Fiction Reviews: Week of 2/12/2007

Goodman (The Ghost Orchid) turns to Shakespeare for the plot of her fifth novel, with mixed results. Rose Asher, Hudson College Renaissance poetry professor, returns to La Civetta, the Italian estate-turned-academic retreat where, as a college student 20 years earlier, she had the romance of her life with married professor Bruno Brunelli. He's still there, but this time Rose has come as an adviser on a film inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets and the mysterious "Dark Lady" therein. The script, which includes an unattributed Shakespeare-like sonnet (taken from a manuscript found at La Civetta), is by one of Rose's star pupils, Robin Weiss, who soon dies in a possibly suicidal accident. The manuscript has vanished, but the sonnet seems to suggest that Ginevra de Laura, the 16th-century daughter of a master mosaic artist who worked at the estate, may be its author—and Shakespear's Dark Lady. Multiple plots and subplots revolve around the manuscript's recovery, Robin's death, the film, Rose's clandestine relationship with college president Mark Abrams, Bruno's presence and worries that Bruno's son, Orlando, may be a murderer. Goodman makes a plausible fictional case for Ginevra's crossing paths with Shakespeare and ably recreates the present and past Italian countryside. Nevertheless, dizzying crisscrosses, love triangles and rampant political machinations surrounding La Civetta's ownership obscure an intriguing solution to the lingering Dark Lady mystery. (June)

In Iranian-American Amirrezvani's lushly orchestrated debut, a comet signals misfortune to the remote 17th-century Persian village where the nameless narrator lives modestly but happily with her parents, both of whom expect to see the 14-year-old married within the year. Her fascination with rug making is a pastime they indulge only for the interim, but her father's untimely death prompts the girl to travel with her mother to the city of Isfahan, where the two live as servants in the opulent home of an uncle—a wealthy rug maker to the Shah. The only marriage proposal now in the offing is a three-month renewable contract with the son of a horse trader. Teetering on poverty and shame, the girl weaves fantasies for her temporary husband's pleasure and exchanges tales with her beleaguered mother until, having mastered the art of making and selling carpets under her uncle's tutelage, she undertakes to free her mother and herself. With journalistic clarity, Amirrezvani describes how to make a carpet knot by knot, and then sell it negotiation by negotiation, guiding readers through workshops and bazaars. Sumptuous imagery and a modern sensibility (despite a preponderance of flowery language and schematic female bonding and male bullying) make this a winning debut. (June)

In 32-year-old singleton Jane Hayes's mind, no man in the world can measure up to Fitzwilliam Darcy—specifically the Fitzwilliam played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Jane is forced to confront her Austen obsession when her wealthy great-aunt Carolyn dies and leaves her an all-expenses-paid vacation to Pembrook Park, a British resort where guests live like the characters in Jane's beloved Austen novels. Jane sees the trip as an opportunity for one last indulgence of her obsession before she puts it "all behind her—Austen, men, fantasies, period," but the lines between reality and fiction become pleasantly blurred as Jane acclimates to the world of Spencer jackets and stringent etiquette rules, and finds herself torn between the Darcyesque Mr. Nobley and a forbidden tryst with Pembrook Park's gardener. Though the narrative is endlessly charming, Jane is convincing neither as a sarcastic single girl nor as a romantic idealist, and the supporting cast is underdeveloped. Nods to Austen are abundant in contemporary women's fiction, and an intriguing setup and abundant wit are not enough to make this one stand out. (June)

A lawsuit over rights to a suddenly popular 1960s ditty fuels a lively rock and roll nostalgia trip in Dunn's latest "musical novel." Songwriter Dink Stephenson, his partner, Princess Diamond, and producer, Punky Solomon, engineered the mid-'60s success of New York "bad girl" trio the Annas, fronted by the mega-sexy, beehived and heavily mascara'd Anna Dubower. The Annas score two #1 hits, but their time at the top is cut short by the British Invasion. The band's fate is sealed when Anna suddenly and mysteriously dies three months after comeback single "Love Will Cut You Like a Knife" flops. Thirty years later, the song is hot on television and movie soundtracks, and narrator Dink sues Punky and one of Punky's shady associates over song rights. As the lawsuit progresses, Dink, who carried a giant torch for Anna back in the day, investigates Anna's death and turns up a few surprises. Dunn (Pink Cadillac; Soul Cavalcade) writes great entertainment. Fans of towering beehives and classic hip-swaying, harmony-driven pop will definitely want to take a look. (June)

Over intervals from five separate months in 1984—the fourth year of the Iran-Iraq war—debut novelist Mullaney tells a harrowing story of life under Saddam. In the hall-of-mirrors atmosphere of Baghdad, one's duties to the state are done and overdone, and Ibrahim Galeb al-Mansur continues to serve the ministry of culture as a muralist (huge Saddams) even after five soldiers of the Republican Guard break into his apartment and gang rape Shalira al-Mahoudi, his fiancée. Meanwhile, Daniella Burkett, of the London Times, braves the nightly bombardments to spend time with her lover, the New York Times's Michael Young. Michael's visit to the hospital where his government minder, Quadro, is recuperating (he stepped on a mine) serves to draw Michael into a web of partisan intrigue—he makes and loses friends virtually simultaneously, and, in time, makes the rare acquaintance of his own better self. Shalira finds herself pregnant with a rapist's child and spares Ibrahim's honor by taking her own life. In response, Ibrahim takes over the leadership of polyglot local dissidents. Mullaney's is that rare war narrative that doesn't depend on carnage for the lasting impression it creates; his culture ministry is ultimately a department of the human interior. (May)

Identity issues involving a child of mixed heritage get a supernatural spin in this affecting coming-of-age tale. Ariella Montero's mother vanished the day she was born, leaving her to the care of her overprotective scientist father, who homeschools her and limits her contact with the outside world. Only when she reaches adolescence does Ari discover that her special diet and insular home life set her apart from her peers. Her father's confession that he was vampirized shortly before marriage, and that Ari can choose whether to be undead like him or mortal like mom, set her off on a road trip that eventually brings her to her mother and into an understanding of tough truths about her family. Hubbard (Walking on Ice) delineates Ari's world of innocent and uncertain adolescence with uncommon poignance and forgoes sensationalism for sensitivity in her depiction of vampirism as one of many emotionally charged challenges Ari faces as a child of estranged parents. She doesn't do much original with the vampire theme, but the novel's open ending suggests inevitable sequels where this may develop further. Author tour. (May)

