Fiction Reviews: Week of 3/24/2008

In this ambitious but flawed novel about drug makers and drug takers, Wittenborn (Fierce People) unfurls the cautionary story of Dr. Will Friedrich, a psychopharmacologist at Yale in 1951, who teams up with a female psychiatrist to test an experimental mood-enhancing drug extracted from a leaf used by New Guinea witch doctors. Will tests the new med on a suicidal freshman, Casper Gedsic, and Casper’s resulting homicidal outbreak will trouble Will for the rest of his life. Zach, the narrator and youngest Friedrich boy (conceived in the wake of Casper’s freakout), comes of age during the tail end of the ’60s, has a truncated brush with writerly success and cops a crippling habit. He and his three siblings end up disappointing Will as their lives run counter to his ambitions for them: daughters Fiona and Lucy forgo lucrative careers for more fulfilling lifestyles (Fiona becomes a painter, Lucy an aid worker), and Willy drops out of prelaw to study art. Unfortunately, the fates of the Friedrich children are of much less dramatic interest than that of their father, and as the novel shifts focus to their travails, this dysfunctional family narrative disappointingly peters out into irresolution. (Aug.)

Debut novelist Ferry builds his quietly tricky tale around an English teacher’s amateur investigation into a traffic fatality. Driving home from work, narrator Pete Ferry pulls up beside a car being erratically driven; Pete considers taking action, but before he can, the car crashes into a lamp post, killing Lisa Kim, the young driver. The event haunts Pete, a high school English teacher and occasional travel writer, and he soon neglects his professional duties as he looks into who Lisa was and why she died. Pete is so obsessed with his quarry that he does not notice that his relationship with live-in girlfriend Lydia is failing, though he does turn up leads to Lisa’s heroin connection and a sinister psychiatrist. Or perhaps not: Pete addresses much of his narrative to his English class, and it is not clear whether the reader is meant to believe that the car accident and ensuing intrigues have actually happened, or if Pete has invented them to teach his students a lesson about storytelling. The result is a novel that, for all the cleverness of its construction, is also earnest, engrossing and affecting. (Aug.)

The only girl in the strong, loving Bronstein family, nine-year-old Ruby anchors this adept debut from Hermann. Ruby has always felt both admiration for and rejected by her three charismatic older brothers; she is similarly intrigued by her Holocaust survivor father, whose observance of Jewish customs persists despite his professed loss of faith. Ruby’s own sense of faith, family and self will be sorely tested over the next 10-plus years: her oldest brother Abe’s schizophrenic break, a truly frightening event to 10-year-old Ruby, is but the first in a series of crises. The well-developed chapters have a tendency to read like individual stories, but Hermann keeps the novel’s themes of loss and resiliency constant. Foreshadowing and symbolism get heavy, but what could have become a litany of family pain is tempered, in Hermann’s eminently capable narrative, by young Ruby’s concurrent journey toward self-discovery. (Aug.)

James Moran relishes his roommate’s gourmet cooking, helps the homeless and is a sex addict having a wild affair with a woman with whom he has yet to exchange names. The sex, which dominates the first half of the book, leaves James wandering the streets in postcoital amnesia. But just as the sex threatens to overload the story, James decides to establish a real relationship with his lover, and things begin to shift: other vices—from alcohol to abstract expressionism—enter the picture, with disastrous results. The book’s raw but thoughtful carnality comes off as at once serious, clever and crude in sending up the absurdities of contemporary hookings-up. It’s not a traditional love story, but debut novelist Levy puts thought and genuine feeling behind all the doings. (Aug.)

These 10 linked short stories by MacArthur fellow Fulton track the lives of four generations of women from Troy, N.Y., where “love comes to die.” The first story begins in 1908, and subsequent stories are spaced approximately a decade apart, creating a colorful patchwork of the 20th century. In “Happy Dust,” a young mother, sick with a wasting disease and about to give birth, finds some relief in a mysterious potion given to her by a fallen nun. A waitress in “Shadow Table” is asked to make a birthday dessert for her lover’s long-dead younger sister. In “The Real Eleanor Rigby” a girl infatuated with the Beatles and Herman Melville resolves to give the fab four her first edition of Typee, only to be upstaged by her domineering mother, who scores the two of them a brief private audience with the band. Fulton’s strengths are in elaborate detail and delicate construction. And many stories also contain moments of blunt violence and unthinking cruelty, providing the tension at the heart of a book that’s rich with feeling for its characters yet willing to expose their faults. (July)

Valdes-Rodriguez introduced these caliente chicas in 2003’s successful The Dirty Girls Social Club. Now, five years later, the sucias reunite at a New Mexico resort, and the passionate and provocative getaway signals more changes for the crew. Usnavys—a United Way executive, self-proclaimed plus-sized “manizer” and sex blogger—is married to sedate Juan, who cares for their daughter while Usnavys begins an affair. Lauren is a journalist and bulimic whose fiancé, a former drug dealer-turned music industry professional, has a little something secretly going on the side. Rebecca, a magazine publisher, has dreams of a baby with her husband, but they can’t conceive. Sara, a Latina Martha Stewart, is frightened and exhilarated by the reappearance of her abusive husband. Cuicatl, a wild Latina rock star, must face her feelings for her older manager, and a fickle public. And Elizabeth is slowly realizing her lesbian partner doesn’t want to parent their recently adopted son. Friendships are strengthened and threatened, and facets of each woman’s life crumbles while others blossom. The prose is fast and casual, and the plot moves at a fast clip. (July)

