Fiction Reviews: Week of 2/11/2008

In this enthralling debut, psychiatrist Dr. Leo Liebenstein sets off to find his wife, Rema, who he believes has been replaced by a simulacrum. Also missing is one of Leo’s patients, Harvey, who is convinced he receives coded messages (via Page Six in the New York Post) from the Royal Academy of Meteorology to control the weather. At Rema’s urging, Leo pretends during his sessions with Harvey to be a Royal Academy agent (she thinks the fib could help break through to Harvey), and once Re- ma and Leo disappear, Leo turns to actual Royal Academy member Tzvi Gal-Chen’s meteorological work to guide him in his search for his wife. Leo’s quest takes him through Buenos Aires and Patagonia, and as he becomes increasingly delusional and erratic, Galchen adeptly reveals the actual situation to readers, including Rema’s anguish and anger at her husband. Leo’s devotion to the “real” Rema is heartbreaking and maddening; he cannot see that the woman he seeks has been with him all along. Don’t be surprised if this gives you a Crying of Lot 49 nostalgia hit. (June)

Asner—ex-model, wife of director Steven Soderbergh and E! Entertainment Television personality—debuts with a dishy mix of Tinseltown hackdom, chick lit and, surprisingly, a chilling plot. Dani Hale is an L.A. TV writer for crime show Flesh and Bone who has an inordinate interest in all things forensic—one shared by technical adviser Rich Pisani, a retired LAPD cop. “None of this stuff bothered me,” Dani boasts about crime scene analysis. But what does bother her is slow-to-commit boyfriend and director Dave; the pretty actress he’s directing, Chloe Johnson (whom Asner slyly credits as having worked with Soderbergh); her Crate and Barrel saleswoman mom; and work rival “Evil Janet.” But where other chick lit heroines fret about their fears, Dani hacks into e-mails and cellphones to alleviate hers. After discovering Dave has been cheating on her, Dani plots revenge on him, freckled harlot-starlet Chloe and office boor Evil Janet, but things quickly spiral out of control. Asner juggles horror and giggles and wraps it up with a subtle kicker, and though Rich’s role is underwritten, the novel is still tons of fun. (June)

The title of this book by second-time novelist Josh Emmons (The Loss of Leon Meed) is taken from the fictitious (but perhaps Scientology-inspired) cult around which much of the ideas and action spin. The PASE handbook, written by creepy messiah Montgomery Shoal, combines pseudo-science, self-help and religious fervor, while advocating abstention from sex and addictive substances. The novel’s protagonist, Jack Smith, works in finance and has a penchant for painkillers, alcohol, junk food and pornography. An indiscreet after-hours visit to a strip club paid for by a company credit card leads to an ultimatum from his boss: become a “Paser” or be fired. At the same time, Jack finds himself repeatedly running into Mary Shoal, the daughter of the PASE founder. His dalliance with her results in his kidnapping and “re-education” at the hands of the PASE organization. Jack’s resistance is gradually replaced with acceptance, but the blithe PASE way of life is darkened by apocalyptic predictions, forcing Jack to question his conversion. Emmons’s yarn is engaging, but he can’t seem to decide whether PASE is a force for good or evil in Pasers’ lives, and the book fails to fully consider the ramifications of the issues it raises. (June)

Palahniuk’s audacious ninth novel tells the story of Cassie Wright, an aging porn queen who intends to put an exclamation point on her career by having sex with 600 men in one day on film. The story begins with Mr. 600—the pornosaur who introduced Cassie to the business—as he describes the other 599 “actors” awaiting their moment on screen. The perspective then shifts to Mr. 72, an adopted Midwestern 20-something who is one of the many young men claiming to be Cassie’s long-lost son. Mr. 137, a has-been television star hoping to revive his career, wants to ask Cassie’s hand in marriage so that the two can star in a reality TV show. But for a novel centered around a gargantuan gangbang, there’s surprisingly little action; the small amount of narrative movement takes place backstage, where the characters attempt to get a sense of one another while waiting for their number to be called. There are sharp moments when Palahniuk compassionately and candidly examines the flesh-on-film industry, but mostly this reads like a cross between the Spice Channel and Days of Our Lives. (May)

Medwed (How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life) humorously if cursorily delves into a turbulent mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dynamic. Mrs. Pollock has always disdained Maisie, who was never good enough for her son, Rex, heir to the Pollock chicken pot pie fortune. But the two women’s conflicts persist even after Rex and Maisie’s divorce, as they clash over the raising of Maisie’s teenage son, Tommy, who has himself acquired a less-than-ideal girlfriend. Meanwhile, Maisie’s trying hard to get her organizing business, Factotum Inc., off the ground in the Boston area while employing another single mom locked in a custody battle with—you guessed it—her own ex-mother-in-law. Medwed adopts a breezy tone, substituting zingy one-liners (“you can’t pick battles with a battle-ax”) for genuine reflection. A reader would need her own organizing service to keep track of Factotum’s numerous eccentric clients, whose foibles are neither adequately developed nor sufficiently mined for comic potential. A frivolous, at times frantic, tone prevails, right down to the resolution of the novel’s conflicts, which turn into happy endings faster than it takes to microwave a frozen pot pie. (May)

