Fiction Reviews: Week of 12/10/2007

Thirteen linked tales from Strout (Abide with Me, etc.) present a heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection. The opening “Pharmacy” focuses on terse, dry junior high-school teacher Olive Kitteridge and her gregarious pharmacist husband, Henry, both of whom have survived the loss of a psychologically damaged parent, and both of whom suffer painful attractions to co-workers. Their son, Christopher, takes center stage in “A Little Burst,” which describes his wedding in humorous, somewhat disturbing detail, and in “Security,” where Olive, in her 70s, visits Christopher and his family in New York. Strout’s fiction showcases her ability to reveal through familiar details—the mother-of-the-groom’s wedding dress, a grandmother’s disapproving observations of how her grandchildren are raised—the seeds of tragedy. Themes of suicide, depression, bad communication, aging and love, run through these stories, none more vivid or touching than “Incoming Tide,” where Olive chats with former student Kevin Coulson as they watch waitress Patty Howe by the seashore, all three struggling with their own misgivings about life. Like this story, the collection is easy to read and impossible to forget. Its literary craft and emotional power will surprise readers unfamiliar with Strout. (Apr.)

In her cunning follow-up to Southland, Revoyr returns to L.A., this time to when Sunset Boulevard was “just a dirt road” and Jun Nakayama was a famous silent film star. Prompted by a journalist’s visit in 1964, 42 years after he left the screen for good, Jun revisits his youth in Japan, his discovery at L.A.’s Little Tokyo Theater, his rise to stardom and the scandalous events that led to his abrupt retreat from public life. Mixing real people with fictional characters like principled Japanese actress Hanako Minatoya, troubled starlet Elizabeth Banks (not the one in Seabiscuit), ingénue Nora Minton Niles and dashing director Ashley Bennett Tyler, Revoyr creates a vibrant portrait of a time when the film studio was “a place of serious work.” As Jun reveals the secrets he has kept for decades, he uncovers new twists in his own history and comes to terms with other painful experiences he has repressed, namely his loneliness and the effects of the anti-Japanese racism he mistakenly believed he could overcome by being “as agreeable—and American—as possible.” The occasional awkward transition between present and past notwithstanding, Revoyr beautifully invokes Jun’s self-deceptions and his growing self-awareness. It’s an enormously satisfying novel. (Apr.)

Pieced together more like a quilt than a driving narrative, Chiaverini’s 13th novel centered around the quilting circle of Elm Creek, Pa., finds change afoot. Chapters center on the circle’s various members, with a focus on backstory. First-time readers are thus not left out in the cold as Judy and her husband, Steve, prepare to leave for new jobs and lives in Philadelphia; Summer begins grad school in Chicago while boyfriend Jeremy’s graduate work keeps him near Elm Creek Manor; Sarah discovers she’s expecting twins; Bonnie isn’t sure she wants to reinvent the quilt shop destroyed by vandals; and newcomers Gretchen Hartley and Anna Del Maso join the staff of the quilting camp. The section dealing with Gwen’s detective work aimed at discovering the creator of a quilt rescued from a church basement lost and found is the most powerful and poignant in Chiaverini’s latest patchwork confection. (Apr.)

In this gleeful, difficult debut, Altschul lays into an easy target—cynical celebrity culture—and meticulously crafts an over-the-top pop mirror world for his young heroine. Leaning heavily on the star mythology of Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love and their daughter, Frances Bean, Altschul introduces Calliope Bird Morath, the most famous poet in America, “beloved to deconstructionists and culture theorists and fifteen-year-old girls alike.” Calliope’s childhood, revealed in retrospect, is haunted by a public fascination with her parents, mercurial rock ’n’ roll heroes Brandt Morath and Penny Power, a fascination continuing long after Brandt’s suicide when Calliope is a small child. Pushed by the demanding Penny to claim her father’s destiny, Calliope skips college to attend a prestigious M.F.A. program, and soon publishes a collection of poems that centers on Brandt’s death and sounds a lot like bad Sylvia Plath. The media swarms, and Calliope scandalizes—and perhaps really does find a path back to her father after all. Over the course of nearly 600 pages, Altschul registers some razor-sharp cultural observations and executes some thrilling high dives (the character named Andrew Altschul’s sessions with a Lacanian analyst in particular). But the book’s tricky PoMo narrative is bloated with gee-whiz grad-schoolisms, and storytelling takes a backseat to indulgence throughout. (Apr.)

The latest tongue-in-cheek blusher from Lee (after The Devil in the Junior League) finds that coming out in Willow Creek, Tex., society has its snags. At her own debut, Carlisle Wainwright Cushing failed to execute the Texas Dip—“a deep full curtsy where a girl sinks so low that she touches her forehead to her skirt”—properly. Now almost 30 and a successful Boston divorce attorney, Carlisle is summoned home to represent her diva mom Ridgely in her latest divorce. Carlisle is also asked to rescue the troubled Hundredth Annual Willow Creek Symphony Association Debutante Ball, and to teach seven iffy debs-to-be the Texas Dip. But the attorney representing her mother’s soon-to-be-ex is Carlisle’s old heart-throb, the former bad boy Jack Blair—who is the brother of the ultra rich Hunter Blair, and father to India, a spoiled deb-to-be. Can Carlisle deal with all the challenges while allowing her renewed feelings for Jack to “come out”? Lee depicts Carlisle and the antiquated debutante tradition with equal parts chagrin and tenderness. (Apr.)

