Fiction Reviews: Week of 9/10/2007

Nashville Circuit Court judge Gayden’s mixed debut tracks a tragic love story that begins at a Tennessee Christian summer camp in 1896. There, pastor’s daughter Anna Dennis, 16, and Walter Dotson, a third-year Vanderbilt medical student, fall hard for each other. By winter, he’s interning at her local hospital, and their courtship and early married life—including a stint in Vienna, where daughter Mabel is born—have all the trappings of a conventional romance. By 1908, the family numbers four and settles in Gallatin, Tenn., near Anna and Walter’s hometowns, but a miscarriage sets the stage for murder and scandal. Gayden’s writing in the romance sections is flat and unconvincing, but perks up in the last quarter, when the novel goes full-on procedural, delivering the murder trial and the related media coverage in close detail. The trial, based on real events, is intriguing, the verdict unexpected and period detail adds depth. (Feb.)

The collision of truth and fiction can result in romance or even redemption—or so say the writing exercises and life lessons that make up Breen’s debut novel. For years, Arabella Hicks’s love life, like her writing life, has felt flat and fruitless. Still, the 38-year-old copy editor and part-time teacher can summon neither the drive to date nor the wherewithal to finish her novel, Courting Disaster, now seven years in the rewriting. She’s anxious about her mother, Vera, whom she visits in a nursing home every Wednesday after teaching her writing class. Worried about Vera’s Parkinson’s disease—and still grieving her father’s death—Arabella discovers her personal fears seeping into classroom discussions of plot, point of view and dialogue. One student, the well-spoken, well-to-do Chuck, begins a relationship with Arabella and thus installs himself into the mother-daughter drama. Breen, a writing instructor, sometimes overplays her hand, but she does inject a dose of originality into an otherwise familiar setup. (Feb.)

Gawker.com meets Glamour in this insider’s look at Oscar week penned by L.A. junior royalty: Goldberg, producer Leonard Goldberg’s daughter, has worked for Todd Oldham; Khalighi Hopper, daughter of Dennis Hopper and Daria Halprin, produced and starred in the indie film Americano. After a disastrous turn acting and bedding her superhunk co-star, Lola Santisi, 26 and the daughter of famed director Paul Santisi, swears off actors and acting for good. But Lola agrees to be the Hollywood ambassador for “Best Gay Forever” designer Julian Tennant, to help get a major actress to wear one of his dresses at the Oscars. Lola woos an array of glitterari, each more self-absorbed than the next in the runup to Graydon Carter’s famed Vanity Fair bash, and competes against the ruthless Prada ambassador Adrienne Hunt for the plum actor bods. There’s up-to-the-minute star chatter and fashion name-checking throughout; wonderfully dead-on moments as Lola negotiates underlings to get on set; and a possibly fatal relapse of actor fever. The shallowness is more severe than Angelina’s neckline, but that’s the point, and it quickly becomes imperative to discover just who is going to wear Julian Tennant to the Oscars. (Feb.)

Unhappy in love, New York creative writing instructor Aaron McCloud, 32, arrives in Western Ireland’s County Kerry to suffer amid its natural beauty in this very funny sixth novel from Caldwell (The Uncle from Rome). Aaron stays with his aunt Kitty, who makes a living rewriting the classics (her version of Oliver Twist features lots of repentance), but Aaron’s wallow in self-pity is interrupted by a lost pig that attaches itself to him. When the pig digs up a human skeleton buried in the backyard, Kitty identifies the remains as the missing Declan Tovey and blames the pig’s mischievous owner, Lolly McKeever. But Lolly won’t admit to owning the pig, let alone killing Declan, and Aaron, for his part, is attracted to Lolly and suspicious of his aunt, who had her own reasons for wanting Declan dead. The stage is set for an Irish country comedy of manners in which darts, pints, pigs and burial plots all play a part. Caldwell’s shaggy pig story, the first of a projected trilogy, puts farcical doings into lilting language and provides a payoff that is as unexpected as it is satisfying. (Jan.)

The woes of being a scholarly mom are highlighted in this highbrow chick lit entry from Pastan (This Side of Married). Jane Levitsky’s research concerns Maria (Masha) Karkova, the fictional, gifted wife of the fictional philandering genius of 19th-century Russian literature, Grigory Karkov. Jane is in her first year of a tenure-track job at the competitive University of Wisconsin–Madison as she struggles to untangle the web of intrigue surrounding Masha and Grigory. Husband Billy has moved with her from California along with toddler daughter Maisie, but Jane doesn’t have much time for either of them, a fact of which live-in nanny Felicia is well aware. Further, Jane’s office is next door to the professor she has been hired to replace, the irascible but charming Otto Sigelman, who was responsible for bringing Karkov’s literary works to light; though he’s meant to be retired, Otto is still very much invested in the reputation of his literary hero, and Jane’s researches may be a threat. Fast-paced, well-written and entertaining, Pastan’s latest has a winning feminist twist and should turn up in more than a few faculty lounges. (Jan.)

The author of two leadership manuals—including one deriving its principles from the life and thought of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)—Gerber imagines a what-if for the former first lady in her first novel. In Gerber’s fictionalized version of the 1952 Democratic convention, Adlai Stevenson suffers a heart attack and dies on stage moments before he is to accept the nomination. The popular Eleanor, a widow since 1945, is quickly brought in to take his place and run against Eisenhower. Her campaign rallies the support of women, unions and African-Americans, but even her own party doubts that Americans will elect a woman president. There’s a sentimental scene in which five-year-old Hillary Rodham meets the former first lady, and a petty scene in which Richard Nixon, then Republican candidate for vice-president, contemplates his dirty fingernails. Eleanor comes across as imperious, intelligent and brave, but clumsy dialogue, historical minutiae and an absence of narrative tension sink the story. The premise is intriguing, though, especially given a former First Lady’s run for the nomination. (Jan.)

