Fiction Reviews: Week of 6/11/2007

The 12 stories of Trevor's latest collection blend an orchestra conductor's feel for subtlety with a monsignor's banishment of moral ambiguity. In “The Dressmaker's Child,” a 2006 O. Henry Award winner, the future seems predetermined for rural mechanic Cahal, until the preteen daughter of the village dressmaker runs at his car with a stone in her hand. “Men of Ireland” has the elderly Father Meade being visited by Donal Prunty, 52, a onetime altar boy gone derelict with the years. Father Meade, complicit (or perhaps not) in Prunty's undoing, learns that the erosion of memory extirpates nothing and only compounds one's regrets. The widower Mallory of the title story finds that mortality does not quite do away with the need for role playing and reverse strategies in marriage. And when Mollie of “At Olivehill” is at last goaded by her sons into selling her deceased husband's woodlands, the earthmovers appear with the alacrity of enemy tanks, altering her internal landscape as well. The book as a whole recalls Joyce's Dubliners in making melancholia a powerful narrative device. (Oct.)

Goodjohn's debut follows the inhabitants of Stanley Close, a housing project outside of London that's home to the Thompson family. Donald Thompson is a trumpet player with hopes of moving to New Orleans to play, even though following his dream means leaving behind his wife, Elaine; teenage daughter Dorothy; and eight-year-old epileptic daughter Tot. Donald tells Tot of his secret plan, and she promises not to tell anyone as long as he brings her back a snow globe to add to her collection. Tot, meanwhile, strikes a deal with God that if she catches seven stickleback fish over the course of seven Saturdays (and sacrifices them), her father will return. Subplots concerning other residents involve, among others, Gerald Damson, who lost his former home, sold most of his possessions and suspects his wife is flirting with the “rent man.” The pace suffers from stringing together a hodgepodge of points-of-view (a retarded child, Dorothy and her friend) that fail to coalesce. Goodjohn captures the feel and tenor of a working-class neighborhood, but the novel's meandering hobbles readers' emotional investment in the characters' plights. (Oct.)

Reynolds, a university of Texas at Dallas professor and PW contributor, spins nine winning yarns about smalltown people trapped in mean circumstances in, mostly, the Lone Star state. “Mexico” follows a character named Clay as he goes catting with his good old boys at a sad little Mexican border outpost, only to discover that his hometown isn't much different, spiritually, from the shanties, barrooms and whorehouses south of the border. In “Bush League,” a jilted single mother meets an ex-boyfriend, now a sports agent; she wants revenge for their “dirty, tacky little affair,” and he wants to sign her baseball-prodigy son. Connie, the miserable college professor of “Nickelby,” is a “lonely, antique woman living in a lonely, antique house” in rural Canada, who begins to feel kinship with her neighbor's abused dog. “The Baptism” features a solitary hardware store owner in the dust bowl of Agatite, Tex., who learns there are only two things certain in his world: death and Wal-Mart. Reynolds shines penetrating light on small lives. (Oct.)

Kimmel (Something Rising (Light and Swift); A Girl Named Zippy) returns to rural Indiana in her expansive third novel. Hazel Hunnicut is the proprietor of Hazel Hunnicut's Used World Emporium, “the station at the end of the line” for myriad antiques and junk in Jonah, Ind. With her passel of cats and distaste for convention, Hazel is eccentric but grudgingly beloved by her two employees: Claudia, a tall and lonely woman ostracized for her androgynous appearance, and Rebekah, who is still recovering from an oppressive Pentecostal upbringing. With a nudge from Hazel and the appearance of an abandoned infant (whose junkie mother, a friend of Hazel's junkie sister, is dead), the two women form a relationship, providing momentum as an unlikely family takes shape and hidden connections between the characters are revealed. The story has many satisfying layers, but melding them requires Kimmel to jump around in time, sometimes to confusing results (among the pasts visited are Rebekah's childhood; Hazel's upbringing and the backstory on her relationship with the locals; and dreamlike visions of a long-ago romance between a black groundskeeper and a white judge's daughter). It's an intriguing puzzle box of a novel with a few edges left unsanded. (Sept.)

A biographical fantasia, White's latest imagines the final days of the poet and novelist Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage), who died of TB at age 28 in 1900. At the same time, White also imagines and writes The Painted Boy, a work that he has Crane say he began in 1895, but burned after warnings from a friend. Crane dictates a fresh start on the story to his common-law wife, Cora Stewart-Taylor. Interspersed within White's impressionistic account of Crane's life, The Painted Boy tells the tale of Elliott, a “ganymede butt-boy buggaree.” Once a farm boy used by his widowed father and elder brothers like a girl, Elliott escapes to New York and begins a new life as a street hustler. Crane, dying overseas, asks that “someone skilled and open minded” complete the novella. The wry Cora, in her earlier career as a madam at the Jacksonville, Fla. “Hotel de Dream,” has some ideas of who among Crane's friends fits the bill. Though White's research and marshaling of slang are impressive, The Painted Boy approaches the sexual frankness of porn and reads improbably. But as White's book(s) build up steam, readers will let go of misgivings, caught up in Elliott's tragic love life and Crane's apocalyptic end. (Sept.)

Hellenga reprises protagonist Margot Harrington from The Sixteen Pleasures (1995) in his latest, a romantic comedy about the book-to-film adaptation of Margot's memoir. In the fall of 1990, book restorer and longtime American ex-pat Margot is 53, living in her adopted Florence and awaiting the arrival of a film producer who wants to adapt her 1975 memoir for film. At the same time, Margot meets and falls in love with Alan “Woody” Woodhull, an Illinois-bred guitarist who gigs at the Bebop Club and also teaches literature at the American Academy. Meanwhile, producer Esther Klein desperately wants to make the film The Italian Lover, her first solo production since her husband/production partner left her. The movie crew includes Michael Gardiner, the “middling” director dying of cancer, and Miranda Clark, the young actress desperate to capture the true Margot. Subplots abound and conflicts brew (Woody rescues an abused dog; Miranda has problems with a nude scene), but the characters never come fully to life. Elegant in its colorful use of Italian phrases, cuisine and sites, Hellenga's complex novel offers a vivid, often sophisticated view of modern Florence, but less so of its residents and visitors. (Sept.)

