Fiction Reviews: Week of 10/23/2006

Being away from home is a transformative experience for the women in this second collection by Iowa Short Fiction Award–winner Shomer (for Imaginary Men); 10 stories travel from Sweetheart, Fla., to Dharamsala, India, and range from the fantastical to the mundane. In the strongest story, "Fill in the Blank," 20-year-old Florida transplant Garland McKenney and her roommate, Linda, rob a Manhattan physical therapy office. The guilt weighs heavier on Linda, but it is Garland's confused moral compass that resonates. "Sweethearts," about Garland's high school affair with the local sheriff, explores the roots of Garland's criminal tendencies. Shomer has a knack for ferreting out the disappointment of aging, as in the title story, in which Frieda realizes she resents the company of her recently retired husband. Less accomplished are Shomer's stabs at out-there material. In the awkward and opening story, "Chosen," Iris, a speech therapist, discovers she is a Buddhist saint, while "Laws of Nature" features a woman who ages in reverse, à la Max Tivoli. The collection will appeal to Shomer's readership, but will do little to attract new eyes. (Apr.)

Olmstead's new work (after Stay Here with Me) is a convulsive, bloody Civil War tale that tracks a boy's search for his father on the battlefield at Gettysburg. At 14, Robey Childs is on the cusp of manhood when he sets off from the family farm at his mother's behest to find his soldier father and bring him home. A sympathetic farmer loans Robey an uncommonly beautiful and sturdy black horse. On the road, Robey passes carts carrying the maimed and dead, and bands of Native Americans and runaway slaves. A chain of horrific trials begins for Robey when a man dressed as a woman shoots him and steals the horse. He's taken prisoner as a suspected spy, witnesses a girl's rape and is caught up in a carnage-drenched raid. However, he survives the attack, is reunited with the stolen horse and sets out again, days later finding his father on the battlefield, mortally wounded. Robey can't save his father, but he can try to save the raped girl, Rachel, from further violence. His return home and his testimony to what he saw forms a powerful, redemptive narrative. (Apr.)

LeClaire's eighth novel (Entering Normal; Leaving Eden) centers on troubled Jessie Long, a cancer survivor who has passed the crucial five-year all-clear mark. Still unsettled and unattached at 32 with a self-proclaimed habit of looking for love in the wrong places, Jessie moves to her family's empty cottage on Cape Cod where she hopes to find some equilibrium while indulging in her side business—making jewelry. In the first of a series of increasingly destructive decisions, Jessie hides her medical history and volunteers to be a hospice worker. She is assigned to Luke Ryder, a 45-year-old commercial fisherman in the last stages of pancreatic cancer. Jessie falls in love before she ever meets with Luke, on the basis of a few candid photos, and as her need for love grows stronger and clouds her judgments, Luke inches ever closer to death. After Luke dies of a painkiller overdose, Jessie is hauled into court to face charges of assisting in his suicide. LeClaire might have brought some insight and complexity to her narrative during the trial, but instead it putters along. Jessie's epilogue epiphany, similarly, fails to convince. (Mar.)

Esther, a WWII-era Welsh barmaid, finds her father—a fiercely nationalistic, anti-English shepherd—provincial; she daydreams that she'll elope to London with her secret sweetheart, an English soldier. In short order, Esther is raped by her boyfriend, and her Welsh village is turned into a dumping ground for German prisoners. Meanwhile, Karsten, a German POW who is mortified that he'd ordered his men to surrender, believes that only by escaping can he find redemption. Davies (Equal Love) uses the familiar tensions of WWII Britain to nice ensemble effect: among the more nuanced secondary characters is a British captain who is the son of a German-Jewish WWI hero—the man's father had always considered himself a Lutheran until the Nazi ascension forced him to flee Germany. As Esther begins to question her own allegiances, Karsten comes into her orbit. What makes this first novel by an award-winning short-storyteller an intriguing read isn't the plot—which doesn't quite go anywhere—but the beautifully realized characters, who learn that life is a jumble of difficult compromises best confronted with eyes wide open. (Feb. 12)

When Dana and Hugh Clarke's baby is born into their wealthy, white New England seaside community, the baby's unmistakably African-American features puzzle her thoroughly Anglo-looking parents. Hugh's family pedigree extends back to the Mayflower, and his historian father has made a career of tracing the esteemed Clarke family genealogy, which does not include African-Americans. Dana's mother died when Dana was a child, and Dana never knew her father: she matter-of-factly figures that baby Lizzie's features must hark back to her little-known past. Hugh, a lawyer who has always passionately defended his minority clients, finds his liberal beliefs don't run very deep and demands a paternity test to rule out the possibility of infidelity. By the time the Clarkes have uncovered the tangled roots of their family trees, more than one skeleton has been unearthed, and the couple's relationship—not to mention their family loyalty—has been severely tested. Delinsky (Looking for Peyton Place) smoothly challenges characters and readers alike to confront their hidden hypocrisies. Although the dialogue about race at times seems staged and rarely delves beyond a surface level, and although near-perfect Dana and her knitting circle are too idealized to be believable, Delinsky gets the political and personal dynamics right. (Feb.)

In the late 1970s, twin brothers LaMamo and Mamo Lamang dream of leaving their Nigerian village to find fame and fortune. When they're 16, LaMamo runs away and joins various rebel factions fighting in West Africa, while his sickly brother, Mamo, stays behind with their belligerent father (their mother died in childbirth) and becomes a brilliant student. LaMamo's occasional letters let Mamo live vicariously but, more importantly, lets Habila (Waiting for an Angel) reinforce his work's central message—that the biographies of ordinary individuals provide the real stuff of history. As Mamo becomes the history teacher at a local school, LaMamo actually lives history, meeting Charles Taylor and witnessing the anarchic chaos of West Africa in the 1980s and '90s. Mamo embarks on a career as a chronicler of "biographical history" (modeled on Plutarch's Parallel Lives), beginning with a history of his village and his culture. Like his wayward brother, Mamo witnesses events that force him to examine his conscience. Habila fleshes out the novel with memorable secondary characters—a thuggish cousin, a damaged idealist love interest, an especially Machiavellian bureaucrat. The fresh, brilliant result contrasts cultural traditions with contemporary bureaucracy and reimagines a country through the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of its citizens. (Feb.)