In this entertaining third installment to his Paul West series, British journalist Clarke sets his acerbic sights on America. Paul, an ex-pat Brit running a tearoom in Paris, commits a grievous crime when he presents English menus at his tearoom. The Ministry of Culture slaps him with a massive fine, and a broke Paul returns to London and accepts a position with Visitor Resources: Britain to represent his home country in a global tourism contest. So, with his Parisian girlfriend in tow, Paul heads for America, picks up an embarrassingly decorated Mini Cooper in New York and heads to Boston, Miami, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Los Angeles in an effort to win the prize. Trouble follows, of course, and what makes the transcontinental romp so much fun is Clarke’s sarcastic sendup of each city, embellishing the traditional stereotypes of each with a dry, jaded Brit wit. (The magazines found in a Louisiana home include “Sniper’s Gazette, Drive-by Weekly, Firing Squad Monthly. Standard stuff.”) Peripheral characters add even more color to the madcap story, and while not all of Clarke’s stabs at the states hit their marks, the ones that do are sublime. (May)

This eagerly awaited follow-up to Fae Myenne Ng’s first novel, Bone, again addresses the issues of Chinese-American identity in this moving, unflinching yet sometimes witty story. Jack Moon Szeto enters San Francisco in 1952, falsely posing as the son of Yi-Tung “Gold” Szeto, a registered U.S. citizen. In return, Jack must pay Szeto by working for two years and marrying a “fake wife.” Employed as a butcher, Jack takes the younger Joice Qwan as his lover. Even though she becomes pregnant, Joice refuses to marry Jack. Despondent, Jack attempts to nullify his contract with Szeto before entering the INS’s Chinese Confession Program and renouncing his false identity, resulting in Szeto’s deportation, but not citizenship for Jack. Toward the end, the story shifts to Jack’s congenial relationship with his spirited daughter Veda, whose growing mission is to protect Jack by making him a naturalized U.S. citizen. Ng’s simple, sturdy yet poetic prose is juxtaposed against the clinical language of Jack’s immigration documents; the result is a nuanced portrayal of two generations and the many challenges they face in their quest for security and fulfillment. (May)

Disjointed and anticlimactic, Hallowell’s (The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn) take on the far-reaching consequences of Vietnam-era protests gone bad addresses big issues but doesn’t quite deliver. Doreen Woods, a successful Colorado dentist, wife and mother, isn’t who she seems. Thirty years earlier, she was Lucy Johansson, a Berkeley student and antiwar radical who went underground (with her older brother, Adam) after a bomb she planted at Columbia University as part of a political group called Fishbone fatally detonated. As Doreen, she keeps her past a secret from her husband, Miles, and teenaged son, Ian, until she’s confronted by Janey Marks, an old Fishbone friend with a grudge: Janey’s husband, Jack, is in jail for explosives possession and Janey is determined to trade Doreen to the FBI for Jack’s release. As Doreen struggles with the decision to come clean or run again, Adam is slowly consumed by multiple sclerosis and is frequently awash in flashbacks to his tour in Vietnam. But for all the anxiety, paranoia and violence, the reading experience is oddly flat. (May)

In Rifkin’s dazzling debut, Manhattanite media pro Tori Miller shares a posh Hamptons summerhouse with five upwardly mobile 30-somethings. Wanting out of the depressing slide her life takes after being dumped by her first love and losing her dream job, Tori starts MillerWorks, her own TV production company. Still, Tori’s depressed, bringing about an intervention staged by her loyal employees, Jerry and Jimmy, her best friend Alice and the “Transformation Trio”—three make-over experts who use Tori as the pilot subject for their new reality TV show. Tori flirts with a glamming lifestyle, and her fling with George, a rich playboy with a publicist, while she’s also secretly canoodling with a housemate, banker Andrew Kane, is a recipe for disaster. Tori must think fast on her borrowed Manolos, especially when Cassie Dearborn, her new friend and housemate, needs help with her own disastrous Hampton hijinxs. Hotter than a sand dune in August, cooler than a mojito in South Beach (or Southhampton), this book will appeal to Sex and the City fans and summer beach readers alike. (May)

Singer-novelist Vlautin’s second novel (after The Motel Life) reads more like a movie treatment than a novel. Allison Johnson, 22, is a high school dropout with a destructive lifestyle (alcoholism, self-mutilation, vituperative boyfriend who knocks her up early in the novel); the only positive influence in Allison’s life is her favorite actor, Paul Newman, who appears to her during traumatic moments. Their banal conversations center on Newman’s movie roles and how they equip him to continually bail Allison out of her sorry situation. She takes his advice (“get the hell out of Dodge, as they say, and most of all, kid, buck up”) and moves from Las Vegas to Reno. But pregnant Allison’s life isn’t much better in Reno: the cycle of self-loathing continues, and even though Newman implores Allison to turn her life around, the damage is all but done. Much of the writing reads like stage direction, and the abbreviated chapters give the narrative a rushed, slapdash feel. (May)

In this scintillating romantic thriller from bestseller Robards (Obsession), Kate White, a single mother and Philadelphia ADA, is embarrassed in court when her cellphone goes off during a trial. Just then the defendant pulls out a pistol and starts shooting, killing the judge. The terror-stricken Kate fears for her life and the future of her young son, Ben, should she die in the melee. After being taken hostage, Kate escapes, supposedly by killing her captor. Kate soon discovers that her past as a troubled foster child has caught up to her. Someone tries to break into her home, while someone else follows her, threatening her and Ben. Det. Tom Braga, who investigates the courtroom shooting, is firmly convinced that Kate didn’t kill her captor. Kate’s vulnerability appeals to Tom’s protective nature, drawing the pair together in a heated affair. Robards once again shows her flair for coupling first-rate suspense with multidimensional characters. (Apr.)

