Fiction Review: Week of 11/20/2006
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 11/20/2006
A Match Made on Madison
Dee Davis. St. Martin's Griffin, $12.95 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-35784-9
Davis, known for her romantic suspense novels, segues easily into chick lit, providing a glitzy read that's equal parts Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and "Page Six." For hotshot haute matchmaker Vanessa Carlson, marriage is "a binding contract that will yield dividends for both," and love, if it strikes, is a quaint bonus. On her own after apprenticing to matchmaking innovator Althea Sevalas, Vanessa charges a $15,000 retainer and a grand a month for her services. Althea is mostly supportive of her protégé (they are, after all, rivals), but after a multimartini night, the two make a wager: whoever marries off "downtown playboy" and property development mogul Mark Grayson will be crowned the queen of Manhattan glitterati matchmaking. High society hijinx ensue as the Cartier cupids vie for Grayson, and though the woman Grayson has his steely gray eyes on is glaringly obvious to the reader, the direction he's leaning somehow eludes Vanessa. Davis lays on thick the obligatory designer name-dropping, but it's her heroine's exalted venue-hopping that's the source of much fun. The ending isn't exactly a shocker, but it'll score big points for romance readers. (Apr.)
Jake Fades: A Novel of ImpermanenceDavid Guy. Shambhala/Trumpeter, $19.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-59030-433-4
An aging Zen master and bicycle repairman confronts his mortality and looks for a successor in this dharma-heavy novel by longtime Zen practitioner Guy (The Autobiography of My Body). Narrator Hank, in his mid-50s, accompanies Jake, his teacher of 22 years, on a weeklong trip to Cambridge, Mass., where Jake is scheduled to lead a retreat. Hank, though aware that 78-year-old Jake's beginning to slip mentally, is surprised when Jake starts talking about leaving a new Buddhist teaching center to him. Hank balks, thinking he isn't capable of filling Jake's spiritual shoes. As the pair tour the city's cheap restaurants and meet with Madeline (who is overseeing the conversion of an old house into the new Buddhist center) and a host of locals, Jake keeps the pressure on reluctant Hank. Though not much actually happens beyond talking and eating, Guy conveys, through Hank's koanlike interior commentary and Jake's dialogue, the subtleties of Zen practice. Readers into the dharma will find this novel worthwhile. (Apr. 10)
The Post-Birthday WorldLionel Shriver. HarperCollins, $25.95 (528p) ISBN 978-0-06-118784-1
The smallest details of staid coupledom duel it out with a lusty alternate reality that begins when a woman passes up an opportunity to cheat on her longtime boyfriend in Shriver's latest (after the Orange Prize–winning We Need to Talk About Kevin). Irina McGovern, a children's book illustrator in London, lives in comfortable familiarity with husband-in-everything-but-marriage-certificate Lawrence Trainer, and every summer the two have dinner with their friend, the professional snooker player Ramsey Acton, to celebrate Ramsey's birthday. One year, following Ramsey's divorce and while terrorism specialist "think tank wonk" Lawrence is in Sarajevo on business, Irina and Ramsey have dinner, and after cocktails and a spot of hash, Irina is tempted to kiss Ramsey. From this near-smooch, Shriver leads readers on a two-pronged narrative: one consisting of what Irina imagines would have happened if she had given in to temptation, the other showing Irina staying with Lawrence while fantasizing about Ramsey. With Jamesian patience, Shriver explores snooker tournaments and terrorism conferences, passionate lovemaking and passionless sex, and teases out her themes of ambition, self-recrimination and longing. The result is an impressive if exhausting novel. (Mar.)
Acceptance: A NovelSusan Coll. Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23 (304p) ISBN 978-0-374-23719-6
Coll (karlmarx.com; Rockville Pike) sends up college admissions in an overstuffed social comedy. The novel tracks three juniors-going-on-seniors as they and their families run the gauntlet of SATs, admissions essays, campus tours and rejection letters. It begins with AP Harry (named for the large number of advanced placement courses he takes) and his mother visiting Yates College, a ramshackle school enjoying popularity after U.S. News & World Report erroneously put it on its list of top schools. Also on campus are Harry's classmates Maya Kaluantharana, who'd rather swim laps than prowl library stacks, and Taylor Rockefeller, whose sole criterion for a college is having a private bathroom in her dorm room. As the months tick by and the students wait for acceptance letters, the book meanders through career maneuvering and faculty bed-hopping at Yates, a lawsuit brought against Yates, Harry's obsession with Harvard and Taylor's mother realizing the cause of her daughter's ambivalence toward college. The narrative is heavily peppered with contemporary miscellany (Hurricane Katrina, echoes of the Larry Summers controversy, Facebook, disputes about the SAT's importance), though the mentions often seem like afterthoughts. The surfeit of characters and narrative side trips creates a few pacing logjams, but Coll's deadpan wit and sympathy for her characters are more than redeeming. (Mar.)
The Thief of TimeJohn Boyne. St. Martin's, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-312-35480-0
Published in the U.K. before his hits Crippen and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, this novel sails similarly historical currents with mixed results. Matthieu Zela is 256 years old in 1999, but doesn't look a day over 50. (Bafflingly—to himself, too—he simply stopped aging.) Loquacious Matthieu crisscrosses the centuries with wry, autobiographical narration, moving from his current incarnation as a satellite TV entrepreneur in London to his coming-of-age in the 1750s, when he leaves Paris for England with his young half-brother Tomas in tow and meets his one true love, Dominique Sauvet. Matthieu's one deep regret, however, isn't romance-related: of the 10 generations of Thomases descended from his brother, each has had his life cut short, "either by his own stupidity or by the machinations of the times." Matthieu's current nephew, Tommy, a wildly popular soap opera star, is a heroin addict and not long for this world. Matthieu vows to prevent his too-early demise. In between, Matthieu shares too predictable highlights from his brushes with world events (the French Revolution, the 1929 stock market crash, etc.) and famous people (Pope Pius IX, Charlie Chaplin, the Rosenbergs). The picaresque nature of this hopscotch through history's hot spots suits Boyne's big-canvas talent, but Matthieu, in his unexplained immortality, is more like a storytelling device than a fully realized character. This novel is not a follow-up but a practice run. (Mar.)
The Life You Longed ForMaribeth Fischer. Touchstone, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9328-0
In Fischer's wrenching second novel, Grace Connolly's youngest son, three-year-old Jack, is terminally ill following a baffling, heartbreaking diagnosis of mitochondrial disease. At times, Grace, a full-time mother of three with a background in epidemiology, feels that everyone else around her (Jack's medical specialists; husband Stephen) has given up hope. Desperate to reclaim her "normal" life, Grace reignites a romance with her first love. Her predictable affair with the almost painfully idealized Noah McIntyre becomes one factor in accusations that Grace has fabricated Jack's disease to gain attention—allegations that result in his removal from her custody just when he is most ill. Fischer (The Language of Goodbye) has an uphill battle to gain readers' sympathy for an adulterous mother, and for the most part she succeeds. The weight of the disease, science and history trivia that peppers Fischer's prose seems ponderous at first, but matches the heaviness of Grace's grief. While allegations of Munchausen by Proxy (a real disorder where mothers sicken children to get attention) form the sensationalist backbone of the novel and Fischer's characterizations tend toward the schematic, agonizing truths about losing a child while still longing for "a life beyond the one you were living" come through clearly. The ending's reliance on 9/11, however, feels forced at best. (Mar.)
Wife in the Fast LaneKaren Quinn. Touchstone, $14 paper (488p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9396-9
Quinn (The Ivy Chronicles) spins a delightful story about the unsinkable Christy Hayes, a former Olympic gold medalist turned successful entrepreneur whose comfy life is about to hit a bumpy patch. Founder and CEO of athletic shoe company Baby G, Christy lands an ideal husband, Michael Drummond, a wealthy media mogul who's survived a bad marriage. Things are swell until Christy's housekeeper and confidant dies, leaving behind her precocious 11-year-old granddaughter, Renata Ruiz, whom Christy takes in. Michael, however, wants nothing to do with another child, as his daughter despises him. Just when the domestic scene is looking bleak, Christy is ousted from the top spot at Baby G, contretemps erupt at the private school Christy sends Renata to (Christy and the head of the PTA have a history), and another of Christy's antagonists sets her sights on Michael. Christy's battles to save her marriage and public image provide pages of good reading, though the plot hinges on a string of coincidences, and Michael's revulsion toward parenting feels forced. Still, Quinn's sharp portrayal of shady corporate dealings and shadier private school shenanigans is good fun up to its happy ending. (Mar.)
The Fifth VialMichael Palmer. St. Martin's, $25.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-312-34351-4
Bestseller Palmer (The Society) tackles the illegal transplant organ trade in his entertaining 12th medical suspense novel. What do three very different people—Harvard medical student Natalie Reyes, Chicago PI Ben Callahan and scientific genius Joe Anson—have in common? Natalie, in Brazil for a conference, is attacked, hospitalized and loses a lung; Ben gets hired to discover how a mutilated anonymous body died; Joe, the inventor of an untested medical breakthrough, is forced into an operation for his life-threatening pulmonary fibrosis. All three seek answers connected to the Whitestone Foundation, a conglomerate that's a front for the Guardians, a secret cabal of medical specialists. At a hidden hospital in the Brazilian rain forest, Natalie and Ben learn of the Guardians' insidious methods. Huge sums are at stake as the arrogant Guardians make medical decisions largely motivated by greed. The action, which begins plausibly, becomes less so as the tension builds. Still, Palmer, himself an M.D., does a good job of informing the reader on an important ethical issue. 225,000 printing; author tour. (Feb.)