The late Ivory Coast author and political activist Kourouma (Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote) writes with a brutal and obscene frankness reminiscent of Celine in this powerfully tragic novel about a West African child soldier who learns early that "Allah is not obliged to be fair about all the things he does here on earth." Unsure if he's 10 or 12 years old, "rude as a goat's beard" Birahima, a third-grade dropout, recalls how his once-beautiful mother became an amputee who "moved on her arse like a caterpillar" and that he suspected her of being a soul-devouring sorceress. After her death, the boy is entrusted to a roguish shaman and sent to live with an aunt in Liberia. En route, they fall into the clutches of a warlord, and Birahima joins their forces as a boy soldier, witnessing and participating in all manner of savagery. Although Birahima's regurgitation of word definitions and chunks of West African history is awkward, this French import is a worthy if difficult read. And the popularity of the current Starbucks pick, the child soldier memoir A Long Way Gone, can't hurt sales potential. (May)

Some side-effects of cancer treatment are pretty fabulous in magazine writer Scotch's debut novel. Natalie Miller, a driven 30-year-old senior aideto a woman senator from New York, is having a rough time: just days after she's diagnosed with breast cancer, her cheating live-in boyfriend ditches her. She's feeling gloomy, then, when she begins chemo. (Her hunky and sweet gynecologist, Zach, is a mitigating factor.) Though the election is six weeks away, Natalie is ordered to stay home, where she writes in her diary (excerpts appear throughout) and becomes addicted to The Price Is Right while an ambitious junior aide takes over her job. Natalie battles through rounds of chemo and a mastectomy until, out of the blue, an old love, up-and-coming rocker Jake, comes back to take care of her. He seems intent on making things work, but Natalie's long-simmering (and seemingly requited) attraction to Zach only intensifies. Meanwhile, Natalie's journalist friend Sally lands her first big story: an exposé of Natalie's boss. Her loyalties on the line and her cancer on the wane, Natalie makes some tough choices about the postcancer person she wants to be. Character development is secondary to the affirmative message in this bonbon of a cancer book. (May)

Story writer Holland's impressive debut novel tracks the plight of disgraced literature teacher and reluctant archivist Pavel Dubrov, whose job, mainly, in 1939 Moscow, is to destroy books at Lubyanka prison, a dank, morbid depository for political prisoners where the boilers rarely work. When an unsigned story is discovered in a prison file, Pavel is ordered to authenticate its author, believed to be Isaac Babel, who is locked up at the prison. Haunted by his conversations with Babel and his love of Babel's work, Pavel steals the manuscript and hides it behind the crumbling bricks of his apartment's basement. (Later, he smuggles out a second manuscript.) He has little to lose: his young wife was killed in a train accident, his mentor is waiting to be carted off to prison for his unwillingness to walk the Party line, and his mother is succumbing to a brain tumor. All around him, literature is being destroyed, from the boxes of manuscripts he prepares for destruction to the page scraps his neighbor and lover Natalya uses to roll her cigarettes. Nearly everything and everyone in the novel is sad and broken, but Holland finds a kernel of hope in Pavel's mission. It's a melancholic and moving tribute to the written word. (May)

The Old Market section of Omaha serves as the bohemian center of Schaffert's diverting third novel. Ashley Allyson teaches erotic writing workshops, but doesn't realize that her husband, Troy (who edits an alternative weekly, The Omaha Street), is cheating on her with her student, Peach. Peach is one the two 20-something identical twins who run the local bookstore, Mermaids Singing; the other, Plum, has a yen for Tucker, a tallish tattooed dwarf photographer who photographs his impressive genitals. Ashley's neighbor and friend Deedee Millwood operates a franchise of the titular "Sweet Shop," a sort of sex-based Tupperware party where she hawks racy goods and advises sexually forlorn suburbanites. Deedee's teenage daughter, Naomi, can't stand Deedee's confessions about her sex life, and has her own crush on gay teen Lee—son of Ashley and Troy. Another friend and neighbor, African-American visual artist Viv Dailey, has been the victim of an increasingly active art stalker. Over the course of one improbably packed February evening, a missent e-mail between Peach and Troy brings everyone together. Schaffert (The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God) walks an uneasy tightrope between the amusingly sexy and the scabrous. The stalker's eventual characterization is a mean-spirited misstep, but Schaffert's bohemian Omaha is consistently surprising and vibrant. (May)

Adults who remember the Choose Your Own Adventure YA novels are the target audience for this debut from Public Radio International producer McElhatton. The book opens with a female second person's high school graduation, which leads "you" to two possible choices: travel or college. Each succeeding section (mostly between one and four pages) similarly offers two options for proceeding, leading to an impressive array of possible developments, from a trip to Rome that can result in a live-in Italian artist boyfriend, to a dead-end job as a phone sex operator with the moniker of Stormy Sioux. Situations include the playfully surreal, such as a stint in a German circus as a nude ice dancer, and the tender, as in a life lived on the Iceland coast with a lovely, seal-obsessed child who has Down syndrome and a devoted scientist husband. There's also crystal meth addiction, rape, death by explosion, bursts of salty humor and moments of descriptive lyricism, especially in McElhatton's many vivid imaginings of the afterlife ("heaven is a junk shop... broken beauty everywhere"). Nevertheless, many situations are cartoonish; some of the events repeat or overlap; and "You" remains a cipher, making this "Do-Over Novel" more role-playing for the rut-stuck than a good read. (May)

Deceptive love and stark betrayal form the icy core of this dark 12th novel from Oprah-anointed (The Pilot's Wife), Orange Prize finalist (The Weight of Water) Shreve. Set adrift at 29 by the sudden death of her second husband (her first divorced her), smart, underemployed Sydney (no last name) signs on for a quiet New England oceanfront summer of tutoring 18-year-old Julie, the intellectually slow but artistically talented and strikingly beautiful daughter of the fractious Edwards clan. The family includes Julie's brothers—35-year-old Boston corporate real estate man Ben and 31-year-old M.I.T. poli-sci professor Jeff—and the three children's parents. Sydney is half-Jewish, and Mrs. Edwards is anti-Semitic. Family tensions escalate when Julie disappears, then resurfaces in Montreal as the lesbian lover of 25-year-old Helene (a body surfer who frequented the beach near the Edwardses' home). Jeff and Sydney bond during their search for Julie, nights of passion leading to plans for a joyous wedding, which get very complicated when the couple returns to Edwards central. Shreve's devastating depiction of the family's dissolution—the culmination of sublimated jealousies suddenly exploding into the open—is wrenching. Shreve's omniscience is asserted with such ease that it often feels like she's toying with her characters, but her control is masterful, particularly in the sure-handed and compassionate aftermath. (Apr.)