Is obsession required to experience the ultimate in sexual fulfillment? Dickey searches for the answer to that question in his latest steamy romance (after Waking with Enemies) via Nia Simone Bijoux, a ghostwriter recently moved to Atlanta. A devout Anaïs Nin fan, Nia’s in hot pursuit of the perfect lay. Enlivened by sometimes catchy narration (“Self-pleasuring was popcorn.... My body was telling me it needed steak”), Nia’s adventures with “identical sins,” twins Mark and Karl, introduce her to the dubious delights of threesomes and more, leading eventually to a showdown with Mark’s wife, Jewell Stewark, a TV anchorwoman. Marred somewhat by Nia’s pretentious airs (her self-involvement can be crippling to the narrative), this erotic potboiler still delivers its message that saying “yes” to pleasure can also lead to self-enlightenment. (Apr.)

The action-packed 12th installment in bestseller Johansen’s saga featuring forensic sculptor Eve Duncan (after Stalemate) is also a sequel of sorts to Pandora’s Daughter, which chronicled the life of Megan Blair, an Atlanta physician with burgeoning psychic abilities. Intertwining the two disparate story lines intensifies both, as Johansen pits her two courageous female protagonists against a vicious serial killer who claims to have murdered Eve’s seven-year-old daughter, Bonnie, years earlier. When Eve’s love interest, Atlanta police lieutenant Joe Quinn, tracks down elusive child predator Henry Kistle to a small town in Illinois, Quinn alerts the local authorities and sets off a series of bloody events that lead Eve and Megan Blair to a remote area in the Okefenokee swamp where they’ll either discover the whereabouts of Bonnie’s body—or come face-to-face with a psychopath bent on killing and burying them all in unmarked graves. The adrenaline-fueled narrative will keep Johansen fans eagerly turning the pages. 600,000 first printing. (Apr.)

In this heartfelt if uneven portrayal of a widow’s wartime struggles, Cooney captures the chaos visited upon the Italian countryside during WWII. Lucia Fantini, renowned for her operatic performances in the family restaurant, finds herself on a mission to find her son, Beppi, who went into hiding after blowing up a German tank. In her travels, she crosses paths with an American woman, a former golf champion who is part of army intelligence; distant neighbors whose homes have been bombed; and people who have been involved with the restaurant. Cooney takes great pains to capture the individual idiosyncrasies of the characters, but the many competing personalities dilute Lucia’s story. Flashbacks appear frequently, and though some are illuminating, the combination of recollections, the present story and Lucia’s occasional delusions (one minute, bombs are falling, the next, Lucia is having a conversation with Verdi and Puccini over who is the greater musician) lacks balance. Still, Cooney (A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies) accomplishes her task of portraying, on a very personal level, the moxie and individuality of the Italian villagers as they face the challenges of war. (Apr.)

Set in 1903, Adamson’s compelling debut tells the wintry tale of 19-year-old Mary Boulton (“[w]idowed by her own hand”) and her frantic odyssey across Idaho and Montana. The details of Boulton’s sad past—an unhappy marriage, a dead child, crippling depression—slowly emerge as she reluctantly ventures into the mountains, struggling to put distance between herself and her two vicious brothers-in-law, who track her like prey in retaliation for her killing of their kin. Boulton’s journey and ultimate liberation—made all the more captivating by the delirium that runs in the recesses of her mind—speaks to the resilience of the female spirit in the early part of the last century. Lean prose, full-bodied characterization, memorable settings and scenes of hardship all lift this book above the pack. Already established as a writer of poetry (Ashland) and short stories (Help Me, Jacques Cousteau), Adamson also shines as novelist. (Apr.)

Olshan’s crisp, satisfying new novel follows American translator and author Russell Todaro, a Jewish gay man who becomes embroiled in the death and ensuing scandal of a former lover. While in France with Ed, a well-known Parisian poet, they are attacked in their hotel room by two armed men. The men mysteriously flee when Ed confronts them; then Ed dies of a heart attack the following morning. Marina, an aging literary acquaintance of Ed’s, provides a haven for Russell at Villa Guidi, her picturesque and history-laden Tuscan villa. Marina frets that the men who assaulted Russell in Paris may have been looking for her reclusive husband, Stefano, a controversial, outspoken media writer. Meanwhile, Annie, the executrix of Ed’s literary estate, demands to know the whereabouts of the autobiographical manuscript he’d spent the last 10 years penning. Russell denies he has it, though escalating momentum and melodrama converge in the novel’s denouement when Ed’s writings re-emerge and the lines of truth become blurred. Set against a plush and evocatively described European backdrop, Olshan has produced a compelling story of forbidden desire, deception, religion and love’s intoxicating allure. (Apr.)

Contrivance, cliché and expository overkill overwhelm bestseller Mosse’s tale concerning a rare tarot deck that helps link the lives of two women living eras apart. In 1891, Parisian teenager Léonie Vernier and her brother visit their young aunt at an estate in southern France. After finding a startling account of her late uncle’s pursuit of the occult, Léonie scours the property for the tarot cards and Visigoth tomb he describes, unaware that more tangible peril in the form of a murderous stalker is seeking to destroy her loved ones. Present-day biographer Meredith Martin is in France finishing a book and tracing her ancestry when she sees a reproduction of the same tarot, which bears her likeness. She investigates the connection when she, too, arrives at the estate, now a hotel in which a new battle between good and evil rages. Mosse (Labyrinth) conveys so much unnecessary information through so many static scenes of talk, reading and interior monologue that the book’s momentum stalls for good soon after its striking opening. Mosse’s fans will hope for a return to form next time. (Apr.)