The Blood SpiltÅsa Larsson, trans. from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy. Delacorte, $22 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-33982-7
Larsson's second novel (after 2006's Sun Storm) takes a riveting look at religious mania, the practice of law in Sweden and crimes as dark and bloody as those in supposedly less progressive countries. Rebecka Martinsson, a tax attorney (as Larsson was before she turned to full-time writing) in Stockholm, had to perform some seriously bloody deeds in the town of Kiruna (Larsson's own birthplace) at the end of Sun Storm. Now she's back at work after some time to recover, and her large law firm is even using her hard-won notoriety for its own publicity. But when a female priest is savagely murdered in Kiruna, Rebecka interrupts her rehab to return there, to help solve a crime much like the one that caused her so much damage. Luckily, she also gets to work again with a sharp and sympathetic local female police inspector, who proves that not every Scandinavian cop or crime solver is a depressive. Fans of Henning Mankell, Karin Fossum and Arnaldur Indridason will be rewarded. (Feb.)
Past PerfectSusan Isaacs. Scribner, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7432-4216-5
Isaacs's 11th novel has fewer sparks flying than nets dragging, but most fans won't mind a bit, given the amount of outside-the-bedroom adventure. Despite reinventing herself as the author of the novel Spy Guys and the creator of the resultant TV show, Katie Schottland remains wounded by her still-unexplained firing from the CIA, where she wrote intelligence briefs as the Cold War ended, 13 years earlier. When she gets a distress call from an old co-worker, Lisa Golding, who subsequently disappears, Katie plunges back into the notes she smuggled out of the office. She seeks help from an old flame and another ex-agent (now a log-cabin recluse) who helps her trace three of Lisa's former charges at the CIA, East German asylum seekers transported to America and given new names. When two of them turn up dead within weeks of each other, Katie decides to give chase to locate the third before the woman becomes the next casualty. And she still hopes she'll coerce her ex-employer to give up the truth about her termination. The operations stuff is well-done throughout. Katie's relationship with her sweet vet husband adds little, but TV show–based scenes are diverting, and her fixation on her last job is sharply funny and true-to-life. (Feb.)
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears Dinaw Mengestu. Riverhead, $22.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-59448-940-2
Barely suppressed despair and black wit infuse this beautifully observed debut from Ethiopian émigré Mengestu. Set over eight months in a gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood in the 1970s, it captures an uptick in Ethiopian grocery store owner Sepha Stephanos's long-deferred hopes, as Judith, a white academic, fixes up the four-story house next to his apartment building, treats him to dinner and lets him steal a kiss. Just as unexpected is Sepha's friendship with Judith's biracial 11-year-old daughter, Naomi (one of the book's most vivid characters), over a copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Mengestu adds chiaroscuro with the story of Stephanos's 17-year exile from his family and country following his father's murder by revolutionary soldiers. After long days in the dusty, barely profitable shop, Sepha's two friends, Joseph from Congo and Kenneth from Kenya, joke with Sepha about African dictators and gently mock his romantic aspirations, while the neighborhood's loaded racial politics hang over Sepha and Judith's burgeoning relationship like a sword of Damocles. The novel's dirge-like tone may put off readers looking for the next Kite Runner, but Mengestu's assured prose and haunting set pieces (especially a series of letters from Stephanos's uncle to Jimmy Carter, pleading that he respect "the deep friendship between our two countries") are heart-rending and indelible. (Feb.)
The Polish WomanEva Mekler. Bridge Works, $21.95 (264p) ISBN 978-1-882593-99-6
In this unembellished he-said-she-said, Karolina Staszek, a Polish-Catholic sculptor working as a nanny in 1967 Manhattan, tells her Jewish employer, Noah Landau, that she may be his cousin—a cousin thought to have died decades before in a Nazi death camp. She throws his family into turmoil. Although Karolina's claim is based on the flimsiest of childhood memories, Noah believes the mysterious foreigner he's also infatuated with and sends her to persuade his cynical lawyer cousin, Philip. Is Karolina really the daughter of their recently deceased Uncle Jake, who hid her from the Nazis with rabidly anti-Semitic Polish farmers who took Jake's money only to disappear with Karolina after the war so they wouldn't have to return her? Or perhaps she's a charming fraud with designs on the nephews' sizable inheritance, or a pathetic soul who's appropriating someone else's wartime experience in order to repress her familial and national guilt over the Holocaust? The characters' motivations, particularly in their love lives, are often underdeveloped, but Mekler's (Sunrise Shows Late) emotionally tantalizing tale is simply and lucidly written and offers an unflinching look at Polish anti-Semitism and the destruction it wreaked on both Jewish and Polish psyches long after WWII. (Feb. 1)
Pandora's Legion: Harold Coyle's Strategic Solutions, Inc.Harold Coyle and Barrett Tillman. Forge, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-765-31371-3
In this promising first of a new series about the resurgence of the second oldest profession, the mercenary, in the guise of PMC (private military contractors), bestseller Coyle (They Are Soldiers) teams with aviation historian and novelist Tillman (Warrior) to chronicle the exploits of one such PMC, Strategic Solutions Inc. An eclectic assortment of ex-military action junkies and civilian specialists, the group is headed by a retired admiral who has the trust of certain elements of the current administration. When an American convert to Islam turns up at London's Heathrow Airport with a lethal and highly contagious disease, epidemiologists backtracking his itinerary uncover a jihadist plot to send biological time bombs among the infidels to spread disease, death and disarray. Problem: the plot's source is in a sensitive region of Pakistan where American troops can't go. While the characters never really come alive as in other Coyle novels, the description of how a PMC operates, with all its strengths and limitations, is engrossing and believable. (Feb.)
Damage ControlRobert Dugoni. Warner, $24.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-446-57870-7
Well-connected Seattle attorney Dana Hill has everything going for her in this undemanding page-turner from bestseller Dugoni (The Jury Master) until, in the span of a few days, she's diagnosed with breast cancer, she catches her husband in an extramarital affair, and her beloved twin brother, James, is murdered during an apparently botched robbery. An exotic lost earring left at the scene of James's killing leads Dana to suspect there's more to his death than meets the eye, and sure enough, as she begins tracing the earring's obscure origin, people who could supply information are assassinated right and left. Dana's determination to collar her brother's killer draws her into a showdown with a villain who will stop at nothing to eliminate the threat she poses. While most of the supporting characters are one-dimensional servants to the fast-moving plot, a few twists will surprise even seasoned thriller readers. (Feb.)
Valentine: A Love StoryChet Raymo. Cowley (NBN), $19.95 (292p) ISBN 978-1-56101-286-2
In his first novel since The Dork of Cork (1993), Raymo imagines the life of the patron saint of lovers, St. Valentine, about whom very little is known. Narrated by Julius Marius Favus, a gladiator trainer–turned–Roman jailor, and interspersed with letters between Valentine and a friend, the story unfolds of Valentine's training as a doctor and his falling in love with Julia, the blind daughter of Julius. As a young man, Valentine flees his home in Cyrenaica after impregnating the daughter of a wealthy Apollonian merchant. Soon, he becomes entangled with the wife of a powerful Roman. As Julius switches back and forth to different times in Valentine's life, a detailed portrait emerges of the plague-ridden, bloodthirsty Roman Empire and the theological wranglings of the early Christian church. Raymo, professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, pens some lovely scenes, including one in which Valentine muses over the seeming randomness of life and death. Raymo's details are rich and precise, and his vocabulary often erudite. Valentine moves from seeing Christianity as a "cult of weakness and shame" to a desire to be remembered as "having nudged mankind away from fear and superstition." Fans of historical literary fiction should find this novel an absorbing read. (Feb.)
The StranglerWilliam Landay. Delacorte, $24 (400p) ISBN 978-0-385-33615-4
Set in Boston in 1963, Landay's engrossing crime novel is less about the titular strangler than the three Irish-American Daley brothers: Ricky, a thief; Michael, a lawyer; and Joe, a bent cop. A year earlier, the Daleys' father, also a cop, was fatally shot on the job, and the killer has never been caught. The father's partner on the force, Brendan Conroy, has insinuated himself into the family to the point that he's now sleeping with the brothers' mother, Margaret, and is a permanent fixture at Sunday dinner, much to the disgust of Michael and Ricky. Landay (Mission Flats) movingly explores the bonds of family and basic questions of honesty and loyalty. While the novel suggests another killer than the historical Boston Strangler, the emphasis remains on such themes as crime and punishment, love and honor, truth and justice. (Feb.)