An intelligent and stubborn heroine who’s just emotionally vulnerable enough to be empathetic lifts this novel from Gardiner (China Lake), a Californian now living in London making her U.S. debut. Dr. Jo Beckett, a forensic psychiatrist (or “deadshrinker”), performs psychological autopsies to uncover the truths behind grisly crimes. Recruited to consult on the possible suicide of prosecutor Callie Harding, who drove her BMW off a San Francisco bridge and struck an airport minivan on the road below, Jo discovers this accident is the latest in a string of high profile murder-suicides. As Jo and the SFPD’s Lt. Amy Tang dig deeper, they uncover the Dirty Secrets Club, a shadowy group of citizens whose members include a noted fashion designer and a football star, both of whom committed very public suicides. Still coming to terms with her doctor husband’s recent death, Jo struggles to pinpoint the club’s origins, realizing that a former member may be systematically driving the remaining members to their deaths. Gardiner should win new fans on this side of the Atlantic with this adrenaline-filled thriller. (June)

Williams’s infectious romp shows what happens just before a woman surrenders to respectable adulthood—nerve-jangling regret set to the tune of a loudly ticking biological clock. Magazine designer Stevie, 34, is poised to marry boyish and vulnerable Jez. Stevie is both excited and worried she’s making the wrong choice when Sam, a photographer she’s had a thing for since art school, shows up. But she gets hitched anyway and spends a hilariously horrid honeymoon in Thailand trying to ignore her incompatibility with Jez and avoiding London hipsters Seb and Katy—particularly Katy, who has a history with Stevie and, suddenly, the full attention of Jez. Every couple in the book seems mismatched, and as Sam lingers and serial-dating pal Lara turns a couple of heads, marriage-shaking trouble is in the offing. Williams (Yummy Mummy) fills the book with sharp lines and sharper summations of her characters’ ever-changing states of affairs. The novel packs a lot of laughs and delivers a snazzy payoff in the last chapter. Take this one to the beach. (June)

Alpert’s exciting debut takes the premise that Albert Einstein succeeded in discovering a unified field theory, but hid the result, fearing it could lead to weapons far more powerful than the atom bomb. In the present day, several contenders—the U.S. government, a savage mercenary bent on revenge, various scientists—all scramble to uncover the theory. Theoretical physicist Hans Kleinman, once one of Einstein’s assistants, is tortured by an intruder who demands he divulge the theory. Columbia University professor David Swift is at Kleinman’s bedside when the old man makes a few cryptic statements, imparts a string of numbers and then dies. Soon David is off and running for his life, as all the theory seekers give chase. David stays one step ahead with the help of the beautiful Monique Reynolds, another physicist. Alpert, a Scientific American columnist, sticks to proper thriller structure while imparting interesting and accessible science. The relentless action, including one giant twist and plenty of smaller ones, builds to a pulse-pounding conclusion. (June)

Cook updates the themes of love and disenchantment that drove Life’s a Beach and Must Love Dogs in her latest beacher. Bella Shaughnessy, a makeup artist whose solace in times of hardship is finding just the right lipstick to match her mood, gets a divorce and quits men after discovering that her husband of 10 years has been seeing her younger half-sister, Sophia. During a wedding job, she gets stuck with dog-sitting Precious (who “looked kind of like a flying squirrel”) and quickly gets so attached that she takes drastic measures to keep the dog. Can other kinds of attachment be far behind, as cute and easygoing Sean Ryan enters the picture? Sufficient comedy and romance keep readers entertained until the last page. (June)

Two-time Spur Award–winner Boggs (Camp Ford) relates the 1880s exploits of Daniel Killstraight, a Kwahadi Comanche returning from the Carlisle Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Daniel’s train halts at Fort Smith, Ark., just as Jimmy Comes Last, a boyhood friend, is being led to the gallows, convicted of murdering a husband and wife: a white man and Creek Indian woman. Prompted by Jimmy’s grief-stricken mother, Naséca, after the hanging, Daniel, whose education sets him apart, resolves to investigate. On arriving at the reservation with the body, U.S. Indian policemen Hugh Gunter and Harvey P. Noble induct Daniel into the force. While the plot is thin, Boggs draws raw tension from it, and the relationships and setting shine: Daniel—striving at once to solve the case and reconnect with Comanche ways—is a complex, winning protagonist. (June)

Yasuoka’s venal, youthful first-person narrators grasp at beauty and romance amid a changing Japan in these nine stories, all published in Japan in the early 1950s. In the opening tale, “The Wandering Minstrel,” a dreamy worker in a knitwear company unaccountably finds himself gaining the verse-loving boss’s favor by composing the company song, but soon finds himself enlisted as a suitor for the boss’s bovine niece. The title story records a night watchman’s fervent, sorrowful feelings for a naïve young girl whose strange, playful ways move him—and torment him, too. Similarly, a young romantic and his effete cronies move to downtown Tokyo in search of the lost shogunate era of Edo, only to find vulgarity and disillusionment. In “The Sword Dance,” an invalid son observes his father’s return from the military as a changed man, without self-confidence and ambition, prompting a troubling reversal of their roles. Tyler’s translation captures Yasuoka’s effortless style, registering dark but delightful impressions of youth. (June)

MacArthur genius Hemon in his third book (after Nowhere Man) intelligently unpacks 100 years’ worth of immigrant disillusion, displacement and desperation. As fears of the anarchist movement roil 1908 Chicago, the chief of police guns down Lazarus Averbuch, an eastern European immigrant Jew who showed up at the chief’s doorstep to deliver a note. Almost a century later, Bosnian-American writer Vladimir Brik secures a coveted grant and begins working on a book about Lazarus; his research takes him and fellow Bosnian Rora, a fast-talking photographer whose photos appear throughout the novel, on a twisted tour of eastern Europe (there are brothel-hotels, bouts of violence, gallons of coffee and many fabulist stories from Rora) that ends up being more a journey into their own pasts than a fact-finding mission. Sharing equal narrative duty is the story of Olga Averbuch, Lazarus’s sister, who, hounded by the police and the press (the Tribune reporter is especially vile), is faced with another shock: the disappearance of her brother’s body from his potter’s grave. (His name, after all, was Lazarus.) Hemon’s workmanlike prose underscores his piercing wit, and between the murders that bookend the novel, there’s pathos and outrage enough to chip away at even the hardest of hearts. (May)