This highly episodic picaresque manages to outlast a generic, disorganized plot to emerge as an entertaining romp through the American 1870s. For the most part, Warren's debut follows the youthful adventures of Edward Turrentine Bayard III, who has left his upper-class Connecticut family and headed to frontier Nebraska for his health. In short order, he becomes a buffalo skinner, learns to ride and shoot, and is smitten by the beautiful and poetic Lill Martine. She has other ideas, and Ned, crestfallen but undaunted in his devotion, takes a job offer from a paleontologist back East. There, he meets Phaegin, an attractive, streetwise dance hall girl, and more or less adopts a juvenile delinquent named Curly. Curly's mischief soon has the trio accused of anarchy, theft and murder, and they flee across the continent for their lives. A series of improbable coincidences and misadventures follow, involving wealthy entrepreneurs, Mormons, Indians and a variety of rustic frontier types. There's no shortage of sudden death and grim gore, all of which remains comically on the surface. Characters come and go, often violently. But astonishingly, the sweetness of the story keeps it afloat. (Sept.)

In her ambitious sixth novel (Dreaming Water; The Samurai's Garden), Tsukiyama tackles life in Japan before, during and after WWII. The story follows brothers Hiroshi and Kenji Matsumoto through the devastation of war and the hardships of postwar reconstruction. Orphaned when their parents were killed in a boating accident, the boys are raised by their grandparents in Tokyo. In 1939, Hiroshi is 11 and dreams of becoming a sumo champion, and soon Kenji will discover his own passion, to become a master maker of Noh masks. Their grandparents, Yoshio and Fumiko Wada, are vividly rendered; the war years and early postwar years, centered in their home on the street of the novel's title, are powerfully portrayed. Hiroshi and Kenji reach pinnacles of success in their chosen fields as well as in love, and while Tsukiyama's close attention to historical and geographical detail enriches the narrative, she isn't as successful when describing Hiroshi's wrestling career; the matches all begin to blur together. The lingering effects of war, on the other hand, are clear, and these, combined with a nation's search for pride and hope after surrender comprise the novel's oversized heart. (Sept.)

A 40-year-old New Yorker bound to his solitude and his habits finds he has lost the ability to connect with others in former Glamour editor Erens's hauntingly abject first novel. After years of skirting New York tenancy laws, unemployed former lawyer Jack Gorse is evicted by the new owners of his Manhattan building and ends up 300 miles north at a Vermont Buddhist retreat. In alternating chapters of this skillfully rendered work, Erens moves between the present at the creepy northern retreat, where Jack tends bonsai trees, and Jack's dreary former existence in the city, where he is shaken from his decades of inertia by a visit from the building owners' architect, Patrick Allegra. Patrick takes a picture of Jack in his desperately blasted state and genuinely seems to care where Jack will go after the eviction. The tenderness of this fragile human connection is unbearable for Jack, who is reminded of a similar lost boyhood relationship. Jack's complex reaction is handled cursorily in what is overall a sensitive, restrained debut. (Sept.)

Hungary-born Mora centers her first novel on a young Balkan man who is rejected when he makes a pass at his boyhood friend on their graduation day. Abel Nema next leaves his Balkan hometown to seek the father who abandoned the family six years previously. In the unnamed city of his father's birth, Abel is hit by a car, and acquires a talent for language. Meanwhile, war breaks out at home, and rather than return to likely conscription, Abel goes on to a city called only “B.,” methodically masters 10 languages in a university language lab (with “no accent, no dialect, nothing... like a person from nowhere”), picks up young boys and is aided by various people attracted to his good looks. Most prominent among them is a woman named Mercedes, who hires Abel to tutor her young son, Omar. A jarring collage of free and direct voices and perspectives comprises the imaginative narrative, which culminates in a surrealistic delirium in which Abel confronts his past. An grayness dominates the proceedings, and the book's take on being gay doesn't have much in common with U.S. norms or conflicts. (Sept.)

This perky debut chick lit novel by Tang gently pokes fun at Asian culture and the life of Christian singles. Lex Sakai is a 30-year-old single Asian-American volleyball coach whose control-freak grandmother is determined to fix her up with a man. Lex is more passionate about making a prestigious volleyball team than dating one of her grandmother's candidates. Although a secret in Lex's past makes romance difficult, she has a six-point list from the biblical book of Ephesians detailing the “godly man” she wants. Disaster, of course, is right around the corner. The sassy narrative is solid chick lit, with all the requisite chatter about boobs, yummy food, body type, finding a guy and loser dates. Amid the nice touches of humor are some trouble spots: more food and drink are spilled in the first 100 pages than belong in a whole novel, and Lex's ultimate leading man is a foregone conclusion. The idea that her grandma would penalize Lex's young volleyball team because she doesn't have a boyfriend is a weak plot element. Although some of the content would feel stereotyped if written by a non-Asian (Lex refers to Asians as her “yella-fellas”), it's still refreshing to have Tang's voice in Christian fiction. (Sept.)

Thomson (The Insult) takes the death of real-life British serial sex murderer Myra Hindley, who died of natural causes in prison years after her crimes, as the starting point for his riveting eighth novel. Billy Tyler, an underachieving, unambitious policeman, gets the night shift guarding the killer's body, which lies in a hospital morgue before cremation. During Billy's 12-hour vigil, he reflects on his troubles with his wife, Sue; their Down syndrome child, Emma; lost love, friendship and death. In several perfectly drawn scenes, the ghost of “Britain's most hated woman” (Hindley is never named) appears, drawing Billy into discussions that leave him troubled and confused about the nature of evil and the possibility that it exists within us all. The writing is quietly brilliant: “The night smelt musty, thrilling. Cow parsley, fox fur. The breath of owls.” At one point Billy thinks to himself, “Certain stories lodge like rusty hooks in the soft flesh of the mind. You cannot free yourself.” Readers will agree; this fine novel is one of those unforgettable stories. Author tour. (Aug.)