In this collection of mostly uplifting stories, Berg (Dream When You’re Feeling Blue) explores the everyday challenges that women face. Whether teenaged or octogenarian, Berg’s heroines brave the emotional landmines underlying domestic scenes (from holiday dinner parties to visiting family), navigate the slippery slope of constant dieting and address the process of aging. The title story features an unnamed, insouciant narrator who flees from a Weight Watchers meeting and allows herself to indulge her most fattening food cravings. In “Full Count,” an introspective army brat begins to decipher what she looks like to others. The wistful and nostalgic “Rain” features a woman reminiscing about a good friend who dropped his successful corporate life to live closer to nature. Berg’s men are surprisingly supportive and well behaved; it is often the women in these stories who manipulate and mistreat their partners. The protagonist of “Truth or Dare,” for example, struggles to accept that her ex-husband moved on after she left him. Berg has a knack for sentimental but authentic stories about women who find affirmation in true-to-life situations, and if her endings are slightly predictable, it’s in a good way, like comfort food that never disappoints. (Apr.)

Near the start of this masterful thriller from Herron (Why We Die), Jaime Segura, a young immigrant to Britain with a gun, takes several hostages one morning at the South Oxford Nursery School, including a teacher, the school’s cleaner, parent Eliot Pedlar and Pedlar’s three-year-old twin sons. Jaime is confused and afraid but he’s not crazy, and what he wants becomes apparent very slowly. Though Secret Service agent Ben Whistler’s usual beat is the MI6 accounting department, he’s summoned to the nursery school after Jaime tells the surrounding police that Ben is the only one he’ll talk to. Then there’s the matter of the quarter of a billion pounds that’s been stolen from the Service. How Herron is able to tie all these events together will test the sleuthing ability of even the most savvy readers as one surprise engenders another. The intricate plot, coupled with Herron’s breezy writing style (“Ben Whistler looked like what you got when you thought about a rugby player, then fixed his teeth”), results in superior entertainment that makes most other novels of suspense appear dull and slow-witted by comparison. (Apr.)

In this rousing action thriller from Stewart (The Fourth War), the United States Air Force has built the most advanced fighter jet in the world, the F-38, known as the Ares. Armed with a brand-new weapon, a solid state laser, “the Ares can identify and track up to fifty-eight airborne targets and shoot them out of the air instantly. One hundred percent accuracy.” The United States, for geopolitical reasons, decides to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding Ares by showing off two of them at the Paris Air Show in front of a huge crowd. The super-plane taxis out of its hanger, blasts off, roars over the awed spectators and then things begin to go very, very wrong. Human characters include U.S. Air Force Maj. David “Jesse” James, the pilot who must save the world; a beautiful, mysterious love interest; and skulking villains aplenty. The plane’s the real star, of course, and the book soars when it’s in its natural habitat, the sky. (Apr.)

Cushman, coauthor of the nonfiction From Here to Nirvana and contributing editor to Yoga Journal, has written a hilarious take on the quest for truth that manages to respect the journey while skewering many of the travelers. Amanda, a 29-year-old fledgling yoga teacher, ekes out a living as a freelance writer in San Francisco and seizes the chance to go to India when her editor assigns her to research a guidebook about enlightenment. Soon she’s traipsing around India pursuing trendy gurus and yoga masters and scoring insightful encounters with ordinary folk along the way. She also collects a traveling companion: the sweet-natured, celibate truth seeker Devi Das, who, upon viewing the polluted Ganges, advises Amanda to “Think holy, not E. coli.” The discovery that she’s pregnant makes Amanda’s quest for meaning all the more poignant, forcing her to review her choices while she struggles to uncover the elusive secret to happiness. Cushman brings devastating wit and a thorough knowledge of her subject to her first novel, evoking an India that fills the senses and stirs the spirit even as it occasionally turns the stomach, and making it possible for the reader to both laugh with and root for Amanda as she comes to terms with her messy life. (Apr.)

Janice Witherspoon finds her life upended after her boyfriend, referred to only as “Private Danks,” is killed in Iraq in this evocative, unsettling novel from Sherrill (Visits from the Drowned Girl). Forced by Danks’s relatives to leave his Greensboro, N.C., apartment, she hits the road, at first imagining she’ll meet his body on its arrival back in the States. Realizing her mental state is breaking down as quickly as her car, she winds up in Pennsylvania, where she takes refuge in an abandoned house near a canal lock. After a while, she meets a rugged yet sensitive sculptor, Stephen Gainy, with whom she forms a sort of relationship; she encounters as well a strange woman whose voice, and perhaps more, attracts her in unexpected ways. A slow-building start pays off beautifully as the narrative progresses. As the reality of Janice’s inner and outer worlds—and the slippery border between—gradually becomes evident, the reader is drawn in even deeper and led to a satisfying close. (Apr.)

A mother fights to keep her composure as she hunts for her missing child in this nuanced, literate thriller from the husband-wife writing team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (Killing Me Softly). Shortly before Christmas, Nina Landry, a divorced mother of two living on isolated Sandling Island somewhere in the south of England, is getting ready for a family vacation in Florida that will include her new marine biologist boyfriend. Blindsided by a surprise 40th birthday party, Nina is further disconcerted when her 15-year-old daughter, Charlie, who was supposed to help with the packing, fails to come home from a slumber party. Nina’s seamless first-person account of the next 24 hours mines the frustration and feelings of helplessness that come with any investigation slowed by the rigmarole of police work. This engrossing read captures the importance of the often overlooked and underappreciated minutiae of everyday life while commanding a deeply personal reaction in readers. (Apr.)

