Fiction Reviews

Former British Vogue editor Picardie (My Mother's Wedding Dress) gives us a fictional life of Rebecca novelist Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) that founders in obsession. In the late 1950s, du Maurier, determined to establish herself as a serious writer, researched and wrote a biography of Branwell Brontë, the often-overlooked real-life brother of sisters Emily and Charlotte. Flash forward to the present, in which a nameless graduate student seeks out lost secrets about the relationship between du Maurier and John Alexander Symington, the Brontë expert and curator to whom du Maurier dedicated her eventual Brontë book. Picardie's novel quickly becomes a tangle of redundancies, as the student, in one plot line, grows increasingly obsessed with du Maurier and loses touch with reality. Meanwhile, in another thread, du Maurier and Symington both flirt with madness in their separate Branwell quests. Du Maurier's fictional characters, especially Rebecca, haunt the story unproductively, as do the Brontës, Brontë protagonists, and Barrie's Peter Pan and the Lost Boys (who were inspired by du Maurier's cousins). Picardie does best with Symington, whose career ended in scandal: she portrays his dissolution coldly, letting observations rip in a way she never quite manages with the fictive Daphne. (Aug.)

In her stunning short story debut, Krasikov hones in on the subtleties of hope and despair that writhe in the hearts of her protagonists, largely Russian and Georgian immigrants who have settled on the East Coast. In “Better Half,” 22-year-old Anya gets a protection order against her husband, Ryan, after he attacks her; he pleads for forgiveness, but, Anya realizes, “a future with Ryan would be like staying in Russia.” In “The Repatriates” a man returns to Moscow—to his wife's disappointment—intent on applying to the Russian stock market some tricks he picked up on Wall Street. In “Maia in Yonkers,” a Georgian immigrant is visited by her son, and the tensions are fierce and palpable. In “The Alternate,” Victor meets the Americanized daughter of an old love from Russia. Though many of Krasikov's stories are bleak, there are swells of promise; even Lera, whose husband leaves her for another woman, “suddenly felt nothing but the most pure-hearted compassion for him, a kindness and forgiveness that almost broke her heart.” Krasikov's prose is precise, and her stories are intelligent, complex and passionate. (Aug.)

No one does coastal melodrama like veteran Siddons (Homeplace). Lilly Constable McCall, 53, has led an enviable life—marriage and children with a successful architect, her own success as a sculptor—but husband Cam's death sends her spiraling. She returns to the coastal family cottage in Edgewater, Maine, where she spent her childhood, and where Cam died. There, she recalls the summer of 1962, and the arrival in town of new girl Peaches Davenport, who envies all Lilly has. That includes the attentions of attractive older boy Jon Lowell, who awakens grown-up feelings in Lilly's 11-year-old heart. But it's Lilly's place as the daughter of a Washington, D.C., professor and the “sporadically successful” painter and activist Elizabeth Constable—that makes Lilly's childhood most attractive to Peaches, and to readers. Jon may have shared her first kiss, and Cam her home and children, but it's the changing relationship between Lilly and the elusive, enigmatic Elizabeth that makes this story fresh. (Aug.)

Roberts sets her underwhelming latest in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where former child star Cilla McGowan rehabs her famous grandmother's long-neglected farm. Cilla's movie-star grandmother, the Marilyn Monroe–like Janet Hardy, who died mysteriously on the farm at age 39, haunts Cilla as she transforms the former hideaway of the rich and famous into habitable living space and tries to resolve whether Janet committed suicide or was murdered. While cleaning out the attic, Cilla unearths a collection of unsigned love letters to Janet from a local suitor, which adds spice to the puzzle of Janet's death. Meanwhile, Cilla's hunky graphic novelist neighbor, Ford Sawyer, provides the requisite sizzle and encourages Cilla to follow her dream of becoming a top-notch building contractor—much to the dismay of Cilla's headline-hungry diva mother. Amid the demolition and sheet rocking, Cilla comes up against a disgruntled local, and a series of unnerving threats and occurrences (vandalism, torched Cilla dolls) almost unhinges Cilla. The terror tactics (and the revelation of who is behind them) are half-baked and distract from what's ostensibly a girl meets boy, boy wants girl, girl finally wants boy story. (July)

A Jacqueline Susann–style thriller by way of Candace Bushnell, Salem's scorching debut follows three young women on a wild Hamptons summer of reinventing themselves. Unhappy with fireman hubby Justin (whom she married in the aftermath of 9/11), “fashionista feminist” and political media pundit Liza Pike, 29, is harvesting her eggs for future momhood and considering divorce. Former actress Kellyanne Downey is the depressed mistress of wealthy, possessive businessman Walter Isherwood, while indie rock chick Billie Shelton finds herself on a downhill slide: “I can't. I'm all fucked out. Reschedule.” A prologue foretells that “a grisly murder, a premature birth, and a public meltdown,” will be the eventual fate for the three at the posh Hampton summer rental they're sharing, and Salem doesn't disappoint. Her poolside read throbs with intensity, spiked with erotic detail (“eight thousand nerve endings in the clitoris, and this son of a bitch couldn't find any of them”) and disturbing aftershocks. (July)