Moriarty's follow-up to book-group favorite The Center of Everything again explores a tense, fragile mother-daughter relationship, this time finding sharper edges where personal history and parenting meet. Now a junior high school English teacher married to a college professor, Leigh has spent much of her adult life trying to distance herself from her dysfunctional childhood. Raising their two children in a small, safe Kansas town not far from where Leigh and her troubled sister, Pam, were raised by their single mother, Leigh finds her good fortune still somewhat empty. Daughter Kara, 18 and a high school senior, is distant; sensitive younger son Justin is unpopular; Leigh can't seem to reach either—Kara in particular sees Leigh (rightly) as self-absorbed. When Kara accidentally hits and kills another high school girl with the family's car, Leigh is forced to confront her troubled relationship with her daughter, her resentment toward her husband (who understands Kara better) and her long-buried angst about her own neglectful mother. The intriguing supporting characters are limited by not-very-likable Leigh's POV, but Moriarty effectively conveys Leigh's longing for escape and wariness of reckoning. (Aug.)

Moody (Best Friends) stages this sharply observed tale of office relationships gone very wrong at a small Ohio medical practice. When Dr. Will Strub marries office nurse Alicia, he becomes increasingly involved in the local fundamentalist church. That puts him somewhat at odds with his fellow doctor and business partner, Dr. Hap Markowitz, who defines himself “as a non-observant, God-fearing Jew.” Meanwhile, middle aged office receptionist Caroline begins her own new relationship with a 72-year-old patient named Fred, while Hap devotes his spare time to his seriously ill wife, making office manager Brice literally the odd man out. The slow descent into insanity by one of the characters leads to a tragedy that affects all involved; gay relationships, evangelical fervor, amputation and infidelity all play in. “There is a point where loyalty became a sickness, where faithfulness to someone else became a way to destroy yourself,” Hap observes, and each of Moody's well-drawn characters embodies that statement in his or her own way. Hap and Caroline alternate with first person narration, which lends Upstairs Downstairs–like shifts in perspective, which can be distracting. Moody keeps things moving, though, and gets the details right, whether adding up emotional balances, Prozac samples or a patient's bill. (Aug.)

At the start of this dour meditation on loss and culture clash by Norwegian author Kopperud (The Time of Light), a European man named Francesco is searching for his missing daughter, Anya, in the Spice Islands when his ferry sinks. He and two documentary film makers, Helen and Kurt, have to swim ashore. Arrested by the local police, Francesco gains his freedom only by showing a photograph of himself standing with the island's leader. Political turmoil on the island involving conflict between Christians and Muslims threatens Helen and Kurt's attempts to make their TV documentary. The resolution to Francesco's search for Anya is sad in an unexpected way, while Francesco's fate, given his initial trump card of the photo with the island's leader, is perhaps too banal. Through luminous, honest prose, this depressing novel explores the hopelessness of the individual's fate in the wider world. (Aug.)

At the start of bestseller Slaughter's bone-chilling sixth thriller in her Grant County, Ga., crime series (after 2005's Faithless), Dr. Sara Linton, the county's resident pediatrician and medical examiner, is mired in a devastating lawsuit, accused by grieving parents of indirectly causing the death of their terminally ill son. Then Sara and her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, must travel to rural Reese, Ga., where Lena Adams, Jeffrey's often reckless detective, has been injured in an explosion that killed a local woman. Lena's mysterious escape from the hospital plunges her, Sara and Jeffrey into a dangerous web of meth trafficking, white supremacy groups and long-buried family secrets. Expertly shifting back and forth in both time and point of view, Slaughter builds the suspense to a perfect crescendo, connecting every loose plot strand in a devastating and unforgettable climax. With methamphetamine use on the rise in the country, Slaughter's unflinching portrayal of lives ruined by the drug make her latest a timely and unsettling read. (Aug.)

The latest in contemporary fiction's secret code sweepstakes, a debut from Florida attorney Forrest, incorporates a host of mysteries. These include the I Ching, Fibonacci sequences, pi, Zipf's law, magic squares, the Bible Code, ancient civilizations (Mayan, Egyptian) and pretty much every other enigma littering the wilder shores of the Internet. Dr. Joshua Ambergris discovers a message embedded in our DNA that comes from the very dawn of humanity. A secret group known as the Order kill him rather than have it revealed. Ambergris's two assistants, Christian Madison and Grace Nguyen, set out to reconstruct the message and find the killers. There are engaging digressions into math and science, but too many shopworn plotlets intrude on the main business: a bomb is set to explode; a ninja-like assassin lurks; power struggles wrack the Order; various stock characters appear and play out their agonizingly familiar roles. The writing abounds with clichés (“Suddenly a shot rang out”) and the final kicker is anything but. (Aug.)

With humor and panache, British writer Mendelson (Love in Idleness) presents London's Rubin clan, presided over by matriarch Claudia, a brilliant, charismatic London rabbi blessed with zaftig curves and a will of steel. Claudia seems to have molded nebbishy husband Norman and their four children into the perfect family. But as the plodding eldest, Leo, leaves the altar to run off with his mistress, the fault lines are exposed: next-eldest Frances eventually admits to her despair about her dutiful marriage and her lack of maternal feeling, and even colorless Norman turns out to have a guilty secret. Claudia, however, must preserve the myth of a perfect family because it's the basis of her about-to-be published memoir, “a moral and ethical handbook for families of the new millennium.” What makes Mendelson's novel especially naughty are her candid observations about the “crouching, self-loathing way” that many English Jews try to fit into Anglo society while simultaneously maintaining their traditions: Claudia's seder, for example, is a comic set piece of frantic preparation and grim hospitality. But while the social satire is deft, the action upon which Mendelson hangs it veers into farce. And with the introduction of imminent tragedy, the plot abruptly crashes. (Aug.)

Pace (Pug Hill; If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend) delivers an endearing third novel about two sisters and their quests for companionship and an effective diet. Meredith Isley is very single and not so skinny. She's a restaurant critic for The NY magazine and finds in haute cuisine what she has trouble finding in romance: satisfaction. Across the Hudson, Meredith's sister, Stephanie, is a married new mother who was skinny growing up, but hasn't yet lost her pregnancy weight. Stephanie, too, fights her own loneliness and tries to survive motherhood and a troubled marriage. When both sisters decide to diet, what they gain, instead of pounds, is, not surprisingly, sometimes trite insight. Meredith's work begins to suffer, but a four-legged addition to her life heralds change. By craftily portraying the balancing act between work and play, family (be it four-legged or two) and friends, and food and fasting, Pace doesn't capture anything revolutionary; rather, she writes the ordinary well. (Aug.)

