Fiction Reviews: Week of 1/1/2007
By Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 1/1/2007
Aria
Nassim Assefi. Harcourt, $23 (272p) ISBN 978-0-15-101293-0
Devastated by the accidental death of her five-year-old daughter, Aria, and still mourning for Aria's father, Justin, who died months before Aria's birth, Iranian-American Yasaman (Jasmine) Talahi embarks on a somber voyage of grief, with mixed results for Assefi's debut. From Arizona's Sonoran desert to the maize fields of Guatemala (where Aria's father had been a Peace Corps worker) to the holy places of Tibet, Jasmine, an oncologist schooled in rationality, searches for the spiritual enlightenment that might bring about her own healing. In the end, her yearlong odyssey brings her to Iran and to her parents, who reject her modern American lifestyle and with whom she has not spoken since before Aria's birth. Assefi, herself an Iranian-American physician, employs an awkward epistolary format, having Jasmine write to Aria, to Justin, to her long-dead grandmother, to friends and an ex-lover (some of whom write back). The letters are often stiffly formal, and the background information reads as forced. But Assefi's themes—loss as physical distance and the spiritual harm that can result from solitary grieving—come through. (May)
HickAndrea Portes. Unbridled, $14.95 paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-932961-32-4
Portes's chilling debut tracks a 13-year-old Nebraska girl's hard-going life on the road. Young Luli knows losers—her "aging Brigitte Bardot" mother, Tammy, and her father, Nick, go at each other every night at the Alibi, the watering hole in hometown Palmyra, Neb. Tammy runs away one morning, and Nick soon follows, leaving Luli alone at home with the Smith and Wesson .45 her Uncle Nipper gave her. Pistol in tow, she hitches rides heading west to Vegas. A crooked man (literally; he "looks like an italic," says smart-alecky Luli) named Eddie picks her up briefly before throwing her out of the car. Next comes cocaine-snorting grifter Glenda, who enlists Luli as an accessory to a robbery that goes awry. Glenda takes Luli under her wing. The two cross paths again with Eddie, who rapes Luli and ties her up in a secluded motel. Glenda comes to her rescue, but the confrontation with Eddie ends badly. Luli's flippant narration makes for a love-it or hate-it read. (May)
LandingEmma Donoghue. Harcourt, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-15-101297-8
In her affecting fifth novel, Donoghue (Slammerkin) explores the idea that true love can conquer all. Jude Turner is a 25-year-old androgynous Luddite who's rooted to her small Canadian town of Ireland. She's also uneasy about flying, but forces herself to board a plane when she hears that her mother, visiting family in the U.K., may be ill. On the plane she meets the older, feminine, worldly Síle O'Shaughnessy, a flight attendant who lives in the other Ireland. After exchanging contact info, the duo part and find themselves thinking of one another and writing to each other as they lead their respective lives: Jude as the curator of a tiny museum who has the occasional dalliance with her former love, Rizla; Síle in bustling Dublin, entrenched in a complacent relationship with her longtime partner, Kathleen. Jude and Síle fall in love over the course of their correspondence and try to make their relationship work despite the distance between them, nay-saying friends, jealous exes and their own nagging doubts. That Jude and Síle are so vividly opposite is the slightest bit precious, but Donoghue mitigates the boilerplate aspects of this love story with an abiding compassion for her characters. There's a lot to like here, but nothing to really love. (May)
To My Dearest FriendsPatricia Volk. Knopf, $23 (208p) ISBN 978-0-307-26360-5
Fans of Volk's critically acclaimed memoir, Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family, will be pleased to find her effortlessly amusing and wise voice behind her accomplished second novel. Alice Vogel, a 62-year-old married Upper West Sider (and proprietress of an Upper East Side boutique), meets, for the first time, Nanny Wunderlich, a 59-year-old widowed therapist-turned-real estate agent, when the two are made co-executrixes of their dead friend Roberta's safe deposit box. In it, they discover a letter from an unnamed lover (Roberta was married) and team up to discover just with whom it was that their dear friend had been clandestinely sleeping. Alice and Nanny's sleuthing is perfunctory, and their voices, in alternating first-person chapters (and some in third person), aren't distinct. But the two are still fully realized New Yorkers, and—beyond frequenting Zabar's and the Metropolitan Opera, and using words like "gazillion"—they have real, stinging insights into later life in the big city: "Charles laughs. If smell had form and color, I would be enveloped in puce haze the size of a hassock," says Alice of the husband she loves. It's Volk's easy depth that makes this book, perhaps the first piece of empty nest chick lit, a winner. (Apr.)
Kalooki NightsHoward Jacobson. Simon & Schuster, $25 (480p) ISBN 978-1-4165-4342-8
British comic author Jacobson unfolds his mordantly unsettling but hilarious ninth novel in retrospect. Cartoonist Max Glickman has built an uncertain career lampooning his own Judaism, while his relationships have been restricted to "women with diaereses or umlauts" (including ex-wives Chloë and Zoë). His introverted childhood friend, Manny Washinsky, grows up to commit a ghastly crime (also shiksa-related), but in their early adolescence, the two boys get together in an abandoned air raid shelter in 1950s Manchester to work on a comic-book history of Jewish suffering, Five Thousand Years of Bitterness, completed years later by Max. The two meet again after decades, when Manny is released from prison and Max is hired by a TV production company headed by a Nazi sympathizer, in one of many caustic ironies, to develop a film treatment based on Manny's life. Paradoxically, it leads Max to real revelations about their pasts and their identities. The factual horror of the Holocaust is always close to the emotional core of this twisted tour de force—Max's fugue-like expletive-spewing first person reads like a British Zuckerman completely unbound—but Jacobson (The Making of Henry) tempers the profane with meditations on what it means to be British and Jewish. (Apr.)