Former U.S. foreign service officer Eisendrath, who codrafted the U.N. Outer Space Treaty, offers a heavy-handed political parable in his second novel (after Crisis Game ). Dwight Lockwood, following the death of his sexually abusive secretary of defense father, begins to find his own political voice, first as an activist against U.S. policy in Nicaragua, a campaign he eventually parlays into a broader social action movement. That role in turn leads to the chairmanship of the International Monetary Fund, and, eventually, to his selection as the first American secretary-general of the U.N. Aided by a liberal presidential candidate reminiscent of Dennis Kucinich who somehow manages to get elected, Lockwood struggles, often ineptly, to reshape the world. (Lockwood “quips” to the Egyptian foreign minister, “Could we possibly seek a final solution to the Jewish problem?”) Having Lockwood haunted by the spirit of his late wife adds little to a book lacking in the kind of realistic detail that the author’s background suggests he could easily have provided. (Apr.)

McCartney, a creative writing teacher at Antioch University in Los Angeles, eschews conventional structure in this debut novel, offering instead a surreal and self-referential “encyclopedia” for the 21st century. Arranged alphabetically, McCartney employs a short, free association style to expound on disparate topics, including Princess Diana, head lice, extinction—and everything in between. The narrator’s obsessions—pornography, razors, cholos and his mother, to name a few—pop up frequently, and many entries are tinged with a sense of melancholy and foreboding. Paradoxically, his ruminations are most successful when they are most absurd. Pondering the unwieldy length of his name, for example, leads to the image of the narrator hauling each oversized wooden letter onto a bus, as the driver and passengers wait impatiently. Although the narrator considers himself “in large part a satirist,” he is aware that “there are spaces that satire cannot reach.” Only the most intrepid of readers will be willing to tackle the book from cover to cover, but fans of alternative literature and Borges may discover a kindred spirit. (Apr.)

Atkins’s richly detailed but scattered sixth novel draws on the history of a real town, Phenix City, Ala., which in 1954 was overrun with gambling, prostitution and moonshine. When Albert Patterson, the state’s recently elected attorney general, is gunned down on the street, the town’s antivice group vows to bring the murderer to justice. Ex-boxer and family man Lamar Murphy leads the charge, with the rest of the Russell County Betterment Association (RBA) following suit. There are crooked characters at every turn, from the lecherous Deputy Bert Fuller, who personally inspects and “catalogues” the city’s prostitutes, to Fannie Belle, a brothel madam with a habit of collecting husbands. Even when the town falls under martial law and Lamar is appointed interim sheriff, the “redneck mafia” will do anything to prevent Phenix City from going straight. Atkins (White Shadow) spares no punches in detailing the town’s depravity, but the result is less a coherent story and more a snapshot of a bygone era. Readers will struggle with the many names and shifting alliances, while the climax and resolution are anything but surprising. Author tour. (Apr.)

First published in 1952, this subtly woven, comic tale by Nobel Prize–winner Agnon is set in Germany during World War I. A young scholar writing a book on the history of clothing has strayed from his Austrian, Orthodox Jewish roots, ending up in Berlin at the outbreak of war, searching for a quiet place to stay, but compelled to move restlessly from one room to another. A letter by the ailing widow of the renowned Dr. Levy prompts him to set out for Grimma, in the hope of becoming the executor for the doctor’s vast Jewish library; however, he is waylaid in Leipzig by a former actress friend, Brigitta Schimmermann, now a fashionable wife who runs an important nursing hospital. Eventually abandoning his mission, he heads back to Berlin where he moves among boarding houses, befriending the various proprietors and their daughters, meeting war-damaged friends at nightclubs and observing in his detached manner the desperation and decadence of a society on the brink. Translator Halkin offers a masterly introduction to this deeply moralistic work that portrays the Jew in diaspora with neither country nor room, seeking God’s plan in what might only be happenstance. (Apr.)

Thandywaye Malone is a beautiful and educated woman with a rough upbringing that led her to leave home as a teenager. Subsequently, she got pregnant and married a caring older man who bankrolled their lifestyle on profits from his drug trafficking operation. After he got arrested, she was left on the streets. Now, in her 30s, Thandy has a high-powered job in Atlanta, but low self-esteem. In comes slick-talking Jackson Gabrielle, an old money, married-with-kids surgeon who sweet-talks Thandy into an affair. She eventually ditches him for an even better job in Chicago. Unfortunately, Jack is portrayed as such a louse (cheater, manipulative, woman-beater) that when he and Thandy get back together, the reader has no sympathy left for him. The choppy narrative and flat characters don’t do the book any favors, either. (Apr.)

In Barclay’s sprawling and adventurous sequel to Web of Dreams, the book’s heroine, Jenny Corvill, marries—but her happiness is short-lived. Jenny, in defiance of 19th-century social custom, runs her family’s tartan-weaving business, and Ronald Armstrong, once the master dyer at the Corvill family factory, admires her skills. Upon their wedding, Jenny’s brother Ned makes Ronald the factory manager. Local society leaders, Ned and his wife, Lucy, don’t concern themselves with business. Ned pursues gentlemanly interests, while socialite Lucy simply gets up to mischief. When she forms a strong attachment to Jenny and Ronald’s daughter, Heather, a chain of tragic and life-changing events result. The story moves from the Corvills’ home in the Scottish borders to London and Australia, where a neglected and unfulfilled Ronald goes on business and stays in order to find himself. Though the book’s plot is at times predictable, Barclay’s storytelling skills keep the pages turning, even if the characterizations, particularly of Lucy and Jenny, are too black and white to really satisfy. (Apr.)