Maloy explored northern landscapes and Quaker faith in her memoir A Stone Bridge North; she returns to both in her moving debut novel. When 75-year-old Sarah Lucas’s husband, Charles, succumbs to an injury at the peak of a particularly brutal Vermont winter, her worst later-life fears of physical mishap are realized. In grief, Sarah’s memories take her back to the Great Depression, when her parents generously opened their home to countless friends and relatives, and to her own regretted missteps as a parent. The chance to recreate the one experience and rectify the other arrives uninvited when a variety of lost souls—Sarah’s own teenage granddaughter; an Israeli pacifist; a devastated young mother and child—seek shelter and solace in Sarah’s too-empty home. The motley assortment of characters, many of whom have been touched by violence, deliver passionate apostrophes on peace and justice, and together Sarah and her boarders discover unseen beauty in the landscape, uncover hidden talents and develop a nurturing, healing community. Maloy’s wordplay and startling nature imagery enchant, but readers will have to decide if the spectacular climax, an expression of its characters’ principles in action, is out of place with the novel’s quiet thoughtfulness. (Jan.)

As Sellers-García’s rich debut opens in 1993, Nítido Amán is seeking his origins in Guatemala following his father’s death by spending a year as a teacher in the remote village of Río Roto. His father had said that the Amáns came from a place “very near there,” but was never specific as to the family’s home village. Upon arrival, Nítido is immediately mistaken for an arriving priest and is too tired at first to correct the man who meets his bus and settles him in the sacristry. When, the next morning, his innocent questions about the burned schoolhouse and the path to a certain village are met with evasion, stony silence and worse, Nítido begins to suspect that Río Roto hides a deep trauma. On the third morning, when he is suddenly called in to give a woman last rites, Nítido, for reasons even he doesn’t fully understand, tacitly accepts the role of priest. In a moving tale of mourning and revelation, Sellers-García puts Nítido’s secret and hidden origins on a slow-motion collision course with the secrets of the town. While the pace is slowed by Nítido’s letters to his dead father, this spare and vivid debut brings together wrenching personal and political histories. (Jan.)

Nepali author Chettri’s slender 1957 novel is a descriptive and evocative tale of a young Nepali peasant farmer’s run of bad luck. Dhan “Dhané” Bahadur Basnet, 25, strives to support himself; his wife, Maina; a small son; and his teenage sister, Jhumavati, and buys a buffalo on interest from a moneylender to help plant his family plot. But the buffalo’s calf dies, then the buffalo rampages a neighboring field, leaving Dhané responsible for damages. To pay off the debt, Dhané agrees to work another farmer’s fields and offers his home and land as security. Meanwhile, Jhumavati is seduced by a soldier and gets pregnant; her shame is so overpowering that she imagines the only way out is suicide. Fate continues to mock this humble family when Dhané beats a buffalo to death for trampling his seedlings, and he and his family are cast out of the village. Chettri’s novel is a moving example of social realism, and Hutt’s elegant translation lends it a timeless fable-like tone with a gorgeous rendering of the natural scenery. (Jan.)

Thirteen stories from South African Nobel Prize–winner Gordimer offer a staccato demonstration of how people’s origins, inheritances and histories—and the loss of them—are inescapable. The title story centers on the white, twice-divorced academic descendant of a London diamond prospector who visits his forebear’s mine in Kimberly, South Africa, and wonders about who in the township, black and white, he may be related to. The narrator of “Dreaming of the Dead” is haunted by famous former companions (the late intellectuals Edward Said and Susan Sontag), while the grieving widow of “Allesverloren” (or “All Is Lost”) seeks out her husband’s former lover to unearth a message from him. The daughter of “A Beneficiary,” meanwhile, finds an unsettling letter among the effects of her late mother, an actress. Cultural inheritance shadows the marriage of a Hungarian couple that emigrates to South Africa in “Alternate Endings: Second Sense,” and also the son of “A Frivolous Woman,” who resents his flamboyant German-Jewish émigré mother’s easy adaptability. Again and again, Gordimer puts big, sweeping disasters (the Holocaust, apartheid) in the pasts of flawed, ill-equipped characters and shows how their choices have been little more than wing beats against history. The results are terrifying, sometimes acidly funny and often beautiful. (Dec.)

An Austrian Jew and photojournalist who was interned at 20 different Nazi camps between 1939 and 1945, Wander (1917–2006) first published this loosely structured novel in East Germany in 1970. Spare, haunting anecdotes memorialize Jews who died senseless, undignified deaths in Nazi concentration camps. In the Hirschberg camp, Mendel Teichmann, a 50-year-old atheist, keeps the other prisoners occupied with his wry tales; a Polish boy, Yossl, freezes after guards taunt him and shovel snow over him. While most prisoners gulp down their meager rations, the narrator describes how “men like Pechmann... turn a crust of bread into a seven-course meal.” On the eve of Buchenwald’s liberation, the narrator watches Joschko, 10, patiently push food into his exhausted younger brother. The book is much more than a catalogue of horrors and of courage, as Wanders’s narrator struggles to find the language to describe what he has seenn. This is a worthy addition to Shoah literature. (Dec.)

Freud, who is Sigmund Freud’s great-granddaughter and Lucien Freud’s daughter, echoes some of the autobiographical material that enlivened her debut and biggest success, Hideous Kinky, in this sixth novel. Lara, 17, is already a veteran of a transformative journey to the Far East with her mother as she sets out on a very different trip, from London to Italy with her reclusive father, Lambert. Lara’s adolescent turns of mind, her changing relationship with “Lamb” and her utterly contradictory (and utterly human) desires to be both in the world and safe at home make for a surprising and convincing character study. But Freud’s engaging, insightful writing is undermined by antique plot devices: is Lamb also the father of Kip Willoughby, the cute boy at the adjacent villa? Was Kip conceived in an act of sexual revenge? Did the Willoughbys’ grandfather once renege on a promise to bring Lara’s grandparents out of WWII Germany? Still, the soap-opera drama doesn’t ruin the book: one wants to remain with Freud’s lively voice and to see what Lara makes of it all. (Dec.)