Casablanca satirizes a big, soft target in his debut: the hipster paradise of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Serial killer Doctor Jeep has been on a killing spree, offing an array of hip locals. The cops have bungled the investigation, so a small band of Williamsburg hipsters who call themselves the Whole Sick Crew decide to hunt down Doctor Jeep and kill him, despite the fact that none of them knew anything about killing or hunting down killers. Things, of course, go wrong, and the results are bloody and reveal a horrifying secret. Though Casablanca nails the cheesiness of the neighborhood and its residents, he gives his characters some amazingly stilted dialogue, and the narrative’s awkward, late shift into quasi-thriller territory doesn’t quite work. There’s a good time to be had watching the skinny jean set suffer, and that may be enough to hook a chunk of readers. (Apr.)

Several generations of a Sri Lankan family touched by the country’s civil war confront the limits of ethnic and familial allegiance in Ganeshananthan’s forceful but patchy debut. First-generation American Yalini, daughter of Sri Lankan Tamil parents Vani and Murali, is an awkward 22-year-old who has spent her youth burdened by family secrets from their lives before emigration. Confronted with her enigmatic dying uncle, Kumaran, who had a shadowy role in Sri Lanka’s insurgent Tamil Tigers, Yalini is driven to examine her relatives’ marriages as a means of figuring out their alliances and her own unsettled identity. Her parents fell in love in New York and escaped arranged marriages back home; her grandparents, aunts and uncles have their own stories; Kumaran’s 18-year-old daughter chooses to wed a Tamil Tiger financier. Written in short blocks of text, the book is structured as a kind of day book where Yalini records her progress. Repetitions create a meditative mood, but dull the book’s emotional core and make emphasis on marriage seem forced. The most vivid character, Rajie, the daughter of an old family friend, appears only briefly. And the issues that plague Yalini remain vague until the last third of the novel, when the narrative suddenly takes on real power. (Apr.)

Twenty-six-year-old Dubliner Emma has it all: a teaching job, good friends and childhood sweetheart John by her side. When John dies in an accident, she must face life alone. Haunted by what could have been and blaming herself, Emma retreats into a grief from which only her friends—successful ad-woman Clodagh, gadabout editor Seán, newlyweds Anne and Richard and her priest brother, Noel—can rouse her. A cat arrives unbidden on her windowsill, harbinger of the unbelievable string of events (pregnancy scares, a tryst with a Parisian rapper and saving a woman from a rape in a dark alley) that restores Emma’s will to live. The mix of light farce and heavy drama knocks the book off balance, though, leaving readers unsure whether they should pity or envy Emma as she traipses her way to a neat, happy ending. (Apr.)

Retired navy commander Huber’s debut novel is a profane and hilarious parody of the post–Cold War navy. Huber’s hero is Jack Hogan, a straight arrow trying to keep his sanity in a bureaucratic culture where connections and politics trump competence. Hogan’s career appears bright during the waning days of the Cold War, but when the iron curtain crumbles, the “sandbox generals and bathtub admirals” are reduced to playing war, and Hogan’s stock sinks while that of careerists like his friend Buzz Rucci rises. Huber is funniest when satirizing the bureaucratic infighting and petty rules ingrained in naval culture, but he also scores direct hits on feminism, politicians and the military’s policy toward homosexuals. Populated by outrageous characters and fueled with pompous outrage, Huber’s irreverent broadside will pummel the funny bone of anyone who’s served. (Apr.)

This unusual faith-based novel explores pain and redemption through the eyes of Daniel David McGillicuddy (or “Danny Gospel” as he is known), a mentally disturbed Iowa mail carrier with a cross-shaped scar on his chest. All but his older brother in the singing Gospel Family have died, and when not delivering the mail, Danny wanders farm fields or meanders through his memory. Athey portrays much of Danny’s current life as a long hallucination, punctuated with lucidity and remembrances of a tragic but loving Christian childhood. As he slips into deep trouble—a barroom brawl, a job loss, a faith healing that backfires—Danny must flee his Iowa home “where all the stories make sense.” His friend Grease, a mechanic with a penchant for strip clubs, helps Danny escape in a pink Cadillac to Palm Beach, Fla., where he takes up with a ragtag group in a condemned building, composes music and writes his memoirs. Then suddenly, Danny returns to Iowa for a family event, picking up a group of eggnog-sipping old ladies on the way. As Alice in Wonderland would say, “curiouser and curiouser.” Although Athey, an English professor at Palm Beach Atlantic College, is an imaginative writer, confused readers may be left scratching their heads. (Apr.)

As the charmingly low-key first novel from writer producer Nieves-Powell (Yo Soy Latina!) opens, it’s been 10 years since Staten Islander Idalis married the macho but unambitious Manny, and three months since they loosely separated due to their inability to agree on plans for raising their six-year-old son. Idalis wonders whether the marriage can be saved (Manny’s looking elsewhere), and whether she’ll be working as a secretary at a Madison Avenue ad agency for the rest of her life because of subtle racism and the lack of a college degree. A dreamboat she meets on the Staten Island ferry may provide one answer, but a visit to her old Bronx stomping grounds with Selenis, a former homegirl who’s now a disappointed housewife and mother, may allow Idalis to put the past to bed and pursue a brighter future. Nieves-Powell crafts an unhurried, nonjudgmental everywoman’s tale. (Mar.)

Melnyczuk’s ambitious third novel is a soulful noir about the damaging effects of history on one man’s psyche. Cynical historian James Pak lives in Vienna and is still deeply affected by his father Andrew’s suicide 16 years ago, and his confessional narrative, told mostly in flashbacks, fills the reader in on why he’s still reeling. Just after Andrew’s death, James takes possession of three of his dead father’s belongings (a letter written in an unfamiliar language, a glass jar and military identification papers) and sets out to exhume his father’s past. His pilgrimage leads him from Boston to England, Austria and Ukraine, and entangles him with Andrew’s childhood friend, Marian, and her charge, Selena, a Palestinian woman with a twisted backstory. James encounters a branch of his father’s family he never knew existed, and as he discovers the significance of the jar and military papers and the contents of the letter, his family’s hidden past comes into sharp focus. James is a strikingly observant and literate guide to a world full of unsavory characters and nearly devoid of joy. Melnyczuk (What Is Told; Ambassador of the Dead) doesn’t let anyone—especially the reader—off easy. (Mar.)