MomzillasJill Kargman. Broadway, $22.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7679-2478-8
Kargman is no worse off without writing partner Carrie Karasyov (The Right Address; Wolves in Chic Clothing) in her first solo novel, a breezy jaunt through the Manhattan nursery grinder. Recently relocated to the Upper East Side from San Francisco after her husband, Josh, took a lucrative job, Hannah Allen is thrown into the mommy snake pit by her domineering mother-in-law, Lila Allen Dillingham, who introduces Hannah to a cabal of neighborhood moms led by the "drop dead gorgissima" Bee Elliott. Hannah, a black-jeans-and-Converse art history grad and mother of too-cute two-year-old Violet, struggles to please Lila and keep up with Bee's hypercompetitive crew of "Kelly-bag-toting, Chanel-suit-wearing, Bugaboo-pushing sharks" who fret over their children's head circumferences and admissions into pre-preschools with three-year waiting lists. There's no shortage of name-dropping and light humor as Hannah struggles to win a co-op board's approval, keep her marriage afloat and get Violet into Carnegie Nursery School. Though a bevy of "awky" abbreviations litter the narrative ("unfortch" "sitch," "actsch"), Kargman writes with verve. Fans of the genre won't be disappointed. (Apr.)
The Sun Over BredaArturo Pérez-Reverte, trans. from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden. Putnam, $24.95 (204p) ISBN 978-0-399-15383-9
A former war correspondent, Spanish novelist Pérez-Reverte continues his internationally acclaimed Captain Alatriste series with a third translated volume (following Purity of Blood), every bit as terse and engaging as previous books. Diego Alatriste, a 17th-century mercenary and wily veteran of campaigns from Italy to Flanders, is part of the army of Spanish King Philip IV—a defender of the Catholic faith—that's trying to suppress the Calvinist heretics of the Low Countries. Narrated is retrospect by Íñigo Balboa, who at the time of the action was Alatriste's 14-year-old page, this installment focuses on the Spaniards' siege of the fortified rebel city of Breda. As the stalemate drags on, the battle becomes less "a matter of military interest to Spain but, rather, one of reputation." Its power and influence in decline, Spain's lingering hopes to avoid another embarrassing setback in Flanders rest with stoic warriors like Alatriste. The action is fast, furious, and sanguinary, and Pérez-Reverte grimly recreates the universal madness and desperation of combat. He also captures the tedium and misery that is the common soldier's everyday fate and the zealotry with which Christians—Catholic and Protestant alike—once massacred each other. Factually sound and vividly imagined, this latest incarnation of Captain Alatriste will cheer old fans and win new ones. (Apr.)
Summer PeopleBrian Groh. Ecco, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-121001-3
Groh's debut, a fish-out-of-water story about a Cleveland college dropout who spends a summer caring for an elderly woman in a tony Maine beach town, is neither inspiring nor disappointing. Nathan Empson lands in Brightonfield Cove, Maine, with the intention of sorting out his life—his last relationship faltered, he dropped out of college, and he wants to be a graphic novelist—while caring for Ellen Broderick, an ailing elderly Cleveland woman who summers there. His caretaker responsibilities are more demanding than he'd imagined, and through time spent with Ellen, Nathan befriends Eldwin Lowell, an Episcopalian pastor with a drinking problem and a depressed wife, and Leah, the nanny to Eldwin's children who becomes the necessary love interest. As the weeks tick by, Nathan learns intriguing bits about Ellen's past, agonizes over his romantic and artistic woes and, among other things, gets beat up and watches a house burn down. It's a solidly good book. (Apr.)
The Next Thing on My ListJill Smolinski. Crown/Shaye Areheart, $23 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-35124-1
Smolinski follows up her debut, Flip-Flopped, with an airy, hit and mostly miss novel about one rudderless woman's accidental journey of self-discovery. After a Weight Watchers meeting, narrator June Parker offers a ride home to newly svelte Marissa Jones, and the two hit it off until Marissa dies in a nasty one-car accident. When June runs into Marissa's hot brother at the cemetery six months after the crash, she makes a rash promise to carry out the dead girl's list of 20 things to do before she turned 25 (even though June is 34). The challenges that follow—running a 5K, kissing a stranger, "dare to go braless"—serve less to improve June's life than to highlight how unfortunate it is that she's taken up a stranger's goals instead of her own. Smolinski's Los Angeles is a well-executed set—June tilts at windmills as a writer for a ride-sharing nonprofit—but the most human characters in it are June's tyrannical and calculating boss and her secretly sensitive, underused brother. Though completing the list is a transformative experience for June, the leadup fizzles. (Apr.)
SparklesLouise Bagshawe. Plume, $14 (512p) ISBN 978-0-452-28814-0
British novelist-screenwriter Bagshawe (The Go-To Girl) updates '70s mega-business romance Scruples with this internationally flavored fantasia on love, lies and shopping. After 13 years of marriage, jewelry magnate Pierre Massot suddenly disappears from his British-born wife Sophie's life. For seven more years, Sophie (née Roberts) stays in Paris raising son Tom and cowering before mother-in-law Katherine until, with her priest's blessing, she has Pierre declared legally dead and starts showing interest in the family business. Naïvely, she allows herself to be taken in personally and professionally by the new CEO, Gregoire Lazard, and finds herself fooled by the grasping overdressed Oklahoma-born PR executive, Judy Dean, who was Pierre's lover until he disappeared. Gradually, Sophie masters retail, the family and even loves again, but not without a lot of hard knocks. Jewels and couture (Sophie's a clothes horse) are described in more detail than the sex, while murder and betrayal in Mother Russia give this story of the rich and glamorous its dark side. But House of Massot shenanigans and the mystery of Pierre's disappearance don't put much rock beneath the glitter. (Apr.)