A partner in an Albany, N.Y., law firm that specializes in personal injury and medical malpractice cases, debut novelist Mednick crafts a quippy, discursive tale of a goodhearted lawyer’s wakeup call. The divorced father of two teens, Mike Samuels has been a personal injury lawyer in Sloan County, N.Y., for more than 20 years, but a midlife feeling of alienation from work has set in. He has two strong-willed women in his life: secretary Alice and girlfriend Ann-Marie, who wants him to commit. Getting by on his self-deprecating wit and sardonic facade, Mike rolls along, but when he accepts the case of Evelyn Walker, who is suing her former employer over a debilitating job-related injury, Mike is forced to shake off his ennui and get focused to defend his client. His neurotic wisecracking can be wearing, but once the story gets to the courtroom, Mike makes an appealing smalltown hero. (Dec.)

This first English translation of the last, previously unknown novel by Dumas (1802–1870) offers a stunning completion to his fictional mapping of French history. The plot centers on Compte Hector de Sainte Hermine, a royalist captured and imprisoned by Bonaparte. Part one finds him caught in the political intrigue of 1801–1804, as Napoleon moves from first consul to emperor. In part two, Hector, now known as René, is released from jail; he signs onto a French corsair as a common seaman, but his noble birth, superb education and martial abilities soon elevate him in rank. The next 300 pages slosh with swashbuckling sea adventure, casting heroic romance against the background of Napoleon’s ultimate fall. It’s Dumas at his best, but alloyed: asides; minibiographies; commentaries on fashion, manners, geography and history; and flashbacks pile up unendingly, leavened with farcical humor and witty punditry. Although it lacks the polish of The Three Musketeers and the concision of The Count of Monte Cristo, this capacious, rambling, unfinished account of the Napoleonic era represents vintage Dumas and an intensely personal vision of the time. (Nov.)

The indefatigable Gabaldon, who has made the British 18th century her own, offers a trio of novellas about Lord John Grey, whose minor role in the Outlander novels (concerning Jacobite Jamie Fraser and including A Breath of Snow and Ashes) has become a major fictional spinoff (Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, etc.). The three mystery-adventure novellas of this volume span 1756 to 1758, in settings packed with dark secrets—and therefore dangers—for the soldier-hero with secrets of his own. The first novella finds Lord John swearing vengeance in London for a murdered government official, leading him to a deconsecrated abbey where members of the political elite indulge their basest desires. The second pits Lord John against a succubus that plagues his Prussian encampment, and combines humor with military strategy and supernatural myth. The third, most complex narrative finds Lord John investigating the cause of a cannon explosion in the English countryside that results in a fellow officer’s death. Gabaldon brings an effusive joy to her fiction that proves infectious even for readers unfamiliar with her work or the period. A foreword and introductory notes add background on the book’s evolution. (Nov.)

Roiling with class tensions and rife with danger, St. Petersburg during the twilight of the last czar serves as the chessboard on which Irish author Bennett (The Catastrophist) stages this heady historical thriller. The game begins with a bang: the murder of prominent newspaper editor O.V. Gulko in March 1914, just weeks before the city hosts a glittering international chess tournament. (Zugzwang refers to a situation in which a player can make only moves that worsen his position.) Then there’s a second slaying. Despite plenty of the usual suspects—Bolsheviks, pro-German reactionaries, Polish nationalists—the police start grilling respected psychoanalyst Otto Spethmann and his 18-year-old daughter. The widower’s protestations of innocence cut little ice with his chief inquisitor, Insp. Mintimer Lychev, a mysterious sort who happens to share Spethmann’s chess enthusiasm. Dr. Spethmann’s only hope: using his analytic skills to crack the case. As he races the clock, he and Lychev become caught up in a high-stakes battle of wits. The plot packs more than enough surprises to keep any suspense junkie sated. (Nov.)

The seven stories in this slim collection from Brite (Soul Kitchen) form a poignant requiem for pre-Katrina New Orleans, which serves as the setting for all of them. Most are brief sketches featuring characters on the periphery of her tales of chefs Rickey and G-Man, and in their descriptions of local landmarks and daily rituals of the natives, one catches the author’s unabashed affection for the Big Easy. Two stories, “Wound Man and Horned Melon Go to Hell” and “The Devil of Delery Street,” come from the supernatural side of Brite’s oeuvre, but the book’s best is “The Feast of St. Rosalie,” whose simple account of a young woman contemplating romance in the midst of a religious festival mixes charm and pathos for a beautiful elegy to Brite’s hometown. (Nov.)

At the start of Matturro’s amusing fourth suspense novel to feature oh-so-perky Florida attorney Lilly Cleary (after 2006’s Bone Valley), Lilly returns to her hometown of (not kidding) Bugfest, Ga. Lilly’s mother, Willette, agoraphobic and bipolar, abused Lilly and brother Delvon as teenagers, and Lilly hasn’t seen her in 20 years. But now Willette is both hospitalized and accused of murder, and Lilly mounts her lawyerly white horse. Along the way she encounters additional problems both old (greedy resort developers despoiling natural beauty) and new (endangered species sold as “exotic” meats for adventurous diners in big cities “Up North”). A curious blend of chick lit plus woman in jeopardy plus amateur detective, the book is somewhat hampered by overly cute phrasing and by the tendency of characters to stop what they’re doing and explain themselves, just at crucial points when decisive action is needed. Lilly is full of contradictions: germophobic at OCD levels and a terminal flirt, but brave and dead-on effective. Readers who prefer their heroines with an extra dose of sass will find a lot to like. (Nov.)

Salvayre’s fifth novel to be translated into English is a tightly introspective series of first-person confessions by an arrogant murder convict whose life was transformed by reading Blaise Pascal. By turns angry, tricky and despairing, the narrator offers a disjointed narrative about his life leading up to the murder of his father. He begins by recalling the absurdities of his work as a guide at Pascal’s abbey at Port-Royal, and how his reading of Pascal began to unlock memories of the horrific dynamic between his parents. His parents met at the Argèles camp for Spanish Civil War refugees; his mother, at 16, a half-starved rebel from Catalonia, was seduced by his father, a Communist under General Lister, and she became pregnant. Life under her tyrannical husband robbed the narrator’s now-dead mother of her joie de vivre, and the narrator concludes that his mother’s death actually began the moment she met her husband. Gradually, the narrator’s hatred for his father takes on an all-devouring “power of flies.” The novel seethes in a classically dark, French way. (Nov.)