Country music superstars Brooks & Dunn have enjoyed massive success (30 million albums sold, dozens of awards), but surely a novel about their alter egos couldn’t possibly excite anybody outside of die-hard fans, could it? Actually, the duo, along with novelist Fitzhugh, bash out a comic caper that has enough plot twists and nutty one-liners to hook even twang-haters. The book follows lanky, laconic Slim and romantic, goofy Howdy as the two troubadours ramble around the Texas honky-tonk circuit. There’s the time Slim, armed with a pair of hedge clippers, reclaims his stolen guitar from Brushfire Boone; or the hot double date that ends with a pantsless Howdy dodging bullets. The boys land a steady gig at a roadhouse in Del Rio until its owner is kidnapped and ransomed. With no shortage of suspects, the boys follow the trail into the Mexican desert, where a zany cast of bad guys gathers for the boffo final shootout. It’s like a particularly good episode of The Dukes of Hazzard: corny as hell, but heaps of fun. (May)

For their third collaboration, two-time Academy Award–winner Hackman and Lenihan (Justice for None) competently mine Civil War lore to dramatize a prison escape. Southwest Georgia’s Andersonville, aka Fort Sumter, was as bad a Confederate POW stockade as the gut-wrenching descriptions here (“an Old Testament nightmare”) attest. Union Capt. Nathan Parker, commanding the Michigan 5th (aka Parker’s Rangers, famed as a mounted infantry unit), is captured along with 23 of his men outside Washington, D.C., during Jubal Early’s July 1864 Confederate raid. Two months later, Nathan breaks out, vowing to return and save his soldiers. Between the violent clashes undertaken with his hired guns, Nathan copes by reciting Thoreau and fondly recalling his lover, Darien Crosby. He presses his noble if not reckless mission despite his raiders’ slippery loyalties, and the result is a rousing take on familiar territory. (May)

In Coyne’s engrossing hole-in-one (after The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan), it’s the summer of 1946 and Tommy O’Shea, a top caddie at Midlothian Country Club, gets a fantastic chance to challenge golfing legend Walter Hagen in the “last important golf match of his life.” To do so, Tommy must be proficient in the usage of hickory golf clubs, the kind Hagen used to win his first U.S. Open in 1914. At stake is a $1,000 prize that could finance farmer’s-son Tommy’s college dreams. In walks Harrison Cornell, a WWII vet and former POW, who wants to caddie for Hagen. As it turns out, Harrison has a secret score to settle with Hagen dating back to 1941. As Tommy prepares to compete against Hagen—one of golf’s first superstars—he learns much about golf and life from Harrison (“Carry your own clubs. Be your own man”), flirts with a club waitress and falls for Val, a member’s daughter. Coyne’s neat plotting and firm grip on even the most obscure corners of the sport make this the perfect treat for hackers and pros alike. (May)

Set in New York City in 1946, this superb crime novel from Coffey (Miami Twilight) will remind many readers of the hard-hitting work of James Ellroy. Soon after Patrick Grimes, a psychologically scarred WWII vet who’s a reporter for a tabloid newspaper, arrives at a crime scene in a seedy Manhattan neighborhood known as Blood Alley, he realizes that the police are intent on framing the African-American watchman who discovered the body of society girl Amanda Price for murder. Grimes’s independent investigation soon puts him at odds with Amanda’s wealthy family as well as his own supervisors at the paper. The reporter doggedly follows a twisted trail of real estate transactions and corrupt businessmen to uncover a number of powerful people who might have wanted Amanda dead. Sterling prose (“It was the voice of a girl who knew she would never be lonely because all her hellos were given to people who wanted her company”) and a pulse-pounding plot combined with an authentic picture of a mob-ruled New York City make this a compelling read. (May)

Having worked in Hollywood as a pyrotechnician, Paoletti provides an authentic backdrop for his debut, an otherwise routine revenge thriller. When David Cole, an ex-Navy SEAL and veteran of the first Gulf War who’s the special effects supervisor on a movie set that resembles an Iraqi battlefield, fires a couple of incompetent underlings, Ned Brandenburg and Levar Watkins, the two resolve to make Cole pay a deadly price. Brandenburg and Watkins team with Frank Ruger, a psychotic former military colleague of Cole’s, who blames Cole for his dishonorable discharge. Though Cole survives the death trap Ruger sets for him with severe burns, Cole’s 21-year-old son dies in the blast. While Cole has no plausible motive for killing his beloved son, he becomes the prime suspect in the crime. The brutal violence and lack of psychological depth limit this one’s appeal. (May)

Lewis’s gripping fourth novel (after Theme Song for an Old Show) traces one man’s heroic but flawed attempt to make good of past mistakes. In the summer town of Clement Cove, Maine, billionaire Adam Bloch, now in his 50s, returns to build an outsized mansion with his new wife, Maisie Maclaren, a prominent local family’s divorced daughter. Bloch still smolders from the shame of having been involved decades ago in the car accident that killed Maisie’s sister, Sascha—an event not forgotten or quite forgiven by the locals, among whom is the narrator, an interested observer. While Bloch adores Maisie and hopes his new marriage will provide “the antidote to tragedy,” Maisie’s feelings for Bloch seem lukewarm, and her desire for a pool at the mansion pits them against longtime resident Verna Hubbard, who doesn’t want to sell her adjoining spit of land and trailer to Bloch. Lewis juxtaposes the opinions of the locals at the general store as a kind of Greek chorus while the struggle between rich and poor plays out. The narrative is tense, and Lewis’s well-meaning, blinkered hero is a marvelous creation. (May)