Notting HellRachel Johnson. Touchstone, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4165-3176-0
This veddy droll through-the-keyhole debut from British columnist Johnson is drenched in the mores and manners of London's West Village equivalent—plus or minus a few trustafarians and maybe a few titles. Married to an "ecotect" and speeding childlessly toward middle age, Clare is a dilettante who dabbles in feng shui gardening when she isn't keeping an ovulation diary and minding everyone else's business on the back garden shared by her square block. Her frenemy, Mimi, is a 37-year-old freelance journalist who is married to Ralph (a freelance energy consultant and pundit) and Mummy to three posh kids and a dog. As the two alternate first-person chapters, Clare spots a scantily clad neighbor's wife sneaking out of the wrong house in the predawn darkness, while Mimi contemplates relieving her malignant ennui by hopping into bed with their new billionaire bachelor neighbor, Si Kasparian. ("Money is terribly sexy," she notes.) What follows are pages of brand- and name-dropping, boring hesitations and recriminations, untrustworthy billionaire behavior and Clare discovering her husband has taken an opposing side on a contentious garage renovation. Lacking the emotional depth of Anna Maxted and the strategic bling-command of Jackie Collins, this semisatire gets lost somewhere in between. (Apr.)
The King of Colored TownDarryl Wimberley. Toby, $24.95 (380p) ISBN 978-1-59264-181-9
Wimberley revisits the rural north Florida featured in A Tinker's Damn (2000) in this powerful portrayal of a segregated community at the height of the Civil Rights movement. In 1963 Cilla Handsom, a high school junior living in Laureate's "Colored Town," learns that her senior year will be spent at an integrated white school on the other end of town, where fear and racist fury permeate the halls. A brash charmer named Joe Billy King blows into town after robbing a church in Tallahassee and becomes Cilla's first lover. He discovers Cilla's gift for music and enlists the help of a teacher to secure Cilla access to music lessons and instruments. Cilla focuses on her music and her studies, but she and Joe Billy attract the attention of the Klan and are brutally assaulted. In the aftermath, Joe Billy sacrifices himself to protect Cilla. Though the tension lags after Cilla leaves Colored Town, Wimberley's take on the prickly themes of racism and poverty is made memorable by a gripping story line, authentic voice and dead-on dialogue. (Apr.)
Nineteen Minutes Jodi Picoult. Atria, $26 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7434-9672-8
Bestseller Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) takes on another contemporary hot-button issue in her brilliantly told new thriller, about a high school shooting. Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people. Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused Peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting. The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive. (Mar.)
The Spellman FilesLisa Lutz. Simon & Schuster, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4165-3239-2
Cracking the case can get complicated and outrageously wacky when a family of detectives is involved, but Lutz has a blast doing it in her delicious debut. Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, a San Francisco PI who began working for Spellman Investigations at age 12, could easily pass as Buffy or Veronica Mars's wiser but funnier older sister. Izzy digs TV, too, especially Get Smart (an ex-boyfriend's ownership of the complete bootlegged DVD set is his major selling point). Now 28, Izzy thinks she wants out, but elects to take on a cold case while dealing with 14-year-old sister Rae, a nightmarish Nancy Drew, and parents who have no qualms about bugging their children's bedrooms. At times the dialogue-heavy text reads like a script and the action flags, but these are quibbles. When Rae suddenly disappears, Izzy and her family must learn some serious lessons in order to find her. Can the family that snoops together stay together? Stay tuned as a dynamic new series unfolds. 150,000 first printing. (Mar.)
The Last EmpressAnchee Min. Houghton Mifflin, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-0-618-53146-2
Min's Empress Orchid tracked the concubine Orchid's path to becoming Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi; this revisionist look at her long years behind her son Tung Chih's throne (1863–1908) won't disappoint Orchid's fans. Recounted through Tzu Hsi's first-person, the early chapters encompass her trials as a young "widow," as co-regent with the late emperor's wife and as a mother. An engaging domestic drama gives way to pedestrian political history; Tzu Hsi lectures like a popular historian on palace intrigue, military coups, the Boxer Rebellion and conflicts with Russia, France and Japan. Though tears flow, there is little passion (save Tzu Hsi's erotic but chaste longing for Yung Lu, commander of the emperor's troops). Min's empress adopts a notably modern psychologizing tone ("How much was Guang-hsu affected when he was wrenched from the family nest?"), earthy language ("You are the most wretched fucking demon I know!") and notes of historical prescience (including what "future critics" will say). Min attacks the popular conception of Tzu Hsi as a corrupt, ruthless, power-hungry assassin, but the results read less like a novel than a didactic memoir. (Mar.)
Sister Mine Tawni O'Dell. Crown/Shaye Areheart, $23 (416p) ISBN 978-0-307-35126-5
O'Dell, whose debut, Back Roads (2000), was an Oprah pick, returns with a terrific third novel set in a Pennsylvania coal country of broken families, altercations and smalltown coping. Policewoman-turned-cabbie Shae-Lynn Penrose, a little over 40 and back in Jolly Mount after a rent-a-cop stint in Washington, D.C., raised son Clay (24 and the town deputy) on her own. For the past 18 years, she has believed that her sister, Shannon, was killed by their abusive father while Shae-Lynn was at college. (Their mother died of complications after giving birth to Shannon; their father was killed much later in a mine explosion.) When a New York lawyer turns up asking for Shannon Penrose, whom he seems to have seen recently, Shae-Lynn is shocked; when Shannon herself suddenly turns up, very pregnant, Shae-Lynn's reaction is primal and tactile. As O'Dell slowly unspools Shannon's very-much-of-her-own-doing predicament, O'Dell demonstrates her mastery of set-piece dialogue, reeling off stingingly acute encounters that are as funny as they can be crushingly sad. Ne'er-do-well Choker Simms (and his two kids, Fanci and Kenny), lawyer Gerald Kozlowski, mine owner Cam Jack, Shae-Lynn's nonboyfriend E.J., Shannon's sort-of-boyfriend Dmitri and others are all wonderfully drawn through Shae-Lynn's keen observations. Family saga O'Dell-style crackles with conflict and a deep understanding of the complications and burdens that follow attachment, sex, love and kinship. (Mar.)