In his second novel, the host of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition paints a detailed portrait of Chicago politics, beginning with the sudden death of the mayor. The focus quickly shifts to Indian vice-mayor Sunny Roopini, who must assuage a traumatized electorate while laying down a few paving stones for the mayor’s successor. Matters are further complicated when the police discover deadly amounts of liquid nicotine on the late mayor’s pizza, a revelation that inspires a mayoral staffer to leap from his apartment window. Roopini’s brief interim mayorship proves to be a minefield of favors, accommodations and downright extortion—the latter by a U.S. Attorney determined to dig up any ethical hiccup he can. The suffocating political life is enough to beckon Roopini toward retirement (particularly with his two daughters on the cusp of adulthood), but the city doesn’t seem willing to let him go. The proceedings can be fascinating, but Simon is too attached to his (admittedly impressive) descriptive powers, dragging the narrative through a swamp of mannerisms, fashion sketches, culinary processes and (especially) political maneuvering. Politics junkies will get off on the detail, but readers with less than a passing interest in the sausage-making that goes on at City Hall may be frustrated. (Mar.)

Having appeared in 10 short stories in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, self-described “film detective” Valentino, who works as a film archivist at U.C.L.A., makes his novel-length debut in the engaging first of a new series from Shamus-winner Estleman. Valentino stumbles on the find of a lifetime when he inspects the Oracle, a decaying 1920s movie theater he’s considering purchasing. An abandoned storage room contains reels of film that may be the only surviving prints of Erich von Stroheim’s legendary epic, Greed. The further discovery of a skeleton of unknown vintage in the old building complicates matters. Aided by academic colleagues, Valentino tries to eat his cake and have it, too, by cooperating with the police inquiry into what might be a case of foul play without revealing the existence of the film reels, which he fears might be damaged if seized as evidence. While the lighthearted tone is far removed from the gritty realism of the author’s Amos Walker series (American Detective, etc.), the versatile Estleman has crafted yet another intelligent page-turner. (May)

The growing rift between the “dinosaurs” and the “young brats” on the teaching staff at San Francisco’s École d’Epicure fuels the highly amusing action in Johnson’s superior second cozy to feature funky pastry chef Mary Ryan (after 2002’s Beat Until Stiff). Mary is unpleasantly surprised when Inspector O’Connor of SFPD homicide shows up as a student claiming he’s on stress leave. Although the cop is her ex-husband’s married best friend, Ryan and the sexy O’Connor have obvious chemistry. Tension among École’s chefs escalates with public insults, a petition to fire one of the classically trained dinosaurs and a water fight in the school’s prestigious restaurant. When one chef dies after an allergic shellfish reaction with no shellfish on the menu, and another is strangled at home, Ryan suspects something more sinister than differences of culinary theory. In one of many farcical scenes, Ryan enlists the aid of a hostile friend-of-a-friend to hack into École’s computer system to dig for answers. This enjoyable romp should gain Johnson new fans. (Apr.)

In Shannon’s searing 10th novel to feature Jack Liffey (after 2007’s The Dark Streets), Jack and his pregnant teenage daughter, Maeve, run into trouble in Bakersfield, Calif., after stopping there for the night on their way home to Los Angeles. When a sleepless Maeve leaves their motel for a walk, she’s falsely arrested for dope possession and jailed for a short time with Toxie, a rebellious teen with whom she discovers she shares a passion for Jane Eyre. Worried about Toxie, Maeve later returns from L.A. to Bakersfield, where Dennis Kohlmeyer, the paranoid pastor of the 10,000-member Olive Grove Evangelical Church, has incited his flock to hysteria against “devil worshippers.” Scenes of book burning, exorcism, wholesale jailings and worse may strike some as exaggerated, but Shannon cites actual examples of Bakersfield’s long history of racial and social prejudice throughout. The plot-driven action builds to an either/or ending on which readers are invited to vote on the author’s Web site. (Apr.)

When a man with half his head sliced off is found behind the abandoned Tastee Freez in Bakerhaven, Conn., near the start of Hall’s fast-paced ninth puzzle lady mystery (after 2006’s You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled), the chief clue is in the victim’s pocket—a clipping from a New York City newspaper containing a sudoku and a crossword puzzle. Coincidentally, the puzzles are the work of “Puzzle Lady” Cora Felton, though Cora’s niece, Sherry, secretly composes the puzzles. The two suspects in the murder (committed with a samurai sword) are Japanese publishers, each vying for a book contract for a collection of Cora’s sudokus. Quirky characters and humorous dialogue help lighten the somewhat tedious details of the convoluted plot. New York Times puzzle expert Will Shortz supplies four sudokus for readers to solve. (Apr.)

Crum’s agreeable 10th Gail McCarthy equestrian adventure (after 2006’s Moonblind) finds the amateur sleuth adjusting happily enough to life as a stay-at-home mom with toddler Mac, though she misses the total freedom and control she once enjoyed as Santa Cruz County’s top veterinarian. Enter a nasty new neighbor, Lindee Stone, who ruffles feathers wherever she goes and sets her sights on a corral where Gail keeps two horses. When Gail goes to confront Lindee about her unsavory business practices, Gail witnesses the expert horsewoman’s death during a barrel-racing exercise. After a second “horse wreck” occurs a few days later, Gail is sure they weren’t accidents and sets out to prove it. While this slim mystery is full of the customary horse facts and well-rounded characters, Gail’s musings on motherhood can be a bit heavy-handed at times. She remains, however, a likable heroine readers—horse lovers or not—will continue to seek out. (Apr.)