This seemingly endless road trip novel has the potential to become a thrill ride, but it makes too many wrong turns and never gets above low gear. After receiving a kidney transplant, 28-year-old Leigh Fielding notices some strange developments: sudden interests in, for instance, graphic novels, kayaking and ethnic food. Convinced she’s channeling the spirit of her donor, Larry Resnick, Leigh decides to go on an “Unfinished Business Tour,” visiting her best friend, an ex-boyfriend and her mother, and tracking down Larry’s family. The notion of Leigh inheriting Larry’s traits and tastes is explored amusingly and a few surprises pop up (a supposedly stranded teenage girl among them), but Riley puts too much stock in Leigh’s voice, which, while sometimes funny, is too self-involved to leave much room for the reader. This particular trip is too long and exhausting for its own good. (May)

In this addictively readable futuristic Christian dystopia, Brouwer (The Last Disciple) takes readers inside a state run by literalistic, controlling fundamentalists. There, reading is a serious crime; citizens are drugged into submission; and those who break rules are either sent to slave labor factories or stoned to death. Occasionally, a few brave souls try to escape to “Outside.” At the center of this novel is Caitlyn, a disfigured but graceful and brave young woman whose father essentially orders her to make a run for it. For reasons not revealed (even to Caitlyn) until the very end, she is chased by a variety of people who want her dead or alive. While trying to escape, Caitlin meets up with two traveling companions who have their own reasons for fleeing, and she is aided by a sort of underground railroad. Its leaders believe the fundamentalist government has distorted true Christianity, so they risk everything to help people get Outside to freedom. The terrific pacing is surpassed only by the character development; the many supporting characters are extremely well-drawn. Brouwer adds even more suspense by regularly revealing that some of these characters are not who they appear to be. (May)

British journalist Blundy’s brilliant thriller provides sharp insights into the new Russia vs. the old Soviet Union. Sixteen years after reporter Faith Zanetti left Russia, she returns to Moscow as a correspondent for a London newspaper only to be charged with a double murder her shady estranged husband, Dimitri Sakhnov, confessed to committing back in 1989. Faith learns Dimitri has recanted, fingering her as the killer. But when Faith visits the psychiatric prison where Dimitri is incarcerated, she discovers “Dimitri” is actually Adrian Smith, an old American friend gone Russian whom Dimitri has framed. While Adrian, who soon dies under suspicious circumstances, tells Faith Dimitri is dead, Faith suspects otherwise, and with the help of her boyfriend, a New Yorker staff writer on assignment in Russia, she gets on Dimitri’s trail. This bracing portrait of an alcoholic, chain-smoking career woman struggling to recover her balance will leave American readers eager for more of Faith Zanetti’s adventures. (May)

Reardon’s stirring novel grapples with homosexuality and born-again Christianity. When Taylor Adams comes out, his parents ship him off to Straight to God, a camp for those who have gone astray. The nightmarish camp seeks to exorcise the satanic influence from its charges, some of whom are gay, and some of whom are petty criminals or drug addicts. The camp’s strict guidelines include no speaking for newbies (who wear yellow stickers on their clothing), the writing of Moral Inventories to be shared with group leaders, and prayer meetings. Taylor is furious about his incarceration, but through his intellect and open nature, he discovers leadership qualities in himself and learns that not everyone is the religious automaton they appear to be. Reardon’s first novel (A Secret Edge) was geared to young adults; this new book, which includes frank language and sexual encounters, tries to reach out to older readers, albeit sometimes awkwardly (the explanation of text message–like acronyms, for instance, is clunky). While the extremes of the evangelical movement are harshly depicted, Reardon does a decent job overall of staying off a soapbox. The result is thoughtful and convincing. (May)

Hardcore Ian Fleming fans and Cold War historians will best appreciate the initial installment of Miss Moneypenny’s diaries, “edited” by Kate Westbrook (the pseudonym of British author Samantha Weinberg), the niece of the iconic James Bond supporting character, who was introduced in the first Bond book, Casino Royale. Covering the year 1962, the diary entries center on personal issues important to “Jane Vivien” (for the first time readers learn Moneypenny’s full name), like her search for information about her father’s mysterious disappearance in 1940. The Cuban missile crisis eventually looms large in a narrative slowed by copious footnotes. James Bond, still in mourning for his bride, Tracy, who died in a tragic car accident, acts surprisingly wimpy, except during a Cuban adventure when some much needed heat between Moneypenny and 007 is briefly generated. Two more volumes, hopefully more thrilling, will follow from the woman many revere as the first Bond girl. (May)

Coleman (1890–1960) was a black woman born in Mexico and raised in the American Southwest. Her connection to the Harlem Renaissance is mostly temporal, but that doesn’t detract from this book’s appeal. The 21 short stories it gathers, arranged chronologically, grow more somber and complex over time. “Rich Man, Poor Man—” features a white rancher’s daughter falling for a black chauffeur: it’s typical of the early group (published 1919–1922) in its domestic plot, happy ending and tangential treatment of race. The tenor shifts in the 10 stories of 1926–1933: the women are fallen or falling; secrets (a slave past, passing) tumble out; an antiblack riot erupts at the center of “The Brat.” Things get very ominous in “Cross Crossings Cautiously,” when a five-year-old white girl asks a black man to the circus, and off they go. Coleman’s perspective extends and challenges conventional notions about the settings, characters and themes of early 20th-century African-American fiction. Her work is entertaining for the general reader and historically significant for the scholar. (May)