As Shearns's accomplished and sophisticated debut opens, “hugely pregnant” Susannah Prue hides out deep in the desolate Texas-New Mexico border area desert, at the ramshackle Thunder Lodge motor inn. There she meets a variety of misfits, including the owners' mentally disabled teenage son and another guest's sexually confused niece, who become an essential if dysfunctional adoptive family to desperate, on-the-lam Susannah. Passive and oft-disappointed, Susannah made a fateful choice in deciding to serve as a surrogate mother to the wealthy but infertile Forsythes, Kit and Julian. The relationships among the three, we eventually learn, spiraled into tragedy, but the birth is imminent. Shearn's narration is fluid, shifting seamlessly among perspectives and time frames. The Forsythes verge on hard-edged rich-person caricature, but the rest of the cast is fully and compassionately realized, making for an affecting portrayal of the lengths people travel for love and companionship. (July)

Lott picks up the themes that dominated his 1999 Oprah Book Club Selection, Jewel, in this multigenerational saga. In 1927, 14-year-old Earl Holmes runs away from his unhappy home in Hawkins, Tex., for Hollywood to become a movie star. But poor bumpkin Earl has better luck in marrying big band singer Saralee Kennedy than he ever does building his acting résumé. Earl and Saralee's only child, Joan, grows up to resent her father's dogged pursuit of a practically nonexistent film career at the expense of his family's happiness. She has plenty of her own residual problems by the time she has her son, Brad, who joins the navy and returns in 1980 to live with his grandparents, Earl and Saralee, in L.A. Estranged from Joan, Brad takes it upon himself to heal the family's rifts. The colorful off-camera anecdotes of filmmaking are gems, particularly how Earl lands a bit role in a forgettable Three Stooges skit. This chronicle of the Holmes family is sluggish in spots, but Lott's handling of characters and domestic conflicts picks up for readers who stick through the first act. (July)

In Richards's latest stand-alone Shenandoah Album saga, childless Kendra Taylor and husband Isaac accept an offer from Kendra's younger sister—single mom Jamie—to conceive and carry a child for them. The sisters have recently inherited money from their father, so it's no hassle for architect-in-training Jamie, who is not quite 30, to come with her daughters, Alison and Hannah, to live in nearby Toms Brook, Va. Pregnant Jamie can be on-site while the house that Jamie designs for Kendra and Isaac is built—on Isaac's family property in the Shenandoah River Valley—by the extraordinarily handsome Cash Rosslyn. For her part, Kendra keeps tabs on Jamie, whose misspent youth had previously estranged the sisters, as Jamie carries Kendra's family's future. Cash's grandmother Grace, meanwhile, has plans for Cash and Jamie, and Grace's love of quilting, and especially her own touching love story from another era, draws these women of different generations together. Richards should've included a special pull-out hanky insert, but readers looking for positive resolutions won't be disappointed. (July)

Oates revisits in fantastic fashion the JonBenet Ramsay murder, replacing the famous family with the Rampikes—father Bix, a bully and compulsive philanderer; mother Betsey, obsessed with making her daughter, Bliss, into a prize-winning figure skater; and son Skyler, the narrator of this tale of ambition, greed and tragedy. Skyler's voice—leaden with grief and guilt—is sometimes that of the nine-year-old he was when his sister was killed, and sometimes the teen he is now, 10 years later, when a letter from his dying mother “solves” the mystery of Bliss's death. The emotionally wrecked Rampike children are collateral damage in a vicious marital battle; Sky is shunted aside, while Bliss is ruthlessly manipulated. Stylistic tricks (direct-address footnotes chief among them) lighten Oates's razor-sharp satire of a privileged enclave where social-climbing neighbors dwell in gargantuan houses; as Oates's readers will expect, the novel is long, propelled at breakneck speed and apt to indulge in verbal excess (as in the 55-page novella within the novel). Oates's psychological acuity, however, ranks this novel as one of the best from a dark observer of our lives and times. (June)

The U.S. president becomes a murder suspect in this over-the-top political thriller from bestseller Margolin (Proof Positive). Young Oregon attorney Brad Miller stumbles on wrongdoing in high places while engaged in a routine pro bono case—the filing of an appeal for convicted serial killer Clarence Little. When Miller visits his client in jail, Little insists he's innocent of one murder, that of Laurie Erickson, a babysitter then in the employ of Oregon governor Christopher Farrington, who's since moved on to the White House. Miller finds evidence that someone killed Erickson to cover up her relationship with Farrington. Meanwhile, on the East Coast, PI Dana Cutler suspects that the latest victim of a serial killer known as the D.C. Ripper was also one of Farrington's mistresses. Some readers may wonder why someone trying to protect the president would dispose of his mistresses in a manner sure to attract plenty of attention. (June)