Sher’s life is the inspiration for this story of hip-hop and life in the Bronx in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Strong-willed Shelly grows up in the Bronx with her multitude of siblings and hard-working single mom at a time when hip-hop is a street-corner phenomenon. Shelly gathers some friends to organize an all-female crew—a rarity in the male-dominated scene—and they hit the streets as the Mercedes Young Ladies. As the Ladies earn respect on the streets, urban life takes its toll: the girls are faced with drugs, violence and poverty. But Shelly and the girls persevere and find themselves running with the big boys. There isn’t a fairy tale ending, and Sher takes pains to give a real sense of the burgeoning hip-hop scene, where the game is fast-paced and often unfair. (Mar.)

Cotter’s competent debut imagines the Yankee frontier as recreated by a severe energy crisis, along with an unlikely heroine to navigate it. In 2013, fuel shortages are rampant, forcing Roberta Wilcox from her University of Maryland teaching job. As she returns to her rural hometown of Coward’s Hole, R.I., for the first time in eight years, ruthless Sen. Fred Maine takes control of the state’s energy rationing, while government official Anthony Piccirelli pushes a program that buys out small communities and relocates them to clustered developments. Roberta’s father, owner of a lumber mill and steward of the family’s property—including the woods that are the source of their wealth—seems apathetic, while her half-sister is hostile. Normally passive Roberta struggles to untangle what looks like a Maine-headed conspiracy as she clings to her family’s ancestral land, cares for her elderly grandmother and manages competing romances. Family secrets, however, threaten to undermine her efforts. Cotter’s suspenseful vision of the near future features strong character development, sensual writing and an absorbing plot. (Mar.)

A mesmerizing blend of suspense and long-buried family secrets, Gottlieb’s second novel (after 1997’s The Boy Who Went Away) culminates in shocking revelations that rock a quiet upstate New York town. Nick Framingham is still reeling from the recent death of his childhood best friend, the writer Rob Castor, who committed suicide after killing his ex-girlfriend in Manhattan. Nick’s own marriage to his college sweetheart, Lucy, begins to unravel as he struggles to understand what drove Rob to murder. Rekindling an old relationship with his first love, Belinda, Rob’s volatile and beautiful sister, Nick begins to retrace not only Rob’s last days but also their shared childhood, looking for clues to explain his friend’s actions. Gottlieb skillfully ratchets up the suspense by doling out the details of Rob’s death in bits and pieces, until everything falls into place in a startling conclusion that will rattle even the genre’s most experienced readers. With his pitch-perfect dialogue and flawed yet empathetic characters, Gottlieb’s sophomore effort should win him widespread recognition. (Feb.)

The title chosen by Bolaño (1953–2003) for this slim, fake encyclopedia is not wholly tongue-in-cheek: given the very real presence of former (and not-so-former) Nazis in Latin America following WWII, this book, despite being fiction, still had j’accuse-like power when first published in 1996. The poets described herein, though invented, seem—even at their most absurd—plausible, which is the secret to this sly book’s devastating effect. And as one proceeds from an entry on Edelmira Thompson de Mendiluce (“In high spirits, Edelmira asked for the Führer’s advice: which would be the most appropriate school for her sons?”) to one on Carlos Ramírez Hoffman (“His passage through literature left a trail of blood and several questions posed by a mute”), it becomes clear that there is a single witness to all of these terrible figures, one who has spent time in one of Pinochet’s prisons and is bent on coolly totting up the crimes of fascism’s literary perpetrators. Some readers will recognize figures and episodes from Bolaño’s other books (including The Savage Detectives and Distant Star). The wild inventiveness of Bolaño’s evocations places them squarely in the realm of Borges—another writer who draws enormous power from the movement between the fictive and the real. (Feb.)

Agatha Christie meets Hollywood Squares in journalist McNamara’s glitzy debut, a crime novel set in and around Los Angeles during the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards. Juliette Greyson, the director of public relations at the swanky Pinnacle Hotel, is preparing for another wild Oscar season (the month between the nominations announcement and the awards ceremony) when someone murders her ex-husband, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Josh Singer. With a reporter and a young starlet nominated for best actress already dead, Greyson and cancer-ridden megastar Michael O’Connor join forces to uncover the mastermind behind what the media is calling the “Oscar curse.” Featuring a plethora of self-absorbed actors, comedians, publicists and producers as possible suspects, McNamara’s self-assured, tabloid-fueled narrative—simultaneously sexy, scandalous and suspenseful—will appeal to fans of authors like Jackie Collins and Harold Robbins. McNamara insightfully portrays life on the other side of the velvet rope—and it’s far from glamorous. Gift bag with complimentary supply of Xanax not included. (Feb.)

Having foiled an al-Qaeda plot targeting Times Square in 2006’s The Faithful Spy (which won an Edgar Award for best first novel), maverick CIA agent John Wells confronts a very different threat in this pulse-pounding sequel from New York Times reporter Berenson. When the CIA’s efforts to extract Dr. Sung Kwan, a North Korean scientist and an invaluable source on Kim Jong Il’s nuclear ambitions, result in the deaths of Kwan and the rescue team, Wells’s significant other, Jennifer Exley, searches to identify the person in U.S. intelligence who compromised Kwan’s security. Meanwhile, Wells returns to Afghanistan, the scene of much of the action in The Faithful Spy, to find out what outside country has been helping the Taliban reassert itself. While the mole hunt will be familiar to genre buffs and the characters and the perils they face aren’t as nuanced as those in John le Carré or even David Ignatius, the author’s plausible scenario distinguishes this from most spy thrillers. Author tour. (Feb.)