Midwest-based Cassady's debut features a protagonist also named Eva, an editor for a New York shelter magazine who is a sardonic worrier about the pounds she's put on since her 20s. She's married to David, mother to Chloe (who is about to spend her junior year in Paris). When architect Michael Foresman wins the Pritzker Prize, and Eva's editor finds out that Eva once knew him—they had a passionate, one-week thing in college—Eva is assigned to snag an interview. As the two begin heavily reconnecting via e-mail, Eva starts working out (and enjoying it) in preparation for seeing Michael again. Cassady's novel has inspired moments: Eva's exchanges with best friend Liz and with Chloe are sharp and funny, and the web Eva weaves to separate her real life from her cyberlife rings frighteningly true. Diet and exercise tangents eventually tie in to this smart, hopeful entry into the mom lit market. (Aug.)

Last seen in 2006's Crisis, New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery diligently investigates an abrupt rise in infection deaths at the start of bestseller Cook's lively new thriller. All the deaths can be traced to three Manhattan hospitals owned by Angels Healthcare. Unbeknownst to Montgomery, Angels, which specializes in high-profit surgeries of amply insured patients, is on the verge of going public and can't risk any bad publicity. She's also unaware that Angels' main financial backer is a local Mafia don, who's prepared to kill anyone standing in the way of his investment. Cook smoothly juggles several subplots—one involving Montgomery's husband and fellow coroner, Jack Stapleton, who's suffered a serious knee injury playing basketball—and ekes out maximum value from one of his regular standbys, bumbling hoods. It all adds up to an entertaining mix of suspense, action and education about medical issues. (Aug.)

Set in the surveillance society of the near future, this whirlwind thriller from BBC correspondent Hawksley (The Third War) puts Kat Polinski, a convicted computer hacker just sprung from jail, to work for a division of Homeland Security. Kat's job is to break into foreign embassies and ransack their computers, searching for secret data useful to the U.S. When Kat infiltrates the Kazakhstan embassy, she finds a bunch of dead people and has to shoot her way out, killing two gunmen in the process. She then learns that her sister, Suzy, who's been living in England, has been murdered. On the lam from her own government, Kat hightails it to London, the most security-intense city in the world, to search for Suzy's killer. Hawksley lingers a little too often over security tech toys, but eventually breaks out the weaponry as Kat slings lead while making one hairsbreadth escape after another. (Aug.)

Written in the form of a confession by an elderly man looking back on the defining incident of his youth, Davis's brief debut takes place in a remote Spanish village during the Inquisition, after the Christians have conquered Moorish Spain. As a young man, the narrator befriends a Moor, who entertains the village children with stories and songs, and introduces them to the spiritual joy of walking. When some of the children disappear, an Inquisitor arrives to find the perpetrator and very quickly accuses the Moor of being a witch. Despite his best efforts to aid his friend, the narrator finds that the trial has been rigged by the Inquisitor, and the Moor will be found guilty and executed. When the narrator stumbles across the horrifying truth about what happened to the missing boys, he finds himself embarking on the longest walk of his young life. A combination of morality tale and gothic horror, the book raises questions about religious extremism, faith, miracles, justice and torture, but by-the-numbers plotting and thin characters drain the novel of emotional resonance. (Aug.)

In Shuman's mesmerizing second suspense novel to feature blind Philadelphia psychic Sherry Moore (after 2006's 18 Seconds), the Maryland attorney general asks Sherry, who can relive a murder victim's last moments by touching the body, to do her thing on three women discovered gruesomely murdered in an abandoned Maryland meat processing plant. Soon Sherry is plagued by eerie nightmares. After another woman is found strangled in an upscale suburban Pittsburgh home, the Pennsylvania state police get involved, but territorial wrangling between state and federal law enforcement agencies hampers the search for the serial killer. Shuman, who has worked for more than 20 years with the Washington, D.C., metropolitan police, brings a chilling realism to his depiction of crime scenes and has a real gift for conveying fear. (Aug.)

Wild boy Sean McCloud takes center stage in McKenna's over-the-top fourth entry in her romantic suspense series (Behind Closed Doors, etc.) featuring Sean and his brothers Davy and Connor, who specialize in security, catching villains and keeping their women very happy. Sean is still dealing with the death of his brainy twin, Kevin, one of many victims of the covert Midnight Project directed by the sadistic Dr. Christopher Osterman. When Sean's lost love, Olivia “Liv” Endicott, returns to Endicott Falls, Wash., to open a bookstore, Sean is both thrilled and terrified. And when the store is torched by Dr. O's pet assassin and Liv is almost killed by the relentless goon (whom she dubs T-Rex), Sean vows he won't lose her again. Sean swings into full-frontal heroics, battling T-Rex and working to reclaim Liv's trust. Full of the author's trademark turbocharged sex scenes, this action-packed novel is sure to be a crowd pleaser. (Aug.)

Unabashedly campy and titillating, Nolan's debut novel (after short story collection The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories) is a tale of 1950s lesbian career girls loose in the big city. Innocent suburban cheerleader Lois Lenz is thrilled when her guidance counselor suggests she forgo junior college and take a secretarial position in nearby Bay City. Leaving behind Faye, her best friend and kissing practice partner, Lois rents a room at the Magdalena Arms, a once reputable boarding house for career girls that has fallen into disrepair. As the personal secretary to the cutthroat ad exec Mrs. Pierson, Lois must juggle her new career with her new friends and their search for the truth behind the disappearance of the girl who once lived in Lois's room. Lois eventually partakes in a few Sapphic trysts before realizing her true “deviant” nature (as she puts it). Nolan effortlessly parodies the world of the career girl and tries to do for the growing lesbian pulp genre what Hammett and Chandler did for the private dick novels of the 1940s. While its appeal will be limited, this is a must-read for any fan of steamy pulp fiction. (Aug.)

Jordan Landau has a crap job, a shrewish boss and a dud boyfriend, but when she gets hit by a car and takes a nasty knock to her noggin, things start to look up in Crane's bubbly second novel (after Stupid and Contagious). Jordan, she of the nutty family and unsatisfying junior copywriting job, fakes amnesia and parlays her “condition” into a better position at the ad agency where she works, a better boyfriend (longtime beau Dirk, who is one-note awful, also tries to take full carnal advantage of Jordan's amnesia, but fails) and an all-around better lifestyle. The setup generates a few chuckles, but no real surprises. Readers in the mood for a light and goofy romantic comedy will find a thin one between these covers. (Aug.)