The Devil Wears Prada author Weisberger delivers a hilarious, silly and entirely predictable chick lit romp. Book editor Leigh, chef Emmy and wealthy Adriana make a pact to change their disappointing lives within a year. Emmy vows to find the father of her future babies, and Latin temptress Adriana decides to settle on just one of her rich suitors. But Leigh is uncertain about what changes to make; she's lived in the shadow of her legendary literary father and accomplished boyfriend so long, Leigh barely recognizes what makes her happy. The protective wrapping dissolves when she gets the nod to edit bestselling, married author Jesse Chapman—and ends up polishing more than his prose. Emmy—after a year of trying to bed a man from every continent—might discover Mr. Right when he's least expected. As for the relentlessly slothful Adriana, she deflects engagement, but manages to snag something more important. Bookish Leigh defends chick lit as having “sensible structure and coherent language” in a package that's “witty, clever and fun to read.” Weisberger is, of course, also talking about this book, and her assessment is right-on. (June)

Set in St. Petersburg in 1868, Morris's superb second novel to feature Porfiry Petrovich (after The Gentle Axe) puts the detective borrowed from Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment on the trail of a series of vile murders. When the wife and son of a doctor die after consuming a box of chocolates at their dacha, the obvious suspect is the morphine-addicted doctor. Then a shooting and a stabbing lead Petrovich elsewhere—to an elegant confectioner's full of pastries and possible revolutionaries as well as to the city's underworld. As Petrovich breaks in a new detective, the aptly named Pavel Virginsky, he introduces colleague and reader alike to the Russian capital and to the ills of the entire society. Morris captures this world with expert strokes, never content to merely peddle exotica, but making sure that his characters spring convincingly from their setting. While the person behind the crimes is a little unlikely, this novel stands out from a number of fine czarist-era mysteries—by Russians and foreigners alike—like a Fabergé egg at a yard sale. (June)

Lovers of stylish literary fiction will rejoice at this charming tale by Angolan writer Agualusa. The elegantly translated story is narrated by a house gecko named Eulálio, who in brief, vignette-like chapters, reminisces on his life (and past life) and observes the home of Félix Ventura, an albino Angolan who makes his living selling fabricated aristocratic pasts to newly successful citizens of the war-torn former Portuguese colony. Photojournalist José Buchmann pushes Félix's occupation into harsh reality when José looks into the past Félix has created for him, and the story shudders to a climax when Félix's allegedly fictitious history collides with reality. Eulálio is a lovable narrator, alternately sardonic and wistful; his dreams are filled with regret and powerlessness. Félix is an equally sympathetic subject, complicated by his loneliness, his fondness for prostitutes, his insistence on the honor of his trade despite its scalawag nature, and a late-blooming sweet love story. The novel's themes of identity, truth and happiness are nicely handled and span both the political and the personal. It's very touching, in a refined way. (June)

Bestseller Perry (Silence) explores the psychology of identity through his characters' hidden lives in this solid crime thriller. After L.A. PI Phil Kramer is shot dead as he's getting into his car one night on a quiet street, his wife, Emily, and his staff set out to find whodunit and why. As they dig, Emily discovers Phil had many secrets. Meanwhile, Jerry Hobart, the hired gun, is ordered to kill Emily. Suspicious of his client's motives, Jerry starts investigating his client, who, the reader learns, is Ted Forrest, a wealthy playboy with a secret life. Perry initially shifts between Emily and Jerry's points-of-view as each probes different aspects of the same crime to zero in on Ted's motives. As Ted starts dominating the narrative, the pacing, usually one of Perry's strongest suits, slows, weighed down with too many characters and subplots. Still, Perry intrigues as always with spare, intelligent prose. (June)

Butler moves from death monologues (Severance) to little death monologues in this provocative collection of brief pieces that imagine what goes on in the minds of copulating couples. Many of the voices represent legendary romances, such as that of Napoleon and Josephine (she fantasizes about her lover the hussar while he resolves to shoot her annoying dog); William Shakespeare and the earl of Southampton (“I am pen and I am ink and I am his words”); and Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker (“it don't take me more than about three seconds... to know she's the one”). Adam lies with Eve after naming all things in nature, and Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln bed uncompanionably. There's J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson (thinks Tolson: “little did they know the truth about this great and powerful man”), Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, Robert Olen Butler and a Saigon hotel clerk (CNN is “muted on the TV screen”), and George and Laura Bush (he is “the guy who can whip your ass”). Butler seals the deal with crystalline prose, a dark imagination and some moments of light camp. (June)

In Alexander's charming third novel of romantic suspense set in late Victorian England (after The Poisoned Season), Lady Emily Ashton is at a country house party when someone shoots her noxious host, Lord Basil Fortescue, with a dueling pistol. After the husband of a good friend is accused of the murder, Emily determines to find the real killer. The only clue, a threatening letter promising a political assassination, drives Emily to Vienna, where she meets the painter Gustav Klimt and shares stolen moments with her fiancé, diplomat Colin Hargreaves. But Emily never forgets her urgent mission—in the service of which she must match wits with double agents and anarchists as well as ally herself temporarily with Colin's former lover, the sexually sophisticated Kristiana von Lange. The appealing Emily at times comes across as too modern for even the most unconventional Victorian character, and the plot sags in mid-story despite several clever subplots. Still, the book's entertaining voice and accurate period detail will seduce most readers. (June)