Hera, Athena and Venus, deciding that they’ve had enough of the Trojan War, summon Kat and Jackie, coeds from the University of Tulsa, to go back in time and make the two great warriors of the Greek army—Achilles and his cousin Patroklos—fall in love with them, cease fighting and end the war. While things go smoothly for Patroklos and Jackie, Kat has a more difficult time with rageful Achilles, destined to die at the walls of Troy after he kills Hector, the prince. Kat must also contend with Greek king Agamemnon, who hates Achilles and wants the glory of the Trojan conquest, no matter what the cost to others. Cast (Goddess of Love) keeps the loosely divine proceedings frothy, fun (“By Hermes’s flamingly gay buttocks, she is absolutely perfect,” exclaims Venus of Kat) and far outside the usual range of mythology. (May)

Medieval Spain’s caste system can’t keep a good man down in this absorbing epic, a Spanish-language bestseller. Arnau Estanyol, son of a fugitive peasant, starts out in 14th-century Barcelona as a lowly porter who carries stone blocks to a cathedral construction site and ends up a rich moneylender who saves the city from pillaging and frees the serfs of a barony he acquires by marriage. Alas, his dizzying social assent and defiance of the feudal order provoke enraged aristocrats—his status-obsessed wife included—into siccing the Inquisition on him. Arnau is a kindhearted, somewhat passive figure who combines piety, industry and cosmopolitanism to challenge a corrupt, dogmatic church and a parasitic nobility. The plot features thwarted romance, war, plague, immolations and self-immolations, set in a Machiavellian world ruled by privilege, cronyism and brute force. The melodrama is sometimes laid on thick, but Falcones’s rich portrait of medieval society is fascinating. (Apr.)

Correction: In the March 10 review of Dorothy Hearst’s Promise of the Wolves, the author’s name was incorrect in the body of the review.

At the start of Anthony-winner Spencer-Fleming’s solid sixth mystery to feature Clare Fergusson, an Episcopal priest, and Russ Van Alstyne, her police chief admirer, Clare and Russ are still trying to recover from the death of Russ’s wife, Linda, in All Mortal Flesh (2006). Clare and Russ do their best to steer clear of each other in the small town of Millers Kill, N.Y., but when a van carrying Mexican migrant workers en route to jobs at local farms is ambushed, the pair find themselves caught up in an investigation of drug smuggling and gang turf wars. After a number of Latino corpses turn up, Clare and Russ begin to question whether trouble followed the migrant workers or if it’s the work of someone closer to home. While the plot takes some implausible turns, Clare and Russ’s complex romantic dance is as compelling as ever. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment in this notable regional series. (June)

This bracingly original mystery from the pseudonymous Wolfe opens with the grisly slaying of an elderly cancer sufferer in Port Dundas, a remote Ontario town that has gone years without a homicide. The murder hits at a particularly tough time for 61-year-old Det. Insp. Hazel Micallef, who’s struggling to come to terms with a surprise divorce and battles daily with her acerbic 87-year-old mother. A serious staff shortage and an injured back add to the department commander’s woes. A second, even more disturbing killing raises the ante for Micallef, who’s already doubtful she can solve the first case. As Micallef marshals her forces, Wolfe fans the already high suspense by cutting between them and their elusive quarry. With the body count climbing, the detective puts herself increasingly at risk in a desperate attempt to foil the grand, demented plan that the killer regards as a mission. Billed as “a prominent North American literary novelist,” Wolfe convincingly lays claim to a new mantle as a first-rate crime writer. (May)

In Siegel’s straightforward sixth novel to feature San Francisco defense attorney Mike Daley (after 2004’s The Confession), Nate Fineman, an attorney on San Quentin’s death row, enlists Daley and his law partner, Rosie Fernandez, who happens to be Daley’s ex-wife, in a desperate effort to gain a stay of execution. Fineman, who’s scheduled for lethal injection in less than nine days, was convicted 10 years earlier after being found in a Chinatown alley clutching the gun used to murder two drug dealers and a lawyer who’d been meeting in a nearby restaurant. The defendant had been on the SFPD’s persona non grata list since he’d managed to get charges dismissed against yet another local narcotics trafficker. Daley pursues the theory that his new client was framed by the boys in blue, despite the complicating factor that Daley’s own father was one of the policemen responding to the triple homicide. The courtroom action builds to a predictable resolution sure to please Perry Mason fans. (May)

In the disturbing second tale of revenge to feature tormented and twisted Justine Dalvik from Swedish author Frimansson (after Good Night My Darling), Justine is still battling demons, both real and imagined, while living in her family home in Hässelby. The tall, forbidding manse was the last place married, mother-of-two Berit Assarson was seen alive. Seven years have passed since Berit’s disappearance, and her husband, Tor, and her best friend, Jill Kylén, are trying to move on with their lives. Both harbor lingering, foggy suspicions about Justine, just like young Micke, whose father, Nathan, vanished while traveling with Justine. In spare prose, Frimansson skillfully weaves themes of darkness and light, guilt and innocence, life and death. Not for the faint of heart, this bleak mystery will linger in readers’ minds long after the last page is turned. (May)

A wicked sense of humor lifts Gordon’s seventh Fools’ Guild mystery (after 2007’s The Lark’s Lament). The Fools’ Guild, under threat by those in the church who oppose the organization, hopes to manipulate events so that one of its own can replace the bishop of Toulouse. Soon after Theophilos, one of the guild’s most trusted agents, and his family arrive in Toulouse in 1204 on this delicate but vital mission, the body of local moneylender Milon Borsella turns up in a tanner’s pit, the day after Borsella argued violently with Bishop Raimon de Rabastens, the man Theophilos is plotting against. When another murder occurs, Jordan, a local fool, is arrested. Convinced that the crimes are connected to his mission in Toulouse, Theophilos and his capable, independent wife, Claudia, follow the clues to a logical and satisfying conclusion. Fans of Sharon Kay Penman’s Justin de Quincy series will enjoy Gordon’s blend of action, detection and convincing historical detail. (May)

