributions blur the boundaries between cinema and verité: Gary Braunbeck's opener, "Onlookers," is a shiver-inducing tale of observations that create reality; Jack Ketchum's "Elusive" makes a common question deeply disturbing; and Ray Garton's "Everything Must Go" is a heart-pounding, heartbreaking story about knowing when to believe your eyes. (Dec.)

In this taut, eerie novella from Powers (Three Days to Never), used-book hunter George Sydney finds he can summon a beautiful poet when he discovers a signed volume containing a previously unknown variant of one sonnet. The good news is that he can bring the mysterious woman, Cheyenne Fleming, back to life. The bad news is that if he does, he will never meet her, and the act itself may harm an innocent. Set in Los Angeles, Powers's intricate story shows how Sydney's loneliness and alcoholism leaves him vulnerable to someone (or something) that is not what it appears to be. There are no thin, hairy specters lurking in this tale, and no cold grue to chill one's bones. Its impact is more moral than visceral, evoking the pity and fear that are hallmarks of tragedy. Exquisitely illustrated by J.K. Potter, this slender volume is sure to appeal to epicures of the terrible. (Dec.)

Fleeing a tyrant, young Torolf Magnusson and his family accidentally time-travel from the 11th-century Norselands to modern-day America. They adapt so well that, years later, he's become a navy SEAL determined to return to his home time and right old wrongs. A group of special forces buddies, viewing the adventure as a lark, insist on going with him—and land in the midst of a Viking women's sanctuary whose residents, though they despise men, are eager for children. Hilarious cultural misunderstandings and outlandish sex scenes follow, along with a budding romance between Torolf and the sanctuary leader, strong-minded Hilda Berdottir. Though Hill's plot requires some major suspension of disbelief, her attention to the details of SEAL operations and Viking life provide a welcome measure of credibility as the men and their new allies work to dispatch the villain. A clichéd evil scientist plot weakens the latter half of the book, but Hilda's comical adventures in present-day California and a highly satisfying end more than compensate. Hill's fertile imagination and ribald erotic touches, previously employed in more than a dozen historical and paranormal romances (including The Very Virile Viking), should further expand the popularity of this bestselling author. (Dec.)

Dodd's fine, final installment in her Lost Princess series recounts the story of Crown Princess Sorcha of the tiny European country Beaumontagne. Forced into hiding in a Scottish convent 10 years earlier, when revolutionaries threatened her country, the winter of 1810 sees Sorcha is returning home after learning that her domineering grandmother has control of the country. Fearing assassins, Sorcha leaves the convent disguised as a man, but it isn't long before a wayward, dull-witted fisherman named Arnou joins up to help protect her on the journey. Unbeknownst to Sorcha, Arnou is actually Prince Rainger, the arrogant young man to whom Sorcha was betrothed at birth. After years of imprisonment by a cruel usurper—years that gave rise to rumors of his death—Rainger is determined to win back his kingdom and take Princess Sorcha for his wife. As the journey rolls on, secrets are revealed and passions are succumbed to, building swiftly toward Rainger's confrontation with his nemesis. Dodd, long a force in historical romance, does not disappoint with her latest, expertly combining compelling romance, intelligent dialogue and a page-turning plot. (Dec.)

A hardworking set designer and young widow, Ryan Mitchell has good reason for swearing off office romances in White-Owens's mellow new novel. She has a reputation to uphold—one that doesn't involve sleeping her way to the top of the television production food chain. All of that changes, though, when she meets the big boss, Keir Southhall: award-winning director, owner of One Leaf Studio and recently divorced. The attraction between the two is undeniable, and against Ryan's better judgment they begin dating in secret. After revealing themselves as a couple to their co-workers and families, Ryan's on-set boss, Glo, becomes angry; Ryan's sister disapproves; and Keir's two grade-school–aged children want nothing to do with Ryan—pulling them both in a number of different directions. The romance between Ryan and Keir, though passionate, has little suspense behind it—the couple connects early on—and Ryan's willingness to throw her relationship rules out the window further dulls the conflict. What's left is a series of mundane confrontations stretched to fill out entire chapters, including some wishy-washy stabs at the emotional fallout from Ryan's husband's death, a theme that fades in and out of the novel without much emotional depth. (Dec.)