Perfecting KateTamara Leigh. Multnomah, $12.99 paper (416p) ISBN 978-1-59052-927-0
While Leigh adheres a bit too closely to the conventions of Christian romance fiction, her main character, Kate Meadows, charms and entertains as she chronicles her dates, work deadlines, self-improvement kicks and hormone replacement therapy. Like most Christian romance heroines, she has a sad backstory and a long list of insecurities. And like most Christian romance heroes, her leading man is serious, mysterious and very handsome. After enduring the requisite series of fiascoes and misunderstandings, during which the leading man becomes more and more taken by the heroine's quirky pluck, both decide to move past their private pain and potentially deal-breaking incompatibility and live happily ever after. Kate narrates this formula well enough, and her specific health struggles do add intrigue. Readers will also appreciate the authenticity of Kate's faith, but may groan when her leading man apologizes for initially rejecting her, having concluded that she is a "woman who can give me far more than she can't." Also off-putting is the "cured" gay man who, along with several other characters, is constantly critiquing every aspect of Kate's physical appearance. Still, Kate's love-hate relationship with a series of cosmetic procedures makes for a fun read, especially for Christian women who will appreciate the spiritual lessons Kate learns as she seeks physical transformation. (Feb. 20)
The Ravenscar DynastyBarbara Taylor Bradford. St. Martin's, $25.95 (496p) ISBN 978-0-312-35460-2
The doyenne of popular women's fiction (Just Rewards) returns with the first installment of a projected trilogy centering on internecine power struggles within the early 20th century incarnation of the centuries-old Deravenel clan and their London-based family business. A suspicious hotel fire causes the death of patriarch Richard Deravenel along with that of one of his sons, his brother-in-law and his young nephew, forcing tall, handsome, bright, seductive, 17-year old Edward Deravenel out of Oxford into the world of commerce. He and cousin Neville Watkins (a successful businessman in his own right) plot to avenge their fathers' and brothers' deaths and seize the company, currently under the stewardship of a delusional absentee executive whose ambitious (and French) wife is behind the skullduggery. Edward's longtime friend, Will Hasling, also joins the fray, and Neville has his own motivations. Along the way, there are libidinous liaisons, wicked plots, personal catastrophes, a secret "love child" and lessons aplenty about the consequences of ruthless ambition. Expect strong, two-dimensional characters; tasteful and adroit sex; repetitive exchanges; a plot rich with period detail and reasonably backed-up friction. (Jan.)
Matters of Honor Louis Begley. Knopf, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-307-26525-8
The author of About Schmidt and Shipwreck, Begley returns with an elegant novel of enduring friendship. Sam Standish, the adopted son of an alcoholic banker, arrives at Harvard in the early 1950s in genteel poverty, but with an unexpected trust fund to finance his education. His roommates are the incongruously named Archibald P. Palmer III, an army brat who goes by Archie, and Henry White, a rough-edged, fiercely smart Jewish refugee (born Henryk Weiss in Poland). Sam, who achieves a measure of success as a literary novelist, narrates their 50 years of friendship. His opaque romantic life suggests he may be gay, but the heart of this tragedy of manners is Sam's compelling assessment of class and social cachet in America, and of the ambient anti-Semitism that nearly drives Henry crazy, as he makes and abandons a fortune. Archie drops out of the narrative after he dies in a drunken car accident months after the Kennedy assassination, but Sam and Henry reconnect many years after Henry's disappearance for one last reunion of old friends. It's a story covered by everyone from Cheever to Roth, but Begley finds new and wonderful nuances within it. (Jan. 29)
Body CountP.D. Martin. Mira, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2411-9
Australian Martin's solid, well-researched debut introduces FBI profiler Sophie Anderson, a psychic unsure of her paranormal powers, but smart enough to use anything she can to catch a killer. Sophie, a transplanted Aussie who has been working at Quantico for six months in the Behavioral Analysis Unit, gets assigned to the baffling D.C. Slasher case after Samantha "Sam" Wright, Sophie's friend and fellow profiler, becomes one of the victims. Sophie, who's never quite recovered from the childhood murder of her brother, has disturbing visions and dreams that provide clues to the disturbing case. Lending romantic interest is FBI agent Josh Marco, who may have past links to the D.C. Slasher. This may sound like familiar thriller territory, but the intense first-person narration has enough twists and turns to keep forensics fans turning the pages. (Jan.)
AmuletRoberto Bolaño, trans. from the Spanish by Chris Andrews. New Directions, $21.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-8112-1664-7
Bolaño's work fugues again and again around the confluence of fugitive literary movements and tumultuous political upheavals of '60s and '70s Mexico and Chile. Originally from Montevideo, poet Auxilio Lacouture cleans house in Mexico City for two well-known poets and hangs about the university literary scene doing odd jobs. In September 18, 1968, as the army occupies the campus, arresting and killing people, Auxilio is in the deserted bathroom stalls, obliviously reading poetry; later she becomes famous for being the only one who resists arrest that fateful day. Over years without fixed address or employment, she loses her teeth and befriends the teenage Arturo Belano. Belano eventually returns to Chile at the time of the Allende coup and is imprisoned by Pinochet—a political initiation author Bolaño experienced himself. Auxilio's first-person narration serves as a medium for lost young voices of revolution, such as the elusive, limping Elena, the Catalan painter Remedios Varo, and Lilian Serpas, who claims she slept with Che Guevara. Auxilio's lyrical prophecies converge in a wrenching tribute to all the voices she has known, tinged with Bolaño's luminous pathos. (Jan.)
The First LadyCarl Weber. Dafina, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7582-1575-8
Bestselling author Weber (So You Call Yourself a Man) serves up another scintillating slice of church politics as a Queens preacher is forced to decide who will be his church's new first lady after his wife dies. Bishop T.K. Wilson's wife, Charlene, is on her deathbed with pancreatic cancer, and with the help of her best friend, she drafts five letters—one to each of the four women she feels could be contenders for the title of First Lady of Jamaica Ministries—and one to her husband encouraging him to move on after her death and marry someone who can help him lead the church. Per Charlene's request, the letters are delivered after she dies, setting into motion a catty, gossipy page-turner as the chosen four vie for T.K.'s proposal. But who will win: Marlene, a recovering addict and mother of T.K.'s illegitimate child; Savannah, a deacon's daughter who is struggling to make a name as a gospel singer; Monique, "the first lady of plastic surgery and implants"; or Lisa Mae, a wily and sometimes cutthroat widow? Weber keeps the pacing brisk and loads the narrative with enough surprise turns to keep readers guessing to the end. (Jan.)
The Perfect FakeBarbara Parker. Dutton, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-525-94986-2
Bestseller Parker's stand-alone thriller opens with a promising setup, but falls short of the author's best work, like Suspicion of Innocence, which was an Edgar finalist. Talented Miami artist Tom Fairchild, an ex-con, is struggling to stay on the good side of his rigorous probation officer, while helping out at his sister's antique shop. When his impressive imitation of a 16th-century map of Florida catches the eye of Stuart Barlowe, a wealthy local power player, at a map fair, Barlowe asks Fairchild to duplicate a rare Renaissance-period map that was ruined after it got stained with the blood of its murdered owner. Despite his distrust of this offer, the cash-short Fairchild is intrigued enough by the task's difficulty to accept it. A predictable romantic subplot adds little to the narrative as Fairchild dodges an array of unsavory characters in several European countries and the body count mounts. A surprise closing twist changes nothing. (Jan.)
The Song Is YouMegan Abbott. Simon & Schuster, $23 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9171-2
Fans of James Ellroy nostalgic for his gritty, cynical take on postwar Hollywood in such noir classics as L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia should enjoy Edgar-finalist Abbott's second novel (after Die a Little). The author uses a less-celebrated real-life crime—the disappearance of actress Jean Spangler from Los Angeles in 1949—as her hook to spin a downbeat tale about a journalist-turned-studio-flack, Gil "Hop" Hopkins. Hop was with Spangler, a stunner but a second-rate acting talent, the last night she was seen, and harbors guilt over leaving her in the company of a famous acting and singing duo, Marv Sutton and Gene Merrel, who have a reputation for rough play. Hop's efforts at amateur sleuthing unearth a blackmail ring and a possible mob connection to Spangler's disappearance. Abbott deserves credit for resurrecting this virtually forgotten case and concocting a plausible fictional solution to a true crime. (Jan.)
A Tale of Two LionsRoberto Ransom, trans. from the Spanish by Jasper Reid. Norton, $19.95 (112p) ISBN 978-0-393-32936-0
In Mexican writer Ransom's first novel to be published in English, a pet cat named Cattino may actually be a lion, while a stuffed lion named Pasha may actually be alive. The novel, divided into three stories, begins with "Cattino," in which an Italian count anxiously writes to warn his sister about her impending houseguests: his wife, Sophia, and her pet, "a minor god in a cage." Sophia's devotion to the cat-cum-lion drives the count mad with jealousy. "Jeremiah and the Lion," the second story, chronicles the travails of Jeremiah Jones, a Nairobi Ministry of Tourism employee, and reads like Knut Hamsun vamping on bureaucratic absurdity. Jeremiah is paid to dress up as a big-game hunter and guard Pasha, a stuffed and mounted lion. One day, Pasha disappears, and Jeremiah is suspected of fleeing with the lion, though Jeremiah insists Pasha "left of his own accord." Pasha and Cattino meet under unusual circumstances in the novel's concluding story. Line art accompanies the simple, fable-like prose, lending an air of whimsy to the feline antics. (Jan.)