Free-spirited independent insurance adjuster Fifi Cutter is back in the saddle in Freeman’s entertaining follow-up to 2007’s Murder... Suicide... Whatever. A private charter jet carrying two Singaporean businessmen crashes after taking off from Van Nuys, Calif., when Jim Farnswell, a mentally unstable ex-airline employee, shoots the pilot. Parts of the fuselage land on a Winnebago, killing its occupant, Earl Dean Rayburn. In the subsequent lawsuit against the airline, Fifi’s friend Victoria Jane “VJ” Smith represents Rayburn’s wife, and Chinatown lawyer Reg Wong represents the families of the businessmen. Reg hires Fifi as a document clerk to help with trial preparation, but shenanigans involving a missing tape and Farnswell’s past lead Fifi into some very tight spots. To complicate matters, Fifi finds herself falling for Daniel Boatwright, a cute single lawyer on the wrong side of the case. At times, insurance claim details slow the plot, but outrageous humor, sharp courtroom details and biracial Fifi’s struggles with her extended family more than compensate. Author tour. (May)

Akunin, best known for his Erast Fandorin series (Special Assignments, etc.), has created another memorable sleuth in Sister Pelagia, a 19th-century Russian nun whose insights into human nature and curiosity will remind many of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown. In this excellent second installment (after 2007’s Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog), Pelagia’s superior, Bishop Mitrofanii of Zavolzshsk, dispatches a series of emissaries to investigate the horrifying apparition of a black monk that’s haunting the monastery of New Ararat on the shores of the Blue Lake, a locale as creepy as the moors of The Hound of the Baskervilles. When all end up victims of the ghostly figure, Pelagia defies the bishop and travels to the remote community to pursue the case. Readers will savor Akunin’s distinctive narrative voice as well as the artful blend of humor and horror with such elements of traditional detective fiction as cleverly concealed clues and numerous false solutions. (May)

This thought-provoking mystery from the pseudonymous Robb, whose first novel, The Widow’s Son, was published under his real name, Bruce Steinberg, examines a racially motivated hate crime with a terrifying twist. Hidden under a table, eight-year-old Richard Hill witnesses 18-year-old Henry Clayton, who sports a swastika tattoo, rape Richard’s white mother, then murder her and his black father at his parents’ home in Red River Falls (evidently located near Chicago). Sixteen years after Henry is convicted, new DNA evidence gains him a governor’s pardon and release from prison. Now a Red River Falls police patrol officer, Richard suspects the new evidence is bogus. When the murder of an elderly gay man points to an old white power buddy of Henry’s as the culprit, Richard and his white squad partner suspect Henry’s connected. Proving that connection is another matter and a testimony to friendship and faith under fire. Robb depicts Henry’s terror campaign and Richard’s hunger for justice with steely eloquence. (May)

The final segment of the Annals of the Chosen trilogy (after 2007’s The Ninth Talisman) successfully mixes intrigue and adventure with ruminations on the nature of power and heroes. The Council of Immortals made the Chosen responsible for removing the ruling Wizard Lord if he should ever stray from just governance of Barokan, but the current Wizard Lord, Artil im Salthir, has killed or run off most of the Chosen, leaving Sword, the Chosen Swordsman, alone to plot his revenge. After a lonely winter hiding out in the Wizard Lord’s Summer Palace, investigating the big flightless birds called ara and their natural ability to inhibit magic, Sword prepares to strike, with help from the local spirits and an unlikely alliance with one of the Wizard Lord’s own henchmen. Readers who appreciate thoughtfully drawn characters and settings will enjoy this story of justice and revenge in an ever-evolving world. (June)

Picking up shortly after the devastating battle between humans and fey atop the Brooklyn Bridge in 2007’s Burning Bridges, Gilman’s compelling fifth foray into the fantastic netherworld of modern-day Manhattan takes an even darker turn. Most of the surviving members of the Cosa Nostradamus, an informal collective of demon Fatae and magic-using human Talents, have retreated into hiding, while the Silence, a violently anti-fey covert organization, has regrouped under the leadership of a dangerous fanatic. When Wren Valere, a professional thief and Talent, takes on a simple smash-and-grab job that turns out to be a setup, she swears to stop the Silence and their fey-hunting vigilantes once and for all. With streamlined prose, Gilman deftly weaves intricate plot threads and complex relationships into an almost painful buildup of violent suspense. The result is an intelligent and utterly gripping fantasy thriller, by far the best of the Retrievers series to date. (May)

Australian anthologist Strahan’s second annual “best of” collection is too small to hold all the great speculative stories of 2007, but it provides an excellent sampler, focusing on the recent trend of interstitiality. Kelly Link’s “The Constable of Abal,” which revolves around an unscrupulous fortuneteller and her daughter’s search for home, is equal parts fantasy, coming-of-age tale and unconventional ghost story. Ken MacLeod’s “Jesus Christ, Reanimator,” about the inglorious Second Coming of a blogging messiah from outer space, wraps social commentary in sardonic science fiction. Holly Black’s poignant “The Coat of Stars” blends together elements of folklore and urban grit to create an unlikely and deeply moving story about love and loss. If these 24 stories are any indication, SF and fantasy are continuing their evolution—or “dissolution,” as Strahan calls it—just as they always have: through innovative writers re-examining conventions and redefining boundaries. (May)