Set primarily in Los Angeles from the late 1960s through 1980s, this darkly funny, wise but flawed novel from Erickson (Arc d’X) focuses on our collective fascination with movies. Vikar Jerome, whose almost deranged film fixation manifests itself in the images of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift tattooed on his bald head, wanders around Hollywood, where he gets mistaken for a perp in the Charles Manson murders and is robbed by a man who turns out to be a fellow film buff. After Vikar becomes a film editor, he’s kidnapped by revolutionaries in Spain who want him to edit their propaganda film. Later, he wins a Cannes Film Festival award in France and receives an Oscar nomination, with strange consequences. Vikar repeatedly crosses paths with actress Soledad Palladin and her daughter, Zazi, though ambiguities in his relationship with this enigmatic pair, along with a recurring dream of his, derail this black comedy toward the end. The sudden point-of-view shift and possible supernatural element jar in an otherwise brilliant, often hilarious love song to film. (Nov.)

Chicago journalist Graff (Cold Lessons) takes a less-than-imaginative look at a dystopian near-future America in his second novel, a thriller. An unnamed George W. Bush is still president in what is in effect his third term; a series of terrorist attacks, somewhat improbably, has led to the suspension of much of the Constitution, including presidential elections. When Homeland Security agents arrest freelance photographer Jason Walker because he’s been taking pictures of prominent Chicago buildings, Walker manages to convince his captors of his innocence. The naïve Walker agrees to use his Lebanese heritage to infiltrate a local Mideastern cultural center, but does so clumsily. The plot thickens after some Lebanese-Americans with uncertain motives recruit Walker as a double agent. While many thoughtful observers have wondered whether the war on terror will cost the U.S. its soul, Graff barely scratches the surface of the challenging ideas his intriguing conceit presents. (Nov.)

New York City medical examiner Hayes provides plenty of authentic forensic atmosphere in his grisly debut. But his tale of a maniacal serial killer loose on the streets of Manhattan dwells too much on the carnage with insufficient focus on his protagonist’s emotional state. Dr. Edward Jenner, an occasional private consultant who resigned from his post as a New York City forensic pathologist after the trauma of 9/11, is positive the gruesome crucifixion murder of a young college student is the handiwork of a burgeoning serial killer. When Ana de Jong, the murdered girl’s roommate, appears in his loft, desperate for help, Jenner is plunged deep into a world of cruelty and death, a world he tried so desperately to leave behind. As more bodies pile up and the killer’s methods become increasingly sadistic, Jenner races to identify the ancient text engraved in the victims’ flesh, hoping it will lead him to the truth behind the murders. The somewhat creepy relationship that develops between Jenner and Ana distracts, while fans familiar with the conventions of the serial killer genre will find much of the action predictable. Hopefully, Hayes will combine his impressive forensics knowledge with a fresher plot and deeper characterization in his next thriller. (Nov.)

Owing an obvious debt to Dan Brown’s megablockbuster The Da Vinci Code, Langfield’s ambitious debut incorporates elements of supernatural mystery, Dante-esque journey and apocalyptic thriller, but the pieces fail to come together into a satisfying whole. With a powerful alchemical weapon primed to detonate in a week’s time, Robert Reckliss must unlock seven puzzles and find seven keys hidden around Manhattan before the “Malice Box” unleashes some unspecified evil on the inhabitants of New York City. Standing in his way is the Brotherhood of Iwnw (pronounced yoonu), otherworldly “scavengers of the soul” bent on remaking civilization with themselves as overlords. Two-dimensional characters, contrived situations and a mishmash of plot-threads—a potentially world-altering discovery involving a recovered document written by Isaac Newton, secret societies, gateways between worlds, America’s war against terrorism, Christian and Islamic mysticism, ley lines—make this one of the weaker contenders in the crowded religious thriller field. (Nov.)

A pair of odd-couple bachelors discharged from a mental asylum set up an unusual household in this heartening work by Norwegian novelist Ambjørnsen. It’s carried by the winning voice of Elling, the neat, cultured, phobic member of the duo, who had a breakdown after the death of his beloved mother and now has to re-enter the world with only husky, sloppy roommate Kjell Bjarne by his side. The two move into a spacious Oslo apartment thanks to the official support of their meddlesome social worker, Frank. Settling in, the two gradually come out of their shells, adopting two eight-week-old kittens, frequenting a local restaurant and rescuing a drunk, pregnant woman—all with very funny commentary and consequences. Elling makes a new friend in the aged poet Alphonse Jørgensen, a baby is born, a poem is published, and before they know it the two men are really living in this madcap recovery adventure. (Nov.)

A little bit Borges and a little bit Calvino, French postmodernist Ricardou’s newly translated 1969 novel proves a circuitous trek through a fictive landscape of eight metaphorically named places. Bannière, Beaufort, Belarbre, Belcroix, Cendrier, Chaumont, Hautbois and Monteaux—each gets its own chapter, and each serves as a source from which language springs, along with the whimsically opaque plot. In the medieval village of Bannière stands the 19th-century museum house of the late fictional artist Albert Crucis (“simply the genitive of the Latin crux, 'cross’ ”), where a young traveler, whose name is not revealed until midbook, begins his visit to the area. He will run into an antiquarian dealer named Epsilon (l’espion, “the spy”) and an elusive woman in a red dress, named Atta, who shares his passion for recondite research into the work of Crucis. The two travelers dig for clues in the artist’s allegorical paintings, which depict the eight places in question. Ricardou is a practitioner of the nouveau roman, and his experimental work frees the narrative from conventional rules and plunges it, delightfully, into quandary, contradiction and travel-literature parody. (Nov.)