Math whiz Anthony Burden has anonymous alley sex at the height of the London blitz, which produces Saul Cogan, an eventual jaded-idealist-turned-human-trafficker. The botched childhood abduction of Stacey Chavez—eventually an epileptic, anorexic supermodel—obliquely links the three, as does a gift encyclopedia set rigged with a bomb to assassinate a Mozambique revolutionary. That much one is able to confirm in Ings's deceptively readable, dizzyingly constructed novel: the sentences are conventional, but the things they describe are not, and abrupt shifts in time and setting (Paris; London; Mozambique; Cape Canaveral, Fla.; etc.) are even more jarring. Through it all, Anthony struggles with madness, marriage and sexual identity; Stacey battles illness and sudden stardom; and Saul drifts through the world as "a ghost in the globalized machine." Ings, a London-based science fiction novelist, offers further clues to their common story in the form of adventurer Nick Jinks, who haunts the three like Zelig. This Pynchon-on-speed romp relies heavily on coincidence and trivia—Anthony and Stacey seem to be crushed by the weight of history, self-destruction and destiny, while antiheroes Nick and Saul skirt history's edges—yet Ings's mad, mad world is held together to the very last page by humor, vivid depictions and a deeply compelling emotional core. (Feb.)

Set in a fictional South American nation where guerrillas have long clashed with the government, Alarcón's ambitious first novel (after the story collection War by Candlelight) follows a trio of characters upended by civil strife. Norma, whose husband, Rey, disappeared 10 years ago after the end of a civil war, hosts popular radio show Lost City Radio, which reconnects callers with their missing loved ones. (She quietly entertains the notion that the job will also reunite her with her missing husband.) So when an 11-year-old orphan, Victor, shows up at the radio station with a list of his distant village's "lost people," the station plans a special show dedicated to his case and cranks up its promotional machine. Norma, meanwhile, notices a name on the list that's an alias her husband used to use, prompting her to resume her quest to find him. She and Victor travel to Victor's home village, where local teacher Manau reveals to Norma what she's long feared—and more. Though the mystery Alarcón makes of the identity of Victor's father isn't particularly mysterious, this misstep is overshadowed by Alarcón's successful and nimbly handled portrayal of war's lingering consequences. (Feb.)

When an abandoned toddler appears on the shore of her Caribbean island home, Chastity Theresa Lambkin, aka "Calamity," becomes a foster mother in her 50s. Years previously, a one time, teenage experiment with a best friend unsure of his sexuality resulted in daughter Ifeoma. As Calamity, who narrates, now freely admits, Ifeoma bore the brunt of Calamity's immaturity, and their relationship still suffers for it. As Calamity relates all of this, things that have been missing for years inexplicably reappear, including an entire cashew tree orchard from Calamity's childhood that shows up in her backyard overnight. It could be island magic, or something much more prosaic. The rescued little boy's origins do have some genuinely magical elements (Calamity names him "Agway" after his foreign-sounding laughter), and Hopkinson's take on "sea people" and how they came to be adds depth and enchantment. Agway's presence, however, ratchets up the tension between Calamity and Ifeoma (who has a lovely son of her own, Stanley). Calamity proves emotionally adroit and winningly frank in a variety of situations (the men in her life have a preponderance of issues), and Hopkinson (The Salt Roads) gives her story a sassy, loving touch. (Feb.)

Three Chinese-American 20-somethings pursue careers and Mr. Right in ultracompetitive New York City in Yu and Kan's fizzy debut. Alex, Lin and M.J. have been friends since childhood, and, as the novel opens, none is married, and each is feeling pressure from her immigrant family to move to the next stage in life. The women's desires, predictably, differ from their parents'. M.J., the trio's standout, dreams of being an on-air sports broadcaster (like author Yu), but finds her efforts to join the all-white-male club dispiriting. Alex, a lawyer (like author Kan), and Lin, a stockbroker, are financially successful, but are sick of being treated in their male-dominated fields as Asian arm candy. These shared struggles make the women's battles understandable to each other, but the authors, while providing a nifty insider's guide to Chinese shopping and restaurants, do little more than scratch the psychological surface of their characters. There's fun to be had, however, gallivanting from booze-drenched corporate parties to Chinatown fortune-tellers. (Feb)

A subtle meditation on sex and politics in pre-statehood Israel, this slim novel expands on the legend that a young Golda Meir had an affair with Albert Pharaon, the heir to a Palestinian fortune. Albert is sophisticated and elegant, but his social circle's mercenary hypocrisy drives him to leave his family in Beirut for a solitary life in Haifa. Golda Myerson, meanwhile, is a young Russian Jewish woman who arrives in Israel by way of Milwaukee and throws herself into kibbutz life and Zionist politics. When the two meet at a party given by the British High Commissioner, a spiritual and physical attraction is awakened that exists outside the realm of politics and idealism. At times subtle and sexy, at times too political, Nassib's novel provides an easily digestible (if sometimes purple) thumbnail sketch of the milieu of 1920s Palestine. (Feb.)

Sara Gomez Morales, 53, moves from Madrid to an Andalusian resort town to buy a house on a beach and do nothing. Her new neighbors include Juan Olmedo, a 40-year-old orthopedic surgeon fleeing Madrid for his own reasons. Flashbacks, which abound from early on, reveal that Sara was born poor in Madrid, but was raised by her rich godmother. As a young woman, Sara falls in love with and becomes pregnant by the married Vicente Gonzalez de Sandoval, a wealthy socialist, but she loses the child, and refuses to marry him when he divorces his wife. Years later, he helps her defraud her godmother of millions. Meanwhile, Juan's flashbacks center on his obsessive love for his deceased sister-in-law, Charo, and his sibling rivalry with his deceased brother, Damian. In the present, there's Maribel, the poorly educated cleaning woman both Sara and Juan look down upon (even as she becomes Sara's friend and Juan's lover), as well as Juan's 10-year-old niece, Tamara, and profoundly retarded brother, Alfonso. Grandes (The Ages of Lulú) sets it all up fascinatingly, but Sara's past seems disconnected from who she is today, and sloppy writing (or translation) obscures the rest. (Feb.)