Impetuous 14-year-old aspiring writer Julien Parme hasn't quite gotten over the death of his father from cancer five years earlier, and his latest bout of bad behavior has led to a grounding by his strict Protestant mother. That means skipping the Champs-Elysées birthday party of “hottie” senior Emilie Fermat, the actress-daughter of a TV producer. News of his mother's impending marriage, however (to live-in “jerk in a goatee and corduroy pants” François), propels Julien into the Paris night. He's in love, sort of, with his French teacher, Madame Thomas, who's very inspiring when teaching Jean de la Fontaine in sheer blouses, but he's also especially taken with Emilie's horse-loving younger sister, Mathilde. Rodarmor's translation makes Julien—who narrates—read like a sweetly knowing update of Holden Caulfield, complete with boarding school stint. Hilarious moments of bravery and deceit win the reader over utterly. (June)

This chillingly believable thriller from British author Seymour (Rat Run) charts the course of a shy young terrorist from Saudi Arabia, Ibrahim Hussein (known as a “walking dead” for the explosive vest he wears), as Hussein works his way closer and closer to detonating his bomb—in Luton, a town 30 miles north of London. Seymour shifts agilely between the terrorists, led by mastermind Muhammad Ajaq (known as the Scorpion), and those in the U.K. whose job it is to stop the oncoming carnage, in particular David Banks, a detective constable authorized to carry firearms. Much of the interest for readers will be trying to guess how the many characters, including assorted bystanders whose lives become enmeshed in the increasingly complex proceedings, will receive his or her moment on stage. Seymour handles all the elements like the professional he is as the twisting plot builds to a satisfying conclusion. (June)

Annie Powers leads the perfect life in Florida with her husband, Gray, and their four-year-old daughter in this stellar character-driven stand-alone from bestseller Unger (A Sliver of Truth). Less than a decade earlier, however, Annie was Ophelia March, the teenage captive—or accomplice—of spree killer Marlowe Geary. Gray, a partner in his father's private security consultant firm, tracked Marlowe and rescued Ophelia after sending the killer's car over a cliff. Reinventing herself with Gray's help, Annie can't remember all that happened during her years with Marlowe, and she's prone to panic attacks and blackouts. When a strange man appears on her property, Annie's sure Marlowe is back. As a shady police detective digs into her past, Annie must try to recover the memories she buried if she's ever going to be free from Marlowe. Unger expertly turns what could have been a routine serial-killer story into a haunting odyssey for Annie, dropping red herrings and clues along the way until the reader feels as unsettled as Annie. (June)

Even fans of bestseller Robinson's previous techno-thrillers featuring Adm. Arnold Morgan and his archenemy, SAS-major-turned-Hamas-general Ravi Rashood (Hunter Killer, etc.), may find this climax to their struggle a bit hard to swallow. After an attempted terrorist outrage at Boston's Logan Airport is foiled by chance, the captured bombers implicate Rashood in their scheme, leading the U.S. and Israel to redouble their efforts to eliminate him. While the Israelis manage to trace Rashood and his wife and partner-in-killing, Shakira, to a quiet block in Damascus, the hit on him fails when the professional squad somehow manages to detonate its explosive without verifying that the man entering the couple's house is, in fact, the quarry. Furious that Shakira was injured in the attack, Rashood devises a complicated plan to assassinate Morgan while the admiral is visiting London. Full of plot implausibilities, this entry makes a weak ending to this popular series. 5-city author tour. (June)

Brief, animist epiphanies—most shorter than a page—comprise Grandbois's folkloric debut. The frog of “Greener Pastures” dreams of becoming an architect like his father, and shapes his dung hills into replicas of churches. The blind cat in “The Teacher” decides on a career change, aided by an equally blind mouse. The growth on Aunt Mary's neck (“The Growth”) appeared “as random as the decay of an isotope in an old growth forest when no one is there to hear.” Absurdist and surreal, witty and ironical, Grandbois's observations make for pleasant grotesques: impressionistic idées fixes “like the heads of soldiers... large enough to block passages against intruders.” (June)

Defense attorney Yessayan's promising debut nicely juggles a large cast of attorneys and cops, though at times it comes close to sounding like a legal spinoff of the TV show Friends. Someone is killing young women in Boston, or at least young women are disappearing, leaving behind no trace except bathtubs full of blood. The police are pretty sure the victims must be dead, but no bodies have been found. The killer, who's identified for the reader as Richter, is doing something with the bodies that involves embalming, but it remains unclear what he's up to until the very end. Extended forays into race relations, the plight of the poor and questions of legal responsibility tend to slow the action. Hopefully, Yessayan, who doesn't stray beyond the conventional bounds of the legal thriller/serial killer subgenre, will strike out in his own direction next time. (June)