This intense sequel to 2007’s The Electric Church is a strong techno-thriller, but it doesn’t quite match its predecessor in originality. Avery Cates is a killer-for-hire who sold his services to the shadowy System of Federated Nations and destroyed the Electric Church’s plans to turn people into cyborg Monks. Now mysterious assailants have infected Cates with a plague of nanobots that kills anyone he encounters and then reanimates the corpses. His condition draws the attention of the System authorities, who wonder why Cates himself has not fallen victim to the disease; they keep him alive in an effort to identify a cure. Amid sometimes flat scenes of gunfighting, betrayal and nanotech zombie uprisings, Cates’s noirish narrative voice stands out as the book’s real strength. Somers’s compelling writing separates this from similar works and offers hope that future volumes will come closer to the quality of the original. (May)

Poetry-loving, bon vivant dog detective Randolf returns (after A Dog About Town) for another installment of the Bull Moose Dog Run mysteries. Imogen—mistress of Randolf, heiress of a mining fortune and partner to artist Harry—has disappeared, upsetting Randolf and Harry alike. Det. Peter Davis informs Harry that Imogen has been implicated in the murder of a foreign diplomat, whose body is discovered at one of Manhattan’s last boarding houses in red heart–laden boxer shorts, with an open parachute on his back and pictures of a scantily clad Imogen by his side. To find out more, Labrador Randolf goes undercover at the U.N. as therapy dog to a diplomat with the blues and keeps Harry in the loop by various ingenious methods. Englert’s droll mix of mystery, philosophical musing about man and beast, political doings at the U.N. and the mysteries of love make this an elegant, funny and inspiring romp in the park. (May)

Brilliant and beautiful Jilly Lovitz goes to Japan ostensibly to study Japanese art and to visit her sister, Summer, and brother-in-law, Taka, who are mobbed up to the eyeballs. What she’s really there for is to reconnect with dashing tattoo-laden yakuza thug Reno, Taka’s cousin. Unfortunately, her arrival coincides with Russian mercenaries hunting for Summer and Taka. Bound by an attraction he cannot explain, as well as family honor, Reno goes to rescue Jilly from Russians looking for her sister, with a complex, countrywide chase resulting. Reno is charismatic and infuriating; Jilly manages to be both strong and vulnerable—and oddly believable as a 20-year-old California virgin genius. The plot moves at a breakneck pace, never letting up on the sexual or criminal tension. Stuart handles the action well and sprinkles Japanese custom and language vividly throughout. (May)

In this perfect confluence of stunning illustration and gripping narrative, Hernandez returns to his early Love & Rockets roots with aging punk-rocker Esperanza “Hopey” Glass taking the spotlight in this collection’s first half. “Day by Day with Hopey” chronicles a week in the feisty Latina’s life as she transitions from tending bar to teaching kindergarten while her low-rent personal life teems with girlfriends who come and go, her lifelong friend and sometime-lover Maggie the only constant. In terms of action or intrigue, not much happens, but Hernandez spins narrative gold from the mundane straw of his protagonist’s existence, as Hopey’s awkward romantic and social tribulations add more layers to her complex character. The second half features Ray Dominguez, Maggie’s long-ago boyfriend, now in his early 407s and still carrying a torch for her. Ray finds himself caught up in a pulp fiction maelstrom hinging on the fallout from a murder and his lust for the gorgeous but borderline-psychotic Vivian, an aspiring actress also known as “Frogmouth,” who has her own history with Maggie. Fraught with grimy intrigue that evokes a Chicano Mickey Spillane yarn, the second half of the book comes as an unexpected and pleasant surprise that rivets both old fans and newcomers to the page. (Apr.)

This epic tale of a troubled royal family is based on the history and mythology surrounding the ancient Korean kingdom of Goguryeo, which spanned the Korean peninsula and beyond in the first century B.C. It’s the story of King Yuri, a morose and dyspeptic monarch so oppressively dissatisfied with his own children that he forces his oldest son to commit suicide. One night the youngest son, Prince Yeojin, vanishes. His brother, Prince Muhyul, tracks him to the river and finds Yeojin was lured there by an unholy alliance of evil spirits in league with King Daeso of Buyeo, a rival state out to conquer Goguryeo. Confronted by Sagu, an evil spirit-servant to King Daeso, Muhyul also learns of a horrible curse looming over his entire family. Returning to the palace, Muhyul and his sister, Princess Seryu, must battle otherworldly demons and an enemy army, as well as endure the terrible rages of their own irascible father. Kimjin tells a lively (although sometimes confusing) and compelling tale of kings, ghosts and epic battles. While his art can be awkwardly rendered, it’s still dynamic and effectively depicts a classic saga full of drama and magic as well as the affectionate humor between Muhyul and his sister. (Mar.)

This one is for the fans of the original Princess Ai concept created by musician Courtney Love and DJ Milky. Rumors is a compilation of short stories by various manga-inspired creators—many of whom are winners in the various Tokyopop Rising Stars of Manga competitions. The book is double formatted with some stories reading from left-to-right, others right-to-left. Princess Ai’s original artist, Misaho Kujiradou, has a chapter as does Korean manhwa creator Mi-Kyung Kim (11th Cat). Other featured creators include T Campbell, Irene Flores, Erica Reis and Pauro Izaki who gives a boys’ love narrative. For the most part, Rumors is a vehicle to exhibit Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga—and keep Princess Ai on the shelves. (Fans, take note: the clothes/outfits are not as spectacular as in the original.) The stories in Rumors require familiarity with the story line and characters. Most focus on the romantic aspects of the original Princess Ai story and capitalize on the strip-club setting, where Ai got her first gig. Overall, contributors try to expand and develop supporting characters in Ai’s world, but the short, 20-page length impairs any substantial narrative. (Mar.)