An intriguing setting and well-developed characters partially redeem the weak story line of psychotherapist Zelvin’s debut. Bruce Kohler wakes up one December morning in a Bowery detox unit on Manhattan’s Bowery. Bruce soon establishes a shaky friendship with fellow inmate Godfrey Brandon Kettleworth III, who introduces himself as “God” then adds “Alcoholic.” When Godfrey turns up dead, Bruce’s two best friends—his former drinking buddy, Jimmy, and Jimmy’s girlfriend, Barbara—encourage him to investigate the murder, not because he has any skills in that area but because they think it will distract him from drinking. The amateur sleuthing, which starts on this thin footing, turns silly; the three almost treat it like a game. In the final chapters, people are being murdered right and left and suspects pop up like gophers, all presented without drama or passion. Deft prose can’t save the muddled plot from sinking into anticlimax. (Apr.)

At the start of Raichev’s stylish third novel to feature mystery writer Antonia Darcy and her husband, Maj. Hugh Payne (after 2007’s The Death of Corrine), the couple attend a literary festival in Hay-on-Wye. There they reluctantly befriend two unusual women—a femme fatale in a wheelchair, Beatrice “Bee” Ardleigh, and Bee’s austere companion, Ingrid Delmar—whom Hugh dubs “Goldilocks and Cerberus.” A few months later, Antonia and Hugh accept Bee’s invitation to come see her in Oxfordshire, where Bee has just made a controversial marriage and Ingrid has been impersonating Bee on visits to a dying neighbor who plans to leave his home, Ospreys (“The secret house of death they used to call it”), to the National Trust. The twisty plot thickens with the murder of a shady, Chartreuse-drinking priest at Ospreys. Deft use of literary allusion and well-drawn if unsubtle characterization are among the strengths of this traditional whodunit. (Apr.)

In this intriguing novel of psychological suspense from Irish author Bannister (The Fifth Cataract), six-year-old Matthew “Mouse” Firth is accused of starting a fire in his London home that permanently disfigures his mother, Ruth. In the aftermath of the tragedy, and despite Mouse’s serious developmental difficulties, his parents divorce. Years later, disaster strikes again when the van Mouse is driving crashes into a railway line, killing Ruth, who was his passenger. The police conclude that Mouse was operating the vehicle while under the influence, a suspicion that leads his father, Robin, to withdraw further from him emotionally. Robin’s fiancée, Agnes Amory, becomes Mouse’s sole defender, though she has her work cut out for her when the local church burns down shortly after Mouse is discharged from the hospital. Fans of Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters will find much to like, even if the ending is a little too tidy. (Apr.)

Bacigalupi’s stellar first collection of 10 stories displays the astute social commentary and consciousness-altering power of the very best short form science fiction. The Hugo-nominated “The Calorie Man” explores a post–fossil fuel future where genetically modified crops both feed and power the world, and greedy megacorporations hold the fates of millions in their hands. “The People of Sand and Slag” envisions a future Earth as a contaminated wasteland inhabited by virtually indestructible post-humans who consume stone and swim in petroleum oceans. “The Tamarisk Hunter” deals with the effects of global warming on water rights in the Southwest, while the title story, original to this volume, follows a New York sewage treatment worker who struggles to repair his antiquated equipment as the city’s inhabitants succumb to the brain-damaging effects of industrial pollutants. Deeply thought provoking, Bacigalupi’s collected visions of the future are equal parts cautionary tale, social and political commentary and poignantly poetic, revelatory prose. (Apr.)

Despite its pulpish title, this erudite and intriguing novel is more in the tradition of Robert Graves than Edgar Rice Burroughs. By the 23rd century, when a nanotech plague has crippled the world’s hardware, much of the northern hemisphere is under the mostly capable and benevolent control of the U.S.-descended Pan-Polarian Empire. But Emperor Mathias the Glistening is dead, and the empire is in the hands of his increasingly psychotic son, Luke Anthony. The balance of power is controlled by Gen. Peter Black, a former sergeant who rose from the ranks to lead the imperial armies. Judson (Fitzpatrick’s War) chronicles the last glories of the empire as viewed by Black’s illegitimate daughter, whose own rise from unwanted embarrassment to valued adviser and aide parallels her father’s career. The story might be familiar to today’s readers from the film Gladiator, but the parallels it draws between Roman and American cultures are both perceptive and disquieting. (Apr.)

In this exciting and satisfying fourth and final volume (after 2007’s White Tyger) of Park’s much praised alternate historical fantasy series, young, clairvoyant Miranda, now revealed as both a lost Roumanian princess and the legendary shape-shifting White Tyger, must avoid the machinations of the corrupt and violent Colonel Bocu and the ghost of wicked Baroness Nicola Ceausescu as she struggles to understand her heritage. Members of the old nobility, not all of them still living, continue to experiment with dangerous and ancient magics they only partially understand. As Roumania begins to flounder in its war against Turkey, dark rumors surface of a terrible and perhaps necromantic final weapon that may destroy the nation. Miranda can depend only on her oldest friends, the young army officer Peter Gross and the gender- and species-shifting Andromeda. This final volume, although beautifully written, does not stand well on its own, but it provides a fitting and triumphant conclusion to the series. (Apr.)