Sophia Morozova's relationship with fragile Anna Fedorina begins through a small act of kindness at a 1930s Siberian labor camp. As the two inmates struggle daily to survive, they increasingly rely on each other for hope and comfort; when Anna falls ill, Sophia escapes, intending to find Anna's lifelong love, Vasily, and rescue Anna. Beautiful and charismatic, Sophia quickly becomes a force to reckon with in the town of Tivil, where she hopes to find Vasily, and her connections with powerful gypsy Rafik, the handsome factory director Mikhail Pashin and the stern but unreadable Aleksei Fomenko become satisfying sources of danger and desire. Furnivall (The Russian Concubine) paints a stark picture of rampant scarcity, grim regimentation and blaring propaganda in pre-WWII Soviet Russia. In pushing the limits of Sophia and Anna's love and friendship, she nicely pits small lives against a monolithic state, paradoxically composed of watchful villages. (July)

At the start of this intense crime novel from Shamus-winner Judson (The Darkest Place), the brutal murder of two drug couriers on a Southampton, N.Y., bridge unleashes old demons for ex-boxer Jake Bechet, a former enforcer for the ruthless South American Castello family, and reclusive PI Tommy Miller, the son of a corrupt police chief. The organizations each one worked for coerce Bechet and Miller into locating the killers who threaten the lucrative status quo. The Castello family thrusts Bechet back into the life he left with implicit threats to the woman he loves. Miller faces similar pressure from the police chief who replaced his father. The two men race to extricate themselves and their loves from a situation which easily confuses allies, friends and enemies, and violence is the coin of the realm. Cold, rainy, foggy weather lends atmosphere to a gripping thriller perfect for a stormy night's entertainment. (June)

A second chance at love for 40-something Boston TV reporter Julie Mueller, a single mom to a teenaged daughter, means disrupting life living above her parents in suburban Watertown, Mass. Julie's mother, cancer-survivor Betty, regrets her disapproval of Julie's first love, Michael Slayton—or so Julie suspects. With Betty's prodding, she packs herself off to the cooking school dessert course of renowned French chef Renée D'Ours, and finds that Michael, freshly returned from Washington, D.C., with a divorce in hand, is also attending. Despite the stock setup, Strohmeyer pulls off a memorable menu of believable relationship courses, seasoned with angst and humor. (June)

In 1978, when in her early 20s, Iraqi journalist al-Qazwini was sent as a delegate to the Women's International Democratic Federation in East Berlin; as Saddam came to power, she was exiled and has remained in Germany ever since. Zubaida, the protagonist of her dirge-like novel, has similarly spent decades watching Baghdad from exile in Berlin, unable to return to Iraq and unable to grow accustomed to living in a city where she is alienated and alone. As the U.S. invades Iraq in March of 2003, the narrative moves uneasily between Zubaida's stagnant life in Germany and her vivid memories of her family in Iraq: her doting father and his factory; her proud grandmother's love for Iraq's fallen king; her lost younger brother, who disappeared in the front lines of the Iraq-Iran War. Zubaida mourns her loved ones in a stifled routine of drinking tea and watching the news, and her reclusive tendencies worsen as postinvasion Iraq deteriorates. Al-Qazwini's spare tone matches Zubaida's sense of hopelessness. While it never settles into a comfortable narrative rhythm, the book is a thought-provoking study about the other casualties of war—the displaced, who are robbed of a life all the same. (June)

In 1855, young Jeffrey and Todd Barfield are orphaned in West Texas when their parents are killed by Comanches: Todd is carried off as a Comanche captive; Jeffrey is rescued by a Texas posse. For the next seven years each boy survives by his wits, hard work and good fortune—and each thinks the other is dead. When the Civil War arrives, the boys wind up on opposite sides during the Confederate Texas invasion of Union-held New Mexico, where meeting might mean death. As usual, Kelton (Hard Trail to Follow) provides stirring action and gripping suspense. His portrayal of the chaotic and bloody Battle of Glorieta Pass in 1862 is thrilling, especially his chilling depiction of the murderous Union Major Chivington. This is vintage Kelton, a solid western story well-told. (June)

All the moral incongruities and conundrums that complicate the war on terror are on almost palpable display in this searing thriller from Harrington (Red Jungle), set largely in Mexico City. In this backwater in the war on terror, Dr. Collin Reeves has found a semicomfortable niche performing occasional chores for the CIA, acting as a “go to” doctor for the U.S. embassy when American tourists need medical attention, and pursuing his avocation of painting. When CIA veterans Alex Law and Butch Nickels get wind of a possible terrorist bombing plot, they use any means to extract information that might prevent it. Reeves, pressed to keep alive suspects who are being tortured, faces both a moral dilemma and personal danger. This taut, thought-provoking novel offers no easy answers, no good versus evil dichotomy, as Reeves discovers that “there was no morally safe place anywhere.” (June)