CanaanDonald McCaig. Norton, $24.95 (480p) ISBN 978-0-393-06246-5
This well-wrought sequel to McCaig's Civil War novel Jacob's Ladder (2003) covers the fractious years between Lee's surrender at Appomattox and Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn. To illustrate that complex, ugly era, the narrative follows the changing fortunes of a variety of personages—a Virginia plantation owner's family and former slaves, a Yankee carpetbagger and a railroad magnate among others. The character who best captures the contradictions that McCaig is after is Edward Ratcliff, top sergeant for the 38th Regiment, United States Colored Troops, who journeys from slave to free man to member of the South Carolina Santee Indian Tribe. Before the war, Ratcliff was known as a "hincty nigger," but his white army commander treats him with respect. After travels north and west, as a scout, a trail cook, cattle driver and sharpshooter, Edward looks for a context that affords a measure of esteem. Eventually he meets and marries She Goes Before and takes a Santee name, Plenty Cuts, because of his bullwhip scars. But as the U.S. continues the persecution of Native nations, robbing them of their natural resources, Ratcliff can no longer sustain his family. Eventually he takes a job as a scout for Custer at Little Big Horn, and his fate is sealed. McCaig's latest is authoritative and occasionally profound. (Mar.)
Eddie Krumble Is the ClapperDito Montiel. Thunder's Mouth, $14.95 paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-56025-963-3
The widely acclaimed author and director of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints shifts from memoir to high-energy satire in his fiction debut. Eddie Krumble is a high school kid from Queens with a job at a lock factory and a bleak future that gets a bit sunnier when he and permanently stoned pal Chris Plork hop a bus to L.A., where they find work in the "audience participation placement" field (read: compensated clapping for shows too awful to draw a legitimate audience). Eddie wears disguises to maximize his earning potential—appearing as different people at different clapping gigs (sometimes three in a day). The producers of The Tonight Show meanwhile, while trawling reels of bad television for material, notice Eddie's manifold personalities, prompting Jay Leno to make "The Clapper" into a recurring bit that puts Eddie's anonymity, and thus his livelihood, on the line. A whimsical tale where the underdog gets his day—and his few minutes in the spotlight—Montiel's first stab at fiction is an entertaining excursion into the mundane reality behind television's exuberant facade. (Mar.)
The Bloomsday Dead Adrian McKinty. Scribner, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7432-6644-4
McKinty finishes up his knockout trilogy featuring Irish mercenary Michael Forsythe with his most visceral, satisfying effort yet (after 2006's The Dead Yard). Perennial fugitive Forsythe has drifted to Lima, Peru, where he's grabbed by a couple of strong-arm men who force him at gunpoint to take a phone call. Bridget Callaghan, a former lover and the one-time fiancée of Irish-American mobster Darkey White (whom Forsythe killed), has finally tracked Forsythe down and offers a modest proposal: come to Belfast and find her 11-year-old daughter, Siobhan, who's gone missing, or take a bullet. Our man arrives in Dublin on June 16, when the city is overrun with Joyceans celebrating Bloomsday. Dodging various assassins, Forsythe makes his way up to Belfast. Back on his home turf, he sets out after the girl, apparently kidnapped by a fringe group of IRA paramilitaries. McKinty writes masterful action scenes, and he whips up a frenzy as the bullets begin to fly. Devotees of Irish literature will also appreciate the many allusions to Joyce's Ulysses. (Mar.)
Blind SpotTerri Persons. Doubleday, $23.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-51869-7
In this humdrum thriller with ghostly undercurrents, the first of a new series, Persons uses an old plot idea: endowing her female FBI agent with the power to see through the eyes of a serial killer as he goes about his nefarious business. Agent Bernadette Saint Clare has been kicking around field offices all over the United States when she shows up for her new assignment in St. Paul, hoping that her unusual vision and strange ability will be more welcome than they usually are to both her bosses and her fellow agents. She immediately draws a case involving bodies bound with unusual knots and each missing a right hand. A ring found at one of the sites leads her into the eyes of the killer, but his identity and motives remain unclear. Because Bernadette makes wrong choices, she struggles to understand what the reader has long figured out, missing golden opportunities to catch her man and often placing herself in mortal danger. In future installments, Persons would do well to develop her heroine's ordinary crime-busting skills. (Mar.)
What the Thunder SaidJanet Peery. St. Martin's, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-25263-2
The powers of nature drive a permanent wedge between two teenage sisters in the uneven second novel by National Book Award–finalist (for The River Beyond the World, 1996) Peery. Sisters Mackie and Etta Spoon—dutiful and a "pistol," respectively—grow up on an Oklahoma farm battered into barrenness during the dust bowl years. The secrets they keep from each other (Etta knows the truth about Mackie's parentage; Mackie knows about Etta's secret lover) cause a rift that widens when they compete for the affections of Audie, a 17-year-old Indian drifter their father hires on as help. A series of misfortunes—their mother dies, their father sells the farm—sends the sisters in separate directions, but after they leave home, Peery's finely wrought narrative is subsumed by short –story–like chapters that, even at their best (the vivid chapter depicting Georgette, the daughter Etta abandoned as a baby, as an old woman on a wild journey of her own), lack overall cohesion. Peery's writerly gifts are substantial, but this isn't her finest work. (Mar.)
An Accidental AmericanAlex Carr. Random, $9.95 paper (240p) ISBN 978-0-8129-7708-0
This thought-provoking thriller from the pseudonymous Carr features a heroine with an unusual background. Nicole Blake, the daughter of a Lebanese violin teacher killed by a car bomb and a corrupt American playboy whose primary contributions to her life have been U.S. citizenship and a prison term for forgery, reluctantly trades her quiet ex-con life in the French countryside for gunfire and skullduggery in Lisbon, where she tries to track down the players in a triple-cross that goes back to the 1983 bombing of the American embassy in Beirut. The smooth pacing is marred slightly by frequent flashbacks to her childhood and a long-ago romance, but the gritty atmosphere is perfectly drawn, and complex layers of lies and betrayal keep the reader happily guessing up to the end. Carr, the author of Flashback and three other novels under her real name, Jenny Siler, adds a timely postscript on the difficulty and value of writing fiction about real events. (Mar.)