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. IIJeffery Deaver. Simon & Schuster, $24.95 (438p) ISBN 978-0-7432-4118-9
Bestseller Deaver's second story collection (after 2003's Twisted) is best enjoyed in small doses, since, as the author states in his preface, each of the 16 suspense tales contains a "gut-wrenching twist," a formulaic final reversal that loses its punch with too much repetition. That said, readers will find a number of clever and concise thrillers. The standout, "Born Bad," about a mother waiting in fear for her estranged daughter to kill her, does a superb job of matching up the clues at the beginning with the tale's resolution. Sherlockians will get a kick from a pastiche narrated in third person, "The Westphalian Ring," pitting Holmes against a crafty jewel thief. In an afterword to the tale "Afraid," Deaver (The Bone Collector) explains how he works the concept of fear into his fiction. (Jan.)
Sunday List of DreamsKris Radish. Bantam, $11 paper (432p) ISBN 978-0-553-38398-0
With her retirement looming, nurse Connie Nixon is preparing a "list of dreams" to accomplish once she's out of the working week. Revised 48 times by her retirement date, Connie's structured quest to let loose provides the opportunity for Radish (Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral) to spin an inspirational story about making amends and the power of mother-daughter love. Connie's list contains run-of-the mill things like "stop setting the alarm clock" and "write more thank-you notes" and mildly daring to-do's like buying a convertible and drinking wine before noon. It is, however, the confluence of two list items, "maybe sex" and "recapture Jessica," that pushes Connie to rejuvenate her relationship with youngest daughter Jessica, who moved from hometown Indiana to New York three years ago and has since become the "CEO and part owner of... one of the most successful sex-toy stores in the United States of America." Connie travels to the Big Apple, and the two women reconnect in an unexpected way: Jessica puts Connie to work in the sex toy business. Every page contains a warm fuzzy. (Jan.)
Andy Catlett: Early TravelsWendell Berry. Shoemaker & Hoard, $24 (144p) ISBN 978-1-59376-136-3
Readers familiar with rural Kentucky novelist (A Place on Earth), poet (A Timbered Choir) and essayist (Another Turn of the Crank) Berry and his vast repertoire will feel right at home in this slim, memoirlike novel narrated by the elderly Andy Catlett. In the winter of 1943, at age nine, young Andy is allowed to set out alone by bus from his home in Hargrave to Port William, 10 miles away, where both his parents grew up. After coffee at the bus station (a nickel) and quick trip, he is retrieved by his grandfather Catlett's mule team, driven by longtime hired black servant, Dick Watson. Andy's observations of his grandmother's unfussy cooking and the men's work stripping tobacco in the barn is full of nostalgic, admiring detail. Dick and Andy visit Dick's wife, Aunt Sarah Jane, whose superstitions and acute perception of racial inequity "introduced the fester of it into the conscience of a small boy." At a visit to his mother's more modernized family farm, the absence of Uncle Virgil fighting overseas is grievously felt, and Andy is allowed to listen to the radio before sleeping. "The world I knew as a boy was flawed, surely," Berry writes wisely, "but it was substantial and authentic." (Jan.)
Getting WarmerCarol Snow. Berkley, $13 paper (336p) ISBN 978-0-425-21354-4
Nearing 30, Natalie Quackenbush lives with her parents while enduring her second year of teaching high school English in Scottsdale, Ariz. To entertain themselves, Natalie and her gal pals down margaritas at the local bar, and as the tequila takes effect, they tell other patrons lies about their backgrounds and jobs. When Natalie realizes her latest victim is actually a pretty nice guy, she's already spun him a couple of tall tales. For much of the book, he thinks she teaches at a women's prison and only lives with her parents because her mother has Alzheimer's. This is meant to be funny, but falls flat, as do most of Snow's other stabs at humor. The fluffy boilerplate plot compounds the problem, and although Snow (Been There, Done That) trots Natalie through the requisite motions of character growth, the novel's pleasures are few. (Jan.)
Behind the MoonHsu-Ming Teo. Soho, $13 paper (372p) ISBN 978-1-56947-440-2
A trio of "social cripples" meander through their Australian upbringings in Teo's disappointing sophomore novel (after Love and Vertigo). The social cripples in question are Justin, the gay child of Chinese immigrants; Tien Ho, the bitter out-of-wedlock daughter of a Vietnamese mother and African-American father; and Gibbo, a chubby white Australian who falls in love with Tien's mother. Their story centers on two reunions, a disastrous dinner party following the death of Princess Diana and a more somber gathering at Justin's hospital bed after a gay bashing. Unfortunately, overinflated prose (the characters are said to "lean and groan and cheer each other on... limping along the yellow brick road towards that place where there will be no trouble") and razor-thin characters spoil the narrative's possibilities. (Jan.)
Poetry
The Amputee's Guide to Sex Jillian Weise. Soft Skull Press, $14.95 (64p) ISBN 978-1-933368-52-8
In her charged and daring debut, Weise artfully interweaves biographical details with meditations on the history of disability and sex, laying bare the complexities of finding sexual and emotional intimacy as an amputee with a prosthetic leg. In three sections, her assured voice masterfully navigates the potential pitfalls of her subject matter—from the risk of self-pity (there is none here) to the difficulties of speaking for her community. In the first section, evidence of this speaker's disability is hidden, ignored, or the object of curiosity and desire ("Your favorite post-coital pastime/ is nicknaming my scars"); it is also a fiercely guarded possession ("...I caught/ you staring at the railroad tracks/ along my spine, and I thought/ Mine, mine"). Part two borrows impersonal medical language to poetically redress the terminology of pain: "When and how did your pain problem start?... He met me in a dark alley." The third section imagines life and love alongside a character named "Holman." Weise also reproduces the cruelest examples of male fascination, as when the speaker's grandfather calls her the "prettiest cripple I ever seen." An agile and powerful poet, Weise references medical literature, history and poetry, speaking boldly and compassionately about a little-discussed subject that becomes universal in her careful hands. (Jan.)
Bartlett's Words for the WeddingEdited by Brett Fletcher Lauer and Aimee Kelley. Little, Brown, $15.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-316-01696-4
What to read at a wedding, your own or a friend's? What poetry—or poetic prose—will fit the particular couple tying the knot, describe their love clearly without undue sappiness and suit the guests, who may—or may not—read poems for pleasure at home? Brides, grooms, parents, officiants, groomsmen and bridesmaids confront these questions every day; this anthology, assembled by a husband-and-wife team of poets, scours the canon and its fringes for answers. Lauer and Kelley (Isn't It Romantic, 2004) include expectable nuptial greatest hits—sonnets by Shakespeare, Cummings and E.B. Browning, prose from Rilke and the Song of Songs—but much of their inventive, eclectic collection has the power to surprise: clear and charming contemporary verse from Pam Rehm, Lisa Jarnot and Timothy Donnelly, for example; translations from Chinese and Korean; and little-known Renaissance poems, including an absolute stunner from Michael Drayton. Passages from some long poems appear out of context, and a few poems seem unlikely to suit most weddings. Overall, though, Lauer and Kelley have kept utility and accessibility in mind: they've produced a collection with pleasures for readers and obvious, practical use. Few anthologists can say as much. (Jan.)
Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976–2006 Ellen Bryant Voigt. Norton, $25.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-393-06250-2
Consistently respected by her contemporaries, Voigt's quiet but often violently powerful poems of autobiography, pastoral and history have not always gained the broad attention they deserve. This seventh book (her first retrospective) may ensure that she gets it. Voigt's descriptive powers pop out first: a snake, for instance, is a "wrinkle coming toward me in the grass." Her anecdotes, scenic lyrics, parables and loosely structured sequences ask, however, to be judged for the ways in which they depict people—the poet, her husband, her sisters, their ailing and dying parents, or, in Kyrie (1995), the victims of the devastating flu epidemic of 1918. Voigt seems to know a lot about birds and bird-watching, and even more about the classical piano repertoire; these specialties further enliven the sensitive poems of domestic and wild spaces she has composed throughout her career, from a catalogue of birds early on to a recent "redbird fixed on the branch like a ripe fruit." Voigt's latest and most original poetry delves furthest into the human interior, finding—like a friendlier, warmer version of Voigt's longtime friend Louise Glück—the hidden motives behind all human endeavor: "the past," she writes, "is not a scar but a wound;/ I've seen it breaking open." (Jan.)
Collected PoemsJohn Betjeman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $17 (paper) (416p) ISBN 0-374-12653-4
A neat comic sense, an unfeigned comfort with 19th-century manners and forms, and a good eye for English milieus made Betjeman (1906–1984) both a great craftsman of light verse and the most popular British poet of his day. His first U.K. Collected Poems, in 1958, sold millions of copies. Newly available in the United States alongside A.N. Wilson's new biography, this big book can show Americans what so many Britons cherish: ballads and love poems devoted to strapping, tennis-playing young women; a fondness for Cornwall's seaside; devotion to traditional England, along with an amused contempt for the middle-class ways that might destroy it (the ways in which he, and his readers, actually live). Betjeman and his sympathetic characters, from King Edward VIII to a "husband down at the depot with car in car-park," hike along "stony lanes and back at six to tea," celebrate Christmas, admire South London's churches and denounce the "Inexpensive Progress" which plans to "Leave no village standing./ Which could provide a landing/ For aeroplanes to roar." Though Philip Larkin called Betjeman (poet laureate from 1972 on) his favorite contemporary poet, "Betj" provides nothing like Larkin's memorable depths; his enviable skill, however, might entice Anglophiles, or devotees of light verse, to queue up. (Dec.)