Copeland’s problematic fifth novel offers an insider’s view of the music industry, replete with money, materialism, jealousy, deception, sex and coldhearted ambition. As singer Topaz’s comeback CD shoots up the charts, there’s a terrible secret at the heart of her success that could destroy her career and family. And although her secret is barely concealed, it takes the confluence of two random events and the machinations of the jealous Sabre Cruz before everything hits the fan. Unfortunately, the novel has a host of flaws. The characters are hard to root for (or against) and feel like crudely sketched representations of semifamous people who might surface on low-end reality TV shows. Few of the big scenes—Topaz’s comeback concert, the melodramatic scene in which her secret is revealed, her tribute performance at the Grammy Awards with Eric Clapton—are even vaguely believable, and the ending will surely disappoint. (Nov.)

Coughlin wrote with Davis on Shooter, a memoir of Coughlin’s career as a Marine Corps sniper. In the team’s debut novel, the two pit Gunnery Sgt. Kyle Swanson, the corps’s best sniper, against a secret alliance of government and business bigwigs. A triumvirate of National Security Adviser Gerald Buchanan, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Ruth Reed and megarich businessman Gordon Gates IV are using Gates Global (the world’s preeminent private security company) to implement a plan to take over the military, rewrite the Constitution and usher in the creation of a “New America.” In Saudi Arabia, Marine Brig. Gen. Bradley Middleton is kidnapped by two mercenaries working for Gates Global. After Swanson is chosen to be part of a rescue team, helicopters carrying the rescuers crash on landing, and Swanson is left with only his exceptional combat skills and his high-tech rifle, Excalibur (“a sniper’s wet dream”). The action reaches such a furious pitch that readers will hardly notice an overly romantic subplot or the clumsy machinations of the evil trio. (Nov.)

Utilizing more than a few narrative elements from James Dickey’s 1970 classic Deliverance, Liparulo sends a quartet of middle-aged Colorado buddies on a 10-day vacation in the remote wilds of northern Saskatchewan in this slow-moving techno-thriller. Journalist and avid bow-hunter John “Hutch” Hutchinson and his fellow urban professionals are all tired of dealing with their own personal adversities and looking forward to a few idyllic days of hunting and fishing. When they encounter crazed millionaire Declan Gabriel Page and his plan to obliterate an entire town and its 242 residents with a space-based laser, their wilderness retreat turns into a nightmarish battle for survival. The implausible technology and all-too-predictable ending will leave readers longing for a few guitar-banjo duels. (Nov.)

Romance author Leigh (Stealing Adda) mixes chick lit with a treatise on the need for change in traditional churches in her latest. Former wild child Harriet Bisset, 27, tries to keep to the straight and narrow. Between living in a senior citizens’ trailer park, her part-time job as a women’s ministry director at First Grace in Franklin, Tenn., and waitressing at Gloria’s Morning Cafe (which she’s saving to buy), she doesn’t have time to get into trouble. But when the church hires hunky 30-something Maddox McCray, a former bad boy, as a consultant to help attract new members (translation: bring in the guitars, drum sets and programming), Harriet grapples with her own fears about risk and change. Some readers will disagree with Maddox’s breezy assertion that “today’s Christians have different needs from past generations” and that programming and contemporary music are the answer, especially when interest from young people in more liturgical traditions is on the upswing. Church marketing themes aside, Leigh crafts the expected romance, with all the tensions and tingles, adding splashes of fun with Harriet’s Jelly Belly addiction and cat-sitting dramas. The novel’s elderly characters sparkle, and readers will hoot when one “old biddy” takes out a no-good amorous lecher with a stun gun. (Nov.)

In Cohen’s laid-back ninth mystery (after Perish by Pedicure), hairdresser and sleuth Marla Shore takes a cruise with her fiancé, police detective Dalton Vail, and his parents and teenage daughter. Shortly after boarding, Marla receives a threatening note addressed to “Martha Shore.” At dinner, she and Dalton find themselves seated with a tense group of museum employees, all of whom were sent on the cruise by an anonymous benefactor and received similar notes. When a piece to be sold at the cruise’s auction turns out to be the work of an artist who died under unusual circumstances, Marla decides to do a bit of digging. Her detecting is complemented by a more personal subplot: how she will get along with her soon-to-be in-laws. Fans of vacation mysteries will enjoy watching Marla find her way through this light whodunit. (Dec.)

Demonstrating an impressive level of sustained excellence, Rowland’s mysteries set in 17th-century Japan form one of the best recent series in the genre. The 12th episode (after 2006’s Red Chrysanthemum) delves deeper into the politics of an empire ruled by a figurehead as the background for a compelling and thrilling whodunit. Rowland continues to conjure up new hurdles for her sleuth, Sano Ichiro, recently elevated to the position of chamberlain. His power and integrity inevitably offend more venal politicians, one of whom arranges the abduction of Sano’s young son, Masahiro. Sano’s quest for the kidnappers coincides with a mission to the remote northern city of Ezogashima, where an insane local ruler is holding the entire community hostage as he searches for the murderer of his mistress, an exotic foreigner known as the Snow Empress. Compelling pacing and well-rounded characters enhance the intriguing plot and will draw in new readers as well as longtime fans. (Nov.)

Stanley Hastings, the hapless PI who’s recently taken somewhat of a backseat to Hall’s Cora Felton “puzzle lady” series (You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled, etc.), reappears for his 16th case, the first since 2003’s Manslaughter. Not to be confused with the macho type who carries a rod and gives or takes a beating in the course of his investigations, Stanley is more likely to have his ego beaten down by his caustic wife, Alice; long-suffering Sergeant MacAullif; or profit-hungry lawyer Richard Rosenberg, Stanley’s only steady client. When hit man Martin Kessler retires before completing his final contract and hires Stanley to protect him from his irate employers, the bodies—and the absurdities—start piling up. The laughs aren’t as frequent as in Stanley’s prior outings, but the convoluted conclusion produces the kind of rueful groan elicited by a good shaggy dog story. It’s good to see Stanley returning to the lists, even in such a humble offering. (Nov.)