HadesRussell Andrews. Warner, $24.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-89296-021-7
At the start of the pseudonymous Andrews's intelligent page-turner, his third Justin Westwood thriller (after Midas), Westwood, the police chief of the quiet Long Island community of East End Harbor, has just begun a torrid affair with Abigail Harmon, the stunning wife of a wealthy investor, when a late-night phone call informs him that her husband has been found brutally murdered. Placed in the uncomfortable position of being the widow's alibi as well as the prime suspect in the eyes of an ambitious local prosecutor angling for an eventual gubernatorial race, Westwood has a personal stake in tracking down the killer. The twisty plot provides the appealing Westwood with plenty of challenges, though his heroics sometimes border on the implausible (especially when he's battling a lethal team of Asian assassins). Under his actual name, Peter Gethers, Andrews is the author of several bestselling nonfiction books, including The Cat Who Went to Paris. (Mar.)
Dropped from HeavenSophie Judah. Schocken, $23 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8052-4248-5
The 19 stories in Judah's debut explore the little known Jewish community of Bene Israel in India over the course of more than a century. Though Judah touches on a wide array of topics in these vignette-like stories of life in the fictional town of Jwalangar—the fusion of Jewish and Indian (both Hindi and Muslim) customs, the India-Pakistan partition, the birth of Israel—the most prevalent theme is the underappreciated strength and wisdom of the community's women. In "Hannah and Benjamin," Hannah's parents refuse to allow her to marry a man from a lower class, but they eventually relent when she protests by remaining in her bedroom for a year. Bride-to-be Sunita in "Dreams" wants a life of more than domestic servitude. The pieces that finish tragically, such as "Monsoon" and "The Horoscope Never Lies," are the most memorable of the collection because Judah cracks open human weakness and depicts the resulting pain. But most stories are less successful and suffer from explanatory prose and clunky dialogue. The obscure intersection of India and Judaism provides Judah with rich material, though the finished products aren't always polished. (Mar.)
Luminous Fish: Tales of Science and LoveLynn Margulis. Chelsea Green, $21.95 (192p) ISBN 978-1-933392-33-2
A Distinguished University Professor in the department of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, Margulis charts the professional and romantic lives of a handful of scientists in her first fiction outing, a mixed bag of sex, seduction and science. In the first story, "Conceits (Howard)," René studies chemistry and dates the monumentally self-absorbed Howard Fein, a medical student whose selfishness results in lifelong repercussions for René. Later, in "Gases (Raoul)," René has a toxic affair with fellow atmospheric chemist Raoul Gautier, who alternately accepts and rejects her advances. In "The Estimator (Georges)," readers meet Georges Standon, a space scientist haunted by the long-ago disappearance of his wife, Odile, who, in the following story ("Meeting"), becomes fast friends with René at a science conference. Margulis's portrayal of the scientific life—isolated, oddly passionate and laced with the joy of discovery—brings out the lyricist in her, though she is less adept at navigating the inner lives of her "dedicated loners." Margulis's ambitious project is partially successful. (Mar.)
The Lying Tongue Andrew Wilson. Atria, $24 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9397-6
Patricia Highsmith, the subject of British journalist Wilson's acclaimed biography Beautiful Shadow, would be delighted by this standout debut novel, which heralds a major new talent in the psychological thriller genre. After a tutoring job in Venice falls through, aspiring novelist Adam Woods appears to luck into the perfect position there—as personal assistant to the reclusive Gordon Crace, an acclaimed writer whose life is shrouded in mystery and who's published only one novel. Crace, who's locked himself away from the glories of his chosen city, insists Woods abide by a set of strict rules, including not mentioning Crace's literary success. In clearing out the author's mess of a study, Woods finds two letters that hint at a dark secret in Crace's past, and begins to discreetly probe his employer's past, with calamitous results. Wilson brilliantly and subtly introduces doubt in the reader as to Woods's reliability and character before delivering some potent final plot twists. Fans of classic Hitchcock will be richly rewarded. (Feb.)
Mystery
Set Sail for MurderCarolyn Hart. Morrow, $23.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-072403-0
In the long-awaited seventh installment of Hart's popular series starring feisty retired journalist Henrie O (after 2001's Resort to Murder), Henrie O's erstwhile lover, Jimmy, has married another woman, the dashing Sophia Montgomery, and he's afraid that one of Sophia's stepchildren from a previous marriage is trying to kill her. When Jimmy begs Henrie O to accompany his family on a cruise and get to the bottom of the suspicious accidents that keep befalling Sophia, she reluctantly agrees. It turns out that Sophia's stepkids have plenty of reasons to hate her, not least that she stands in the way of their inheritance. The scheming stepkids are predictable and two-dimensional, but Henrie O remains a complex character, and her struggles to keep her feelings for Jimmy platonic are every bit as engaging as the putative mystery. Henrie O's fans, and devotees of Hart's lighter Death on Demand series, will enjoy this quick read. (Apr.)
Death Comes for the Fat Man Reginald Hill. HarperCollins, $24.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-06-082082-4
Hill, who has created and artfully guided the destinies of Yorkshire policemen Det. Supt. Andy Dalziel (aka "the Fat Man") and his DCI Peter Pascoe through 22 remarkable adventures, doesn't give anything away until the very last page of this excellent mystery (after 2004's Good Morning, Midnight). Only then do we learn whether or not the bomb blast that starts the story marks the end of Dalziel's life. As the Fat Man lies comatose in his hospital bed, the shrewd and usually diplomatic Pascoe—who was also injured in the blast, but saved by his colleague's bulk—takes on some of Dalziel's troublesome tenacity (as well as a touch of his saltier language) as he forces his way onto the team of antiterrorism specialists looking into the incident. The terrorists appear to be linked to an obscure branch of the historic Knights Templar, and Hill's perfect pitch (especially for the short, pithy details of dialogue and character description) carries the story through all sorts of villains—some of whom are even directly connected to the cops. (Mar.)
Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund: The Second Dixie Hemingway MysteryBlaize Clement. St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-34092-6
A former sheriff's deputy in Sarasota, Fla., Dixie Hemingway now earns a living as a pet sitter, a career that once again turns perilous when her charge, a dachshund, digs up a dead body at the start of Clement's fast-paced sophomore effort (after 2005's Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter). Dixie identifies the victim as Conrad Ferrelli, whose Doberman pinscher she once walked. A wealthy, eccentric son of a famous Ringling Brothers clown, Conrad and his wife, Stevie, were funding the creation of a retirement home for circus performers. But his brother, Denton, a vicious creep with mob connections, possesses no such charitable impulse. Clement builds suspense and delivers startling revelations as both Stevie and Dixie find themselves targets of Denton's resentment. (Mar.)
Cat Pay the Devil: A Joe Grey MysteryShirley Rousseau Murphy. Morrow, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-057810-7
Talking tomcat Joe Grey and his fellow feline sleuths, Dulcie and Kit, track an escaped convict in their engaging 12th adventure (after 2005's Cat Breaking Free). Just as the cats fear, Cage Jones kidnaps Dulcie's human housemate, a retired U.S. probation officer, Wilma Gertz, who testified in Cage's probation hearing to prevent his release. The crime rate rises in Molena Point, Calif., with the murder of several area women and the return of Cage's former partner-in-crime, Greeley Urzey—back to reclaim stolen ancient artifacts he and Cage believe Wilma took. As the cats go wild trying to save Wilma, their chatty, anthropomorphic shenanigans might raise eyebrows, but Murphy's surefire plotting makes this more than just another cute cat cozy. (Mar.)
Died in the Wool: A Torie O'Shea MysteryRett MacPherson. St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-312-36221-8
Torie O'Shea, genealogist and president of the New Kassel, Mo., historical society, unearths long-buried family secrets when she puzzles out the strange 1920s suicides of siblings Glory, Whalen and Rupert Kendall in MacPherson's homespun 10th Torie O'Shea mystery (after 2006's Dead Man Running). The old Kendall house is put up for sale, and Torie hopes to buy and reinvent the home as a textile museum, honoring Glory Kendall, a skilled quilter. But Torie's interest broadens beyond historic fabric and needlework when she begins researching the odd circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Kendalls, who were survived by their father, Sanders. The ominous intrigue touches the present day when a friend of Torie's is poisoned with the same substance found long ago in Glory's body. Torie's determined historical detective work will absorb cozy readers. (Mar.)
Amen CornerRick Shefchik. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (332p) ISBN 978-1-59058-411-8
Minneapolis police detective Sam Skarda, on leave after being shot, has been invited to participate as an amateur in the Masters golf tournament in this middling debut from sports writer Shefchik. Also visiting Augusta, Ga., is recently released convict Lee Doggett, out for revenge against the man who fathered but didn't raise him. When two people associated with the tournament are murdered in the first three days, club officials hire Sam to find the killer—quietly please, with minimal publicity. Because Shefchik reveals Doggett's identity and motive from the get-go, the payoff should be the edge of suspense to Sam's investigation—will Doggett harm more people before the police learn what the reader already knows? The unfolding of the investigation, when it finally gets going, however, is buried under a dense layer of Masters minutiae. Golfers may appreciate all the detail, but others may find it distracting. (Mar.)
Neon DragonJohn F. Dobbyn. Hardscrabble Crime (www.upne.com), $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-58465-614-2
Fans of the film True Believer will best appreciate law professor Dobbyn's debut, a routine legal thriller with a similar plot. Michael Knight, a junior associate at a high-powered Boston firm, gets asked by a powerful African-American judge, Amos Bradley, to represent his son, Anthony, who has been accused of gunning down a beloved member of the city's Chinese community under cover of a New Year's parade. This assignment brings Knight to the attention of the firm's disgraced legend, Alexis Devlin, who has been keeping a low profile since he was alleged to have participated in jury-tampering to help a client. As the two attorneys search for the truth, Knight ventures into dangerous neighborhoods on the trail of some major league political and judicial corruption. Considering his curriculum vitae—Latino street kid, Harvard law grad and former federal prosecutor—Knight comes across as oddly naïve, while his ignorance of Chinatown's organized criminals doesn't ring true. (Mar.)
SF/Fantasy/Horror
Sixty Days and CountingKim Stanley Robinson. Bantam Spectra, $25 (416p) ISBN 978-0-553-80313-6
Inside-the-Beltway policy wonks and government scientists strive to save the world from environmental collapse in the well-written third installment (after 2005's Fifty Degrees Below) of this hyperrealistic, near-future SF series. The Gulf Stream—slowed by global warming—has been restarted and nuclear-powered naval ships stand by to generate electricity for frigid coastal cities. Phil Chase, an ecologically minded Democrat from California in the Al Gore mold, has won the presidency, due in part to the efforts of NSA scientist Frank Vanderwal and his spook girlfriend, Caroline Barr, who helped foil a right-wing attempt to fix the election. But only time will tell if the world has both the scientific know-how and the political will to reverse the ongoing rush toward an ecological precipice. Combining surprisingly interesting discussions of environmental science with Robinson's trademark tramps through nature and an exciting espionage subplot, this novel should appeal to both the author's regular SF audience and anyone concerned with the ecological health of our planet (Mar.)
Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting EdgeEdited by Lou Anders. Pyr, $15 paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-59102-486-6
The solid, straightforward storytelling of the 19 stories and two poems that Anders (Futureshocks) gathers for this first in a projected series of all-original SF anthologies speculates on people's efforts to "make sense of a changing world." The contributors don't necessarily assume that humans will find it easy or even possible to cope with all the changes around and within them—but they'll try, which is just part of SF's continuing dialogue about the future. The collection's strongest pieces include Robert Charles Wilson's character study of an almost-artist in search of a muse ("YFL-500"), Mary A. Turzillo's dissection of love ("Pride"), Paul Di Filippo's witty extrapolation of electronic consumerism and democracy gone berserk ("Wikiworld") and Ken MacLeod's understated, moving report on the Second Coming ("Jesus Christ, Reanimator"). All the selections in this outstanding volume prompt thoughtful speculation about what kind of tomorrow we're heading toward and what we'll do when we get there. (Feb.)