It's the early '90s, and an unnamed Midwestern aspiring writer, recently graduated, moves into an East Village apartment with three roommates: his actor younger brother, Feick (promptly swept out of his life by artistic success); his best friend, Glenwood (a skinny, self-loathing Columbia Business School student); and Burton Loach, a vagrant type just as happy to watch the fan blades as TV. The narrator's superiors at Van Von Donnell Publishing (where he has a pittance-paying, bottom-rung job) are waspy, shallow, depraved, and smugly articulate. In short chapters, YA novelist (Under the Wolf, Under the Dog) and playwright (Red Light Winter) Rapp lets the office satire rip, particularly of the boss with a predilection for farting (who takes a shine to him as prospective son-in-law material) and the children's book illustrator who delivers personalized erotic portraits on napkins to co-workers. In between novel writing, calls home to his frenzied mother and attractions to Ivy League office girls (as well as the physically flawless but destructive boss's daughter), he falls for aspiring actress Basha, a Polish émigré he has seen twice on the subway platform before running into her a third fateful time. This sweet, stagy bildungsroman never departs familiar territory, but it has lots of winning set pieces. (Jan.)

Bestseller Unger's sensational second thriller (after Beautiful Lies) puts her in the same league as such genre masters as Peter Straub and Peter Abrahams. From the cryptic opening section, which ends with a New York Times reporter finding her husband bleeding to death, Unger grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. Meanwhile, the FBI informs Ridley Jones, a magazine writer, that her late uncle, Max Smiley (who's really her biological father), is still alive and being sought by assorted international players on all sides of the law. Rapidly finding that little in her life is what it seems, Jones is horrified to be confronted with evidence indicating that Smiley is a misogynistic monster of the first order, who may have played a role in the murder of the reporter's husband. Unger's gifts for dialogue and pacing set this far above the standard novel of suspense and will leave many anxiously awaiting her third book. 10-city author tour. (Jan.)

Swerling sets her enthralling follow-up to City of Dreams against the backdrop of the War of 1812, when New Yorkers are suffering the dire economic effects of a British blockade of American ports, and talk of secession is rife. In Manhattan, the wealthy and unscrupulous trader Gornt Blakeman is the leader of the secessionist schemers. Blakeman's nemesis, and Swerling's larger-than-life hero, is surgeon and patriot Joyful Patrick Turner. Having lost a hand to a British cannonball earlier in the war, Joyful returns to Manhattan to start over as a "Canton trader." When Blakeman tries to rally New Yorkers to secede and kidnaps Joyful's sweetheart, the comely and headstrong Manon Vionne, Joyful races to expose Blakeman's treachery and rescue Manon from his clutches. Swerling's swashbuckling tale brings old Manhattan vividly to life, throbbing with restless energy and populated with a diverse and intriguing cast of characters: both real (John Jacob Astor) and richly imagined. Fans of historical fiction and those interested in the early history of Manhattan will enjoy this evocative and entertaining saga. (Jan.)

Best known as the coauthor (with Douglas Preston) of such bestselling thrillers as Dance of Death, Child delivers a well-crafted and literate science fiction thriller, his third solo effort (after 2004's Death Match). Peter Crane, a former naval doctor, faces the challenge of his career when he investigates a mysterious illness that has broken out on a North Atlantic oil rig. Sworn to secrecy, Crane is transported from the rig to an amazing undersea habitat run by the military that's apparently pursuing evidence that Atlantis exists. Psychotic episodes among the scientific staff as well as the activities of a saboteur that threatens the project's safety keep Crane busy, even as some of the staff members confront him with concerns that exploring the Earth's core could be fatal to all life on earth. Crisp writing energizes a familiar plot, which builds to an unsettling climax with echoes of Child and Preston's The Ice Limit. Author tour. (Jan.)

Though Jimi doesn't make an appearance in this near-future satire, Sandlin (Skipped Parts; Sorrow Floats) has fun with his surviving fans. The year is 2022 (the year Jimi would've turned 80), and strait-laced retiree Guy Fontaine, at his daughter's behest, moves into the Mission Pescadero nursing home, where aged hippies, former radicals and random California nutjobs refuse to give up their sex, drugs and rock and roll. Guy is stricken with an acute case of culture shock, but gets over it with the help of a few friendly residents who aren't living in a perpetual summer of love. But just as Guy is getting into the scene, the residents take control of the facility to protest the lack of respect they receive from their families, doctors and the home's administrators. Though not all of the humor works across generations (chants of "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. AARP is gonna win"), most does, and the action, thankfully, is far from bingo night and crafts hour. (Jan.)

Set in A.D. 878, Cornwell's splendid third Saxon novel (after The Pale Horseman and The Last Kingdom) chronicles the adventures of 21-year-old Saxon warrior Uhtred of Bebbanburg, who believes "my swords could win me the whole world." Uhtred, who despite his Danish upbringing supported King Alfred of Wessex in the fight against the Danes in The Pale Horseman, helps free Guthred, an enslaved Dane, who proclaims himself king of Northumbria. "Fate is inexorable," Uhtred constantly bemoans as he attempts to destroy such enemies as Kjartan the Cruel, Sven the One-Eyed and Ælfric (Uhtred's thief of an uncle) and woos his beloved Gisela, Guthred's Valkyrie-like sister. Uhtred must overcome many challenges, notably King Guthred's shocking betrayal that leads to Uhtred's spending two years as a shipboard slave. Cornwell, best known for his Sharpe series (Sharpe's Battle, etc.), breathes life into ancient history with disarming ease, peppering it with humor and even innocence. (Jan.)