At the start of this disappointing stand-alone from bestseller Coben (Promise Me), Paul "Cope" Copeland, acting county prosecutor for Essex County, N.J., and Lucy Gold, his long-lost summer camp love, are still haunted by a fateful night, decades earlier, when their nighttime tryst allowed some younger campers, including Cope's sister, to venture into the nearby forest, where they apparently fell victim to the Summer Slasher, a serial killer. Cope's intense focus on a high-profile rape prosecution of some wealthy college students shifts after one of the Slasher's victims, whose body was never found, turns up as a recent corpse in Manhattan, casting doubt on the official theory of the old case. Cope's own actions on that night again come under scrutiny, even as the highly placed fathers of the men he's prosecuting work to unearth as many skeletons as possible to pressure him into dropping the rape case. Less than compelling characters fail to compensate for a host of implausibilities. Hopefully, Coben will return to form with his next book. (Apr.)

Displaying his trademark expertise and writing skill, Washington Post columnist Ignatius (Agents of Innocence) has crafted one of the best post-9/11 spy thrillers yet. Subtly framing a highly elaborate plot, Ignatius tells the story of idealistic CIA agent Roger Ferris, newly stationed in Jordan after being wounded in Iraq. After a failed initiative to flush out a terrorist mastermind known as Suleiman, Ferris, who's dedicated to forestalling further al-Qaeda attacks, develops an intricate scheme modeled after a British plan used successfully against the Nazis. Ferris's plot to turn the terrorists against each other by sowing seeds of suspicion that their leaders are collaborating with the Americans puts his personal life in turmoil and threatens his professional relationship with the head of Jordanian intelligence. Few readers will anticipate the jaw-dropping conclusion, and the pairing of first-rate espionage suspense with fully developed characters should propel this onto the bestseller lists and possibly attract Hollywood interest. Author tour. (Apr.)

This bizarre and compelling tale from Swedish author Mankell, best known for his crime novels featuring detective Kurt Wallander (The Man Who Smiled, etc.), focuses on a tortured naval officer, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, who has the important duty of taking soundings for secret naval channels in the approach to Stockholm at the outbreak of WWI. Like a skilled stonemason, Mankell builds his portrait of Svartman with infinite patience, adding details and highlights layer by layer: Svartman as a naval officer attached to but not a part of a crew; Svartman as husband to a wife willingly left behind as he pursues his secret mission; and Svartman as the obsessed seeker of Sara, the lone inhabitant of Halsskär, a desolate and isolated island. Mankell fully sounds the depths of Svartman's obsessions in a way so artful as to appear artless, creating a masterful portrait not only of Svartman but of the women in his life. This is a memorable and shocking psychological study. (Apr.)

Wallner's harrowing debut, a love story of sorts though there's little romance, rings with authenticity. In 1943, Corporal Roth, a 22-year-old translator in the German occupation forces in France, is reassigned to SS headquarters in Paris, where his job is to translate the confessions of members of the resistance as they are being tortured. While strolling through the city, Roth encounters a beautiful young woman and is instantly smitten. Because he can speak French flawlessly, Roth takes the identity of "Antoine" and pursues the young lady, Chantal, with tragic results. Chantal is a member of the French resistance, and while Roth isn't a coldhearted Nazi, he is a German and his obsession leads him ever downward until he's accused of being a traitor. Many European imports these days read like pale imitations of genre novels by Americans, but this sterling period piece will strike readers as distinctively and refreshingly German in its concerns. (Apr.)

Spur Award–winner Wheeler adds this splendid 15th volume (after Fire Arrow) to his superb Skye's West series about redoubtable mountain man Barnaby Skye. It is the late 1850s and Skye, a deserter from the Royal Navy, and his Crow Indian wife, Victoria, agree that Skye should take a second Indian wife to produce a son. Skye marries Blue Dawn, a beautiful, young Shoshone woman, and the trio is hired to guide brash English explorer and journalist Graves Duplessis Mercer to see a mysterious canyon full of dinosaur bones. Skye, happy with two wives, doesn't care much for Mercer, whose arrogance and selfishness endangers the whole party. The details of Skye's courtship and wedding are hilarious, and the fieldcraft the group must employ to survive the harsh wilderness is suspenseful and instructive. Wheeler is one of the best western authors around today. He doesn't rely on epic battles or gunfights to tell his stories, relying instead on fascinating characters, vivid imagery, subtle action and carefully drawn historical detail. (Apr.)

Sheilagh Fielding—a striking, unconventional, six-foot-three Newfoundland woman with a limp—returns from prolific Johnston's The Colony of Unrequited Dreams for this highly atmospheric sequel. Near the end of WWII, Fielding (as she is known), a notorious St. John's columnist, holes up on the nearby deserted island of Loreburn after her mother dies and leaves her a small inheritance. There, Fielding senses the presence of her mysterious "Provider," who has shadowed her all her life and whom she has never met face-to-face. As Fielding tells her story—abandoned by her mother at six; raised by a father who insinuates she's not his—Fielding's Provider draws closer to her solitary retreat. But Fielding has long kept another secret: she gave birth to twins at the age of 15, who were raised as her half-siblings by her mother in New York City. Johnston's descriptive prose can be exhilarating, from the windswept island to a dingy Manhattan, and he has a sure hand with historical nuggets. There's little tension over the 500-plus pages, and the denouement (her father's identity; her children's fate) is overblown. But Fielding is a fascinating character: she courts her own estrangement as much as she is tormented by it. (Apr.)