Every Inch a KingHarry Turtledove. Del Rey, $14.95 paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-345-48736-0
Fantastical historian Turtledove (Settling Accounts: The Grapple) puts a merry spin on the true tale of circus clown Otto Witte, who enjoyed a brief and glorious reign over Albania in 1913 thanks to a case of mistaken identity and the help of sword-swallower Max Schlepsig. Here, Turtledove reimagines Albania as Shqiperi, Otto Witte as Otto of Schlepsig, Max Schlepsig as Max of Witte, and disguises various other people and places in more (Ottoman Empire: Hassocki Empire) and less (Macedonia: Fyrom) obvious ways, while the seas are populated with serpents, and turn-of-the-20th-century technology is replaced by wizards. Masquerading as Prince Halim Eddin, Otto bullies and bluffs his way with Max across the continent in fine style. They enjoy the many pleasures of the Shqiperi palace, plundering its harem and treasury before making good their escape. Fictionalized reality requires top-notch style to balance the lack of suspense, and while Turtledove provides credible wordplay and commentary, he's no Terry Pratchett. Nonetheless, this stand-alone novel is a fun romp through an undeservedly obscure moment in history. (Feb.)
By Slanderous TonguesMercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis. Baen, $25 (544p) ISBN 978-1-4165-2107-5
Good and evil fairy factions continue to battle over the fate of Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII, in this lighthearted, historically detailed third installment in the Scepter'd Isle series (after 2005's Ill Met by Moonlight). To prevent the 14-year-old red-haired princess from ascending the throne, the Dark Sidhe, or Unseleighe, plan to destroy her benevolent Seleighe guardians, Lord Denoriel and his twin sister, Aleneil. Without them to guide her, Elizabeth might slip up, misbehave or marry—defeating the prophecy that she will one day rule England. But Denoriel and Aleneil's Dark Sidhe half-siblings, the twins Rhoslyn and Pasgen, shift their allegiances to help Denoriel and Aleniel keep Elizabeth safe and challenge the power of Vidal Dhu, prince of the Dark Sidhe. Lackey and Gellis blend the best of high fantasy with a grand dose of English history. (Feb.)
Hex: A Novel of Love SpellsDarieck Scott. Carroll & Graf, $15.95 paper (608p) ISBN 978-0-78671-764-4
Scott's ambitious but unwieldy second novel (after 1995's Traitor to the Race) explores black gay identity as it describes the power of the mysterious titular spellbook. At the start of the novel, Fidel Castro has just died, and amid the pandemonium of a near-future Miami, grad students Langston and Azaril search for their missing friend, Damian. Langston, struck by the odd nature of the chaos around him, visits his psychic aunt, Reginia, for help, and she gives him a hand-annotated copy of Hex, a book that belonged to Damian's father, Credence. With Damian's disappearance linked to the madness all around them, the answer lies in the powerful volume, amended by Damian's grandmother. Past and future entwine as they all search for answers that may well lie within themselves. The narrative shifts across a multitude of characters and eras, including New Orleans of 1953 and Los Angeles of 1971. Scott evokes an eternal present marked by strange, meaningful connections that defy the notion of coincidence. (Feb.)
Dreadful SkinCherie Priest. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $25 (232p) ISBN 978-1-59606-080-7
A runaway Irish nun pursues a murderous werewolf across post–Civil War America in this riveting Southern gothic from Priest (Wings to the Kingdom). Divided into three atmospheric, slightly disjointed sections, the story opens aboard a riverboat carrying John Gabert, the werewolf, and Sister Eileen Callaghan, who's pursuing him with a Colt revolver hidden under her skirts. Gabert escapes, but Eileen is infected by the lycanthrope's blood. Nine years later, she picks up the scent, investigating a traveling Pentecostal revivalist show that leaves a trail of chewed corpses in its wake. Eileen struggles to control her own bloody urges, while fighting to protect innocents before she confronts Gabert again, two years later. Though the jumps in time make the plot feel forced, the haunting characters will keep readers turning the pages. When one must become a monster in order to kill a monster, can the hunt still be justified? This book raise tantalizing philosophical questions about good and evil as well as the roles of hunter and prey. (Feb.)
Mass Market
StigmaPhilip Hawley Jr. Harper Torch, $7.99 (496p) ISBN 978-0-06-088744-5
In this solid debut thriller, a troubled doctor gets caught up in a global conspiracy after a mysteriously afflicted four-year-old Guatemalan boy dies on his watch. Pediatric ER physician Luke McKenna's curiosity is piqued when it seems the child's symptoms don't match any known disease; he's more intrigued, however, when hospital administrators and Guatemalan officials whisk away the child's body before McKenna can perform a postmortem investigation. While trying to beat back haunting, at times debilitating memories of his time in a shadowy military organization, McKenna continues to pursue the child's case, attracting the attention of a professional killer and the men behind him. It isn't until McKenna's framed for the murders of a former girlfriend and a football player that the good doctor becomes certain a conspiracy's afoot. From there, McKenna's on the run, using his old military training and contacts, as well as his medical expertise, to evade the cops and killers, get to Guatemala, try to uncover the forces he's up against and face his personal demons. Despite some clunky expository dialogue (practically a genre requisite) and a disappointing ending, Hawley delivers intense action, tricky plotting and an unpredictable hero sure to satisfy anyone with an appetite for a good page-turner. (Mar.)
Prince of MagicLinda Winstead Jones. Berkley Sensation, $7.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-425-21448-0
This next generation follow-up to the Sisters of the Sun trilogy finds the Sun Witch's daughter, Ariana Kane Varden, facing her own epic quest and the prospect of romance in Jones's richly realized fantasy world. Up until the wizard Sian Chamblyn appears at court with dire news, the witch Ariana has used her modest powers of healing to aid the ailing emperor of Columbyana. That changes, however, when Sian's alarming prophecy points to her as one of three cousins who must lead the land against as-yet-unrevealed forces of evil—an evil that promises to unleash monsters on the land and "a very ugly death" for the unprepared. Neither the cynical Sian nor Ariana believe she's capable of leading an army, but they're forced to work together to train her for the struggle ahead. Bit by bit, Ariana develops powers that help her divine the true nature of their foe, at the same time she's reluctantly falling in love with the equally recalcitrant wizard. Punchy battle scenes and steamy lovemaking will please genre fans, but it's Jones's gift for creating complex heroes and villains that lifts this story out of the ordinary. (Mar.)