Shukman, a British travel writer and poet, weaves together political intrigue, passionate romance and personal discovery in a visceral and lush debut. Jackson Small is a traumatized 21-year-old discharged from the British army believing himself responsible for the death in Belize of buddy (and occasional bedmate) Connolly, who is mortally injured when the two are ambushed by Guatelmalan rebels while on a training mission in the jungle. Grief-stricken, he embarks on a penitent quest to find La Joya, the lost center of a vanished Peruvian empire that Connolly claimed to have glimpsed in the cloud forest between the Andes highlands and the Amazonian lowlands. As his adventures unfold, Jackson intersects with a remarkable cast: an orphan boy who saves his life; a world-weary British consular official right out of a Graham Greene novel; a former American Peace Corps volunteer living off the grid with two wives; a warmhearted priest trying to bring Catholicism to villagers; a vicious drug lord; and free-spirited Sarah, who calms Jackson’s soul and claims his heart. Shukman’s forbidding landscapes and fearsome jungle labyrinths are as striking as his characters, cranking up the intensity of a cinematic page-turner that echoes Greene and Conrad. (Feb.)

Through terse, confrontational prose, Parks puts on display the self-absorbed and egotistical mind of notable British journalist and womanizer Harold Cleaver. After sticking it to the unnamed (though unmistakable) current president of the United States in a television interview, Cleaver should be on top of the world. But his son’s just-released damning roman-à-clef, In His Shadow, disrupts Cleaver’s life and moment of glory. Cleaver sequesters himself in the German mountains inside a remote, ratty cottage—the former home of a now-deceased Nazi soldier—and finds that while he can flee his fast-paced existence, his psyche is not so easily quieted. With a doll named Olga and a dog named Uli as his only companions, Cleaver finds himself in constant debate about his deceased daughter, Angela, his attempt to replace her through extra-marital affairs, and his son’s betrayal. As Cleaver battles his demons and tries to come to terms with his past, his food supply diminishes and a bruising blizzard rages outside. Parks (Europa) gives readers a robust protagonist riddled with doubt, and the path he sends him down is both treacherous and cathartic. (Feb.)

The action of Edgar-winner Stabenow’s stellar second venture into thriller territory, in contrast to 2006’s Blindfold Game, which was set largely in the frozen waters off Alaska, centers on the warm seas of the Florida coast near the Kennedy Space Center, where the latest space shuttle launch is to take place. Stabenow harnesses the strands of her story with consummate skill: the passion that propels a rogue terrorist on a crusade to strike a blow that will shatter American pride; the efforts of U.S. intelligence to thwart a bewildering array of foes; the rising careers of Capt. Cal T. Schuyler, “the golden boy of the U.S. Coast Guard,” and astronaut Kenai Munro, whose life ambition is realized when she’s named to the shuttle crew. Stabenow proves equally adept at portraying the workings of a cutter, the complexities of a shuttle mission or the machinations of a terrorist. The result is entertainment and suspense of a high order. (Feb.)

Swan’s gloomy, uneven first novel (after The Deep and Other Stories) explores how late 19th-century smalltown Canada deals with a horrific crime. William Heath leaves his native England with his young family, eventually landing in Emden, Canada. But just as the family is feeling settled, William is accused in the local paper of embezzlement, and as the scandal peaks, William kills his family. He’s sentenced to death, and the novel is taken over by a cross-section of locals—a teacher, a doctor, a boy curious about the facts of the crime—who share their thoughts about the Heaths. These sketches demonstrate the author’s writerly talents, but with each section, the plot drifts further afield to little effect. Though there are plenty of beautiful passages, the novel’s structure undermines any emotional connection made early on. (Feb.)

For anyone who’s ever wondered if all teenage boys think about is sex, this second novel from McComas (Unplugged) should eliminate all doubt: the answer is yes. Set chiefly in Wisconsin during the summer of 1980, this tale details the efforts of 16-year-old Phil Corcoran—an aspiring filmmaker, aficionado of schlocky horror flicks and reluctant virgin—to rid himself of the latter distinction. His quest involves a trio of beauties: Danielle (Dee) Payton, an African-American girl reluctant to date a Caucasian; Stefanie Slocum, the female lead of several of his films (including Prehistoric Planet of the Apes); and Cheryl Jantz, a troubled young woman whom Phil tries to save. While the courses of his romances are often painful, by the end, Phil finds his happily ever after with a likable mix of humor and charm. (Feb.)

Edgar-winner Hall (Magic City) puts a Southern gothic twist on his latest Florida thriller to feature his iconic hero, Key Largo beach bum Thorn. While helping old flame Rusty set up a houseboat deep in the Everglades as a fishing spot for tourists, Thorn becomes entangled in the intrigue surrounding the murder of Abigail Bates, a wealthy land and mine owner. Soon after, one of Rusty’s first customers, John Milligan, confronts Thorn and claims to be Thorn’s uncle, making him face old family secrets possibly connected to Bates’s murder. Thorn’s detective friend, Sugarman, at Thorn’s request, starts making possibly dangerous inquiries into the crime. The appeal of this multilayered novel lies in the authenticity of its evocation of the Everglades, along with a slow-burning plot that kicks into high gear when Thorn and Rusty’s guests, cut off from the outside world by sabotage, are hunted by Bates’s killers. The result is another compulsive page-turner from a master of suspense. Author tour. (Feb.)