British naval officer Martin Jerrold missed the Battle of Trafalgar (drunk in his ship's hold in The Blighted Cliffs) and let a prisoner escape during his command of a prison ship (in Chains of Albion). For his third outing, Jerrold, who narrates with speed and humor, is pressed into service by British spies. From a courier, the spies have stolen a letter they suspect concerns conspiracy—one that could draw Britain and the newly birthed U.S. into war. Jerrold agrees to deliver the letter, infiltrate the conspiracy and find a way to frustrate the scheme. Joined by an enigmatic and beautiful young woman he meets on the transatlantic crossing, Jerrold plunges "headlong into the American wilderness" in September of 1806. The purloined letter leads Jerrold to an island in the Ohio River and former American vice president Aaron Burr, who hopes to revive his fortunes by invading Mexico and forging "a new empire on America's border" with the help of English benefactors. As Burr's expedition floats down the Mississippi toward New Orleans, Jerrold races to stop Burr's delusional scheme and prevent a devastating conflict between England and the U.S. Thomas surrounds Jerrold with a delightful cast of rogues, fictional and otherwise, and Jerrold once again proves an eminently likable, disarmingly fallible swashbuckler. (Jan.)

Full of imaginative plotting touches, Deutermann's fast-paced sequel to his acclaimed 2005 suspense novel, The Cat Dancers, finds Cam Richter, formerly a lieutenant with the Manceford County, N.C., sheriff's office, now doing less stressful work as the head of a PI firm staffed with other ex-cops. Park ranger Mary Ellen Goode, Richter's more-than-colleague who was severely traumatized in their last joint inquiry, reaches out to him for help after a probationary ranger is raped and left for dead in a Smoky Mountains national park. Richter's inquiries soon reveal that the crime was tangentially related to a much bigger criminal conspiracy, possibly centered on methamphetamine sales orchestrated by a figure out of a Grimm's fairy tale, the evil Grinny Creigh, and her incestuous clan. The author's impressive ability to bring the remote Appalachian region to life bodes well for the health of this series. (Jan.)

Narrated with verve and élan, Berlinski's sly second thriller flirts more with romance than danger. During the hot summer of 2003, a Paris-based American novelist named Claire Berlinksi gets into an online affair with a Persian archeologist who may be a spy. According to the preface, something similar happened to the author. Arsalan (aka "the Lion"), who lives in Isfahan, Iran, admires the real author's debut about a female CIA trainee, Loose Lips (2003), and is sure Claire has actual CIA ties. At Arsalan's suggestion, Claire swaps apartments with a colleague of his in Istanbul, Turkey. There Claire meets a cheerful if less than competent CIA agent, Sally, who asks her help in getting to Arsalan. Claire and the zany supporting cast make this tale of thwarted intimacy—as overseen by the gimlet eye of the World Wide Web (and CIA)—an entertaining example of what Claire calls the tantalizing "intersection between what you write and the truth." Keen social commentary on Paris and Istanbul adds to the fun. Berlinski is also the author of Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too. (Jan.)

Marx's unnamed protagonist, a Baltimore native turned Cambridge University graduate student, is struggling with her thesis on West Indian immigration when she meets Eugene Obello, fresh from Princeton and at Cambridge on a philosophy teaching fellowship. Though he's self-absorbed, distracted and cheesy ("I will always feel a great deal of agape toward you, O my everlasting," he tells the narrator) she falls for him. But he soon leaves her for the frequently ill Margaret, and the narrator is once again alone with her incomplete thesis. She quits school, returns to the states and lands a writing gig at a Saturday Night Live–type show, but Eugene lingers in her mind. He, of course, resurfaces in New York, and the two embark on an affair. (He has since married Margaret.) Marx, a former SNL writer and current New Yorker contributor, undermines her main source of tension—the narrator's obsession with Eugene—by failing to present Eugene as anything more than a brainy fop, and though his demise is fitting, it'll have E.M. Forster fans crying foul. (Jan.)

McKelden dispatches the goddess of love to meddle in the affairs of lovelorn 21st-century mortals in her charming if formulaic debut. As punishment for being unfaithful to her husband, Greek goddess Venus has been demoted to the role of "fairy godmother" by her irate father, Zeus. The latest recipient of Venus's "Extreme Love Life Makeover" is Rachel Greer, whose "Loser List" of cheating, lying ex-boyfriends has caused her to swear off dating. Venus resorts to brute force, blackmail and tips from Cosmo to tempt Rachel into falling for "gorgeous, hunky" firefighter Luke Stanton. Told from the alternating viewpoints of Venus and Rachel, the story puts a fresh spin on the classic fairy godmother story, and Venus—catty and generous with her barbed wit—is cut from different cloth than the standard well-behaved fairy. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the book's mere mortals, who fit nicely into chick lit archetypes (stubborn, wounded Rachel; sassy best friend Hannah; and unflaggingly and inexplicably devoted Luke). Though this detracts from the creative premise, McKelden's sharp sense of humor pulls plenty of weight. (Jan.)

Hayes (1911–1985) was a novelist (My Face for the World to See), screenwriter (The Bicycle Thief; Clash by Night) and songwriter ("The Ballad of Joe Hill"). This grim novel of WWII, first published in 1949, opens on the Pulcini family of Rome's Via Flaminia, reduced to poverty after five years of war. They survive by converting their large apartment into a boardinghouse and nightly cafe for occupying American soldiers: bitter, insomniac "Mamma" Adele procures girls for the soldiers, while her vague, ineffectual husband, Ugo, and their seethingly hostile partisan son, Antonio, look on (in indifference and disgust, respectively). Through a departing tenant, lonely American private Robert Guarda arranges live at the Pulcini's with Lisa Costa, an young, blonde Italian woman who hopes to emigrate—and whom Robert has never met. They're not married, but allow everyone to assume they are. Robert is bewildered by Italian hostility for the U.S., while Lisa feels increasingly cheapened and angry at his sense of entitlement over her vanquished country. In the end, their arrangement ("She was hungry, I was lonely") results in a sinking, hopeless shame. Hayes musters authentic detail and masterly control in this still-crackling melodrama. (Jan.)

In Diamond's sparkling debut, five determined L.A. women—Polly, Kat, Dinah, Justine and Charlotte—set out to avenge the murder of their friend, Ginger, a society matron turned high-class call girl, whose body is found outside the Palatine Club's men's only country compound after a paid assignation turns deadly. Getting justice for Ginger means focusing on those responsible for the crime and coverup: L. Walker "Loose" Cannon, a state senator high on "family values"; Mitchell Reinhart, a high-profile lawyer known as "Mr. Divorce"; and Milo Till, a brilliant real estate developer and financial whiz. The avengers don't wear capes or use supernatural powers to deliver justice, relying instead on individual expertise in such fields as art, investing, law and medicine as well as good old chick chutzpah. Careful research, clever plotting and credible characters enhance this intelligent vengeance quest. (Jan.)