Sweet Home CarolinaPatricia Rice. Ballantine, $6.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-345-48261-7
In her latest contemporary romance, Rice skillfully explores rocky emotional territory with a comforting North Carolina backdrop and a rich cast of characters. When the old fabric mill goes bankrupt, recently divorced mom and textile designer Amy Warren is out of a job—along with most of the small town of Northfolk. The sensible, hardworking Amy, hoping to keep a roof over her two kids' heads and get the town back to work, makes it her mission to get the mill up and running again. Amy's well-laid plan hits a snag in the form of a tall, handsome European named Jacques Saint-Etienne, who has his own designs on the mill, and they don't include hiring back the laid-off workers. Unfortunately, Amy is immediately smitten with the well-dressed hunk, and it isn't long before Jacques, despite his ruthless professional instincts, begins feeling the same. Though the familiar story may drive off some readers and a last-minute disaster pushes the story over the top, Rice's appealing characters and knack for capturing the subtleties of relationships—familial, romantic and otherwise—makes for another charming, addictive read. (Feb.)
Comics
AyaMarguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie. Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95 (112p) ISBN 978-1-894937-90-2
Abouet could have just wanted to tell a sweet, simple story of the Ivory Coast of her childhood as a counterpoint to the grim tide of catastrophic news, which is all most Westerners know of Africa. But in Aya, Abouet, along with Parisian artist Oubrerie, does quite a bit more than that, spinning a multifaceted romantic comedy that would satisfy even without any political agenda behind it. Set in 1970, Aya follows the travails of some teenage girls in the peaceful Abidjan working-class neighborhood of Yopougon (which they call "Yop City, like something out of an American movie"), as they strive for love and the right boyfriend. Yop City, as detailed in Oubrerie's fluid and cartoonish black and white drawings, is a mellow place where disco rules the night and practically the worst thing these girls have to worry about is the disapproval of their parents—or in the case of the quiet title character, criticism from those who wish she were more boy-crazed and less focused on a career. It's a quick piece of work, but memorable in mood, capturing the country's brief flicker of postcolonial peaceful prosperity before descending into the modern maelstrom of corruption and violence we know only too well. (Feb.)
DMZ Vol. 2: Body of a JournalistBrian Wood, Riccardo Burchielli and Kristian Donaldson. DC/Vertigo, $12.99 (168p) ISBN 978-1-4012-1247-6
Readers might assume that they're watching a report from Baghdad as they see a suicide bomber massacring a ragged urban crowd gathered for a clean water distribution in this dark political satire. Actually, the scene is New York City, front line in a full-scale civil war between Free States rebels and the U.S. government. The main focus is Matty Roth, a kid who thought he was entering the city as mere assistant to a veteran reporter but who now finds himself an agonizingly "embedded journalist" with more power and responsibilities than he ever wanted. For Matty and readers, there's no longer any safe distance from the violence. At the same time, however, the residents of the DMZ feel unexpected, growing satisfaction at what they can do now that they've been violently freed from a government's sham protection, with only themselves to rely on. Wood's scripts present the characters' mingled pain and hope well, but Burchielli's outstanding art really sells the story by intensifying familiar urban grunge into a Third –World–like battle zone. He has a good sense of the city as a sniper-haunted landscape, from deserted streets to a maimed Statue of Liberty. This book is a disturbing, challenging success. (Feb.)
Hot Gimmick SMegumi Nishizaki. Viz/Shojo Beat, $7.99 paper (150p) ISBN 978-1-4215-1142-9
Teenage drinking, sexual coercion, romance between adopted siblings—all par for the course in this "alternate-ending novel" set in the world of Miki Aihara's convoluted and inexplicably popular teen manga. Hatsumi, the 16-year-old narrator, begins with a fast-paced introduction to the principal characters—Ryoki, who "enslaves" Hatsumi when he sees her with a home pregnancy kit; nice-guy Azusa; and Hatsumi's adopted brother, Shinogu. They live in Mrs. Tachibana's Housing Complex, where different floors create an ad hoc caste system for families. A brief backstory on how Shinogu came to live with Hatsumi's family gives way to an interminable game of "will they, won't they," all laced with a hint of incestuous taboo and made trickier by the arrival of a beautiful competitor for Shinogu's heart. A tiny bit of tension arrives late in the tale when Shinogu turns up missing, but by and large it is an uneventful story that spends most of its time in Hatsumi's head. Fans of the original manga are legion and passionate; the alternate-ending nature of this book (in the original, Hatsumi and Ryoki end up a couple) and the fact that it is written by someone other than Aihara, means it may have a tough time winning over the otaku. (Feb.)
Hwy. 115Matthias Lehmann. Fantagraphics, $19.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-56097-733-7
Like a deadpan killer-on-the-road film painted in chiaroscuro, Lehmann's Hwy. 115 has a pair of none-too-bright amateur detectives, René and Agatha, trailing one Robert Illot, a surprisingly verbose serial killer who disposes of his victims by cramming different objects down their throats (a lightbulb, stapler, etc.), and then talking about it to those who then helpfully relate it to our fair heroes. In Lehmann's symbol-weighted story, René and Agatha are always one step behind the devious Illot; as they question men from his time in an asylum, he's leaving another body for them to ponder over. Set in a nominal sort of France, the landscape of fantastically looming factories and opulent nightclubs barely approaches real. The tale is not the thing so much as it is Lehmann's beautifully rendered and darkly dramatic scratchboard drawings, which come close to providing the pulsating drama and noirish fantasia that his rote story can not. (Jan.)