ATF agent Alex Duarte, who debuted in Born’s Field of Fire (2007), remains a man of action but, alas, little else, in his second outing, an otherwise snappy, well-plotted crime drama set in Panama and New Orleans. Duarte and several other federal agents are trying to track down a drug lord known only as Mr. Ortíz, a shadowy Panamanian suspected of shipping tons of marijuana to the U.S. In reality, Ortíz is exporting something far more dangerous: a nuclear bomb. Born, himself a state police officer in Florida, offers the kind of real-life detail one would expect from a law enforcement professional. His previous series, which featured Florida cop Bill Tasker (Walking Money, etc.), stood out from the pack largely because of the layered persona of his protagonist. In contrast, Duarte has the requisite toughness, but aside from being a man of few words—particularly around the ladies—his character has few distinguishing features. Hopefully, Born will make his hero more a leading man than a background player in subsequent adventures. (Feb.)

In Inclán’s sweet but sometimes silly trilogy opener, finding a soul mate is child’s play compared to discovering that your perfect match is from another planet. San Francisco artist Mila Adams meets Garrick McClellan, a successful financier, on a disastrous blind date that turns providential. The pair are actually natives of Cygiria, 149 light years from Earth, who find they truly complete each other as “twins in thought and action,” perfectly matched lovers whose alien powers enable them to communicate telepathically and move outside of time. After they discover they’re orphans of a planet destroyed by Neballats, they soon link up with other displaced Cygirians on a mission to save the last of their kind. Inclán (Reason to Believe) injects a bit of an X-Files feel into the hilariously soft science and yummy romance as Mila and Garrick fight the “slippy-slidey” Neballats, but they lack the Scully/Mulder pizzazz. (Feb.)

In her fifth novel, Quinones Miller (Satin Doll) attempts to make a commentary on race but instead delivers a stew of clichés, two-dimensional characters and tired stereotypes. African-American Shanika Jenkins, who has “skin as white as Meryl Streep’s,” blond hair and blue eyes, comes from a long line of Jenkinses who pride themselves on being so light-skinned that some people could mistake them for white. After graduating from college, Shanika gets an interview at a New York PR firm and starts dreaming big. But after the interview, Shanika is told she was turned down for the position because the interviewer thought she was white, and therefore wouldn’t help meet the company’s affirmative action quota. She interviews for another position that isn’t subject to the AA rules as a white woman and, predictably, lands the job and her career takes off. The lies snowball and she hurts plenty of people, including the man of her dreams: the handsome African-American businessman Tyrone Bennett. The ending may surprise, but there are few reasons to get that far. (Feb.)

Smith (Just As I Am) provides all the standard elements of inspirational chick lit in this first installment of the Sister-to-Sister series. Joan has been dumped by her long-term boyfriend, lives at home, has an unexciting job and can’t quite figure out what to do with her life, until a single doctor (who is of course terribly good-looking and very serious about his faith) moves in next door. As the title suggests, Joan is the middle daughter and feels dwarfed by her older sister’s happy family and her younger sister’s beauty and success. She struggles with feeling abandoned by her father and angry that her mother forced him to leave when she was young. She wonders if there’s more depth to her faith than she initially thought, and learns more about God from her new doctor friend. And she tries hard to take care of her elderly grandmother to prevent her from being sent to an assisted living home, though that may prove to be the best place for her after all. Naturally, this is the realm of happy endings, and readers won’t be disappointed. The sisters are spirited and fun, and if the story takes a while to get going, it soon quickens the pace and entertains. (Feb.)

In bestseller King’s well-crafted tale of possession and redemption, Edgar Freemantle, a successful Minnesota contractor, barely survives after the Dodge Ram he’s driving collides with a 12-story crane on a job site. While Freemantle suffers the loss of an arm and a fractured skull, among other serious injuries, he makes impressive gains in rehabilitation. Personality changes that include uncontrollable rages, however, hasten the end of his 20-year-plus marriage. On his psychiatrist’s advice, Freemantle decides to start anew on a remote island in the Florida Keys. To his astonishment, he becomes consumed with making art—first pencil sketches, then paintings—that soon earns him a devoted following. Freemantle’s artwork has the power both to destroy life and to cure ailments, but soon the Lovecraftian menace that haunts Duma Key begins to assert itself and torment those dear to him. The transition from the initial psychological suspense to the supernatural may disappoint some, but even those few who haven’t read King (Lisey’s Story) should appreciate his ability to create fully realized characters and conjure horrors that are purely manmade. (Jan. 22)

With a dollop of dark humor reminiscent of Peter Lovesey’s Peter Diamond series, Silverwood’s eighth Michael Angel whodunit (after Sham) effortlessly blends an intricate puzzle with a contemporary police procedural. While under pressure to nab the arsonist who’s torched the homes of two MPs, the London detective inspector also investigates the murder of Imelda Wilde, who was once one of many attractive assistants to a magician known as Mysto. Angel’s inquiries soon turn up the suggestive lead that another Mysto female sidekick turned up dead a quarter-century earlier. The complications multiply when an irregular warrantless search of an arson suspect’s home reveals a bizarre setup—a dozen umbrellas suspended from the ceiling, packed with raw rice. The pieces all come together nicely in the end, even if the solution is less surprising than the typical Lovesey mystery. (Mar.)