This engaging start of a new series, West’s first novel since 1979’s The Ancestors Cry Out, introduces former opera star and blueblood Emma Streat. Emma’s husband, Lewis, CEO of a defense company, has grown terse and paranoid of late, increasingly concerned with security and refusing to tell Emma what’s bothering him. On a trip to London, Emma demands to know what’s happening, but Lewis only tells her there’s a problem with a new weapons project. Shortly after their return to Connecticut, Lewis dies in a suspicious accident. Emma heads back to London to investigate and soon learns of a second death, then a third. Though attempts are made on her own life, she remains determined to learn who murdered her husband and why. West spins a plausible tale, and flawed, grieving Emma makes an appealing heroine. (Nov.)

In Conant’s entertaining 18th Dog Lover’s mystery (after 2006’s Gaits of Heaven), Holly Winter, Massachusetts malamute trainer and dog columnist, goes searching for a missing dog, a Siberian husky named Strike, and instead finds a woman’s corpse. In the victim’s possession are personal papers belonging to Holly and another Cambridge-area Holly Winter, suggesting the woman may have been indulging in a little identity theft. Even stranger, when Holly finally finds Strike, she turns out to be a rare blue Alaskan malamute with Holly’s name and phone number on her tag. The two living Holly Winters must deal with their mutual dislike as they hurl into a hair-raising conflict connected to a crooked former dog breeder who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. Conant includes a lot of insider doggy details and lovingly depicts Holly’s interactions with her malamutes, Kimi, Rowdy and young pup Sammy. Sammy and Rowdy’s courageous defense of Holly when the killer catches up to her will have dog lovers cheering. (Nov.)

While Lawrence, a notable British poet, is still largely unknown to American fans of police procedurals, that should change with his successful fourth outing featuring London detective Stella Mooney (after 2006’s Cold Kill). Mooney takes on a gruesome case when the corpse of a young woman is found hanging from a tree, defaced with cryptic writing. The motive for the crime is still elusive when a second body turns up, almost decapitated, with another scrawled message. Mooney and her team work frantically to link the two before the body count rises, even as the killer works to complete his mission. Mooney’s complicated personal life is accessible to the new reader, and Lawrence masterfully draws out the tensions and freshens a cat-and-mouse plot line with sensitive writing and perceptive characterizations. (Nov.)

In the satisfying eighth Det. Insp. Kennedy mystery, Kennedy picks up a missing person case in London’s Camden Town while easing back into work following an injury sustained in 2004’s The Justice Factory. Elderly and prosperous, John Riley has simply vanished, leaving few clues. While swapping notes with Father O’Connor, a priest who knows Riley’s wife and is assisting the investigators, Kennedy forms a friendship with O’Connor’s genial friend Harry Ford. Then Ford is stabbed to death. Feeling personal loss and responsibility, Kennedy takes on the murder investigation, determined that Ford and his family will have justice. The clues are there for armchair sleuths, and the murder method one of the most bizarre ever devised. Charles adeptly fills in backstory without slowing the plot or interrupting the narrative flow. This series deserves recognition on a par with those of Inspectors Jury, Morse and Tennyson. (Nov.)

At the start of Lakeman’s compelling second mystery (after 2006’s The Shadow Catchers), FBI Special Agent Peggy Weaver, who works for the Crimes Against Children Unit in Philadelphia, receives a chilling memento of a childhood tragedy—e-mailed porn photos that depict her best friend at age 10, obviously from the lens of the abductor who snatched her while Peggy escaped. When that victim, now college professor Samantha Stallworth, calls to tell her she has received the same photos, Weaver heads home to Avalon, Tenn., an isolated college community with sharp divisions between town and gown as well as black and white. Peggy’s homecoming reignites friction with her father, Avalon’s police chief, who had always berated her for being a poor eye-witness to the abduction. When Samantha goes missing once again, this time with no witness, Peggy pursues the case frantically, obstructed by town police, Samantha’s powerful in-laws, her own personal demons and some very real ones. Rich atmosphere, an intriguing plot and a solid heroine make this one another winner for Lakeman. (Nov.)

In Hill’s fine second Simon Serrailler crime novel (after The Various Haunts of Men), Inspector Serrailler, who’s still brooding over the unsolved murder of a fellow officer a year earlier, has sought solace amid Italian ruins with his sketchbook, much to the disapproval of his father back in England. Summoned home to the cathedral town of Lafferton, Serrailler finds that murder, family breakups and the abduction of a schoolboy have occurred in his absence. Other worries include the impending death of his handicapped sister, Martha, and a mob attack on the home of the pedophile suspected of kidnapping nine-year-old David Angus. Meanwhile, down-and-out ex-con Andy Gunton finds dubious employment shipping cars for sleazy Lee Carter. The patient reader must wait until these subplots come together, but Hill’s smooth and engrossing style creates riveting suspense as Serrailler and sidekick Nathan Coates pursue David’s abductors through Lafferton’s seediest areas to an astonishing conclusion. (Nov.)

The 11th volume in this consistently high-quality series features such household names as Joyce Carol Oates and Lawrence Block, but for the most part it’s the lesser lights who shine brightest with superb short crime stories that evoke human passions and bring characters to life with a few well-chosen phrases or images. As series editor Otto Penzler again cautions in his foreword, few of the stories revolve on “whodunit,” the “why” having become more important in contemporary crime fiction. One of the best of the 20 selections is Chris Adrian’s “Stab,” a chilling tale of childish cruelty, as witnessed by an autistic child. Block himself weighs in with the masterful “Keller’s Double Dribble,” a story of double crosses, white-collar crime and basketball. Another standout is Brent Spencer’s “The True History,” a gripping account of brutality and revenge set during the Texas War of Independence. Cozy and Agatha Christie fans won’t find much to suit their particular tastes, but lovers of good writing should be delighted. (Oct.)