Dezenhall's recurring narrator, Jonah Eastman (last seen in 2005's Turnpike Flameout), has risen from his Jersey mob upbringing through the pollster ranks and is now President James Lee Truitt's press secretary during a time of upheaval: it's 2005, and the war on terror rages (a suicide bomber attacks a Phillies game), though the war in Iraq is noticeably absent. After a string of irreverent comments about terrorism, Jonah is given the boot, and as he's packing up his office, his high school love, Claudine Polk, asks for his help in saving her family's Tennessee plantation. Jonah, propelled by a looming midlife crisis, launches a massive spin campaign involving the president, political focus groups, thousands of Civil War re-enactors, the National Guard and the Air Force in order to help Claudine, though her motives for seeking him out become suspect. The characters tend toward stereotype—there's a Southern belle, a Southern eccentric, a good ol' boy and a good-humored-and-wise black servant—and the writing is littered with pop culture references that aren't always accurate. Jonah's absurd campaign will keep readers piqued, but the backstory—the mob, Freemasons and Khe Sanh figure in—is unnecessarily convoluted. (Jan.)

A coming-of-age effort by debut novelist Goldstein imagines the fraught relationship between a world-famous violinist and her high-strung daughter. Natasha ("Tasha") Darsky is the daughter of art gallery owners in New York City, riding high the vanguard of modern art. Her remarkable gift at playing the violin provides the crux for her schooling, and once dispatched to Harvard, she comes under the tutelage of imperious music professor Robert Masterson, who encourages Tasha to experiment in composition. She falls in love with Jean Paul Boumedienne, Masterson's brilliant, aristocratic star pupil, whose theory of Sublimated Tonality (that is, to "spin chaos into control") is revolutionary and sexy. Stifled by his brilliance after two years together, Tasha leaves him to launch her performance career, and her fling with Polish filmmaker Aleksander Pasek yields her daughter, Alex, whom Aleksander wants nothing to do with. Alex grows into a talented musician, and her experiences at an Indiana conservatory provide a too-pat sense of closure. Goldstein's novel is packed with the authentic detail of a musician's life; however, her workaday prose does little to bring life to her characters. (Jan.)

An amateur ghost-hunting team takes on a professional-grade haunting in this pale paranormal novel by the author of Bollywood Confidential and Goddess for Hire. Former stockbroker Scott Wilder recruits Indian-American psychic Anjali Kumar for his San Francisco ghost-hunting firm, the Cold Spot. Soon, the pair picks up the telekinetic drifter Coulter Marshall, whose golden-boy looks get more ink than his talents. The trio lands jobs removing spirits from expensive homes, but Singh's ghosts aren't scary in the least; they're just a pretext for the heroes to zip around the Bay Area and for Scott's ex-girlfriend, parapsychologist Vivica Bates, to re-enter the picture with her own paranormal investigation team. By the time the teams go head-to-head at a military base to impress the Department of Defense by exorcising the spirit of a tortured soldier, the mission is less important than the goofy antics that ensue. The spooky moments are brief, but the book's unlikely heroes make for pleasant company. (Jan.)

Belmond gets her story off to an appealing start by tapping into the near-universal fantasy of a distant, elderly relative leaving behind a pile of loot. Penny Nichols (yes, she hates her silly name) is toiling as a low-paid historical researcher on film sets when she learns her Great-aunt Penelope—whom she met only once—has died and left her, well, something. Her parents dispatch her to London for the reading of the will, where she is reintroduced to her dashing cousin Jeremy. Penny gets left the contents of a garage adjoining her aunt's villa in the south of France and travels there with Jeremy to discover it contains a rare antique car. It doesn't take long for the family to split into factions competing for greater shares of the estate, which provides the narrative with an oversize share of twists and turns, especially concerning Jeremy's true parentage. It's evident from the moment of Penny and Jeremy's first encounter as adults that they will end up together, and the thin obstacles the author places between them quickly become tedious. Luckily, Belmond's spirited heroine is likable enough to guide readers through the wobbly plot. (Jan.)

Since leaving hometown L.A., Jacquelyn "Jacqs" Sanchez graduated from Berkeley, married and divorced a gringo and is now working as the personal assistant to the San Francisco mayor's wife. Jacqs hopes to parlay this gig into a job in politics, but a series of unsuitable men, the lingering pain of her divorce and her friends' romantic crises distract her. Candela is an engaging writer, particularly when she manages to make a family full of depressives seem funny, but nothing much happens—characters appear, display their quirk and disappear—and Jacqs, who forever regrets not having gone to law school, is unconvincingly stuck wondering what she should do with her life. With its mildly degrading personal assistantship and frequent fashion name-drops, Candela's debut novel skirts Prada territory, but the boss is fairly benign, and a series of who-slept-with-whom nonmysteries overtake the "awful boss" narrative. The book has its fun moments, but not enough punch to connect them. (Dec.)

Set in Florence in 1300, Leoni's absorbing historical features Italy's premier poet, Dante Alighieri as sleuth. Master mosaicist Ambrogio, who was at work in a ruined church, is found suffocated and disfigured—his head encased in a layer of caustic quicklime. Dante, plagued with migraines, resentful of Boniface VIII's attempts to consolidate papal power and generally irascible throughout, embarks on a solo investigation. At a seedy tavern, Dante encounters a group of intellectuals known as the Third Heaven, who meet secretly to discuss art and be entertained by an exotic dancer, Antilia. Despite the distraction of the alluring Antilia, Dante conceives intriguing theories of how victims attract killers and how illness serves as punishment for sin. Leoni's first publication in English is a well-researched labyrinth of medieval Italian history and politics. (Feb.)