The intricate fifth thriller from British author Hewson to feature Roman detective Nic Costa (after 2006's The Lizard's Bite) artfully weaves several points-of-view as it shifts between past and present. Fourteen years after seven-year-old Alessio Bramante, the son of an eminent archeology professor, disappeared underneath Rome's ancient Circus Maximus, someone seeking revenge attacks Costa's colleague, Insp. Leo Falcone, who worked on the unsolved case of the missing boy. Falcone and Costa start asking questions that should have been asked during the original bungled investigation. High on their list of people to talk to is Alessio's father, Giorgio, an expert on the tunnels beneath Rome who served time in prison for beating to death one of his students, the chief suspect in his son's disappearance. The subterranean labyrinths just may hold the answers to a mystery whose poignant resolution few readers will anticipate. (July 31)

In this clever SF thriller from Ruff (Fool on the Hill), almost everyone is a bad monkey of some kind, but only Jane Charlotte is a self-confessed member of “The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons.” Or is she? In a series of sessions with a psychotherapist in the Las Vegas County Jail “nut wing,” Jane tells the story of her early life in San Francisco and her assimilation into the “Bad Monkeys,” an organization devoted to fighting evil. Crazy or sane, Jane is still a murderer, whether she used a weapon like the NC gun, which kills someone using Natural Causes, or more prosaic weaponry. Still, nothing is quite what it seems as Jane's initial story of tracking a serial killer janitor comes under scrutiny and the initial facts about her brother, Phil, get turned on their head. At times the twists are enough to give the reader whiplash. Ruff's expert characterization of Jane and agile manipulation of layers of reality ground the novel and make it more than just a Philip K. Dick rip-off. (July 24)

In Deveraux's familiar latest, Jace Montgomery's fiancée, Stacy, commits suicide while they're vacationing in England—or so, three years after her death, everybody but Jace believes. The chance discovery of a letter Stacy received days before she died and a photo of Priory House in Margate, England—the village where Stacy committed suicide—prompt Jace to investigate. Finding Priory House for sale, Jace buys it despite its ugliness and expense. Dwelling in the house is the ghost of young Ann Stuart, who lived there in the 1870s and committed suicide just before her wedding. A local journalist, the beautiful and confrontational Nightingale Smythe, joins man and spirit in the search for the truth about Stacy and Ann's deaths. Deveraux never raises the pitch very high, and harmonizes the whole satisfactorily. (July)

Carmel, Calif., comes alive in Flinn's engaging fourth mystery to feature Molly Doyle, antiques dealer and reluctant but adept sleuth. Having barely begun to recover from her last adventure, Deadly Collection (2006), with the help of her close-knit group of friends and her 12-year-old niece, Emma, Molly is anxious to begin redecorating the tasting room of Carla Jessop's winery, Bello Lago. But when Carla's abusive husband, Todd, is shot dead just as he's about to confront Molly at a party at Bello Lago, Molly becomes a suspect in Todd's murder, along with her beau, Carmel police chief Kenneth Randall. Once again, Molly delves at considerable personal risk into a homicide case. Full of interesting antiques lore, this expertly plotted whodunit is a must-read for cozy fans. (Sept.)

Set in 1926 France, Cleverly's impressive sixth Joe Sandilands novel (after 2005's The Bee's Kiss) finds the Scotland Yard detective, still scarred by WWI, taking a relaxing jaunt around Provence until Sir Douglas Redmayne of the British War Office gives him a sensitive assignment: to ascertain the identity of an amnesiac war veteran who's surfaced in a French hospital speaking English. As the French government would provide a lucrative pension to the soldier's family, there's no shortage of people who claim him as their relation. Accompanied by his precocious ward and honorary niece, Dorcas Joliffe, Sandilands probes the four most likely candidates, each of whom has ample motive to lie. Before long, an old murder is uncovered, further complicating the quest to identify the soldier. Cleverly maintains the high standards set by earlier Sandilands tales, blending a sophisticated whodunit with full-blooded characters and a revealing look at her chosen time and place. (Aug.)

Daheim's enjoyable 23rd B&B mystery (after 2006's Saks and Violins) takes Judith McMonigle Flynn, her cousin Serena “Renie” Jones and their husbands to a remote town in Scotland. The idea is to get away from the stresses of running an inn, and from Judith's pesky habit of stumbling over corpses and solving murders, but when a new Scottish acquaintance mysteriously dies, Judith can't help poking around. Why would anyone kill Harry Gibbs? Perhaps his wife, now twice widowed, had developed a romantic relationship with someone else, or perhaps a complex business deal lies behind Harry's demise. The tight-knit locals aren't always willing to open up to Judith, and soon more people die. The many eccentric Scottish characters aren't especially well developed, but the local color—fine wool, romantic castles, freely flowing whiskey and tea—is charming. This cozy makes a good vacation read, whether or not your destination is Scotland. (Aug.)

At the start of Edgar-finalist Steinhauer's fine fifth and final entry in his series set in an unnamed Eastern European Communist country (after 2006's Liberation Movements), homicide inspector Emil Brod, now chief of police and three days from retirement, reluctantly investigates the death of Lt. Gen. Yuri Kolev. Though Kolev apparently died of a heart attack, the coroner finds deadly levels of cocaine and heroin in his blood, and a flier in Kolev's car suggests he may have been murdered by members of an underground prodemocracy group. Soon Brod uncovers a wide-ranging plot involving old friends and enemies, all of whom are frantic to take advantage of the situation when their fellow citizens, inspired by the recent fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of governments in neighboring countries, rise up to overthrow their Communist leaders. Employing an intricate story, characters both sympathetic and despicable as well as a remarkable sense of place, Steinhauer subtly illuminates an unforgettable historical moment. (Aug.)

Atkinson's lush third Storm Kayama adventure (after 2005's The Green Room) finds the Hawaiian lawyer on the island of Moloka'i with her boyfriend, Ian Hamlin, hoping the trip will provide a much needed respite from their busy legal careers. At the request of high school pal Tanner Williams, Storm visits Tanner's ex-wife, Jenny, to check on their adolescent son, Luke, who's diabetic and having difficulties adjusting to his parents' recent divorce. When Jenny is killed and Tanner and Luke vanish, Storm begins asking questions, but the secretive inhabitants of Moloka'i are reluctant to divulge information to a stranger. Piecing together the complicated relationships of the reticent islanders soon turns deadly, as Storm and Ian realize they're caught in the middle of a clash between old-world sorcery and modern-day revenge. The Moloka'i scenery is as vivid and appealing as the heroine, and authentic language and folklore make this a first-rate tale of greed, lust and retribution. (Aug.)