The dramatic background—wild fires spreading near Colorado’s famed Chimney Rock at the same time Pueblo people are gathering there for an important ceremony—and a smoother blending of plot and Native American lore and rituals make Ault’s sequel to her impressive debut (Wild Indigo, 2007) a richer novel than her first. Jamaica Wild, the Bureau of Land Management agent known for her wolf companion, Mountain, and her ability to attract trouble, enters a fire area to locate an old Ute called Grampa Ned. Instead, she finds a smoldering firefighter who can only utter “Save the grandmother” before he collapses. Later, the discovery of Grampa Ned’s burned body and an unusual artifact provides more mystery. Readers will share the author’s obvious admiration for the skill and bravery of the fire teams (many composed of Native Americans) as they battle fires in such rugged terrain. Ault credibly charts Jamaica’s education and indoctrination into the ways of the Pueblo people, leaving her poised for the next phase of her promising career. (Feb.)

In May’s rewarding third mystery to feature American pathologist Margaret Campbell and Chinese deputy section chief Li Yan (after 2007’s The Fourth Sacrifice), 18 women’s bodies—or at least pieces of them—turn up buried at a Shanghai building site. A creepy medical student working as a night watchman on the site is a logical suspect, but he appears innocent—at least of these crimes. Campbell coaxes the identities of four of the women from their body fragments, and each is a poignant yet apparently unrelated story. Campbell also discovers a grisly fact: all the victims had some or all of their internal organs removed—while they were still alive. May offers a little politics, a little romance and a lot of autopsy details, perhaps too much for some, though they are clearly conveyed and pertinent to the case. The plot skips here and there, with some surprising revelations leading to a slightly predictable but gratifying finale. (Feb.)

Full of the author’s trademark zest and wit, bestseller Beaton’s 23rd Hamish Macbeth mystery (after 2007’s Death of a Maid) finds the 50-year-old Scottish detective taking pity on a beautiful Turkish maid named Ayesha in danger of being deported, and asking her to marry him. When Ayesha goes missing and her employer, Mrs. Gentle, turns up murdered, Hamish discovers that his bride-to-be wasn’t exactly who she claimed to be. The villagers thought Mrs. Gentle was a sweet old lady, but why would such a nice woman be the target of blackmail? Threaded throughout the ever-twisting plot of the murder investigation are the ongoing saga of Hamish’s love life and the vendetta against him of his nemesis, Detective Chief Inspector Blair. Beaton fans will be delighted. (Feb.)

At the start of bestseller Brown’s uneven 15th Mrs. Murphy Mystery (after 2007’s Puss ’n Cahoots), Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen, the former postmistress of Crozet, Va., is saddened to hear that a local ob-gyn has been killed—either by a resentful friend, who thought the doc had once slept with his wife, or by prolife fanatics who were angered by his willingness to perform abortions. Next, a wealthy middle-aged woman is murdered at a fund-raiser. Harry’s friend Tazio Chappars appears to be the most likely suspect, but Harry is sure of Tazio’s innocence and begins to wonder if the two deaths are connected. Character development is frustratingly thin, and rather than exploiting the rich Virginia setting, Brown’s local color extends only to superficial clichés (wealthy Virginia women wear understated jewelry, and the ladies with the flashiest gems are tacky new money). Harry’s three pets, who pop up having testy, italicized conversations, are generally a distraction, not integral to the novel. Still, the well-paced plot builds to an unpredictable and complex conclusion. (Feb.)

Miss Georgiana Grey is not quite the proper gentlewoman everyone thinks she is in Clarke’s enchanting debut set in late 18th-century London. When a ruthless magistrate is found murdered, all signs point to the local highwayman, the Crimson Cavalier, as the culprit, but Georgiana knows differently and vows to discover the truth. The growing list of suspects includes her own brother, who’s officially involved in investigating the crime, and the keenly astute Max Lakesby, guardian of a young woman whose mother was trying to arrange her daughter’s marriage to the victim. By delving into the lives of the rich and the titled, Georgiana puts her own life in jeopardy. Clarke captures the flavor of the period and the hypocrisies of the socially prominent with flare while treating the less fortunate with sympathy. Readers will be eager for the next installment in the series. (Feb.)

While Jakubowski’s second crime anthology (after London Noir) may be confused with Akashic’s volume of the same title, the editor’s choice of stories suggests that the series’ subtitle is more reflective of the contents than the noir label. The volume’s longest entry, one of Michael Moorcock’s Metatemporal Detective tales, “The Flâneur of Les Arcades de l’Opéra,” is a Sexton Blake pastiche that includes Nazis, supernatural spirits and inter-dimensional travel, not a mix that fans of the traditional bleak and ironic crime subgenre would naturally enjoy. There are, however, some quality stories that fit more comfortably under the noir heading, especially the enigmatic “New Mysteries of Paris” by Wild at Heart author Barry Gifford, and French filmmaker Romain Slocombe’s “Guy Georges’ Final Crime,” with a satisfying if predictable twist in an encounter between a serial killer and his intended next victim. (Feb.)

Setting the stage for Felix Gomez’s hard-boiled third adventure (after 2007’s X-Rated Bloodsuckers), a dying alien tells the vampire PI to “find Goodman” and “save the Earth women.” Felix is already on a case, collecting pages of a manuscript called The Undead Kama Sutra that supposedly shows how to increase a vampire’s psychic energies and healing abilities through sex. The search has led Felix to the Florida Keys and researcher Carmen Arellano. After a guest at a vampire resort dies by alien energy blaster, Felix and Carmen track down the mysterious Goodman, a retired army colonel somehow connected to the disappearance of three other women. When Carmen is kidnapped by aliens, Felix must save the day. Curiously low on sex given the title and the example of previous volumes, the story collapses in a deus ex machina that may leave even Acevedo’s fans less than eager for Felix’s next escapade. (Mar.)