Hard SF fans should revel in Gee’s unusual anthology of 100 speculative miniatures created by scientists, journalists and top SF authors worldwide and originally published as recent one-page features in the science journal Nature. Each vignette centers on a wondrous or devastating or simply mind-boggling “what if,” carried to an unsettlingly original logical conclusion—or left spinning in an extraterrestrial mental orbit. A sampling of the treasures illustrates their remarkable range: Gregory Benford’s poignant “A Life with a Semisent” explores the human need for love; Paul McCauley’s “Meat” tackles the nasty human trick of twisting technology to immoral purposes; Robert Sawyer faces religion with the gobsmacking “Abdication of Pope Mary III”; and Ian Watson lets fly with his hilarious “Nadia’s Nectar,” one of the best bathroom tales around. All in all, this is a perfect volume to awaken startling new thoughts on old SF themes, giant leaps into the future in delectably palatable tiny packages. (Nov.)

Martin may be best known for his Song of Ice and Fire epic fantasy, but this mammoth collection of short stories (the first of two volumes) highlights his work in numerous genres, including SF, horror and fantasy. Focusing on Martin’s early output, volume one features “The Second Kind of Loneliness,” originally published in 1972, which chronicles a man’s insanity-inducing introspection millions of miles from Earth; the 1975 Hugo Award–winning “A Song for Lya”; “The Pear-Shaped Man,” a disturbing horror masterpiece about a creepy apartment neighbor; and more obscure works like a 1967 fanzine story starring the Astral Avenger and an unconventional college term paper about the Russo-Swedish War of 1808. An insightful introduction by Gardner Dozois, illustrations by Michael Kaluta and extensive—and candid—author commentary make this much more than just a compilation of stories. Fans, genre historians and aspiring writers alike will find this shelf-bending retrospective as impressive as it is intriguing. (Nov.)

Shinn (Reader and Raelynx), Johnson (The Master), Berg (Flesh and Spirit) and York (Moon Swept) offer stories of air, fire, water and earth in a delicious smorgasbord of styles. Shinn’s “Bargain with the Wind” is a cautionary reminder about the dangers of making deals with capricious air demons, as exemplified when Lady Charis strikes a bargain to further her ambition of ruling the palatial estate of Grey Moraine. Johnson’s “Birthright” focuses on the earthy desires of twin princesses Kalasa and Arasa, who must determine which was born first in order to decide who will become empress. Berg’s “Unmasking” describes the truth-telling properties of water magic as young Joelle undergoes training to seek out souls possessed by demons. York’s “Huntress Moon” finds virginal slave Zarah, who can communicate via fire, falling in love with her master, Griffin, a werewolf who buys her without knowing she’s a spy. Erotic scenes from York and Johnson match the satisfying paranormal content. (Nov.)

Sedia (According to Crow) applies urban fantasy templates to her Russian setting with mixed success in her second stand-alone novel. Masha, the cheerfully normal sister of vision-prone translator Galina, turns into a jackdaw and flies off, leaving her just-born child behind. Joined by police detective Yakov Richards, Galina tracks the missing Masha into an underground milieu where lost souls mingle with beings out of Russian folklore. A host of secondary characters rapidly clutter the narrative and cloud its focus, and Sedia’s persistently curt prose favors contemporary atmosphere over mythic resonance, diminishing Koschey the Deathless and Zemun the Celestial Cow to near-mundane status. Modern blue-collar Moscow is pitch-perfect, however: bustling yet seedy, disorganized and none too respectable. While undeniably authentic, the cynical tone may alienate many Western readers before they reach the startling but well-grounded climax. On the whole, this wholeheartedly Russian tale is most compelling as social commentary. (Nov.)

Princess Meredith NicEssus of the Unseelie Court finally reaches an elusive goal in Hamilton’s seductive sixth Meredith Gentry paranormal romance (after 2006’s Mistral’s Kiss). Half-human, half-faerie, Meredith is a former L.A. PI whose current full-time job is trying to get pregnant—trying at least three times a day, in fact, mainly with her devoted retinue of sex-starved guards—to insure her ascendancy to the Unseelie throne of night. Unfortunately, her bedding schedule has been interrupted by Lady Caitrin of the Seelie Court, who claims she was raped by three of Meredith’s guards. Meredith must protect her faithful retinue from the terrible wrath of her uncle, King Taranis of the Seelie Court, and defend herself from the dangerous desire Taranis harbors for her. Hamilton depicts Meredith’s erotic adventures in her usual breathless, overheated style, but also reveals a deeper glimpse into Meredith’s introspective side as she reflects on her favorite lover, Killing Frost, whose strange fate finds her re-evaluating the costs of being a future queen. (Oct.)

Technically a stand-alone, McKiernan’s solid fifth and final Once Upon fantasy (after 2006’s Once Upon a Spring Morn) focuses on the battle to keep the dreadful witch Hradian and scheming wizard Orbane from despoiling Winterwood, Springwood, Summerwood, Autumnwood and the River of Time itself. After King Valeray and Queen Saissa’s children and their consorts destroy Hradian’s three wicked sisters and take possession of the seasonal lands, Hradian becomes determined to exact revenge. Toward this end, she decides to free the wizard Orbane, whose evil machinations soon exceed even Hradian’s foul desires. Fey allies and the enigmatic guidance of the Fates are required to counter Orbane, and success is far from assured. Series fans should be satisfied, though some may be disappointed that this one is more about war than romance and that background information, presumably for the benefit of newcomers, slows the plot in places. (Oct.)