A fast-paced, over-the-top, blood-and-guts thriller, Waggoner's latest turns the world of deviant sex clubs into a graphic horror-show. When 45-year-old family man Aaron Rittinger stumbles onto a secret sex club, hidden away in his small Ohio town, he's intrigued; when a sexy neighbor invites him to join, his curiosity gets the best of him. Soon, however, he discovers that the club isn't just for kinky sex—it's for worshipping a demon called the Overshadow, who gives his followers incomparable pleasure in exchange for human sacrifice. As Aaron uncovers the secrets of the club, he becomes torn between current and former members, dragging himself and his family deeper into danger. Waggoner establishes a creepy vibe early and carries the suspense throughout, but his favorite scare technique—the gross-out—is not for the weak-stomached, and his characters, almost all of whom are creepy, ultra-horny and a bit crazy, don't elicit much sympathy. It's a satisfying if unmemorable ride for those who like their horror bloody, their heroes tarnished and their action just this side of unbelievable. (Dec.)

Light brings back intrepid reporter Karen Glick, feature writer for Profit magazine, for a second outing (following Too Rich to Die) with largely satisfying results. The three Reiner sisters, Linda, Ginny and Flo, have created a computer program called Goldring that accurately predicts the stock market, and have used it to make themselves incredibly wealthy. But the digital goose that lays the golden eggs proves deadly: when Flo is murdered and the only copy of Goldring is stolen, Glick works alongside oldest sister Linda to track down the murderer and the missing program. It isn't long before their own lives are in danger, as they're pursued by several powerful and nefarious factions. Light is skillful setting the multiple and complicated plots spinning, and despite the body count he manages to keep the tone light and quick; however, the story—nicely tied up though it is—relies heavily on coincidence and overly talky characters, and much of the supporting cast feel stock. That said, Glick remains a strong, witty heroine; her latest adventure should please fans of Wall Street thrillers. (Nov.)

In Earth's first space colony, teens will still be teens, sneaking off to an abandoned observatory (which resembles water towers used for the same purpose in Earthbound stories) just for kicks. An accident results in three deaths and a change in colony administration. The story proper picks up with the new kid, brought to the colony by his father, the new administrator, and mother, the new schoolteacher. Other kids have their own issues: Lise can't stand to be touched, and Xan is a self-centered punk picking fights to establish his alpha status. Schons's art is a standout; he draws spacesuits and SF gizmos well but doesn't lose sight of the characters. Although the book is part of TokyoPop's Global Manga line, the main manga influence is on the character design. Moore introduces concepts and characters effectively with just a few text lines, but some of the characterization is two-dimensional. The mother is too perfect, with just the right tale of "when I was your age" for every teen drama. Basically The O.C. on the moon, Earthlight's situations are still universal and appealing for a YA audience. The most promising plot points raised (like the kids' anger at their loss of control and what caused the deaths) remain to be resolved in future volumes. (Oct.)

Probably the smartest mainstream comic going, Fables usually concentrates on the contemporary activities of characters from children's stories who now are living as secret refugees in New York. This collection gives glimpses of their individual backstories before the armies of the brutal Adversary drove them out of Fairyland. Readers will learn, for example, what spoiled the Big Bad Wolf's disposition and what happened to the witch after Hansel and Gretel pushed her into the oven. It would be relatively easy to do clever, merely cynical readings of the fairy tales, but Willingham is after something much more interesting. Like Neil Gaiman and Tanith Lee, he's reimagining the old stories, trying to see why they have survived and also to point out the aspects they somehow neglect: it's only natural that Snow White would take revenge on the seven little rapists who abducted her, but the independent way she goes about it casts doubt on her subservient relationship to Prince Charming. Willingham reminds readers of how much they ignore in their anxiety to believe that all stories end happily ever after. Artists like Charles Vess, Mark Buckingham and Jill Thompson work up to the level of the perceptive scripts, making this a memorable, uncomfortably amusing treat. (Oct.)

Kotegawa's unsettling manga Anne Freaks was a dark trip into a world where adolescent friendships result in a loss of identity. In this book, she uses the familiar thriller convention of a cell phone with a mysterious caller on the other end to explore a similar theme. On her way to school, popular but superficial high schooler Chiko picks up a lost cell phone. Before she can turn it in to the police, it starts ringing. The voice on the other end tells her when and where suicides are going to occur, and that she is the only hope of stopping them. A reluctant Chiko and her bookish friend Bando start off on an all-night quest to save lives, racing against the clock and taxing their own endurance. Bando seems emotionless at first, but as the deaths pile up, she gets more animated, excited by the novelty of the situation. Meanwhile, Chiko learns that caring for someone other than herself is difficult—but rewarding. While the ending doesn't quite live up to the premise of exploring the emotional price of thrill seeking, this is still a fast-paced, suspenseful story delivered with Kotegawa's sharp, stylish character designs and inventive storytelling. (Oct.)