The taxidermist of the title of Di Fulvio's grim but often subtly amusing first crime novel, published in Italy in 2000 and shortlisted for the European Crime Writing Prize, relishes watching creatures die. His victims also include humans. The first policeman to realize what's going on when a series of mutilated bodies start to show up in and around a city that sounds a lot like Genoa is Chief Insp. Giacomo Amaldi, in his own depressed way as strange a character as the killer. As a garbage strike turns the city into an evil-smelling symbol of modern life, Di Fulvio deftly walks both sides of the noir line by letting us in on the joke—adding more and more problems to Amaldi's load, but always transcending dreary genre parody with a beautifully written phrase or paragraph. (Jan.)

Mystery maven Penzler offers a unique anthology of 19 classic mystery and puzzle stories whose appeal, paradoxically, derives from their ambiguous endings. Penzler complements the epitome of the unresolved riddle tale—Frank Stockton's "The Lady, or The Tiger?"—with the author's lesser known but similarly vexing "The Discourager of Hesitancy," a tale of a dangerously arranged marriage. The volume's highlights, however, come from the best known and least known authors—Ray Bradbury and Peter Godfrey. Bradbury's exceptional gifts of subtle suggestion and suspense are on full display in two tales of a serial killer plaguing a quiet Illinois community, "The Whole Town's Sleeping" and its enigmatic sequel, "At Midnight, in the Month of June." Godfrey, an undeservedly obscure South African writer, contributes the superb, psychologically twisted "The Lady and the Dragon," about a photographer overcome by a powerful obsession. Additional compelling conundrums come from such notables as Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, Stanley Ellin and Aldous Huxley. (Dec.)

In Arruda's spunky second throwback adventure to feature Jade del Cameron (after 2006's Mark of the Lion), the former WWI ambulance driver travels to British East Africa in 1920, to photograph and write about elephants. En route to an elephant sanctuary in remote Mount Marsabit—accompanied by her friend Beverly; Bev's husband, Lord Avery Dunbury; and a 12-year-old Kikuyu boy, Jelani, whom Jade is mentoring—Jade discovers the corpses of four elephants, slain for ivory, and the dead King's African Rifle soldier who evidently tried to stop the poachers. Jade swears to find the killers. Are hostile Abyssinian raiders to blame, or could it be safari leader Harry Hascombe, who's leading a suspicious group of German tourists? Handsome American pilot Sam Featherstone provides romantic interest. The resilient Jade will charm readers as she asserts her independence in rugged Africa. (Dec.)

At the start of Ballard's delightful sixth cozy (after 2005's Too Late for Angels), Lucy Nan Pilgrim is teaching a "living history" course at the local women's college in Stone's Throw, S.C., when one of the coeds disappears. While on an outing with her students, Lucy Nan finds the corpse of the missing girl. She later learns that over the past decade, other students have died under strange circumstances, each victim the recipient of a letter quoting Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. The murder of the school's handyman, Londus Clack, complicates the case even further, but Lucy Nan, with the help of Augusta Goodnight, her guardian angel, roots out the snake in the garden. As always, Ballard writes with warmth and sincerity, infusing her characters and setting with considerable charm. (Dec.)

In Sturman's witty third mystery about stylish, hardworking Manhattanite Rachel Benjamin (after 2005's The Jinx), the investment banker is on partner track both with her live-in boyfriend, Peter, and her Wall Street firm, where she's toiling on a risky leveraged buyout. But her slave-driver boss, Glenn Gallagher, makes her life hell, and when she begins receiving odd anonymous e-mails warning against the buyout, she wonders about his business ethics. Gallagher makes money but not so many friends—his abused employees resent him, as does his ex-wife, Naomi. But when he's murdered, Rachel becomes a chief suspect, and she must rely on her friends to help her evade police and her ingenuity to clear her name—and avoid becoming the next victim. (Dec.)

In this imaginative, deftly plotted fantasy from Friedman (The Wilding), the first of a new trilogy, a female witch's magic comes at a terrible cost: her own finite life force, which drains away with each spell. Nearly immortal male Magisters, on the other hand, tap a more murderous fuel for their power. No woman has ever found its source, until young Kamala, hardened by life as a child whore, insists on an apprenticeship and secretly becomes an unheard-of female Magister. Meanwhile, Prince Andovan, third son of the avaricious King Danton, is expiring from the baffling Wasting disease, which can only be caused by a Magister. When the enraged king banishes his right-hand Magister, the mysterious and sinister Kostas takes his place, much to the dismay of Andovan's benevolent mother, Queen Gwenofar. As the kingdom threatens to spiral toward a dark age, Kamala and Andovan find their fates entwined. Readers will eagerly await the next installment. (Jan.)

Huston's stylish sophomore outing for hard-boiled vampire detective Joe Pitt maintains the high quality of its predecessor, Already Dead (2005). When a fellow bloodsucker who seems revved up on drugs picks a bar fight with Pitt, the detective discovers that a new drug has hit the street, one strong enough to cut through the vampire virus and make its users do unpredictable things, things that could bring unwelcome exposure to New York's vampire community. Word has it that the drug, "anathema," comes from suppliers in Harlem. The leader of the Society Clan of vampires hires Pitt to investigate uptown, but the all-black vampire clan called the Hood, run by one DJ Grave Digga, has other plans in mind for the rogue detective. Meanwhile, Pitt's HIV-positive girlfriend Evie, who's struggling with a new round of medication, is beginning to lose patience with Pitt's secrecy and disappearances. Indeed, the doomed love story at the heart of Huston's action-filled epic is what truly makes this a noir novel, and the undead microcosm of society he creates is both surprisingly relevant and entertaining. (Dec.)

With plenty of bravery and old-school marine derring-do, the second novel (after 2005's Midshipwizard Halcyon Blithe) in this unabashed homage to the Horatio Hornblower series continues to follow the career of the 16-year-old eponymous naval officer and wizard serving the Arcania Empire aboard a fabled dragonship. Now Blithe finds himself tested by a jealous rival officer, Elan Swordson, and facing down the vicious Maleen enemy. Fortunately, Blithe's innate decency and honor earns him the loyalty of nearly everyone he serves with. A chance meeting at a ball also introduces a potential love interest, the Lady Teagan Delesanor, whose interest in taking a drop of Blithe's blood for a magical amulet will no doubt lead to major complications later in the series. Though suited for YA audiences, this cheerful fantasy adventure will also entertain adults who like their magical heroics burnished with a spot of navy spit-and-polish. (Dec.)