Gretchen Hanover has been jilted—not quite at the altar, but close enough. Her cramped studio apartment becomes the catalyst for this lonely 30-something to change her life in Carlson's latest inspirational chick lit novel. Gretchen decides to become a house flipper, just like the folks on her favorite reality show. Unfortunately, Carlson (Finding Alice) piles such high stakes onto Gretchen's decision to buy a disastrous house—Dad is on the verge of a heart attack, yet Gretchen wants him to do the contracting; the loan's low interest is only for six weeks; and her father's condo, his only asset, is collateral—that it hinders the author's attempt at lightheartedness. Though the house-flipping theme is unusual and engaging, Gretchen's willingness to gamble her father's health and financial security makes her seem selfish, and her negative attitude toward Noah Campbell (the handsome, kind, divorced contractor who predictably comes to her rescue) highlights Gretchen's judgmental side. Of course, God is the ultimate fix-it man who saves the day, but it's not enough to rescue this makeover romance. (June 17)

In Brown's withering Silicon Valley satire, a family wakes up on a June day to realize that patriarch Paul's company has hit the big time with a phenomenal IPO. But instead of rejoicing about being newly rich, the family's three women each find themselves in the throes of a major crisis. Paul has fled with his new amour, who happens to be wife Janice's tennis partner. Desperate housewife Janice discovers the soothing power of the pool boy's drug stash and sinks into addiction and denial. Meanwhile, 20-something daughter Margaret learns the price of living a Hollywood lifestyle on an artsy hipster's budget—gargantuan credit card debt. Finally, 14-year-old Lizzie wades deeper and deeper into a sea of adolescent trouble without an adult to confide in. From the ashes of their California dreams, the three must learn to talk to each other instead of past each other, and build a new, slightly more realistic existence—but not without doses of revenge and hilarity. Brown's hip narrative reads like a sharp, contemporary twist on The Corrections. (May)

Haines serves up hefty portions of medium-rare WWII home-front nostalgia, wartime slang and theater lore in her second Rosie Winter mystery (after 2007's The War Against Miss Winter). In March 1943, aspiring Broadway actress Rosie has her problems: she broke up with her sailor boyfriend, Jack, just before he shipped out and now he's missing in action; she's stuck with best friend Jayne in a cheap Manhattan rooming house with backstabbing theatrical aspirants; her petty gangster buddy Al's in the hoosegow for a murder Rosie's sure he didn't do; and beef rationing looms as a cruel April Fool's joke. Haines makes the girls' physical and emotional hungers both vivid and poignant as they desperately try to keep smiling, but her bitter tale about wartime sacrifices inevitably producing corruption is riddled with inaccuracies (e.g., U.S.A.A.F. officers wore olive drab, not dress blues; corporal isn't a navy rank). Still, Haines brings home the painful price the “greatest generation” paid more gallantly than anyone then knew. (July)

At the start of this outstanding first in a new series from de Castrique (Final Undertaking), Sam Blackman, a feisty army vet who lost part of a leg in the current Iraq War, is in his last days of rehab at a V.A. hospital in Asheville, N.C., when he meets Tikima Robertson, a black woman and fellow amputee who invites him to apply for a job at her security firm. Soon after, Sam phones the firm and learns Tikima is dead. Sam speaks at Tikima's funeral, during which her apartment is ransacked. Tikima's sister, Nakayla, later finds that the intruders overlooked a diary from 1919 bookmarked with Sam's name and number. The diary vividly brings to life the intrepid journey of a white funeral director and the Robertson sisters' great-great-grandfather, Elijah Robertson, that ends in Elijah's murder. Suspecting a connection between the long-ago murder and Tikima's untimely drowning, Sam decides to investigate, but he must overcome hurdles of body and mind as he pursues the truth. A wealth of historical detail, an exciting treasure hunt and credible characters distinguish this fresh, adventurous read. (June)

In British journalist Waddell's solid fiction debut, a police procedural, Scotland Yard recruits genealogist Nigel Barnes to assist in solving a grisly series of murders in London. The victims vary in gender, age and means of death, but the corpses are all marked with “1A137.” Barnes determines that the number refers to the death certificate of Albert Beck, an 1879 murder victim who was stabbed to death in a churchyard on the same date as one of the modern victims. Digging deeper, Barnes discovers that Beck was one of five victims attributed to the so-called Kensington Killer and that Eke Fairbairn was tried and executed for the crimes. Evidence suggests that Fairbairn was wrongfully convicted and that a distant descendant is taking revenge on the relatives of those involved in the 19th-century prosecution. Waddell's adept characterization and pacing make for an exciting start to a new series, though some readers may find the coincidence at the denouement too improbable. (June)