In the aftermath of a massive civilian slaughter by America’s own troops, journalist Matty Roth desperately searches for answers and accountability in this hauntingly grim but surprisingly poignant war story. The five-issue collection, continuing to expand upon the intriguing premise of a demilitarized Manhattan resulting from the civil war between the U.S. Government and Free State rebels, showcases numerous conflicting accounts of the infamous “Day 204 Massacre.” The story is eerily astute in its portrayal of the fog of war, particularly the unavoidably deadly consequences of poorly planned operations in an urban combat theater. Despite Matty’s and the reader’s genuine desire for justice, or even just some answers, the conclusion is smartly complex and anticlimactic, and therefore heartbreakingly believable. The writing and artwork, by regular artist Burchielli and a variety of guests, is well paired, the gritty images bringing to life a dark, lonely yet claustrophobic cityscape, where a pointless death is only an exploding building or angry mob away. The book expertly explores the intricacies of death and responsibility in combat, and the tragic nature of people who are forced to turn on their own. (Mar.)

Adventurous publishers dig deep for forgotten texts.

First published in 1985 by a small press, this “realist” (read: not sci-fi) early novel from dystopian master Dick (1928–1982) bears the following introductory author’s note: “This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too, in that the funny things that happen happen to real people who come alive. The ending is a happy one. What more can an author say? What more can he give?” To which one answers “indeed,” and quickly turns to the adventures of protagonist Bruce Stevens as he drives into the Pacific Northwest—the sales territory of a Willy Lomanesque man named Milton Lumky—looking for wholesale typewriters. (May)

The prolific Verne (1828–1905), renowned in his day and through to ours, left at least 11 unpublished works at his death, each of which, according to the introduction by Olivier Dumas, was significantly rewritten by Verne’s nephew, Michel Verne. This is the first English translation from Verne’s original manuscript. Dumas, president of the Jules Verne Society in France, says the novel, set in the 18th-century Klondike, “can be summed up in a single phrase: 'Death and misery in the Far North.’ ” It’s spiked with “gold fever” and an insatiable lust for difficult travel that should make today’s Lonely Planeteers take notice. (May)

Fearsome 20th-century literary critic Trilling (1905–1975) published a single novel, The Middle of the Journey, in 1947. This unfinished work was unearthed among his papers by City College professor Murphy, along with Trilling’s own preface and commentary on the work as it stands: 24 short chapters comprising a little more than half of the present book. The novel is based on the late-life of poet Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864), who got into some unpleasant business surrounding his Bath landlady and her 16-year-old ward. Trilling details the true-life incident in his preface, then moves his own story to 1930s New England. It’s as interesting to read his extensive commentary on the unfinished work as it is the piece itself. (June)

A scathing 1978 New York Times review by Anatole Broyard was enough, according to Fairy Tale Review editor Kate Bernheimer, to knock this second novel by 2001 Pulitzer finalist (for The Quick and the Dead) and 1974 NBA finalist (for State of Grace) Williams quickly out of print. This 30th anniversary edition aims to redress the book’s poor initial reception. A preface by Rick Moody prepares readers for a folklore-tinged look at “the lucky and unlucky fortunes of a drink afflicted young woman called Pearl.” The book casts its spell immediately, opening on a “not so bad” bar where Pearl sits drinking gin and tonics, “an infant in the crook of her right arm.” (Apr.)

Afrikaner Bosman (1905–1951) killed his stepbrother in 1926 and was sentenced to death, but was released in 1930 and soon began traveling. This, his first book of three published during his lifetime, was written in English and published in 1947, and it is now a classic of South African literature. The pacing and perspective of Bosman’s tales—framed “as told by” the perfectly named character Oom Schalk Laurens—are unlike anything else in English. As these 21 fable-like stories of hard luck on the veld unfold, a captivating picture of an intimate, then vanishing (and now vanished) world unfolds. The closest comparison may be Robert Frost poems or Bob Dylan songs. (June)

Renaissance Florence’s artistic zenith and Mughal India’s cultural summit—reached the following century, at Emperor Akbar’s court in Sikri—are the twin beacons of Rushdie’s ingenious latest, a dense but sparkling return to form. The connecting link between the two cities and epochs is the magically beautiful “hidden princess,” Qara Köz, so gorgeous that her uncovered face makes battle-hardened warriors drop to their knees. Her story underlies the book’s circuitous journey.

A mysterious yellow-haired man in a multicolored coat steps off a rented bullock cart and walks into 16th-century Sikri: he speaks excellent Persian, has a stock of conjurer’s tricks and claims to be Akbar’s uncle. He carries with him a letter from Queen Elizabeth I, which he translates for Akbar with vast incorrectness. But it is the story of Akbar’s great-aunt, Qara Köz, that the man (her putative son) has come to the court to tell. The tale dates to the time of Akbar’s grandfather, Babar (Qara Köz’s brother), and it involves her relationship with the Persian Shah. In the Shah’s employ is Janissary general Nino Argalia, an Italian convert to Islam, whose own story takes the narrative to Renaissance Florence.

Rushdie eventually presents an extended portrait of Florence through the eyes of Niccolò Machiavelli and Ago Vespucci, cousin of the more famous Amerigo. Rushdie’s portrayal of Florence pales in comparison with his depiction of Mughal court society, but it brings Rushdie to his real fascination here: the multitudinous, capillary connections between East and West, a secret history of interchanges that’s disguised by standard histories in which West “discovers” East.

Along the novel’s roundabout way, Qara Köz does seem more alive as a sexual obsession in the tales swapped by various men than as her own person. Genial Akbar, however, emerges as the most fascinating character in the book. Chuang Tzu tells of a man who dreams of being a butterfly and, on waking up, wonders whether he is now a butterfly dreaming he is a man. In Rushdie’s version of the West and East, the two cultures take on a similar blended polarity in Akbar as he listens to the tales. Each culture becomes the dream of the other. (June)