Butcher deftly mixes military fantasy and political intrigue in the rollicking third Codex Alera book (after 2005's Academ's Fury). Gaius Sextus, the First Lord of Alera, plants his nephew Tavi in a new legion, where Tavi can gather information on the rebellious High Lord of Kalare. Tavi, now a full-fledged Cursor, or spy, infiltrates the legion under the assumed identity of an officer, a station the green young man has not yet actually achieved. Treachery from a supposed ally opens the legion to attack from its bestial enemies, the Canim, incapacitating the captain and catapulting Tavi to the rank of the legion's commanding officer. Cut off from contact with the First Lord and with few seasoned officers to guide him, he must lead the troops in a defense of the Imperium against a horde of frenzied Canim warriors set on annihilating the Aleri people. Readers will cheer Tavi every step of the way. (Dec.)

Rucker cleverly pulls off a romantic comedy about mathematicians in love. Following 2004's Frek and the Elixir, this even zanier excursion into alternative versions of Berkeley, Calif., is set in university towns called Humelocke and Klownetown, full of quirky, charming life-forms human and otherwise and ruled by a god who's the female jellyfish-creator of Earth. All this seethes around Bela Kis; Bela's roommate, Paul Bridge; and Bela's girlfriend, Alma Ziff, who ping-pongs between them in a sometimes acute, sometimes obtuse love triangle. Bela and Paul struggle for their Ph.D.s under mad math genius Roland Haut by inventing a paracomputer "Gobubble" that predicts future events. While most of the mathematical flights may stun hapless mathophobes, Rucker's wild characters, off-the-wall situations and wicked political riffs prove that writing SF spoofs, like Bela's rock music avocation, "beats the hell out of publishing a math paper." (Dec.)

The five novellas in this slapdash mosaic anthology are loosely interconnected by the presence of Johnny Divine, a hoodoo man who materializes magically in each story to present lost travelers who accidentally stray onto the unmapped Brimstone Turnpike with knickknacks that alter their lives supernaturally. In Thomas F. Monteleone's "The Prime Time of Spenser Golding," a pair of eyeglasses given to an egotistical television newscaster allows him to see the "truth" behind his stories—whereupon he become a self-righteous blowhard of a reporter. In Michael Oliveri's "Warning Signs," a magic pendant bestowed on a woman in a troubled marriage warns her of menace from a predictable suspect. In the other stories, Divine's gifts stir up weird scientific experiments and skeletons in family closets. Burke (Taverns of the Dead) appears not to have specified to contributors whether Divine should be depicted as an agent of good or evil, with the result that his character flip-flops confusingly from story to story. His role in some of the tales is so superficial that readers may wonder if the stories wouldn't have worked better without his appearance. (Dec.)

Drake turns out another fine historical in this Victorian murder mystery/romance. In the final years of Queen Victoria's reign, a series of murders of outspoken antiroyalists is stirring up hostility toward the crown—not a matter of interest to many young ladies of the 1890s, but gently reared orphan Ally Grayson is a serious writer who takes the matter to heart. That gives her something in common with Mark Farrow, the nobleman she abruptly learns she's been betrothed to marry since childhood, and also with an intriguing highwayman who waylays her coach in the woods; both men are looking for the killer. Ally figures out soon enough that the highwayman and the nobleman are one and the same, but as Mark begins to fall in love with his surprising bride-to-be, he insists on excluding her from his dangerous investigation. But Ally has a mind of her own and is determined to use it, no matter how great the threat to her safety. Bestselling author Drake, the pseudonym used by Heather Graham for her numerous historicals, keeps Ally's relationship with her aunts and godparents playful, forming an intriguing contrast with the grim progress of the murder probe, while satisfying romantic progress and rising suspense keep the book running on all cylinders. (Dec.)

Stuffed with charm and zany characters, this frothy cozy from Donnelly delivers plenty of color but lacks the investigative oomph of its predecessors (You May Now Kill the Bride, etc.). This may be due to the preoccupation of Seattle wedding planner Carnegie Kincaid with her own upcoming nuptials, or it could be the promise she made to her fiancé, Aaron Gold, to keep her nose out of harm's way. Whatever the reason, Carnegie spends more time thinking about cakes, flowers and why Aaron won't set a date for their wedding than she does tracking down the creep who murdered a sports commentator at her latest high-profile fete. Carnegie's friend Boris has been tagged for the crime, but she knows that it must have been one of the other attendees—and her suspicion points toward the groom, a pro baseball player. Carnegie's list of suspects is short and her sleuthing methods—calling the party attendees, visiting the victim's ex—less than impressive. However, appearances by cake maker extraordinaire Juice, the boisterous Buckmeisters and Carnegie's no-nonsense friend Lily, among others, fill this void with a rowdy and largely diverting din. (Dec.)

In Markham's latest winning romance, rising actress Clara McCallum has just landed the part of her dreams, starring in a WWII film as a woman in love with a doomed soldier named Jed Landry. Unfortunately, the 29-year-old thespian has also just been diagnosed with breast cancer, sending her into a spiral of regret and melancholy. While filming, she finds herself magically transported back in time to 1941, scant days before Pearl Harbor, where she meets the real-life Landry on whom her character's love interest is based. Naturally, she feels an instantaneous connection to him. Fleeing back to modern New York, McCallum realizes the depths of her feelings for Landry and must reconcile her need for modern cancer treatments against her need for Landry—and to save him from his fated death at Normandy. The fantastic setup is balanced with convincing period details and strong characters, and the story's conclusion is unexpectedly real and refreshing. Though it's a Christmas novel, Markham happily refrains from over-using the holiday's bells and whistles, making this a subtle, effective and enjoyable entry into the growing field of time-travel romance. (Dec.)