With this singular, outstanding Regency romance, London concludes the Desperate Debutante series at the top of her game. Lady Phoebe Fairchild is a talented seamstress who sews dresses for an exclusive London Bond Street shop, but knows that if her job is revealed, it will expose her family’s financial woes to the ton and ruin their reputation—not to mention Phoebe’s marriage prospects. Knowing this, her employer threatens to expose Phoebe if she refuses to travel to rural Bedfordshire to sew gowns at the home of William Darby, Viscount Summerfield. Phoebe reluctantly agrees, and posing as widowed dressmaker Madame Dupree, she travels to Summerfield’s estate to create gowns for his wild, untamed sisters. Soon, Phoebe and Will are involved in an intense affair that’s very likely doomed, as Will must wed a noblewoman—which Phoebe is, but Madame Dupree is not. Should she reveal her deceit, making her a worthy bride for Summerfield? Or should she keep up the charade, lest he despise her for her duplicity? As London explores the intricate, authentic-feeling relationships blossoming among the players, her masterful ability to bring characters to life makes this romance entirely absorbing. (Nov.)

In this saucy Regency romance, the chance discovery of her mistress’s erotic diary offers April Jardine, a bordello scullery maid, her long-awaited opportunity for upward class mobility. Discovering several wealthy former clients in the diary, April approaches each, claiming to be an illegitimate daughter. At first, the scheme works: rather than risk exposure, several men pay her off. It backfires, however, when she meets Jonah Hawthorne, who warmly embraces her as his daughter. Soon, April realizes it’s respectability and a loving family she wants, not money, but her position in the Hawthorne household is precarious; Jonah’s son Riley, a powerful judge, disbelieves April and is determined to prove her a phony before she jeopardizes his brother’s forthcoming marriage to a relative of the queen. April’s sassy tongue and skill at subterfuge are no match for Riley’s tenaciousness, but soon Riley finds his venom turning to passion. When a rival gets April arrested, Riley find himself doing everything he can to save her, leading to a nail-biting courtroom finale. Debut author Marcos delivers a refreshing, creative take on the typical Regency, carried by the spirited April and buoyed throughout by lively plot twists. (Nov.)

After an eight-year hiatus, the elusive serial kidnapper dubbed the Piper is once again commanding headlines in San Francisco after abducting Sammy, one of newspaper reporter Scott Fleetwood’s young sons. However, where the Piper’s previous crimes had been motivated by money—kids returned unharmed in exchange for millions in ransom—this one appears to be personal: the Piper holds Fleetwood responsible for botching his last kidnapping, costing the Piper a cool two million and forcing him to resort to murder. The victim in that case was the only child of wealthy real estate mogul Charles Rooker, who has now stepped forward to fund the Piper’s ransom demand for Sammy, while helping Fleetwood and the FBI nail his son’s killer. Before Sammy can come home, however, the Piper has more grueling maneuvers than a demented drill sergeant to put these characters through. Wood, in his sophomore effort (following Accidents Waiting to Happen), keeps the pages flying even as his plot gets more and more complex, accelerating nicely toward an elegant climax. (Nov.)

Merry romps and derring-do feature prominently in Galen’s latest Misadventures in Matrimony series entry (after Good Groom Hunting). Lady Madeleine Castleigh, rescuer of lonely orphans, destitute widows and abused animals, has tired of suitors interested only in controlling her (and her considerable dowry), so she decides to elope with a boring do-gooder who won’t stand in the way of her charitable pursuits. Fate intervenes in the form of handsome, brooding Jack Martingale, marquess of Blackthorne, who commandeers Maddie’s coach on the way to the wedding. Jack and his irrepressible brother, Nick, are fleeing the wrath of the notorious duke of Bleven, and Maddie, along with her cousin Ashley, is unwittingly drawn into their madcap adventure. Pursued also by an innkeeper with a grudge and Ashley’s irate father, the scramble to outrun Bleven’s henchmen draws Maddie and Jack together; when they finally make it to the wedding, a mishap involving a drunken priest ensures the odd pair will be spending a lot more time together. Eventually, both passion and tragic secrets are revealed, as Galen’s spirited characters, lively dialogue, breakneck pace and great sense of fun propel this smart-if-standard Regency toward a happy conclusion. (Nov.)

Signature

Reviewed by Kate Christensen

Along with interest and admiration, I read parts of Caryl Phillips’s new book, Foreigners, with, I confess, a mixture of bemused perplexity and thwarted expectations, wondering, what is this guy up to here? The rather stodgy historical passages coexist somewhat uneasily with the more fluid and lyrical fictionalized accounts. The three sections rub up against each other with a fierce but not quite cohesive energy. But in the end, the book is a bleakly ironic examination of what it means to be Other—historically and socially—through the stories of three very different black men in England.

The first section, “Doctor Johnson’s Watch,” is narrated by a late–18th-century journalist who sets out to write a piece for a gentleman’s magazine about Francis Barber, the Jamaican boy who was “given” in the early 1750s to Dr. Samuel Johnson, of the famous Dictionary. Dr. Johnson raised the “negro” as his ward until his death; he gave him his freedom and a generous pension, which Barber squandered. At the end of the narrative, Barber, lying on the verge of death in a squalid pauper’s hospital, offers poignant insight into the nature of freedom and otherness, insight that the journalist, despite good intentions, may not be prepared to receive.

The second section, “Made in Wales,” is narrated in a hard-boiled third person that traces the rise and fall of Randy Turpin, the mixed-race boxer who beat Sugar Ray Leonard in 1951 to become, briefly, middleweight champion of the world, then fell, inevitably, the narrative suggests, into hapless debt and ruin. The third, final, most riveting and beautifully written section, “Northern Lights,” is told by a chorus of voices who cobble together the mysterious life and death of David Oluwale, a 20th-century version of Bartleby, a stowaway from Nigeria who washes up in Leeds in 1949 and ends his life stubbornly homeless, willfully persecuted and in 1969, drowned.

Interestingly, Phillips goes into none of these three black men’s consciousnesses or psyches. The reader stands some distance away from them with the narrators; except for Barber’s piercing, frank lament, we don’t get any direct emotional information from any of them. This narrative strategy is essential to the book’s intent, as is, I suspect, the uneasiness it provoked in me along the way. Phillips gets at real-life complexities in a visceral, nondidactic way: there are no victims or heroes here. I finished the book hearing Melville’s “Ah humanity!” echoing back through its pages.

Kate Christensen’s fourth novel, The Great Man , was published last month by Doubleday.