Best known for her procedural series featuring English village police detective Gil Mayo (A Sunset Touch, etc.), Eccles delivers a satisfyingly complex stand-alone, spanning the years from 1894 to 1909. This acute psychological study slowly untangles the web binding the fortunes of an Armenian patriot, an amnesiac accident victim and various members of the aristocratic Chetwynd family and the wool-selling Armitages of Yorkshire. Dexterously shifting from London to Shropshire to the British South African outpost of Mafeking, Eccles explores women's fight for suffrage and traditionally male careers, the breakdown of distinctions between the old nobility and the rich merchant class, and political upheavals in South Africa. Eccles's narrative skills and the myriad contextual details make it easy to forget the mysterious murder victim found on a Shropshire estate until pulled back by the episodic efforts of the police to solve the crime. (Aug.)

Crown Prince Gregory von Hirtenstein, aka classical music event organizer Greg Crowne, escorts lovely Polish countess Marzelina Zalfeda to a charity ball at the start of British author Barclay's solid fifth book to feature the exiled aristocrat (after 2005's A Final Discord). Marzelina is in London with a commission to purchase a purported Chopin letter for an eccentric elderly lady, Estelle Wiaroz. When Marzelina's strangled body is found in the research stacks at the Museum of Musical Heritage, the Metropolitan Police, familiar with Greg's sleuthing abilities, ask him to help find her killer. En route to Paris to interview Madame Wiaroz, he bumps into a former lover, fashion designer Liz Blair, who decides to accompany him on his investigation. With few clues to guide them, the charming couple leave no page unturned and no village unvisited in their search for the culprit. (Aug.)

Geology student Valena Walker receives a rude awakening when she arrives at Antarctica's McMurdo Station in this less than successful first in a new series from Andrews, creator of geologist-turned-sleuth Em Hansen (Eye for Gold, etc.). The scientist Walker was expecting to work for, Emmett Vanderzee, has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a journalist who died a year earlier. Still hoping to conduct research into glaciers but needing Vanderzee's supervision to keep her grant, Walker begins poking around the closed community of scientists and support staff for a way to clear his name. Andrews, who spent two months in Antarctica on a research grant for her novel, convincingly portrays life in one of earth's most hostile environments. Unfortunately, the whodunit plot isn't up to the atmospherics, while Walker comes up with a solution that's unrelated to her professional expertise. (Aug.)

Hugo-winner Haldeman's skillful writing makes this unusually thoughtful and picaresque tale shine. Matt Fuller, a likable underachiever stuck as a lab assistant at a near-future MIT, is startled when the calibrator he built begins disappearing and reappearing, jumping forward in time for progressively longer intervals. Curiosity and some unfortunate accidents send Matt through a series of vividly described, wryly imagined futures where he gradually becomes more adaptable and resourceful as experiences hone his character. The young woman he rescues from a techno-religious dictatorship gives him a chance at a mature relationship, while teaming up with an AI that intends to press on to the end of time forces him to decide what he wants from life. Rather than being a riff on H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, this novel is closer in tone to Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, another charming yarn about a young man who's forced out of a boring rut. Producing prose that feels this effortless must be hard work, but Haldeman (Camouflage) never breaks a sweat. (Aug.)

Sin, a Sumerian fertility god turned Vegas casino owner, and Kat, the zealous servant of bossy Greek goddess Artemis, knock boots and kick butt in Kenyon's juicy 11th Dark-Hunter paranormal love-fest (after 2006's Dark Side of the Moon). Sin's been on the warpath for thousands of years, since Artemis stole his godhood. Sin's also upset about the disappearance of his twin brother, Zakar, and the imminent invasion of the vampiric Sumerian gallu, who plan to liberate the Dimme superdemons and destroy all humanity. Kat agrees to kill Sin before he kills Artemis, but instead the two fall in madcap love while trying to prevent Armageddon. It's just another day's work for the immortals, who act a lot like ordinary quarrelsome people with way cool superpowers. Though readers may need a scorecard to keep up with the cast, this series puts a contemporary spin on classical mythology that an increasing number of fans have found irresistible. (Aug.)

In Sagara's lively third romantic fantasy (after 2006's Cast in Courtlight), scruffy Kaylin Neya, a private in the branch of law enforcement known as the Hawks in the city of Elantris, has a vision of a forlorn little girl while investigating the theft of a strange box from a local mage. As a result, the Hawks get on the trail of a missing child of the secretive, telepathic Tha'alani. Meanwhile, Elantris's Oracles warn that the city will be destroyed in two weeks. Could the mage Donalan Idis, a former inquisitor known for his brutal experiments on Tha'alani, be behind it all? Even before her likeness appears in an Oracle's predictive painting, Kaylin knows she can't avoid getting involved, no matter how much she hates using her powers. The impressively detailed setting and the book's spirited heroine are sure to charm romance readers as well as fantasy fans who like some mystery with their magic. (Aug.)

Richardson's clever ghost-busting follow-up to her solid urban fantasy debut (2006's Greywalker) finds psychic Seattle PI Harper Blaine investigating a deadly lab-made spook. Pacific Northwest University professor and psychologist Gartner Tuckman is trying to replicate the results of an actual '70s Canadian psychokinesis experiment by the Owen group, whose participants appeared to create a poltergeist. Tuckman's assistant, Mark Lupoldi, provides fake phenomena to encourage the subjects' belief in their psychic abilities, but soon the experiment begins producing off-the-charts evidence of an actual specter. Tuckman suspects a participant of meddling with the results and hires Blaine to investigate. When Lupoldi is murdered, Blaine consults a number of experts, including a former vampire client, before slipping into the Grey spirit world to track the thought-entity who might be responsible. Richardson's view of the paranormal has a nice technological twist and features intriguing historical notes that lift this whodunit a cut above the average supernatural thriller. (Aug.)