Craig's final Martha's Vineyard mystery (after 2007's Vineyard Stalker), completed just before his death last spring, offers all the familiar pleasures his fans have come to relish—a swift-moving plot, appealing characters and beautifully described settings. In the dead of winter, retired Boston cop J.W. Jackson and his family are surprised by a visit from an old buddy of J.W.'s, Clay Stockton. Sailor, boat-builder, pilot and adventurer, Clay charms them all, but brings trouble in his wake. When two armed strangers later show up looking for Clay, J.W. steers them to the police for information while warning Clay, now employed by a local boat builder, to watch out. Meanwhile, the discovery of a bird's nest interwoven with the red hair of a young woman missing since the previous summer may implicate a bird-watcher devoted to J.W. in a crime. Three delicious recipes round out the volume. (June)

Fans of Sims's Lambda Award–winning Lillian Byrd series (Easy Street, etc.) will recognize the bright, sassy tone of this first entry in a new series. When flashy L.A. attorney Gary Kwan offers aspiring actress Rita Farmer $1,000 a day to teach Eileen Tenaway, an unsympathetic defendant accused of murdering her baby, to appear more likable on the stand, Rita can't refuse. Flat broke, Rita fears losing custody of her son to her foul-mouthed ex. As trial prep progresses, Eileen's presumed-dead husband and her missing sister resurface, the husband's business partner disappears, money and gems are stolen, Gary is murdered and Rita's son is kidnapped. Sims writes well (her wry commentary on life in Hollywood is dead-on), but the relentlessly perky tone is at odds with the increasingly dark events. In addition, Rita's inexplicable actions in the face of danger diminish reader sympathy. In the end, the kitchen-sink plot is more wearying than dramatic. (June)

In Finnis's spirited if at times overly complicated third Roman historical to feature innkeeper Aurelia Marcella, who runs the Oak Tree mansio in the wilds of occupied Britannia (after 2005's A Bitter Chill), sea raiders believed to be led by a barbarian, Voltacos, have been attacking people along the coast. Aurelia's twin brother, Lucius, a government agent, arrives to investigate the possibility that these raiders are gold-seeking marauders from Gaul. Meanwhile, greedy Roman landowner Ostorius Magnus and his unsavory nephew have been squeezing tribesmen off their lands. A shipwreck sets off rumors of buried treasure when the vessel's strongbox is found to contain a severed head rather than the expected plunder. During their long quest, Aurelia and Lucius spot Voltacos's men mysteriously digging a trench. Various murders further muddy the case. Some readers may have trouble keeping track of the many characters, but all will cheer the upbeat ending. (June)

Jaine Austen, indefatigable L.A. crime-solver and pen-for-hire, finds herself rewriting Shakespeare for a bitchy bride in Levine's rollicking seventh cozy (after 2007's Death by Pantyhose). Patti Marshall Devane, a former Hermosa High classmate, employs Jaine to write Patti's wedding ceremony based on Romeo and Juliet in lieu of traditional vows: “make it 'snappy.' Like Friends with swords and long dresses.” Jaine learns that Patti stole her groom, Hermosa alum Dickie Potter, from another grad, and Patti only allows her thin friends to participate in the wedding. Adding to the drama, Dickie's geeky best man still pines for Jaine. Dickie's drunken ex-wife disrupts the Bel Air ceremony, which climaxes with Patti's plunge off a balcony onto a stone cupid's arrow. Jaine suspects murder, though figuring out whodunit requires some fast thinking and fancy footwork. Levine's slick wit and sure pacing makes this another hit in this entertaining series. (June)

At the outset of Sedley's rewarding 17th mystery to feature Roger the Chapman (after 2007's The Three Kings of Cologne), Roger joins an English army set to invade Scotland in the summer of 1482. The duke of Albany, whose older brother, James III of England, plans to put him on the Scottish throne, enlists Roger as a member of his personal bodyguard. On the march north, uncanny events connected to the cult of the legendary Green Man make Roger wonder why Albany wanted him in this role. When the army reaches Edinburgh, Roger discovers he must clear one of Albany's friends of murder. Sedley provides vivid vignettes of domestic life in the late Middle Ages, covering the social spectrum from the mighty Plantagenets to the most deprived agrarian serfs and foot soldiers. The meticulous, well-paced plot builds to a real surprise at the end. (June)

In this pedestrian whodunit from British author Conway (Locked In), Janet Creswell, a retired doctor who'd been the undermatron at Brantwood, a boarding school near Midhurst, in the 1940s, allows a professor who'd been one of her charges back then to revive her suppressed memories of the circumstances surrounding the death of Edward Blackstone, Brantwood's headmaster. Blackstone was found in the school swimming pool, apparently the victim of an accident. Creswell seeks out others who were at the school at the time, including Blackstone's daughter, who was Brantwood's sole female student, but whose gender and relationship to the sadistic headmaster didn't spare her from corporal punishments. The lack of plot twists, dearth of memorable characters and unnecessary embedding of flashbacks within flashbacks make this an unmemorable read. (June)