Opposable ThumbJoe Elliot. Subpress (SPD, dist.), $16 paper (144p) ISBN 1-930068-34-4
A fixture on the New York poetry scene for more than 20 years, Elliot's massively summative debut is as rigorous as it is loose, and casual as it is elegant. Each of these nearly 50 poems, grouped into four sections, progresses not so much by telling stories as describing several events, on a tiny scale, at once: "A Godzilla statuette steps/ crushing grey offices at the far// end of a bar. Next to it in a 3-piece/ suit a gratuitously rude// drunk sways, points his palm/ corder at a man who// is paid to expertly slice/ a variety of fish and smile// evenly." Over the course of the book, Elliot's speaker takes "a slow roll through Baltimore," chooses a fork "In Orlando when the day of the dead finally arrived" and finds that "Super-model-dom is to dungarees as attitude is to thought." But one-liners are not the point. As Elliot's observations accrue, a portrait emerges of a singular consciousness driven by a wry, subtle, detective-like love for its time and place: "The sound of a trumpet being/ practiced two floors below. Pushing a cat-like presence aside/ to get at it." (Dec.)
The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition César Vallejo, trans. from the Spanish by Clayton Eshleman. Univ. of California, $49.95 (704p) ISBN 0-520-24552-0
Less famous than Neruda or Lorca, the Peruvian Vallejo (1892–1938) may stand as their equal among the great Spanish language modernists. At times more demanding than both—and just as devoted to "eternal love," "animal purity" and "the absolute Encounter"—Vallejo has inspired devotion and imitation across continents. The lyrical, quotable poems of The Black Heralds (1918) record an intense young man's struggle with his Andean and Catholic heritage. Dense in its beauty, packed with neologisms, Trilce (1922) shows Vallejo at his strangest and most original: determined to forge a new language for the New World, the volume weaves together pellucid laments for the lost loves of childhood with "thrips and thrums from lupine heaps." The posthumous Human Poems (1939) mingle nostalgia, eroticism and rage as they follow the poet's years in Paris; the more conventional Spain, Take This Cup from Me (1939) records Vallejo's devotion to the Loyalist (left-wing, and losing) side of the Spanish Civil War and memorably mourns the fallen. Decades in the making, this faithful and forceful complete text from poet and essayist Eshleman (see page 40 for a review of his newest book of verse) deserves as much notice as any poetic translation can get. (Dec.)
The Dirty Side of the StormMartha Serpas. Norton, $23.95 (96p) ISBN 0-393-06266-X
The Gulf Coast and especially the Louisiana bayous, with their marsh grass, generations of fishermen, well-known natural disasters and ever-present coastal erosion, give Serpas's second volume both its strong flavor and its dominant subjects. Generations of Cajuns view "the steady vanishing/ Of your birthplace before your eyes," but also the beauty of "a blue heron lifting from brown stubble/ Light off bleached barnacles, helicopter blades// Beating the marsh into submission." Some poems take names from local landmarks ("Bayou Lafource," "Bully Camp Road"), others from general truths ("Faith in Florida"), but almost all respond to the southeastern coast, extending from Houston (where Serpas once lived) to Tampa (where she teaches now), from the dilapidation of "The Boat Shed" to "A pink-taffeta-ball-gown-and-bourbon/ sky." Curtains of descriptive lushness gather, then part, to reveal human vulnerability or human affection in Serpas's carefully clarified unrhymed stanzas. Explorations of Christian tradition and belief form an undercurrent throughout Serpas's work: "corrupted flesh confirms our/ Deepest knowledge," even though "the land wants the water,/ to be the water, to forget." Though Serpas (Cote Blanche, 2002) finished all but one of these poems before Katrina, the shadow of hurricane, flood and subsequent carnage falls over these Louisiana laments. (Nov.)
My American KundimanPatrick Rosal. Persea (Norton, dist.), $13.95 paper (68p) ISBN 978-0-89255-330-3
Rosal's fiery sophomore effort begins, "When shall I/ open my mouth/ and let half/ the world/ fall in?" Fast-paced and self-assured, it reflects a mélange of precedents— Allen Ginsberg, Gwendolyn Brooks, a bevy of hip-hop artists, Filipino and Filipino-American traditions from which Rosal (Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, 2003) takes his unusual title. A kundiman is either a song of unrequited love or a coded song of political protest, dating from the American occupation. Rosal's vividly syncretic, even sexy works find the present haunted by the recent past, the personal within the political: "If like me you don't know well the cruel music of tango, then you don't know how its truths can haunt you." Another poem invokes, for amorous praise, "Your hype/ Your hips Your spit/ Your sickest wit." Rosal's poetry of Filipino heritage often centers around New Jersey, where he lives and in whose immigrant-rich cities and towns ethnic tension and cross-fertilization are everyday facts. These oddly confident poems, with their extravagant, attention-seeking titles ("About the White Boys Who Drove By a Second Time to Throw a Bucket of Water on Me") should attract attention beyond any ethnic, regional or performance-oriented audience. (Nov.)
The Case Against HappinessJean-Paul Pecqueur. Alice James (Consortium, dist.), $14.95 (80p) ISBN 1-882295-59-5
The poems in Pecqueur's debut are sweet, sometimes surreal and often mired in pop culture. Phrases much overused in the contemporary American lexicon—"so sue me," "chill pill," "been there, done that"—all appear in a kind of postironic bid for the importance of the commonplace. Pecqueur finds inspiration at the barbershop and the shoe store, where a salesclerk "tells me, as he's lacing a pair/ of coffee-with-cream oxfords,/ that the song playing on the radio,/ a muzaked version of The Way/ We Were, has always reminded him/ of how everyone must die." This sort of smalltime philosophizing and romanticizing the minutiae of life can prove dull after a while, but the poet shows a knack for simile and a deep dedication to craft, as when a man's shirt beautifully becomes "the one whose mother-of-pearl buttons stand out from the turquoise/ rayon like a hermit thrush in a clearing." There are enough beautiful passages, and enough wry and surprising moments, to qualify this as a worthwhile read by a promising poet with a generosity of spirit and the knowledge that "joy is not impossible." (Nov.)
you are a little bit happier than i amTao Lin. Action Books (SPD, dist.), $14 (96p) ISBN 978-0-9765692-5-1
Chatty, frivolous, impatient, depressed, alienated, lovelorn and prone to outbursts, the poems in 24-year-old Tao Lin's print debut (another collection appears online) will appeal to the reader's inner adolescent: " 'I am going to email a shitload of people tonight.' I think that's funny.// I feel angry. No I don't. I am bored." Haunted by the fear that advanced telecommunications estrange us from face-to-face human relationships ("I wanted to ignore her but we were looking directly at each other"). Titles like "some of my happiest moments in life occur on AOL instant messenger" and "i hate the world and i'm not immature" gesture, quite obviously, toward teenage angst. If Lin sometimes manages to fall short of this already low goal ("4:30 a.m." repeats the line "i am fucked existentially" no fewer than 60 times), his language overall is charged with raw nerve and vitality; he surprises, here and there, with a flash of emotional complexity, insight or wit: "...movies are processed and experienced in the mind which is where real life also is processed and experienced." The book would have gained much, however, from analyzing its anxieties rather than just acting them out. (Nov.)
Ten MinutesBeatrix Gates. Firm Ground (Box 584, Old Lyme, Conn. 06371) $13 paper (52p) ISBN 0-9700382-8-3
Politics, activism and haunting memories of a childhood illness are the recurrent topics in Gates's confidently individual, if rather short, fourth volume. Gates (In the Open, 1998) leads off with a passionate four-part lament for Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming student murdered for being gay: "the bicyclist who found" him "thought he was a scarecrow/ until he saw the human hair." The next-to-last, eponymous effort remembers Gates's attempts to teach writing in a women's prison, where the carceral authorities seemed to consider poetry itself a threat, and where she almost got caught in a lockdown: "The cells held/ an expectation of speech/ and the newest procedures... pinned words to the roof/ of the mouth." More up-to-date, and even angrier, political tidings arrive in other raw and surprising poems; more obviously personal material finds clear, sad exposition in poems set in a hospital children's ward. Gates takes seriously both the daily news, with its constant abuses of power, and art's power to create news that stays news. (Nov.)
The Garden RoomJoy Katz. Tupelo (Consortium, dist.), $9.95 (40p) ISBN 978-1-932195-36-1
With titles like "The Made Bed" and "Junk Drawer," the 30 poems that make up Katz's brief and cohesive second collection (winner of Tupelo's Snowbound chapbook award) form a sequence that examines—using psychologically telling description and imaginative reportage—the ways the objects in a room do and do not reveal the lives of those who live there. Speaking to and for household objects as well as an assortment of domesticated flowers, and harking back to Elizabeth Bishop's prose poem "12 O'clock News" and perhaps Louise Glück's The Wild Iris, Katz (Fabulae, 2002) makes the bedroom a crenellated emotional meeting and battle ground, where self meets self, lover meets lover, and self meets other. A bunch of daffodils is "a hole in the room I could thread myself through"; the bed "is a highway between us." By turns surreal and direct, and sometimes cast in compact stanzas, sometimes gently slanted across the page, these poems also study the lives of the objects themselves, whether or not we give them that life: window sills are the "lips of the house," and a desk chair "gives in to day." Over the course of this subtle collection, Katz builds a quietly moving story about the complexities of love and domesticity. (Nov.)