In his latest, Masello lets loose a stable of thriller stereotypes and drives them hastily, but not unskillfully, through a sprawling adventure story complete with shady foreigners, ancient codes and terrible monsters. Sinister Iraqi zillionaire Mohammad Al-Kalli hires Beth Cox, a medieval manuscript expert, to translate and restore his family's thousand-year-old bestiary, a medieval compendium of mythical animals painstakingly copied out by monks, replete with Da Vinci Code–style hidden messages couched in dead languages. As it turns out, the creatures catalogued there—a mix of Jurassic Park–like prehistoric monsters—are all too real and held in Al-Kalli's secret menagerie, which Beth's paleontologist husband has been hired, also by Al-Kalli, to study.. Masello throws into the mix an Elmore Leonardesque lowlife who's trying to blackmail Al-Kalli, a 24-style terrorist plot to immolate Los Angeles, Tom Clancyesque weapons specs ("the Beretta... featured a delayed locking block system, which provided a faster cycle time and exceptional accuracy"), an eerily sleepless infant à la The Ring and a spooky original touch in the 9,000-year-old corpse dredged out of L.A.'s La Brea tar pits. Masello has a difficult time keeping together all these busy, dissonant subplots, but even if they don't mesh, each one is a well-wrought genre turn with colorful characters and punchy writing. The result is a diverting trip that may make you think twice before going back to the zoo. (Dec.)

This anthology gives many writers and artists the chance to have fun playing with Huddleston's initial concept: the adventures of young policeman Bobby Luck and his buddy, Decoy, a cute little shape-shifting green space alien. Bobby has to conceal his friend's existence from everyone else, especially hot rookie Tessa, while Decoy morphs into whatever Bobby needs, from an umbrella to a bulletproof vest. The basic situation turns out to be adaptable into many forms, pulled between the experiences of a big-city cop and a cute, naïve but very powerful extraterrestrial. Some stories that focus on Bobby doing his job can be serious under a humorous exterior, like "The Invisible Man" (by J. Torres and Travis Kotzbue) or "Mind Games" (by Jason Rand and Bob LeFevre). Others are simply humorous as they show Decoy's geekiness, such as "Red Rage" (by George Gladir and Travis Sengaus). Probably the best is the poignant "Giving Thanks" by I.M. Mater and Michael Lopez, which juxtaposes the family experiences of the two. Despite the lack of continuity due to so many hands working on different stories, the anthology holds together surprisingly well, showcasing a range of art styles, all comfortable within the concept. (Dec.)

This first collected edition of the seminal graphic novel published in serial form during the early 1980s brings a powerful psychedelic journey into print. Veitch (The Maximortal; Can't Get No) astounds with a heartfelt tale that is equal parts Herman Melville, consciousness expansion, environmental treatise and gripping sci-fi adventure replete with space battles and all manner of exotic extraterrestrials. The story follows cetologist John Isaac, who is shanghaied from a naval research mission, along with the submarine's commanding officer. The pair is thrust into the thick of mad Captain Rotwang's interstellar vendetta against Abraxas, a space-faring crimson leviathan who cost the captain his leg and, arguably, much of his sanity. As both earthmen are put through horrific physical alterations, Isaac discovers to his shock—and dawning fascination—that he may be the nexus between humanity and a great cosmic truth of staggering proportions. A lush and thought-proving narrative is seamlessly expressed through a script that veers between extremes of wide-eyed wonder and outright horror. The febrile illustrations disgust—Isaac loses his skin early on—without losing the essential humanity of this powerful tale. (Nov.)

This ludicrous comedy has the occasional flash of cleverness, buffered by reliance on an utterly silly plot device, and typical manga art. Tsuna is a nervous middle-schooler whose mother hires a tutor for him, Reborn, who looks like a doe-eyed baby in a suit and fedora. Reborn soon shoots Tsuna in the forehead with a magical bullet. Anyone hit with the bullet "faces his own death and is flooded with desperate regrets about what he's failed to accomplish." He is also given superhuman strength for a few moments in order to correct the regret, before reverting to a normal—hopefully better—person. The bullet turns out to be an age-old secret of the Italian Mafia—and Reborn is using it on Tsuna in order to raise him up to be the 10th boss of the Vongola family. In episodic fashion, Tsuna uses the powers of the "deathperation shot" to profess his love for a girl, prevent a fellow student from committing suicide and score a point in a kendo match. Adults will undoubtedly have a problem with a chapter about Russian roulette; most readers will find their nerves dulled by the constant gunshots, explosions and other action elements. (Nov.)

Matoh previously had a hit with Fake, a shonen-ai tale about two (male) New York City cops falling in love while solving cases. This older series has a similar setting without the boys' love elements. Rai, a boy with psychic powers, mails himself to a private detective's office. His crazy plot is for his violent-but-protective sister to find him and for the detective to help them find out who's trying to kill the sister. Rai's an impulsive young boy who can't be kept out of dangerous situations, and the sister and detective predictably flirt with each other. Just as the plots are based on typically familiar elements, the art is full of classic manga stylings: round heads of poufy hair, faces all eyes and mouths, and expressions and actions wildly exaggerated for immediate emotional and comedic effect. By the end of the first chapter, there's a new status quo with the sister the secretary and Rai and the PI teamed up fighting crime, giving the whole thing the feel of a mid-'80s TV show. The boys treat the sister as a bargaining chip in a variety of ways, a fate also shared by the only other female character. The over-the-top drawings are not for everyone, but the ever-growing shojo audience won't mind. (Oct.)

Basically a business textbook rendered in manga form, this volume relates in copious detail the true story of how two businessmen discovered the concept of the "convenience store" during a research trip through the United States in the late seventies. Enlisting a young storeowner who was willing to convert his family-owned liquor store into a potentially more profitable venture, the businessmen launch what becomes Japan's first 7-Eleven, the vanguard of a retail revolution. Filled with the minutiae of development, distribution, management concerns and corporate dynamics, the authors present this landmark moment in Japanese business with the histrionics and gravitas common to action and adventure manga, and the result is an earnest yet baffling attempt to give moving, operatic scale to a turgid example of the often deadly dull historical comics genre. Both scripting and artwork almost intentionally strive for flatness, which soon seems ironic. Business school students and those who appreciate Iron Chef–type over the top dramatics will receive opposite but equal forms of enjoyment from this volume. (Oct.)