Swainston's daring and imaginative third Fourlands fantasy novel (after The Year of Our War and No Present Like Time) plunges the reader into the action with a gripping account of a bloody battle between fearsome aliens known as the Insects and the people of the Fourlands. A century later, Jant Comet, the winged messenger granted immortality for as long as he serves the Fourlands' Emperor San, battles both his nightmares of the past and the continuing threat of the alien invaders. As Jant struggles to develop a plan that will end the menace once and for all, his focus is diverted by the disappearance of Cyan, the daughter of Jant's fellow immortal and friend, Lightning. Meanwhile, the Insects are developing terrifying new abilities and strategies that may spell doom for the Fourlands. A dramatic and compelling plot, plus inventive and convincing descriptions, elevate this above the common run of contemporary fantasy fiction. (July)

This convoluted conclusion to Baker's Company novels (after The Machine's Child) explores the events leading up to July 8, 2355, the moment when the Silence falls and all future contact is cut off for the immortals and cyborgs who travel through time collecting human artifacts on behalf of the profit-hungry Dr. Zeus Inc. As the Silence draws near, splinter groups begin jockeying to benefit. A human cabal plots, somewhat hilariously, to take out the cyborgs with poisoned chocolates. The cyborg Lewis, desperate to warn others of the injury done him, lies wounded in a burrow, telling disoriented stories to a woman with strange powers. On a deserted island, Mendoza bears two children to her husband, Edward, and gives them the minds of her ex-lovers, Alec and Nicholas, proving that cyborgs are capable of creation. The intertwining stories all come together in an explosive denouement that heralds the end of the Company, but the beginning of something strange and new. (July)

At the start of Roberson's complex sequel to Karavans (2006), the mysterious sentient forest, Alisanos, which has moved for the first time in 40 years, surrounds series heroine Audrun, who has given premature birth to a daughter, Sarith. Rhuan, the demigod disguised as a karavan guide who tried to protect Audrun's family, continues to guard mother and child, calling upon his semidivine cousin, Brodhi, for grudging assistance. Other denizens of the deepwood offer aid to Audrun's four older children as Alisanos begins to transform them. In the human world, the karavan settlement has been destroyed by Alisanos's movement. Injured Ilona, the diviner, has lost her gift of reading hands. Jorda the karavan-master, Mikal the tavern-owner and Bethid, a courier, help the few survivors while furthering plans of rebellion against their cruel Hecari conquerors. Readers will be impatient to see what happens in the next volume. (July)

Set in a sprawling realm of scheming deities and heroic mortals, the earth-shaking conclusion to bestseller Stackpole's Age of Discovery trilogy (after Cartomancy and A Secret Atlas) focuses on the efforts of the three grandchildren of royal cartographer Qiro Anturasi, a master mapmaker whose unparalleled magical ability allows him to reshape the landscape of reality, to save their world from destruction. Major threats include an undead, soulless prince hell-bent on usurping the crown from his empress stepmother and a vengeance-obsessed elder god determined to undo all of creation. With its huge cast, numerous byzantine subplots and nonstop action, Stackpole's ambitious epic is comparable to—if not quite at the level of—sagas by adventure fantasy heavyweights like George R.R. Martin and Robert Jordan. Considering the story's intricate mix of military, political and supernatural machinations, the overall theme is surprisingly simple and profound: every act of creation, no matter how big or small, is significant, and “life itself is magic.” (July)

Silver's newest (after His Dark Kiss), set against the wilds of early 19th-century Cornwall, makes a moody gothic romance out of the business arrangement between a crippled innkeeper and a vengeful privateer. Poor innkeeper Gideon Heatherington has only one option when stolid, hardened privateer Aidan Warrick shows up demanding payment on the inn's mortgage; he must sell his daughter, Jane, into indentured servitude to Aidan for a period of seven years. Anger over the innkeeper's past misdeeds fuels Aidan's attempts to keep his distance from the beguiling Jane, but he finds himself protecting her despite himself. Jane, for her part, can't help being intrigued by the man who makes “an ugly knot of terror curdle in her stomach.” As the attraction between them simmers, Aidan unwittingly reveals his caring side and, eventually, his troubling secrets. Domestic tension and Aidan's mysterious past drive the novel nicely, and the evolving, bittersweet relationship between the two damaged souls is, appropriately, this romance's strongest aspect. (Aug.)

With another bleak vision of the zombie apocalypse, Keene makes a triumphant return to the still-thriving subgenre he helped revive with his 2004 debut The Rising (a movie version of which is currently in the works). Trouble begins when a virus infecting the rat population of New York City begins spreading among animals and humans alike—one bite, one drop of blood or one string of saliva is all it takes to kill its victims, within minutes, and instantly revive them as mindless, flesh-eating zombies. Narrating this grim tale is gay 30-something Lamar Reed, who makes a hair-raising trip through the carnage of zombified Baltimore before he and a small group of survivors manage to commandeer a Coast Guard ship and get it out to sea. Together, the eclectic group search the coast for a safe harbor; meanwhile, an endless parade of zombies search the survivors' floating haven for a way in. Keene piles on the gory thrills as Lamar and his shipmates struggle through this diseased world, though they can be overly chatty at times (dialoging on everything from religion to Joseph Campbell). Delivering enough shudders and gore to satisfy any fan of the genre, Keene proves he's still a lead player in the zombie horror cavalcade. (Aug.)

The Hellers, a husband-and-wife team known for their health titles (The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet, etc.) make a thrilling fiction debut in this fast-paced, well-researched adventure, a foray into Da Vinci Code–style papal mystery. American cybersleuth Gil Pearson, a semifamous antihacker, gets tapped to help translate an ancient copper scroll that's meant to lead to a fabulous treasure. Accompanied by striking, strong Sabbie Karaim, a translator and former Israeli military operative, Gil travels to Israel, where he's introduced to the dangerous conspiracy that surrounds the scroll, and soon realizes the perilous position he's gotten himself into; apparently, the scroll contains not just a treasure map but the truth about the life and death of Jesus. As rival factions try to claim the scroll for their own agendas (to protect Christianity, to destroy Christianity, etc.), Gil and Sabbie head on a breakneck quest around the globe trying stay one step ahead of their pursuers while teasing out the secrets of the age-old document. A satisfying, well-structured entry into the still-hot subgenre, the Hellers have a definite crowd-pleaser on their hands—assuming it doesn't get buried in a saturated market. (Aug.)