An Alchemist with One Eye on FireClayton Eshleman. Black Widow Press (Biblio, dist.) $15.95 (114p) ISBN 0-9768449-5-8
The 31 poems in Eshleman's 15th collection embrace the world from multiple perspectives: the earth seen from outer space; details in the watercolors of the artist Mary Heebner; the situation at 4:22 p.m. in Como, Italy, on October 23, 2004. It takes its title from the essay that opens the book, a rambling, at times inspired, often bitter take on the state of contemporary American poetry. Eshleman (see page 39 for his translation of Vallejo) is an exuberant, associative poet: sentences unfold over stanzas, lines spill past the right margin. Political poems take aim at Bush and the inequality of wealth, but also seek pure empathy to "look at something and,/ as we used to say, see it for itself." At his best, Eshleman is capacious and empathic, as in "Combined Object," which imagines his sleeping wife's mind as it makes "its way across the 40,000 mile mid-ocean ridge," carrying "in her trailing skirts,/ a web filled with tiny men, drowned islands, radiolarian ooze." Eshleman's desire to bring diverse disciplines together—prehistoric cave images and menstrual mythology, for instance—can produce enchanting results, making "poetry a space that two people can enter and relate through." He can, however, be as alienating as he is inviting. (Nov.)
In CaptivityCamille Guthrie. Subpress (SPD, dist.), $14 paper (64p) ISBN 978-1-930068-32-2
If Guthrie's The Master Thief (2000) was a fable of fraught girlhood, this book's peculiar, post-adolescent parable of adulthood shows how sylvan ambition and unquenchable desire get shunted ("Like pathers in a parking garage") into a gendered, Wasteland-like confab of urban caccophony, loaded relationships and poisonous artistic rivlaries—yet emerge "to show the whole scene in flames." With a mastery of archaic diction that recalls Susan Howe, Guthrie crafts an alternately sweet, harsh, seductive, loving and contemptuous female voice that loosely narrates a fall into love and writing (not necessarily in that order). At her most incandescent, she sounds like Susan Sontag as the love child of Robert Browning and Sylvia Plath: "I never wanted to be your handmaiden/ Pencil driving in a rose-entwined enclosure.// Put away the 15th century encyclopedia now,/ Reality-testing is what we're up to./ How does matter behave under tremendous pressure?/ I almost wrote pleasure." Litanys like "My Boyfriend" ("ribs like a bookcase"; "balls large as a boar-hound's") give way to mean serial poems ("Imposter! Why not move back to Boston[?]"), and to the gorgeous final "In Captivity," where "Girls hide make-believe artifacts under canopies/ Boys tear down posters and unload their pellet guns." It's a tough world, but Guthrie tracks its "rate of radiance" masterfully. (Nov.)
Collected PoemsC.K. Williams. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $35 (704p) ISBN 978-0-374-12652-0
Williams's characteristic poems can be recognized as his on the page, in the ear or indeed from across a room. With long lines and flat language, his best work (in breakthrough books like 1983's Tar and the 1987 tour-de-force Flesh and Blood) has the rangy virtues of well-observed free verse, the spark and force of gritty, realistic short stories and the harrowing inwardness of no-nonsense personal essays about parents and children, lovers and strangers, New Jersey and France. Eschewing hints and symbols, Williams simply says what he knows he has seen: "the frail, false fusions and discursive chains of hope" or "that astonishing thing that happens when you crack a needle-awl into a block of ice." A Dream of Mind (1992) takes Williams's long, long lines into an almost Stevensian territory of abstract nouns and reflexive meditations on pity, fear and memory; later volumes, such as Repair (1999), soften Williams's typically violent pictures, more forgivingly portraying "this wedge of want my mind calls self." This weighty, even daunting, tome shows new and old readers the long arc of this Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner's career, from the morbid sanguinities of his apprentice work to the careful, moving, stanzaic focus evident in 21 new poems. (Nov.)
Mystery
Irish Linen: A Nuala Anne McGrail NovelAndrew M. Greeley. Forge, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-765-31586-1
Readers who can endure the juvenile sex talk at the start of Greeley's 10th Nuala Anne McGrail novel (after 2006's Irish Crystal) will be rewarded with a mildly entertaining mystery. When Nuala Anne, singer and sometime psychic, learns that Desmond Doolin, a peacenik young man from her Chicago neighborhood, has gone missing in the Middle East, she's convinced that he's still alive. But if U.S. government officials know Desmond's whereabouts, they're not talking, and finding him requires Nuala Anne and her adoring, dilettantish husband, Dermot Coyne, to research his path through the Middle East as well as pin down his relationship with the Catholic Church. Nuala Anne's search for Desmond is interwoven with the fictional memoir of an Irish diplomat in Nazi Germany, which Nuala Anne and Dermot just happen to be reading. Though this historical tale offers some intriguing counterpoints to Doolin's situation, the WWII chapters too often distract from Nuala Anne herself, who's supposed to be the star of the show. (Feb.)
Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog Boris Akunin, trans. from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield. Random, $9.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-8129-7513-0
Set in the late 19th century, this charming, highly unusual whodunit from Russian author Akunin (the pen name of Grigory Chkhartishvili) introduces Sister Pelagia, a young nun in a remote Russian province far removed from the intrigue of the czarist government. Pelagia's bishop, who has discreetly and successfully employed her deductive skills before, calls on her when an uncommon white bulldog belonging to his aunt is poisoned. After the nun's arrival on the scene, the two remaining dogs in the breeding line turn up dead, leading Pelagia to suspect the killings are actually an indirect attempt to murder their wealthy mistress, whose devotion to the animals is legendary. Akunin's gently humorous omniscient narrative voice distinguishes this novel from other historical mysteries. Even admirers of Akunin's Erast Petrovich Fandorin series (The Death of Achilles, etc.) will appreciate the author's switch to another, even more memorable sleuth. (Jan.)
The Deadly Bride and 21 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery StoriesEdited byEd Gorman and
Martin H. Greenberg. Carroll & Graf, $16.95 paper (560p) ISBN 978-0-78671-917-4
Covering both 2005 and 2006, the latest "finest" anthology from Gorman and Greenberg (after 2005's The Adventure of the Missing Detective) gathers 22 largely mainstream crime and mystery stories. In addition, Jon Breen presents a useful roundup of significant publications and awards; Edward D. Hoch's necrology reminds us of the loss of many fine authors in the past two years; and Sarah Weinman continues to track developments in online publishing. Highlights include Wendy Hornsby's "Dust Up," about a bike-riding birdwatcher who takes on a car full of robbers; Simon Brett's "Cain Was Innocent," a humorous take on man's first murder; and Jeremiah Healy's "A Matter of Honor," in which John Francis Cuddy gets a lesson from a Finnish beauty. Other notable contributions to this entertaining compendium come from James W. Hall, J.A. Jance, Anne Perry and Jeffery Deaver. (Jan.)
The Coldest BloodJim Kelly. St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-36478-6
Kelly's well-written if convoluted fourth outing for Cambridgeshire journalist Philip Dryden (after 2005's The Moon Tunnel) opens with a gruesome scene at the Dolphin Holiday Camp in August 1974, then shifts to a record-breaking cold snap 31 years later and a terminally ill man's murder. Dryden gets embroiled in the mystery by reporting on another death, that of landscape painter Declan McIlroy, ostensibly due to the cold. But the two corpses share a common past, and the search for the truth puts Dryden on the trail of a bizarre murder case dating back to that summer in 1974. Kelly's prose is insightful, but the complexities of his story can be confusing. Dryden's backstory—his invalid wife, Laura, is recovering from a coma; refusing to drive himself, he relies on the delightfully quirky cabbie Humph—may be challenging for newcomers to decipher. (Jan.)
A Catered Valentine's DayIsis Crawford. Kensington, $22 (288p) ISBN 978-0-7582-0689-3
Crawford's well-paced fourth culinary cozy (after 2005's A Catered Christmas), finds sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons, who run a catering business in Longely, N.Y., called A Little Taste of Heaven, flooded with a rush of orders for Valentine's Day on top of the fund-raiser they're organizing with recently widowed chocolate-store owner Marnie Gorman. But their duties take them beyond the kitchen when Marnie's dead hubby, Ted, turns up in someone else's grave—and in far better condition than after his death in a fiery car accident. Funeral home mogul Clayton Hanson, father and employer of Libby's undertaker boyfriend Marvin, calls on Bernie and Libby to solve the grave-swapping mystery, and the sisters bring in their wheelchair-bound ex-policeman dad, Sean, as reinforcement. But even as a two-time corpse, Ted is not at rest. On the romantic front, as Bernie's love with her sweetheart, Rob, fades, longtime friend and bartender Brandon appears more than willing to take his place. (Jan.)