The final installment of Thalassa's Paradise Trilogy (following A Singular Hostage and A Beggar at the Gate) finds Mariana Givens living within the confines of the British cantonment at Kabul in 1841, on the eve of the first Afghan war. An assassination attempt in Lahore thwarted by her husband, Hassan Ali Khan (son of a Sufi sheikh), has forced Mariana to leave Lahore, abandoning Hassan (and her stepson, Saboor). Mariana lives miserably in an English microsociety that doesn't recognize her marriage, full of dinner parties and eager suitors. Hassan, meanwhile, is recovering slowly from wounds, and his family is second-guessing Mariana's intentions. As tension escalates between the British (who have deposed the Afghan king, Amir Dost Muhammad, and installed a more friendly rival, Shah Shuja) and the Afghans (who are preparing to attack the British army and its 10,000 "camp followers"), Mariana faces dangerous choices. As in the other books, Ali does a highly credible job creating the clannish atmospheres of the British and Sufi subcultures, and makes the strictures that Mariana and Hassan face (and those of their servants) palpable. The detail she offers (including mystic writings from a variety of traditions) is nicely wedded to the plot, which moves with brisk and engaging efficiency. (Apr.)

Clara, the protagonist of Shapiro's uneven fifth novel (after Family History), is the youngest daughter and muse of Ruth Dunne, a famous Manhattan photographer who made her name shooting Sally Mann–style (read: nude and provocative) photos of a young Clara. Unable to bear the humiliation of being "the girl in those pictures," Clara runs away from home at 18. Fourteen years later and still estranged from her mother, Clara's living in Maine with her husband and daughter when her older sister calls and tells her Ruth is in failing health. Clara travels back to Manhattan, where she comes to terms with her family and herself. Though Clara's frequent bemoaning of her emotional scars tries the reader's patience, Shapiro's sharp depictions of love and shame go a long way toward putting the self-pity into relief. It's unfortunate that Ruth fails to comes across as anything more than a narcissistic artist, but the novel offers some fine insights into marriage, the making of art and the often difficult mother-daughter dynamic. (Apr.)

An independent young woman comes of age under the influence of Emily Dickinson in this posthumous debut novel. (MacMurray, a public school poetry teacher, died in 1997.) Miranda Chase's childhood is an isolated one: her mother dies when she is nine and her busy scholar father provides his bright, inquisitive only daughter with a private tutor. A year-long sojourn in Barbados sets the stage for their move to Amherst, Mass., where her father teaches at the college. Miranda's unusual upbringing brings the 13-year-old to the attention of Amherst's famous recluse. Despite their 15-year age difference, Miranda becomes one of Emily's few regular visitors—and while she values her time with Emily (depicted imaginatively but gratingly; Emily speaks in capitals when she wishes to MAKE HER POINT), the relationship becomes more complicated as Miranda grows older and love, deaths, heartbreak and the Civil War intercede. Miranda begins a career in education and breaks away from Emily; the two clash with dramatic results. MacMurray knows well her "belle of Amherst," and the poet's friendship with a younger kindred spirit—which initially sets off gimmicky warning bells—becomes charming. This is really Miranda's story, but through it the poet and her poetry—in all their inconsistent genius—are served well. (Apr.)

Set in Victorian England, Phillips's impressive third novel uses four linked viewpoints to explore class, gender, family dynamics, sexuality and sciences both real and fraudulent, ancient and newly minted. Joseph Barton, a London biological researcher, orders his four-year-old daughter, Angelica, who's been sleeping in her parents' bedroom, to her own room. Joseph's wife, Constance, resists this separation from her child and the resumption of a marital intimacy that, given her history of miscarriage, may threaten her life. Soon Constance notices foul odors, furniture cracks and a blue specter that appears to attack Angelica while she sleeps. When she reports these supernatural visitations to the unimaginative Joseph, the rift between them widens. Desperate, Constance turns to actress-turned-spiritualist Annie Montague for help. Phillips (Prague) captures period diction and detail brilliantly. At its strongest, the multiple-viewpoint narration yields psychological depth and a number of clever surprises; at its weakest, it can slow the book's momentum to an uncomfortably slow (if authentically Victorian) pace. Author tour. (Apr.)

The ladies of Hope Filled Christian Center spend more time serving other women's husbands than they do serving the Lord in Mason's fourth novel, a soap opera–like tale about the bad choices smart women make for love and companionship. Holier-than-thou Faye Watkins is married to the pastor of one of the largest churches in Dallas. She has a psychology degree and counsels the women of her husband's church, mostly about their problems with men. Among her charges is Renee Turner, a bohemian interior decorator who leads the church's singles' ministry. Renee breaks a long romantic dry spell with a client's husband, which has some negative consequence. Elise Clayton, a choir member and real estate agent, would do anything to get Jay, a married-with-kids truck driver, to leave his wife. And newly empty-nested Tess Martin wishes she had the strength to leave her philandering husband, Jesse, a church deacon who sleeps with everyone but her. Readers of commercial African-American fiction who haven't yet discovered Mason would do well to pick up this steamy cautionary tale. (Apr.)

Latino life in 1960s East Los Angeles is the subject of Viramontes's kaleidoscopic and occasionally frustrating first novel (after short story collection The Moths), an amalgamation of troubled young people, a troubled neighborhood and an aggressive storytelling voice. There are the mother-and-daughter preachers; a young woman looking for her missing, mentally unstable brother; an androgynous young woman gang member passing as a man; a clique of boisterous teenage girls intent on protecting themselves; and the unhappy grandparents who attempt to keep one of the girls in check. The constant presence of the shadowy Quarantine Authority (supposedly on the lookout for rabid dogs but more intent on policing residents) and the imminent construction of a freeway that will bisect the district are but two threats to the struggling but vibrant community. All this emerges in fits and starts, with Viramontes somewhat less concerned with plot or character development than with establishing aura. Readers willing to look past the loose narrative construction will find the book's heart in Viramontes's voice: at once terse, energetic and vivid. (Apr.)

Billed as a novel, this less than compelling account by one of Italy's top authors of crime fiction focuses on the six years he spent as a fugitive from Italian justice for a murder he claims he didn't commit. After an Italian court upheld his murder conviction in 1979, Carlotto (The Goodbye Kiss) lived in Paris, Madrid and Mexico City. He describes in some detail his various disguises, people he met in the expatriate communities, techniques for evading capture and sources of income—primarily his family and wages as a translator. What's lacking, however, is any sense of urgency. During his years on the run, Carlotto was never pursued by Italian authorities; he finally gave himself up in 1985. Though fortunate for him, the result is a flat, suspenseless plot. Originally published in 1994 in Italy, this short book contains frequent digressions into local politics and the machinations of Carlotto's legal case—including his eventual presidential pardon—that interfere with his story of personal flight. (Apr.)