A half century after its initial appearance, Bradbury’s fourth published book remains vivid and memorable. The original table of contents is restored (under Joe Mugnaini’s iconic original cover art), with Bradbury’s familiar and characteristically wistful, dreamy fantasy, such as “The April Witch,” a haunting tale of teenage dream-traveler Cecy and her desperate desire for romance, mingling with brilliant science fiction like the title story and the widely reprinted “A Sound of Thunder.” A few pieces have not aged so well, such as “The Big Black and White Game,” a clumsy discussion of race that was bold for its time but does little for the modern reader, but they’re well balanced by the inclusion of two charming short plays: “The Fog Horn,” an incomplete radio play that inspired the iconic if maladapted film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and “En la Noche,” which succeeds on page or stage, like most Bradbury, as a story of human sensitivities. (Feb.)

This superior debut initially resembles a straightforward YA adventure but abruptly veers into much stranger territory. Various factions struggle for control of the Ring, a colossal space station built around Earth by engineers who turned most of humankind into a group mind called the Community, which promptly figured out how to access other realities and vanished from this one. The few remaining humans genetically engineer their children to form “pods” of individuals so closely bonded that they function as one person. After stumbling on secret research during a training exercise, the teenage pod called Apollo Papadopulos soon find themselves on the run from shadowy forces who want to seduce or kill them. The setting extends from Earth orbit to the Amazon jungle, and the action ranges from a tense space rescue to an almost idyllic trek through the Rockies with a family of genetically altered bears. Though some loose plot ends dangle a bit, the ingenious character development and startling images and ideas are deeply satisfying. (Feb.)

In this bloody and dour seventh entry in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series (after 2006’s The Bonehunters), the Letherii empire is under siege from within and without. The Tiste Edur uneasily rule the Empire of Lether, against the will of the Letherii people. Several factions in Lether seek to overthrow Rhulad, the emperor of a Thousand Deaths, who “is quite probably insane” and sinks further into madness every time he dies in combat and his sword resurrects him. Two forces also threaten Lether from the outside: the tribal Awl, led by the brutal warrior Redmask, force a confrontation, while a flotilla from the Malazan Empire sails toward the Letherii capital. The plethora of characters, attacks and counterattacks, hidden schemes and battling gods will mostly appeal to serious fans of brutal and complex epics, at least those who have fortified themselves by reading the earlier books. (Feb.)

Comprising seven of Resnick’s alternate historical tales of Theodore Roosevelt, this slim collection easily takes the prize for narrow selection criteria. The best-known story is “Bully!” nominated for multiple awards following its 1991 publication, while the two most entertaining are arguably the two most recently written: 2001’s “Redchapel” and 2007’s “Two Hunters in Manhattan,” which respectively pit Roosevelt against Jack the Ripper and a vampiric New York crime lord. “The Bull Moose at Bay,” “Bully!” and “Over There” all find Roosevelt in futile and rather unflattering opposition to the forces of history, and “The Light That Blinds, the Claws That Catch” serves as an oddly ambivalent coda. A choppy appendix of Roosevelt facts and anecdotes largely copies from the smoother, more concisely biographical introduction. Those with special interest in Roosevelt or Resnick (Santiago) will find the collection well packaged, but for general readers, there isn’t enough material to justify the high price. (Feb.)

In a dynamite debut from Dane, San Antonio Det. Rebecca Montgomery fears the worst when her little sister, Danielle, is abducted during summer break on the Texas Gulf’s South Padre Island. Five months later, the discovery of a crime scene saturated with Dani’s blood indicates she’s been murdered. As more college co-eds go missing, Becca wants to stay on the case, but the department hands her a puzzler involving a young woman’s remains found within a wall of the torched Imperial Theater. They belong to Isabel Marquez, who’s been missing for almost seven years. Becca finds a surprising ally, and mutual attraction, in Diego Galvan, who works for slimy Hunter Cavanaugh, former owner of the Imperial and a prime suspect. Dane’s smooth style, believable characters and intense pacing will remind readers of Lisa Jackson, Lisa Gardner and Tami Hoag. While Dane’s debut is being marketed as romantic suspense, it crosses over into plain thriller country: the tight plotting and the male characters are exceptional, bad guys and good. (Apr.)

In Lyons’s spot-on debut, Dr. Lydia Fiore’s first case as attending emergency physician at Pittsburgh’s Angels of Mercy Hospital goes much better than her second: Jonah, the son of the chief of surgery, dies despite her best efforts. Put on immediate suspension pending a review and with no clear answers as to why the young man died, Lydia initiates her own investigation. To Lydia, the autopsy points to murder, and the team that worked on Jonah with her—med student Amanda, resident Gina and nurse Nora—agrees. As bodies begin to pile up in the morgue, fans of reading about medical procedures up close won’t be disappointed. And the gore (and romance with a paramedic) doesn’t slow down the action: Lyons delivers a breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller. (Mar.)

Roberson’s latest (after Set the Seas on Fire) takes a standard Dirty Dozen plot that contrasts awkwardly with its ornate Chinese vs. Aztec interplanetary milieu. Two of the Dragon Empire’s dissident officers, space captain Zhuan Jie and troop commander (or “bannerman”) Yao Guanzhong, are tapped to infiltrate and destroy an enemy asteroid base. But before they can blow up the rock, they must first master their squadron of outcasts and improvise the rescue of dozens of prisoners marked for blood sacrifice. Cogently choreographed action and vividly drawn opposing cultures are intriguing (for instance, Mexica spacecraft are hardwired to work only when primed with human blood) but Roberson’s subtly distant tone, heavy-handed foreshadowing and narrow focus leave readers struggling to properly grasp the larger conflict. Tight, fully resolved character arcs leave few direct openings for the epic series the book supposedly begins. There’s potential here, but little polish and less context. (Feb.)