EffigiesMary Anna Evans. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (314p) ISBN 978-1-59058-342-5
In Evans's intriguing third mystery to feature archeologist Faye Longchamp (after 2005's Relics), Faye and her Native American assistant, Joe Wolf Mantooth, leave Joyeuse Island, Fla., for a dig in rural Mississippi at the site of a proposed highway. They arrive during the Neshoba County Fair, a weeklong celebration during which residents put aside their differences to honor the area's mixed-race heritage. But when the archeologists discover another important site on the property of Carroll Calhoun, a racist with ties to the KKK, he not only refuses to let them excavate but tries to bulldoze what might be a sacred Choctaw burial mound. In the ensuing clash, racial tensions hit the boiling point over who has rights to the mound. Calhoun is then found dead, his throat slit with an ancient Indian blade, and Faye investigates after suspicion falls on Joe and other area Native Americans. Though Evans has been compared to Tony Hillerman, her sympathetic characters and fascinating archeological lore add up to a style all her own. (Jan.)
Lesser CreaturesAmy Pirnie. Carroll & Graf, $25.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-78671-892-4
Under her real name, Freda Davies, Pirnie has written some acclaimed modern-day whodunits, but fans of her Keith Tyrell series may be disappointed by this sequel to 2006's Let Heaven Fall starring London science reporter Sue Bennett. After a powerful bomb wrecks the headquarters of Sue's newspaper, claiming several lives, police ascertain that Sue was the intended victim of the explosive, which was planted in her car outside but detonated by her colleague instead. A letter claiming responsibility comes from a shadowy extremist animal rights group, and Sue receives round-the-clock protection, as the authorities comb through her published stories for clues to which enemy might have been behind the attack. Pirnie moves the story along with clean, brisk prose as more bombings, casualties and attempts on Sue's life follow. Sue demonstrates grit in the face of adversity, but her personality isn't distinctive enough to carry the somewhat predictable action. (Jan.)
SF/Fantasy/Horror
Ysabel Guy Gavriel Kay. Roc, $24.95 (432p) ISBN 978-0-451-46129-2
Kay (The Last Light of the Sun) departs from his usual historical fantasies to connect the ancient, violent history of France to the present day in this entrancing contemporary fantasy. Fifteen-year-old Canadian Ned Marriner accompanies his famous photographer father, Edward, on a shoot at Aix-en-Provence's Saint-Saveur Cathedral while his physician mother, Meghan, braves the civil war zone in Sudan with Doctors Without Borders. As Ned explores the old cathedral, he meets Kate Wenger, a geeky but attractive American girl who's a walking encyclopedia of history. In the ancient baptistry, the pair are surprised by a mysterious, scarred man wielding a knife who warns that they've "blundered into a corner of a very old story. It is no place for children." But Ned and Kate can't avoid becoming dangerously entangled in a 2,500-year-old love triangle among mythic figures. Kay also weaves in a secondary mystery about Ned's family and his mother's motivation behind her risky, noble work. The author's historical detail, evocative writing and fascinating characters—both ancient and modern—will enthrall mainstream as well as fantasy readers. (Feb.)
Emperor: Time's Tapestry, Book OneStephen Baxter. Ace, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-441-01466-8
Excellent characterization and deft historical scene-setting lift this first of an ambitious new series from Philip K. Dick Award–winner Baxter (Sunstorm), which follows the passing of a prophecy across generations of a British and Roman family, whose members variously interpret its cryptic promise of freedom vis-à-vis the fate of both Britannia and later Christianity. The Latin prophecy, referring to three Roman emperors, is born in 4 B.C., along with the boy who becomes the British chieftain Nectovelin. Half a century later, Nectovelin's cousin Agrippina uses the prophecy to pique the curiosity of the invading Emperor Claudius, who brings her back to Rome. Later, her avaricious Roman granddaughter, Claudia Severa, capitalizes on the predictive words to persuade Emperor Hadrian to build the wall along Britain's northern frontier. An epilogue set at the dawn of the fifth century hints at the rebirth of the prophecy in a more modern form, providing fodder for the sequel. (Jan.)
A March into Darkness: Volume II of the Destinies of Blood and StoneRobert Newcomb. Del Rey, $26.95 (656p) ISBN 978-0-345-47709-5
For lovers of Dragonlance-style fantasy, Newcomb's second entry in his Destinies of Blood and Stone series (after 2005's Savage Messiah) wonderfully captures the imagination with wildly overblown characters and improbable battle scenes. On the other hand, fans of more cohesive epic fantasy may find tiresome the convoluted action sequences featuring Prince Tristan, who the author constantly reminds the reader serves as a sort of prophetic pawn. Tristan's endowed blood is the most potent in the land of Eutracia, but he has never been trained to use the magic inside him—nor does he appear to want to learn. Instead, Tristan becomes enamored of a martial-arts mystical state called K'Shari, which makes the recipient nearly invincible in battle. Those who prefer their fantasy full of blood and torture, with a cast restricted to good people and evil nemeses, will be most rewarded. (Jan.)
Majestrum: A Tale of Henghis HapthornMatthew Hughes. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $24.95 (216p) ISBN 978-1-59780-061-7
This start to a promising new far-future series (after 2005's The Gist Hunter) introduces Henghis Hapthorn, a sleuth who combines the confident brilliance of Sherlock Holmes with the amusing voice of P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster, in a fantastical mystery reminiscent of Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy novels. Hapthorn is a discriminator—what freelance detectives are called in his baroque world—who's drawn into political intrigue after receiving an apparently simple commission to vet a young man with designs on an aristocrat's daughter. An odd duo aids Hapthorn on his quest: his integrator, an artificial intelligence that has somehow become a furry frugivorous animal that perches on his shoulder, and Hapthorn's alternate personality, which split off during an earlier "transdimensional" voyage and operates according to intuition rather than analysis. Hughes's successful blend of magic, the supernatural and high-tech with Sherlockian deductions (and cryptic observations straight out of Doyle's canon) suggests a long life for Hapthorn. (Jan.)
Blue Devil IslandStephen Mark Rainey. Five Star, $25.95 (301p) ISBN 978-1-5941444-2-4
In Rainey's enjoyable WWII adventure with a superfluous SF plot twist, courageous American flyers with the navy Blue Devil unit shoot down Japs above the Solomon Islands. The U.S. airmen, led by Lt. Cmdr. Drew McLachlan and based on remote Conquest Island, see fast and fierce action, occasionally suffering a tragic loss. Then, in the cinematic tradition of the period, the story veers into horror flick territory with SF undertones when the airmen discover peculiar savages in the caves of Conquest's mountainous landscape. For good measure, Rainey (The Lebo Coven) also throws in a gigantic, monstrous extraterrestrial with galaxy-ruling ambitions. The novel benefits from the author's obvious interest in WWII aircraft, and readers nostalgic for the era's war movies and pulp fiction will enjoy the ride. (Jan.)
The Jack Vance TreasuryEdited byTerry Dowling and
Jonathan Strahan. Subterranean, (www.subterraneanpress.com), $38 (633p) ISBN 978-1-59606-077-7
Encompassing multiple permutations of the planetary romance genre, this best-of collection gathers 18 seminal if sometimes redundant stories and novellas, dating from the 1950s to the 1970s, from SF Grand Master Vance. A brief, illuminating snippet by Vance follows each piece. Novellas include "The Dragon Masters," in which two rivals can't bring themselves to work together when strangers descend from the sky to kill them all, and "The Last Castle," in which slaves revolt and lay siege to the castles of their former masters. Standout stories include "The Moon Moth," the tale of a clueless diplomat who must learn the intricacies of a highly patterned society, and "The Gift of Gab," in which men discover a strange intelligence while mining the bounty of off-world seas. Though the dearth of significant female characters makes the collection feel dated, Vance's stylistic bravado and lush, baroque prose create compelling worlds that blur the line between fantasy and far-flung future-world SF. Vance has won Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Edgar awards. (Jan.)
Mass Market
Sun KissedCatherine Anderson. Signet, $7.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-451-21895-7
One need not be an equine lover to appreciate Anderson's sweet contemporary romance centering on fiercely honest horse rancher Samantha Harrigan and handsome neophyte veterinarian Tucker Coulter, who meet while trying to protect a horse from its abusive owner. Samantha has always cared deeply for her horses, so when they suddenly fall ill, she's distraught; when it turns out they've been poisoned, she's horrified, immediately suspecting that her violent and vindictive ex-husband is the culprit. Unfortunately, the authorities are pointing fingers at Samantha, alleging that she plans to defraud her insurance company. Wary of letting a new man into her life, Samantha nevertheless recognizes that she must call on Tucker to nurse her horses back to health. As he tends to the horses and grows closer to Samantha, Tucker becomes her confidante and champion, realizing that the only way for Samantha to save herself is to catch the offender before the police arrest her. In Samantha, Anderson has created a strong and gentle heroine, and a cast of family and friends proves charming throughout. This smart, wholesome tale should appeal to any fan of traditional romance. (Jan.)