Both longtime fans and readers who have never encountered horror and suspense author Matheson (I Am Legend), winner of Stoker and World Fantasy lifetime achievement awards among many others, should enjoy this collection of a dozen stories originally published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the standout title story, later adapted as a Twilight Zone episode, a discontented husband and wife are presented with a device and told they will get $50,000 every time they press its button. The catch is that every push will cause someone else’s death. Many of the other tales pack a similar punch. The collection also includes “The Creeping Terror,” a vicious parody of the author’s home state of California. The inventive plots and spare but convincing portraits of the ordinary men and women caught up by forces beyond their control demonstrate why Stephen King has called Matheson his most significant influence. (Apr.)

Complex family and social conflicts clutter the pages of this scattershot romp from World Fantasy Award–winner Millar (The Good Fairies of New York). Kalix MacRinnalch, a poorly socialized, laudanum-addicted teenage werewolf, has violently assaulted her father, thereby adding “outcast” to her list of defining traits. Suddenly and inexplicably supported by two preternaturally patient new friends, Daniel and Moonglow, the young werewolf skulks around London and struggles with anxiety and eating disorders while scores of subplots merrily explode around her. As Kalix’s relatives bicker and backstab to establish a new leader, a cast of thousands shoehorns its way into the narrative, stealing story space for a sorcerous fashion designer with spy problems, werewolf twins with a terrible punk band that can’t get a gig and a romantically mercenary transvestite. Overly reliant on luck and coincidence and populated by unsympathetic characters with unconvincing motives, Millar’s urban fantasy epic swiftly dissolves into a tragedy of contrived errors. (Apr.)

A killer identified via a fleeting facial expression and behavioral cues turns a middle-aged FBI agent dealing with a disruptive disability into an unexpected hero in Goldman’s latest terrific thriller (after Deadlocked). After the brutal murder of Marcellus Pearson, a notorious Kansas City drug dealer, the collateral damage includes his cronies; his young son, Jalise; Jalise’s mother (and Pearson’s girlfriend); and an older woman who witnesses the killer fleeing the crime scene. The shooter is Pearson’s mild-mannered neighbor, Latrell Kelly, who harbors more than a few dark secrets behind his soft-spoken ways. FBI Special Agent Jack Davis understands secrets—he has seizures he’s been able to hide until the Pearson crime scene makes him erupt into visible tremors. Davis must take medical leave, but conducts a private investigation that connects to another chilling puzzler involving his missing daughter, Wendy. Is her significant other, Colby Hudson, an undercover and possibly corrupt FBI agent, responsible? Davis’s new girlfriend, jury consultant Kate Scranton, helps him deal with both cases by teaching him how to “read” faces using the Facial Action Coding System. Goldman’s surefooted plotting and Davis’s courage under fire make this a fascinating, compelling read. (Apr.)

Jacyn Boaz takes a sabbatical from the University of Texas at Austin’s anthropology department to do post-Katrina volunteer work for Oxfam in Biloxi, Miss. She hooks up with a Texan drifter and self-styled magic expert, Jimmy Wayne Broadus, a swaggering hunk who’s hunting a child-eating lamia (and whose magic toolbox includes an imp in a mason jar). After some heavy drinking and lovemaking, Jimmy Wayne heads to La Batre, Ala.; Jacyn joins him as he consults a voodoo warlock and a pretty witch for lamia-destruction advice. After lamia confrontation, the scene shifts to Nashville, as this strange and jarring romance from Sims (Falling Upwards) roughly spools out. (Apr.)

A serial rapist is on the loose in the sleepy California town of Big Rock, and sheriff Farrell Hurley’s secretary is the latest victim. When a self-proclaimed werewolf hunter named Daniel Fargo comes into town claiming that Big Rock has an infestation of the creatures, Hurley thinks the man is insane, until the eviscerated corpses and attacks by large animals start in earnest. For Garton, lycanthropy is an STD, spread mostly through rape, that runs rampant through a small town fraught with affairs and intrigues. His werewolf is a terrifying creature: not a remorseful, helpless cursed human but a homicidal beast driven by a dual urge to breed and feed. Hurley is a sheriff to root for, and Garton’s well-paced horror novel reworks the werewolf myth to great effect. (Apr.)

Winter Massey, former deputy U.S. marshal, tangles with an old enemy in Miller’s (Side by Side) latest intense thriller. After the shooting of an African-American teen in Tunica County, Miss., Sheriff Brad Barnett suspects it’s a hunting-related accident until he spots one of Winter’s old business cards, left where the shooter set up. He locates Winter deer hunting with his family in the Mississippi Delta and secures his help. Winter asks FBI agent Alexa Keen to analyze something else left at the scene of the crime: a clove-flavored toothpick, the hallmark of ruthless assassin Paulus Styer. This time Styer, last seen in New Orleans, has some black op experts on his tail. The victim was killed at Six Oaks, a cotton plantation owned by Sheriff Barnett’s old lover Leigh Gardner, and her desperate ex, Jacob, is secretly trying to sell it. Styer abducts Leigh’s daughter Cynthia, who’s having an affair with Jack Beals, a security officer at Roundtable Casino. Kurt Klein, Roundtable’s offsite German industrialist owner, needs Six Oaks for a resort/casino complex. But at what cost? Full of breathless blood and guts action, hairpin twists and turns, Miller’s cocktail of murder and dirty business is potent and compelling. (Mar.)