A largely unlovable cast of hard-nosed Chinese-Americans search for their rightful places in the 10 carefully wrought tales of Hwang's debut. "The Old Gentleman," which opens the collection, finds a Taiwanese émigré widower remarryinig for love, ironically scandalizing his divorced, thoroughly Americanized daughter. The complicated relations between two family branches of émigrés drives "A Visit to the Suns": young women home from college feel "blunted" by their parents' strictness, while the coddling of the boy cousin leads him to sloth and rudeness. "Garden City" follows the aging, fallen-out-of-love Chens, whose tragic loss of their young son from a brain tumor leaves them at the mercy of an unreliable tenant ("the Christian lady") in the throes of her own private misery. Several stories resonate with youthful pangs of heartache and rebellion: "Blue Hour" finds a group of mid-20s friends unsure how to behave among themselves on a New Year's Eve trek into New York City, while "Sonata for the Left Hand" delineates a young woman's disappointing love affair with an exciting, coldhearted fellow teacher at an upstate New York boarding school. More panorama than thematic set, Hwang's debut is brisk and direct. (Apr.)

In Pierce's forceful debut, Alice is five when she and her homeless, mentally ill mother, Amalie (Mami, she calls her), arrive at Papi's trailer in an Arizona Indian reservation to live. Papi, a heavy-drinking itinerant laborer, may or may not be Alice's father, but he adores Amalie (who is of Kwytz'an descent) and has been waiting for her to return after years of medication and hospitalization–related absence. Afflicted with a skin ailment and subsisting largely on French fries, Alice briefly attends the local reservation school before her mother's visions and paranoia prompt them to hitchhike back to Amalie's father's home in California. Amalie's mental condition worsens, along with Grampa's untreated diabetes: one, then the other is hospitalized, leaving Alice in foster care. At 13, Alice wants to fit in with her white American foster family and at the school she attends; but while foster sister Anne takes ballet classes, Alice is encouraged to learn bead-making and Indian dances. Yet the pull of her heritage is strong, and Alice and other Quechen (or Native) characters Pierce introduces grapple to overcome difficult legacies in this unsentimental coming-of-age story. (Apr.)

T'ien-hsin's impressive collection reveals a society's inner conflicts over everything from politics to sex, but especially identity. In "Death in Venice" the reader is taken through the creative process as the narrator becomes wrapped in his own story's mechanics. "Man of La Mancha" and "Hungarian Water" both center around philosophical inquiries into death and identity. In the first, a man worries about the mundane contents of his wallet, which prompt him to make mundane adjustments to what he carries. In the other, two men reminisce about the women they've known in an attempt to postpone and "outlast" the inevitable. The young narrator in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" spars with an older writer who is trying to understand the city's "new humans." The title novella (a rewardingly complex second-person tale) speculates on the reliability of memory as a woman revisits the changing urban scenes of her youth, leaving her to wonder "What is this place?" Goldblatt's expert translation captures the subtleties of competing Eastern and Western influences. The result is an accomplished and intelligent portrayal of Taipei's cultural evolution. (Apr.)

An unnamed narrator details the post-Yale love triangle of three people much, much wealthier than he in Hobbs's Gatsby-meets-McInerney debut. Unlike Nick Carraway or the persistent "You" of Bright Lights Big City, the speaker at the heart of this novel is more cipher than seer. A shiftless New York freelancer edging into his 30s, the narrator discovers that his Yalie friend—handsome, gay Ethan Hoevel, famous designer of sleek contemporary furniture—has left his boyfriend, Stanton Vaughn, to pursue a doomed relationship with their fellow alum—the married (and female) Samona Taylor (née Ashley). The narrator still carries a torch for Samona, and renews his friendship with Samona's husband, the also-Yalie Merrill Lynch trader David Taylor, mostly out of a morbid curiosity about Samona's philandering. Hobbs spends much of the novel recounting how everyone got where they are in the eight years following college, but the plot picks up in the last third, when Ethan's ne'er-do-well brother precipitates a crisis, and Ethan and Samona's affair has its reckoning. Hobbs convincingly portrays young, Ivied New Yorkers with money, but he leaves the narrator's feelings for Samona (and much else) largely unexplored, making the proceedings feel unresolved. (Apr.)

At the start of this competent but unoriginal thriller from Mooney (Deviant Ways), it's 1984 and teenager Darby McCormick is hanging out in the woods with her friends Melanie Cruz and Stacey Stephens when they stumble across a man killing a woman. Darby calls the police, which sets in motion events that lead to Stacey being murdered and Melanie abducted. Fast forward to 2007: Darby, with a doctorate in criminal psychology, is working as a crime scene investigator for the Boston Crime Lab. When Darby finds herself investigating another missing girl, Carol Cranmore, she vows to find the perpetrator and save Carol. The fiendishly clever killer is always two steps ahead, while Darby and her handsome partner, Jackson "Coop" Cooper, must struggle with the usual bureaucratic snafus, disbelieving supervisors and obstructive FBI agents. There are twists and turns aplenty, but they're all based on familiar formulas, including the final, de rigueur chase through the killer's basement torture chamber. (Mar.)

Loss and the infinite ways we attempt to come to terms with it permeate this absorbing psychological mystery, Wagner's third novel and the first available in English translation, set in the Finnish town of Turku. A week after his wife dies of Hodgkin's disease, Det. Kimmo Joentaa feels compelled to return to work to investigate the murder of a young woman smothered in her own bed while her husband was away. Only a valueless painting appears to have been stolen. A second murder, just as puzzling, occurs in a youth hostel where a young man is killed while others slept all around him. Joentaa is sure the murders are connected and even feels inexplicably close to the killer. Though Wagner sometimes shifts awkwardly to the troubled killer's point of view, the despairing Kimmo Joentaa and the large cast of supporting characters are well drawn. This skillful mystery will have readers hoping Wagner's previous novels will soon be available in English. (May)

British author Walsh, praised for her seamless work completing two posthumous works by Dorothy Sayers (the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries Thrones, Dominations and A Presumption of Death), demonstrates her mastery of the modern academic mystery with her fourth whodunit (after 2006's Debts of Dishonor) featuring nurse Imogen Quy, who serves unobtrusively but effectively at the fictional St. Agatha's College of Cambridge University. Quy witnesses the final moments of John Talentire, a college fellow who topples to his death while daredevil climbing a building. The death appears to be an accident until one of Talentire's friends uses an amateur staging of Hamlet—the obscure, shorter version known as the Bad Quarto—to dramatically imply that another fellow murdered Talentire by untying his safety rope. Quy sleuths amid the vicious world of modern Shakespearean scholarship to put the pieces together in a manner that would do Harriet Vane proud. Both Sayers fans and lovers of traditional fair play should embrace this excellent read. (Apr.)