CapacityTony Ballantyne. Bantam, $6.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-553-58929-0
In this uneven sequel to Ballantyne's Recursion, humans can live on as digital clones or "personality constructs" of themselves, leading multiple lives in the numerous matrices of 23rd-century cyberspace and enjoying equal rights with their physical compatriots. Like the first series entry, this novelinterweaves several story lines concerning the dubious existence of an omnipotent artificial intelligence known as the Watcher, who controls the Environmental Agency, the organization in charge of all aspects of the digital and physical worlds. With the help of a geisha-garbed agent (and her numerous digital clones), a woman seeks asylum from a cyberspace killer determined to repeatedly torture and murder her digital incarnations. Meanwhile, on a remote planet in the physical world, a social worker investigates a series of artificial intelligence suicides that may hold apocalyptic implications. Though Ballantyne writes with engaging authority about high-concept technological novelties, the three protagonists often come across as self-parodies, spouting clumsy and predictable exposition that grinds the tale to a halt during what would otherwise have been memorable climaxes. This is a shame, because the inventive plot, which interweaves such staples of the genre as dilemmas of free will, memory and identity, contains enough mind-bending twists and double-crosses to satisfy most cyberpunk fans. (Jan.)
Desire Never DiesJenna Petersen. Avon, $5.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-113808-9
In Petersen's latest series, her three heroines attend balls and watch their manners in typical Regency fashion; atypically, they're also cunning secret agents under the watch of a mysterious figure named, yes, Charlie. In this playful follow-up to From London with Love, expert code breaker and young widow Lady Anastasia Whittig becomes a spy for the king. This bespectacled young woman, who has isolated herself studying cryptography and inventing spy gadgets, quickly learns that the real danger in her new role isn't the counteragent she's been hired to find, but her new partner, the dashing society rake Lucas Tyler. He thinks a female partner, especially one lacking experience and self-confidence, could be deadly for both of them. Although the enmity between them intensifies when Anastasia suspects Lucas's best friend may be responsible for his fellow agents' deaths, Lucas's animosity gives way to admiration, and eventually more. Unfortunately, wooden characters and a weak plot stymie the fun, turning what could have been a cleverly anachronistic romp into a tedious genre misfit. (Jan.)
Heart of HonorKat Martin. Mira, $7.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2383-9
Martin's latest romance, a convoluted Victorian frolic, is sure to test readers' suspension of disbelief, as well as their patience. Though she's the editor of a gazette devoted to women's cultural and economic issues, Krista Hart's powerful grandfather regularly reminds her that her real duty is to provide the family a male heir—and a suitable courtier, the handsome, educated Matthew Carton, has just made his intentions apparent. Then Krista and her mischievous friend, Coralee, visit the circus, where they find a huge, gibbering, unkempt man named Leif caged as a sideshow attraction. Thanks to her father, who happens to be a scholar of Viking culture, Krista recognizes Leif's shouts as Norse, and learns that he's the sole survivor of a shipwreck hailing from an isolated island where Vikings still live in the old ways. Krista's father rescues Leif and brings him home, eager to teach Leif the English language and customs in exchange for his firsthand Viking knowledge. Leif immediately claims Krista as "his woman," indulges in crude behavior and finally abducts Krista in hopes of taking her back to his island. Though some readers might be turned off by Leif's heavy-handed domination and Krista's tepid reproaches—a throwback to the genre's old-fashioned days—it's Leif's unconvincing transformation from rough 16th-century Viking to 19th-century English gentleman as well as Martin's overwrought prose and distracting repetition that make the romance vet's latest a disappointment. (Jan.)
Comics
Stuart Moore's ParaStuart Moore,
Pablo Villalobos,
Claude St. Aubin and various. Penny Farthing (www.pfpress.com), $19.95 (192p) ISBN 978-097-190124-7
Careful attention to mood makes this psychic-SF thriller a standout. Moore and his crew of artists have watched enough episodes of The X-Files to realize that menaces are more frightening when they're only glimpsed in oppressive shadows. The creators also recognize when it's time to turn on the lights and start actually solving problems. Back in the 1980s, a giant underground supercollider apparently went wild and released radiation that killed everyone present. It's been sealed ever since. Now, the lead experimenter's daughter, who's grown up shunning science, accompanies an exploratory team reentering the gloomy site, where they find no bodies, no radiation, just the word "PARA" scrawled on the walls in blood. Threatening, wraithlike creatures, government treachery and portents of the end of the world soon ensue. The supercollider's deserted tunnels are spooky in themselves, and Para's art team uses their darkness effectively as background for the explorers' inchoate personal conflicts. Moore's explanations for what's going on sound scientifically plausible enough to give the story a solid feeling—even after more fantastic events. Finally, the character development is unusually convincing as the heroine transcends her past and moves forward, a cliché that actually works. (Feb.)
Someday's Dreamers Vol. 1: SpellboundNorie Yamada and
Kumichi Yoshizuki. Tokyopop, $9.99 paper (192p) ISBN 1-5981-6643-3
The original manga and anime this story is based on has been called a cross between Harry Potter and Sailor Moon, but this spin-off series has more in common with the murky emotional undercurrents of teenage melodrama. Like its predecessor, the story takes place in a world where magic is commonplace, but carefully regulated. Enter Nami Matsuo, a shy high school senior who also happens to be a magic user. A typical shojo heroine, all dewy-eyed cuteness and modesty, she's never thrown a successful spell in her life and hates herself because of it. Filled with references to a less-than-happy home life, the book does a good job of making Nami's painful lack of self-confidence both understandable and believable. However, Yoshizuki's all-too-typical artwork never quite manages to do justice to the nuances of Yamada's story—Nami's perpetually wide-eyed expression registers more as blankness than as distress. Awkward translations and strangely sequenced dialogue also detract from the book's dramatic strengths, which include hints about further family dysfunction alongside main plot points about the mysterious transfer student who haunts Nami's thoughts. Still, with its darker-than-normal take on magical teenagers, SD: Spellbound is a refreshing change from other, frothier fare. (Dec.)
RobotikaAlex Sheikman and
Joel Chua. Archaia (www.daradja.com), $19.95 (128p) ISBN 1-932386-21-1
In the future, genetic enhancements of humans and humanizing treatments on machines—all in pursuit of a "true cyber-genetic hybrid"—have resulted in a race of discarded cyborgs and other experiments who live at the edges of the universe. The Queen's chief scientist creates a "biological machine" that could bring cyborgs and humans together. But before he can bring it to her, he is killed and his invention stolen. The queen sends mysterious samurai Niko to recover it. He travels from world to world in search of his prize, having misadventures and picking up companions on the way. This is the first full-length work by Sheikman, whose prior work as a role-playing–game illustrator informs the tale, from the detailed world-building to the quest structure. Sheikman's dreamy yet sharp art features bizarre details reminiscent of Mike Mignola's early work on Hellboy, and his story has absurdities that recall Grant Morrison's edgy plotting. But the marriage of these techniques results in something all Sheikman's. Chua's nuanced color work and expert shading adds much clarity. Though at times overwritten, Robotika is a unique treat and should appeal to fans of Mignola and Morrison as well as samurai film devotees. (Nov.)
American Virgin: HeadSteven T. Seagle and
Becky Cloonan. DC/Vertigo, $9.99 paper (112p) ISBN 1-4012-1065-1
Sex and spirituality wrestle in the first story line of this intriguing new comic. The eponymous Adam Chamberlain is a youth evangelist who believes God wants him to remain pure until his fiancée, Cassandra, returns from Peace Corps service. When he hears that Cassie has been raped and murdered in Africa, he sets aside his belief in forgiveness and seeks vengeance, accompanied by his worldlier stepsister and a mercenary they pick up in Pretoria. Besides encountering cultural differences that conflict with his neat American version of Christianity, Adam also begins seeing visions of a cheerfully topless Cassie who gently questions his biblical interpretations. Many people Adam encounters want to watch him get violent—and laid—because that would justify their own shaky principles. That probably includes most readers, but so far Seagle has kept the character naïve but smart, likable and even admirable in his efforts to stay pure, whatever that means. Indie artist Cloonan's work is raw enough to fit the ugly experiences Adam must assimilate, though all her people wear the same grimace and too much mascara. Adam's development may wind up closer to Tezuka's Ode to Kirihito than Ennis's Preacher; right now, though, all possibilities are open, and that's part of the story's attraction. (Nov.)
SideScrollersMatthew Loux. Oni Press, $11.95 (216p) ISBN 1-932664-50-5
This graphic novel about three teenage friends is enormous fun. Brian, the genius at video games, Brad the practical joker and the lovelorn Matt work to save their friend Amber from Dick, a bully with sexual issues. But the plot is almost beside the point—the banter among the three friends and the strange things the boys decide to do is so entertaining. "You've gotta figure, Frankenberry is pretty much Frankenstein, only pink," says Brian, as they deliberate the strengths of various breakfast cereal characters. Later, Brad liberates lobsters from a tank in a store, and Brian, who's held the high score at Street Fighter in the local arcade for years, is challenged by a Girl Scout, loses, then reneges on his promise to buy all her cookies and is beaten by eight-year-olds. The characters are drawn in thick, stylized lines—they have a '50s feel, but a thoroughly modern attitude, including lots of insider talk about video games, especially Prisoner of Zelda. "I always thought of Brad as Princess Toadstool," says Matt. The book is wholesome (an antidrinking message), but still entertaining for young teens or those with a sense of humor, even if they don't own a PlayStation. (Nov.)