In his third WWII submarine thriller (following Rise to Victory), Cooke once again puts his extensive naval expertise to fine use providing rich procedural detail and tactical suspense that does much to forgive a stock cast and a mundane, land-based climax. Fresh from burying his wife, Lt. Cmdr. Jack Tremain returns to the South Pacific in October 1943 with orders to sink a Japanese convoy. After a chance encounter with the notorious Japanese destroyer the Shigure, aka the “The Scourge of the Solomons” and “The Cruiser Killer,” Tremain develops Ahab fever, rerouting to pursue the deadly vessel that sank his beloved first command; in the process, he unwittingly puts his ship in the sights of allies and enemies alike. Cooke's detached tone expertly evokes the claustrophobic tedium of submarine combat, but dries up most character moments, especially in an amateurish romance subplot; fortunately, another subplot involving half a fortune concealed below deck ramps up the paranoia and turns suspicious crew members against each other. While serviceable, the climactic battle is hampered by one too many Hollywood-style close shaves. Still, the painstaking detail and tactile precision of diesel-run sub warfare provides a largely refreshing antidote to today's glut of hollow high-tech thrill rides. (Aug.)

An introduction written by the author's therapist describes the process of creating these comics as “excruciatingly painful” and “painfully frightening.” This puts Brunetti's minimal output—three issues of his cult favorite comic Schizo in 12 years—into psychological perspective. Brunetti's work does its malevolent work with an eye to the author's psychological underpinnings. Brunetti constantly offers up the worst possible image of himself alongside his portraits of a despised society. His festival of self-loathing, sexual depravity and brutal cynicism, is, however, amazingly clever and incisive. Whether from the point of view of a miserable comics artist and workaday hack, a nihilistic Jesus Christ or a raging “feminazi,” these rants are fascinatingly convincing, readable and smart. Not all readers will be able to tolerate the scatologically violent sensibility that is so brilliantly manifested in these pages, but for those with a taste for the most jaded views of our society and its inhabitants, Brunetti has long been a hero. Sharply self-aware, Brunetti informs his readers, “I have a gift.... I can articulate what most people won't even face....” and it is this concise and energetic articulation that makes his work so great. (June)

The premise behind this anthology is clever: editor Rodriguez bought a batch of vintage picture postcards, gave them to various cartoonists from varying backgrounds and commissioned 16 short stories inspired by the brief, sometimes cryptic messages written on each card, preceded by reproductions of the cards themselves. The biggest names in the book are Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, who, true to form, write about the postcard that introduced the two of them; the most engaging piece, though, is Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos's deadpan but deeply silly tale of “traveling tic-tac-toe hustlers.” Other highlights include Phillip Hester's elaboration on an Easter card, concerning an unlikely spiritual awakening, and Joshua Hale Fialkov and Micah Farritor's subdued sketch about a pair of Americans in France during the Great Depression. Unfortunately, many stories lapse into sentimentality (like the saccharine contributions by Tom Beland and James W. Powell) or stretch the book's premise awkwardly. One piece somehow twists a whimsical postcard into a brutal horror story; another is an unfunny parody of old superhero comics. And curiously, only a few stories address the images on the cards at all or do much with the peculiar and evocative visual style of those pictures. (June)

While being hyped as the greatest Canadian western comic book ever may sound like faint praise indeed, in the case of Chantler's thrilling historical adventure, it definitely is not. Categorized as young adult historical fiction, the book is a James Fenimore Cooper–styled thriller set in remote Rupert's Land, circa 1755. Fort Newcastle, an English-run trading post commanded by the stout-hearted hero Charles Lord, is overrun in a vicious sneak attack by French mercenaries looking to get rich off the fur trade. Lord and the survivors of the massacre wander the wilderness, looking for allies and plotting their revenge, while inside the captured fort, the villainous Guerin Montglave plots evil deeds. Chantler's sharp black and white artwork (replete with dramatic closeups and muscular action choreography) has a welcome precision to it, while the writing has a pulp immediacy (“ 'T'ought you could 'ide, English dog?' ”) which brings history to life. This collected edition of the three-issue original comes with copious and welcome annotations at the back, where Chantler discusses various plot points and historical references as well as the different styles used from one frame to the next (including one he calls his “Frank Miller shot”). (June)

A gruesome cult of villains and the murder of dozens of beautiful young women spread fear through the streets of 18th-century Paris. This intricate gothic fantasy manga is adapted from a popular anime, which in turn was loosely based on the real life Chevalier d'Eon, a spy who lived the second half of his life as a woman. In this tale, a group of possessed poets hunt beautiful young virgins to write their dark poetry in fresh blood on the palms of their victims. Only D'Eon de Beaumont can hunt these vicious murderers. A bumbling yet discreet police officer by day, he is secretly a member of his majesty's private police by night, and with the help of his sister Lia de Beaumont, D'Eon fights the Palms. Lia, also known as the Sphinx, is one of the killer's victims, but her soul enters her brother's body to extract vengeance and help bring salvation to Paris. The popular and award-winning SF writer Ubukata creates fantasy within reality. The deeply involved world of the manga is both gruesome in its content and beautiful in its art, and should draw fans into a seedy historical underworld. (June)

In this metafictional series on yaoi and the publishing industry, Tomonori Ozawa gets a job at his first choice of publishing firms. But it's as an editor for Rose Boy: Boys Love Magazine of Revolution. His first assignment is with temperamental artist Sakurako Kakyoin, who insists on being called “Sensei” and needs serious motivation to make his deadlines. But what motivates Kakyoin is fantasizing about his boyish new editor, Ozawa. Part dissertation on manga technique, part breathless sexual harassment fantasy, this is the ultimate refinement of the yaoi subgenre—yaoi about the making of yaoi. The parts in which Higashizato explains how manga is made—the structure of the editorial board, which fonts are best used for which scenes—is intriguing and well illustrated. (And leads to some truly surreal ideas like a love scene too strong for conventional fonts.) Higashizato's layouts are somewhat chaotic, making it difficult to track the flow of the story between the sweaty sex scenes, and his frequent use of chibi figures makes it difficult to separate the fantasy sequences from those occurring in “real life.” But both hardcore yaoi fans and would-be manga artists should enjoy the insider story. (June)