This promising but flawed debut WWII-era spy novel introduces Pucci Lewis, a charming, savvy Women Airforce Service pilot who helps the FBI infiltrate a German spy ring in Detroit. To get to the bottom of things, Lewis must go undercover, first as a prisoner and then as a journalist. Some of the plot devices are predictable, and easily decoded cryptic messages also figure a little too prominently. Still, Liesche teases out interesting parallels between the 1940s and the present day: Lewis wonders whether the FBI's wartime domestic surveillance efforts erode "the individual's right to privacy... the bedrock of our nation's foundation." If Liesche will invest more in character development and rely less on formulaic plotting, she may produce a successful series. (Apr.)

Butler's improbable second Major Mearns historical whodunit (after 2000's The King Cried Murder) may disappoint fans of the British author's long-running John Coffin series. In the early 1820s, the British royal court is on pins and needles with the ascent to the throne of George IV, feared to have the same mental problems as his more notorious father, George III. Amid this uncertainty, Major Mearns and Sergeant Denny, who have a covert assignment to keep an eye on Windsor Castle, receive a ghoulish parcel containing body parts. Their pursuit of the identity of the victim, and his killer, leads them to further bodies, but the solution is rather anticlimactic. The book's contrived final revelation—concerning the real identity of a young runaway who helps the sleuths—may irk historically exacting readers. (Apr.)

Sabrina Dunsweeney left a teaching career in Cincinnati for the gentler clime of Comico Island in 2006's Island Intrigue, but island living has not yet proved entirely carefree for this amateur sleuth, whose new position as island ombudsman has her negotiating some delicate tourist-local relations in Mills's silly but fun follow-up. Both tourism and the death rate rise when an odd organization, Hummers International Inc., comes to Comico for a retreat. The Hummers "hear the Hum," which is the "voice of the universe," explains Hummers president Michael Siderius. But perhaps Hummer spokesman Gilbert Kane, found floating face down in the marina, heard too much. While the remaining Hummers fear for their lives—and their hearing—Sabrina works on cracking the case as well as a string of break-ins. Mills's eccentric, vaguely Southern resort community may tap into the escapist fantasies of people feeling trapped in humdrum lives and searching for a "patch of paradise." (Apr.)

The chaotic days following the French Revolution form the backdrop for this absorbing sequel to 2006's The Game of Patience, Alleyn's third novel, in which police spy Aristide Ravel and Commissaire Brasseur explore the various motives and opportunities of the Dupont family after their patriarch is poisoned. The late Monsieur Dupont's widowed daughter-in-law enlists the two Paris policemen when the family's servant girl, Jeannette Moineau, is accused of the poisoning—a charge Mademoiselle Dupont considers absurd. The investigation moves forward, but another death soon follows. With a light, literate hand, Alleyn includes a wealth of detail about life in France during the Republican period, while ratcheting up the tension with every chapter. Fans of Charles O'Brien (Mute Witness) and Baroness Orczy (The Scarlet Pimpernel) will be delighted. (Apr.)

When not organizing closets or toting her toddler on her hip, military wife Ellie Avery sleuths around Greenly Air Force Base in eastern Washington State, which has lately become unsafe for military wives in Rosett's satisfying, well-executed second Mom Zone cozy (after 2006's Moving Is Murder). Just hours after Ellie finds her friend Penny Follette in a strangely animated mood, the usually mousy art historian is discovered dead in her bathtub with slit wrists. Police first assume suicide, but Ellie knows Penny wouldn't have killed herself—Penny was thrilled about her new pregnancy. When another friend of Ellie's is hospitalized by an apparent poisoning, Ellie's connection to the two victims makes her a suspect in the eyes of officials. Rosett complicates the story with the murder of another military wife and with a stalker who harasses Ellie. The author, also the wife of an air force pilot, includes practical tips for organizing closets, but the novel's most valuable insight is its window into women's lives on a military base. (Apr.)

A group of women in an upscale Dutch country town form the titular clique in this engaging crime novel, the first English translation from Noort (Back to the Coast). Karen, who narrates, bonds with another Amsterdam escapee, Hanneke, an interior designer, and together they recruit Patricia, Angela, Babette and their husbands to drink, dine and enjoy one another's company. But when Babette's husband, Evert, begins having psychological problems and apparently commits suicide by burning down his home, their group begins to fracture amid allegations of infidelity and shady financial dealings. From an innocuous social gathering to a group mired in extramarital affairs and distrust, the disintegration of the "dinner club" unveils the web of deceit among friends. Sensuality and intrigue propel the novel to its shocking conclusion, when Noort reveals that no character is exactly who he or she seems. (Apr.)

Set in a world evocative of ancient Egypt, the dark, sensuous first in a new fantasy series from Australian author Douglass picks up five years after the events in 2006's Crusader, the conclusion to her Wayfarer Redemption series. Lady Ishbel Brunelle, an archpriestess of the Order of the Coil (whose members use the bowels of living men to foretell the future), is ordered by the order's Great Serpent, who appears as a speaking apparition, to marry Maximilian Persimius, king of the coastal kingdom of Escator. Despite a terrifying childhood vision that warned her of such an eventuality, she agrees and quickly becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, Kanubai, an evil godlike being, stirs beneath the Darkglass Mountain, a four-sided pyramid in the land of Isembaard ruled by the tyrant Isaiah. Kanubai convinces Isaiah's insane brother to deliver a sacrifice and an ancient artifact that will free him from the mountain. Most of the characters are drowning in emotional quagmires, which hopefully future installments will dispel. (May)

Marusek, in a blurb for this superb collection of 10 stories (all the shorter SF he's published to date), gives fair warning when he says he lays his stories "like traps and bait[s] them with shiny ideas." Since the author lives in Alaska, it's no surprise to find that his characters inhabit extreme environments, both physical and psychological. "The Earth Is on the Mend" and "Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz" are set in the Arctic, with characters made pragmatic by cold circumstance. Similarly stark is the world of "Cabbages and Kale or How We Downsized North America" (one of several entries that are sketches for his 2006 novel, Counting Heads), where characters fight to stay ahead of change, and one bad decision can topple a world. Marusek's "shiny ideas"—cloned laborers, electronic "proxies," the "boutique economy"—sparkle, but these assured stories also draw on core SF themes: in the face of change, what does it mean to be human, and where do we draw the line between helping ourselves and hurting others? (Apr.)