When Shannah, dying of an obscure, incurable disease, passes out on the stoop of Ronan, who is a vampire, two birds are killed with one stone: Ronan moonlights as a romance author and needs a woman to pretend to be him on tours (especially during the daylight hours); Shannah needs Ronan’s blood to stay alive. As he coaches her to impersonate him and feeds her, Ronan falls more and more in love. And with each passing day, Shannah’s body grows weaker, but she resists being turned into a vampire because she doesn’t want to lose her humanity entirely. It’s the age-old vampire-human dilemma, given a clever and funny turn by Night’s Touch author Ashley. (Feb.)

Part-human, part-otherworldly exorcist Karma Marx agrees to clear her oily human husband Spider’s haunted house in exchange for an uncontested divorce. At the house on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, she finds a poltergeist cop named Adam who claims that he, rather than Spider, owns the house; a psychic, Savannah; a bunch of imps who keep turning up, and many other denizens—almost all of whom have a reason to hate Spider. When he’s found dead, suspects abound; thanks to a seal that Adam places on the house, everyone is trapped for 12 hours, during which Karma and Adam are determined to identify the killer. Marsh (as Katie McAlister, author of The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires) throws in a bit of a twist at the end, but despite lots of noisy activity, the investigation often plods. (Feb.)

The brows are furrowed and teeth mightily clenched in Pleece’s noirish artwork for Johnson’s pulpy tale of a black journalist who goes undercover in the 1930s South to investigate a possible trumped-up murder charge against his brother—a charge that could lead to a lynching. Zane Pinchback, who is so light-skinned he can pass for white with a little cosmetic help, writes the “Incognegro” column for a Harlem newspaper, and his beat (like that of many a brave black journalist at the time) is the bloody circus of lynchings still claiming lives in horrendous numbers. Johnson’s tale is a smart and fast-paced one, particularly when dealing with Pinchback’s reluctance to return to Mississippi (wisely preferring his comparatively sheltered Harlem life). Once he’s back down South, the twists and turns of the story come fast and thick, goosed by the not particularly trustworthy explanations being given by Zane’s moonshine-distilling brother, and the attention-drawing antics of Zane’s playboy friend Carl, who invited himself along on a lark. Johnson and Pleece have done a mostly commendable job, though the plot gets too knotted for its own good long before the conclusion, but they give a cracking Chester Himes kick to what could have been a sub–Walter Mosley imitation. (Feb.)

This anthology of gay and lesbian cartoonists returns with an added thematic component, taking on various “how we met” stories. Like the first installment, this one is uneven, but includes several strong entries. Some of the best are from accomplished cartoonists. Leanne Franson’s “Under New Management” combines breezy line work with a vaguely discomfiting romantic triangle to good effect, and Joan Hilty’s “Zion” uses rough, kinetic inks to depict the sexual awakening of a young Mormon lesbian without needless self-indulgence. Newer artists also make strong contributions. David Hooper displays a strong grasp of some difficult formal techniques in his club-hopping story “What Choice Do I Have.” Jamaica Dyer overlays an honest voice, delicate pencils and gray wash to tell an inspiring story of reconnecting with a childhood sweetheart in “Devan + Alix.” And Lawrence Schimel and Sara Rojo Perez use children’s book illustration techniques to offer a knowing, funny look at the adopted children of gay parents. Even the lesser entries offer something for the reader, although given her strong entry in the first volume (not to mention her award-winning graphic novel Fun Home), Alison Bechdel’s absence from everything but a volume-ending cartoon jam is conspicuous. (Jan.)

Enter your enemy’s name at midnight on a special Web site, and Hell Girl takes revenge on them for you. Each chapter is thus a story of someone getting what’s coming to them. The most fully realized, in both motivation and setup, is the first. Nerd Mari is set up to be caught shoplifting; popular Satsuki rescues her but blackmails Mari into buying her treats. Later stories cover a pastry student opening her own shop sabotaged by her jealous former teacher; an aspiring actress starring in the Hell Girl movie who’s being stalked; an evil vet; and a girl sexually harassed by her teacher. As the book proceeds, the stories and resolutions become more perfunctory. It can be difficult to tell which character is speaking, given the lack of tails on the word balloons, since the voices aren’t distinctive. The action is also unclear in key scenes, with too many shortcuts taken. Hell, by the way, looks like a shower of black chrysanthemums, the Japanese funeral flower. Those wishing evil are told that in return for their enemy’s condemnation, they too will go to hell after they die, but that warning is little played up in this anime tie-in that probably plays better on TV. (Jan.)

Looking back to an era when “comics” were mainly about being funny, this lovingly produced coffee-table volume in the Complete Popeye series reprints Thimble Theatre strips from 1930 to 1932, in both color and black and white. By this time, the original leading characters of Segar’s troupe had become a supporting cast for the one-eyed, cantankerous sailor with an odd sense of chivalry, a love of spinach and a massive pair of fists. In this volume, Popeye and his “sweetie,” the gangly spinster, Olive Oyl, subdue western bad men and settle the war between Tonsylania and Nazilia, while enjoying their testy courtship. Readers won’t find the two-page spreads and camera angles they’re used to in modern comics, but a rich, colorful soap opera full of wonderful moments. They won’t run into much pretentious social commentary, either, though the episode in which Olive’s brother, Castor, and Popeye open a One-Way Bank to give away money to needy people may have felt especially relevant during the Great Depression. Mainly, Popeye just punches out any guy in his way, the more pompous and tough-looking the better. As he tells Olive, “I yam what I yam an’ tha’s all I yam!” Segar’s wildly fertile imagination is more than enough. (Dec.)