A nightmarish "cowboys and vampires" Wild West setting comes alive as a bona fide horror universe in this fine anthology. Novella "Abomination" opens with a grisly tale of re-animation and sideshow freaks, told with an ample supply of black ink. Twenty-two short stories follow, of varying effectiveness. Paul Maybury's "A Man, with a Stake in His Hand" recalls the wiry, angular line art of Gahan Wilson, while Vokes and Tommy Castillo's "Night Creatures" is almost balletlike with a zombie story revealed in jagged, angular panels that feel violent by their very design. Adam Burton and Adrian Salmon offer a chiseled, Kafkaesque view in "Cotton Fly," while Michael Avon Oeming's "Von Hellsing" mixes dark humor with some wildly inventive play between white and black. The sole misfire, Livingston and Scott Keating's "The Usual Suspects," is too dark for its own good. Tying the stories together is the character of Cotton Coleridge, "lightning rod" for the "bad supernatural," a wiry and enigmatic antihero with a mysterious past and a face that is alternately cruel and kind. This very satisfying collection is set in a world that feels instantly populated with an endless number of macabre stories. (Oct.)

For anyone wondering how Korean manhwa measures up next to the large selection of Japanese manga out there, Angel Diary leaves little reason to worry. The story of angel princesses, demon princes and mistaken identities hits every shojo/romance/fantasy expectation and hits them repeatedly. Stylistically it feels like overload. Almost every page has open and skewed layouts with plenty of room for big flashes of Heavenly light or masses of swirling hair. The twisting soap opera story line gets to be a handful soon enough, but the art always gets across the emotions and excitement that these characters have in abundance. The book is easy to admire on the surface, but because the writing takes a backseat to the manic visual pace, the reading experience can feel as tiresome as some of the chores these students, celestial beings or not, have to do. The fourth volume has a lot of situations going on, but never feels like it can stand as its own story. Perhaps that's because everything is being told at one very loud volume and there's no sense of a dramatic arc. Angel Diary has distilled a genre's look into something very refined, but has little else left. (Oct.)

A charmed dog, a talking pig and a murdered vicar.

Pulitzer Prize–winning humorist Barry (Big Trouble) spins a nostalgic tale about a boy and his dog on Christmas Eve, 1960. Junior high schooler Doug Barnes is playing a shepherd in the Christmas pageant at the bat-infested Episcopal Church. When the Barnes family dog dies on Christmas Eve, Doug and his father end up adopting a shelter dog, Walter, a charmer who manages to wreck the pageant. Accompanying Barry's snappy narrative are photos and goofy advertisements from the period. Barry is a crowd pleaser and doesn't disappoint with this tale. (Nov.)

Prolific novelist and Texas gubernatorial candidate Friedman sets his winning tearjerker Christmas story in a faraway land, where a "good king" decides he needs an artist to create a nativity scene to reawaken the Christmas spirit among his dejected subjects. His adviser suggests Benjamin for the job, a 10-year-old who exhibits symptoms of autism (he doesn't speak and feels no emotion, but is a gifted painter). Benjamin undertakes the king's commission and works on the painting in a barn, where he befriends Valerie, a talking pig who brings Benjamin out of his autistic shell. He wants to paint his porcine best friend into the scene, but fears he can't because pigs don't appear in the biblical story. The ending is the saddest thing since Old Yeller. (Nov.)

Perry's latest short Christmas novel is a well-written if unsurprising period mystery, set in late 19th-century England. Reverend Dominic Corde and his wife, Clarice, are at a turning point in their lives; a chance opportunity has given Dominic the temporary position as vicar of a small village in Oxfordshire, substituting for the incumbent, Reverend Wynter. Their hopes that the position might become permanent are both enhanced and threatened when Clarice discovers Wynter's murdered corpse in the cellar. The resolution is not particularly complicated, but Perry does a nice job of weaving in themes of forgiveness and redemption without being heavy-handed. (Dec.)