In this flawed follow-up to Dusk (2006), a genre-bending amalgam of horror and fantasy that saw the ascendance of the vengeful Mages, Angel and S'Hivez, the dark powers continue their rampage across the land of Noreela, which they condemned to eternal darkness after killing Rafe Baburn and devouring his seed of magic. The fellowship that helped Rafe on his flight across Noreela—Hope, Alishia, Kosar and Trey—is left with one small hope: Alishia's conviction that Rafe passed her a small bit of what he carried; Noreela can be saved if Alishia reaches the mystic city of Kang Kang. Dusk was a revelation as a shocking, vital tale of a dying land, but Lebbon overplays his hand in this sequel. No longer dying, Noreela is essentially dead and in need of resurrection, and all but the few main characters appear resigned to destruction at the hands of the two-dimensional Mages. Not even Lebbon's wild inventiveness—bio-metal-stone war machines and rolling sentient balls of bone and flesh—can compensate for the hopeless scenario and wooden villains. (Apr.)

Cross's gritty finale to her dystopian feminist fantasy trilogy (after 2006's Shadowed by Wings) finds Zarq Darquel still in search of the safety and security of a home and family—and still struggling with her hunger for addictive dragon venom. In the face of laws prohibiting women from owning property, Zarq has defied the repressive patriarchal system of the Dragon Temple and acquired a dragon-egg producing estate. Harsh circumstances make her a foster parent and force her into several other roles, including those of revolutionary and pawn in a prophecy. Cross puts her heroine through brutal, fast-paced action sequences in a world resembling the Middle East. Without preaching, the author handles challenging themes of addiction, graphic sexuality, racism, slavery and the oppression of children and women. This concluding installment is for adult readers who like their escapism darker than their reality. (Apr.)

In Stoker-winner Golden's second helping of mythological intrigue (after 2006's The Myth Hunters), the human realm is separated from the world of legends—called the Two Kingdoms—by a fragile, permeable veil. Marked as a threat by denizens of the Two Kingdoms, Maine lawyer Oliver Bascomb has taken up a magical sword and with it, a quest to learn who murdered his father and kidnapped his sister, Collette. Meanwhile, Oliver's fiancée, Julianna Whitney, and homicide detective Ted Halliwell follow in his bloody wake. Julianna wants to prove Oliver had nothing to do with the gruesome murder of his father—or with that of the other corpses with their eyes gouged out. As Collette languishes in the dungeon of the Sandman, Oliver and company evade deadly monsters and find that allies can sometimes be more treacherous than the obvious enemies. This fast-paced dark fantasy adventure should appeal to fans of Neil Gaiman, Charles De Lint and Robert Holdstock. (Apr.)

Written like a love-hate letter to American SF, Roberts's latest is a multigenerational saga of space colonization and betrayal. Centered on the life of Gradisil Gyeroffy, it covers the early years of plucky (and/or wealthy) Uplanders, individuals who take up residence in low Earth orbit, through their transforming war with America and Gradi's sacrifices to weld them into a nation. The forward-looking, freedom-oriented space colonists stand in contrast to their tradition-bound, systems-wedded opponents. Roberts (The Snow) suggests that popular access to space is just a technological improvement away, though the government as represented by the USUF (aka the U.S. Upland Force), rather than rugged individuals, would (and should) lead the way. Not surprisingly, this novel of ideas is talky, and it ends on an ambiguous note. Rewarding the patient reader are some witty asides of social changes (like going from one to three to 14 popes) and an unsparing portrait of a social revolution and its costs to the revolutionaries. (Mar.)

Bellis's second novel (after Step into Darkness) is a Georgian romantic adventure that blends historical and magical elements to make a satisfying potion with a strong bite. When Viscount Redfern secretly pledges to restore his family's fortunes by working for Sir Alaric, King George's spymaster, he doesn't realize he may lose the love of his betrothed. Distraught by Redfern's lengthy, unexplained absences, Helen Barrett ends their engagement and, after receiving an extravagant necklace from the odious Lord Waring, acquiesces to his romantic advances. Redfern's determination to win Helen back intensifies when, during his next assignment, he learns that Waring is the leader of the traitorous and sorcerous Hellfire League. Horrified, he watches Waring use occult powers to control Helen and her brother, James, a young but fast-rising politician. Aided by Sir Alaric, Redfern manages to free Helen from the villain's spell, and together they work to thwart Waring's plans for her brother. This lively adventure features vibrant leads and a tight plot, with well-drawn secondary characters and, in Waring, a bad guy readers will love to hate. (Apr.)

In the third and final act of her contemporary McKettrick romances, Miller (McKettrick's Pride) is at her steamiest. Ladies' man Keegan McKettrick has sworn off love following his divorce, but saucy newcomer Molly Shields may just be the woman to change his mind—even if, at first, she stirs up only resentment. The "other woman" to Keegan's longtime friend Psyche Ryan, Molly conceived a child with Psyche's now-dead husband two years ago, and reluctantly turned the baby over to him and Psyche after the birth. Now, suffering from terminal cancer, Psyche asks Molly if she'll raise the toddler. Molly is overjoyed to be reunited with her son, but less than thrilled over Psyche's conditions: Molly must raise the child in Indian Rock, Ariz.—meaning the end of Molly's successful L.A. literary agency—and she must share parenting duties with the stubborn, forceful Keegan, who's convinced that Molly harbors sinister motives. The complex, conflicting dynamics in this artificially extended clan make for high drama, spiked with intense romance, as Keegan and Molly slowly break down each other's defenses. This should delight any fan of family-centric romance, and followers of the McKettricks will be pleased to find Miller corralling all the series' characters together and tying up all their loose ends with grace and conviction. (Apr.)

Horror novelist Nicholson (The Farm) offers in his latest a thrilling, romance-free twist on the ever-more-popular subject of vampires, bringing to mind the tagline from Robert Rodriguez's neo-camp bloodsucker flick From Dusk Till Dawn: "Vampires. No Interviews." Far up in the Appalachian Mountains, fanatical antiabortion bomber Ace Goodall and his female accomplice are fleeing the FBI on a path along the Unegama River. Not far away, a group of white water rafters is looking to take on the Unegama, a dangerous run, as part of a publicity stunt for a high-end camping gear company. But it isn't long before class V rapids are the least of their worries, as they're set upon by subhuman, leather-winged, bloodthirsty creatures who seem impervious to the panicked humans' efforts to kill them. Amid the bloodletting, Nicholson dregs up some genuinely dark, creepy moments; his unnamed vampires inspire visceral horror each time they sweep down from the sky. Unfortunately, Nicholson's human characters are less inspiring; though perfectly functional, they never rise above stereotypical monster fodder: the former navy SEAL, the lonely widower with nothing to lose, the single-minded religious maniac, the duplicitous company shill. That said, this vampiric Deliverance moves quickly and assuredly, offering some fine scares along the way. (Apr.)

Sims's sophomore effort (after The Midnight Work) is a fantasy romance that starts out slow, choppy, confusing and rooted for too long in the real world; once the story passes into its thoughtfully constructed through-the-looking-glass fantasy world, however, the pace and narrative both pick up and the "huh?" factor begins to work to the book's advantage. After businesswoman Neva Jones meets a gorgeous young man named March in a pub in Wales, she begins to have auditory and visual hallucinations, leading her to question her sanity. Once back home in Alabama, Neva is compelled by strange feelings and visions to dive into the murky water of her grandparents' pond. When she emerges onto dry land, she encounters talking animals, fairies and—strangely enough—her new acquaintance, March. Because of something that happened in that Welsh pub, Neva and March must fulfill a quest that takes them through realms populated by giants, jealous goddesses and a frat-boy sea god. Sims's incorporation of Welsh mythology into her fantasy quest is the strongest part of the book; by contrast, the burgeoning love affair between Neva and March never quite convinces. (Apr.)

Tel Aviv-–based Modan gives American comics readers a sharp sense of Israeli life in this brilliant and moving graphic novel. The story follows Koby Franco, a young taxi driver and lost soul, as he searches for his missing father, a man who long ago left the family and may or may not have been killed in a suicide bomb attack. Assisting and prodding him is Nuni, a young soldier who was romantically involved with the missing father. Modan takes her characters across Israel and through a variety of different Israeli social strata as the search progresses. Along the way it becomes clear that Koby's father's identity is in flux—he leaves all those that he loves, but touches on everything it means to be an Israeli: family man, soldier, religious practitioner and, perhaps, victim. Modan is a deft and subtle storyteller, and her meditation on Israeli identity and the possibilities of love and trust (between father and son, woman and man) are finely wrought. Her loose, expressive drawing is both tremendously evocative and precise—always enhancing the plot. The stellar combination makes this one of the major graphic novels of 2007. (May)

Taking its name from the skill and practice of sight-reading music, Yoshinaga's new yaoi title takes an elegant approach to a story of forbidden love. Music teacher Kugayama is spoiled, wealthy and lazy—he is also in the closet. A handsome boy named Tanaka comes to him to prepare for an entrance exam for music school; problems at home cause Tanaka to start missing his lessons, and he soon moves in with Kugayama. One thing leads to another, and the two become lovers. In time, Tanaka moves away and begins a very successful career in opera; Kugayama hits the bottle and hits on a boy who resembles his departed lover. That affair goes sour, landing the teacher in the hospital; Tanaka finds him there, years later, and extends an offer to bring him out of his years-long doldrums and reignite his love for music. The sex scenes are fairly explicit throughout, and the dialogue laughable in places ("Finally—now I can get back to my carefree gay lifestyle"), but the characters themselves are believable and Yoshinaga tells their story with compassion and care. (Apr.)

Henry, Stretch and Kevin, exterminators with the Bug-Bee-Gone company ("here to mop up nature's little mishaps"), are called in to handle an infestation at a literary brothel where clients pay to act out fantasies from Burroughs, Kafka and Carroll. But the problem is much larger, as tens of millions of roachlike critters begin coursing through the sewers and taking over electrical plants. The final showdown between the exterminators and the bugs is typical of the book's outstanding dialogue, as the three partners engage in lengthy conversations about world religion while stomping through the "crap bisque" of a city sewer. The bug story (which incorporates Egyptology and allegory about the war in Iraq) weaves through Henry's deteriorating relationship with his girlfriend, Kevin's after-hours job as a pro wrestler in a seedy fight club and a particularly well-done interlude where three major characters visit their respective mothers for advice. The color palette is appropriately dark and grimy; this is evidently a world where the sun seldom shines and when it does, it does so harshly. Artists Moore, Samnee and Parks use closeups to powerful effect and the scenes involving the army of bugs maximize the squirm factor. (Mar.)

The first in a series of graphic novels created in collaboration with the Louvre, this is a charming novella that celebrates the collections within the famed Paris museum and allows a nice showcase for De Crecy's detailed, engaging drawing. The story opens with a team of archeologists exploring the earth thousands of years from now, after a long glacial period. Cut off from their history, the ragtag bunch wonder aloud about what the planet might have been like. Serendipitously, they stumble upon the edifice of the Louvre and begin to explore inside. As they stroll through art history, they speculate on what kind of civilization could have produced such images and objects. De Crecy makes this both informative and humorous, as he affectionately riffs on art and life. And then the works themselves begin to speak to each other, telling us and them about life as it passed through the Louvre. It's all quite charming. De Crecy is a gifted storyteller whose eye for body language and ear for a funny line never fails him. He deftly combines art history, science fiction and simple philosophizing in a short but very sweet tale. (Feb.)

Famed for the manga Saiyuki, Minekura offers up more boys' own wild adventures in this series. High school mah-jongg gambler Makoto Kubota is drafted as the new head of the junior division of a Yakuza syndicate. His duties: keeping the area clean of infringing outsider Yakuza organizations. After befriending Nobuo Komiya, another member of the junior chapter, Kubota learns of a new street drug called "wild adapter." Strange, supernatural elements are alluded to as users of this new drug transform into part-animal and then die. In this first volume, Minekura introduces a handful of characters and different scenarios that tie together while some loose ends act as a primer for the next volume. Wild Adapter is part mystery with a strong homoerotic subtext; it's rated 18+, most likely for the bits of female nudity (a few scenes take place in brothels) as well as the mature content—drug trafficking, gambling. Minekura's gritty style will resonate with seinen (older male) readers, making a good read for anyone taken by Yakuza ideas of redemption, devotion, dedication and man love but uninterested in the sexual aspects of actual boys' love. (Feb.)