Hate, revenge and old-fashioned greed propel Edgar-winner Housewright's stellar fifth mystery to feature former St. Paul, Minn., cop Rushmore McKenzie (after 2007's Dead Boyfriends). When the older grade school–age daughter of McKenzie's old friend, St. Paul homicide chief Bobby Dunston, is kidnapped on her way home from school, the unlicensed PI gets on the case. Soon McKenzie is hurtling headlong through the Twin Cities' meanest streets with a $50,000 price on his head. Housewright's chivalric noir hero never fails to charm, whether mourning a St. Paul that's lost much of its colorful, if shady, past or busting a bestial dogfight entrepreneur out in the chilly countryside. Against a realistic Minnesota backdrop, this homage to Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer raises cutting questions about crime and punishment and today's price of friendship and loyalty. Of course, McKenzie knows it's all about money, but Housewright makes it so fresh and real it hurts. (May)

Stunningly conceived and exquisitely achieved, this rich historical fantasy portrays the Elizabethan court 30 years into the reign of the Virgin Queen, often called Gloriana. Far below ground, her dark counterpart, heartless Invidiana, rules England's fae. Brennan (Warrior and Witch) pairs handsome young courtier Michael Deven, an aspiring agent under spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, with bewitching fae Lune, who attempts to avoid Invidiana's wrath by infiltrating Walsingham's network in mortal guise. History and fantasy blend seamlessly as Deven and Lune tread their precarious tightropes between loyalty and betrayal. Brennan's myriad fantastical creations ring as true as her ear for Elizabethan and faerie dialogue. With intriguing flashbacks to historical events and a cast of deftly drawn characters both real and imagined, Brennan fleshes out the primal conflict of love and honor pitted against raging ambition and lust for power in a glittering age when mortals could well be such fools as to sell their souls forever. (June)

Ancient history and violent religious myth collide in this romantic fantasy-tinged biography of Myrtale, the imposing, powerful mother of Alexander the Great. Tarr (Queen of the Amazons) opens with a weak segment on the queen's early days as Polyxena, an impossibly beautiful and rather childish acolyte of the Mother goddess. Once she seduces Philip of Macedon, who calls her Myrtale (“crowned one”) and promises her a kingdom to go with her queenly new name, the story becomes far more compelling and suspenseful. As temples and kingdoms plot and quarrel, Myrtale mercilessly wields the authority of the retiring goddess and her own sexuality to further her ambitions for her husband and her son. (The book ends with Alexander's birth, leaving unmentioned the complex and bloody intrigues of Myrtale's later life as the dowager empress Olympias.) Occasionally confusing but often vibrant, this romantic story warms into a strong narrative about a fascinating woman. (June)

The Arabian Nights–flavored Percheron saga finally comes to an end in this shallow follow-up to 2007's Emissary.Young, pregnant Ana (not to be confused with Lyana, a goddess, or Ellyana, her messenger) is held captive by Arafanz, a religious zealot who wants the child believed to have been sired by Zar Boaz, Ana's disloyal husband and Percheron's leader. Could the father actually be the man Ana loves more, Galinsea's Prince Lucien, aka Spur Lazar? Imprisoned, Ana frets while Zar Boaz and Lazar search for her with help from Iridor, a shape-changing demigod. Manipulative demon Maliz, who inhabits the Zar's grand vizier and skips to another human shell when need arises, does everything he can to stop them, and their efforts are further hampered when war breaks out between Percheron and Galinsea. The tale is marred by sluggish pacing and uninteresting characters, and lacks an introduction that might help new readers understand the multilayered plot. (June)

Psychic powers and political intrigue meet in this ever-shifting “companion/sequel” to 2005's Imprint. Simpleminded barmaid Jennie Height's journey to understand herself and her strange precognitive dreams dominates the narrative, wrapping around a core of dissent and power struggles. As her lover and employer, Walter Vellum, rises in the ranks of fighters resisting the oppressive government of an unnamed country whose population is rigidly controlled by any means necessary, scenes of harsh violence entwine with Jennie's spiritual experiences. Many of the interesting characters could stand fleshing out, such as wealthy resistance leader Carpathia Coyle and the young woman named Anastasia whom Jennie innocently calls “the queen of the gods,” and Bates's strength purpose fails to push through the rougher sections of unsteady plot and first person run-on sentences. Despite some intriguing concepts, this blend of dystopian science fiction and paranormal fantasy ends up confused and unfocused. (June)

In this vivid conclusion to the second Kushiel trilogy (after 2007's Kushiel's Justice), young Prince Imriel and his beloved, Sidonie, heir to the Terre D'Ange throne, struggle to come to terms with the deaths of Imriel's wife and unborn son. Queen Ysandre threatens to forbid Imriel's marriage to Sidonie unless he hunts down his traitorous mother, Melisande. Then a spell convinces everyone in Terre D'Ange's capital that Sidonie loves the prince of Carthage, and she sails off to wed him. Only Imriel remembers their romance. He must evade deluded loved ones and work with erstwhile enemies to rescue Sidonie and pull the country back from the brink of war. Carey delivers a heady mix of adventure, power struggles and romance, but fans of the first Kushiel trilogy may be disappointed by the few appearances of Phèdre, Imriel's adoptive mother, and by the relatively tame sexuality, which serves more as a spice than a larger theme. (June)

Things aren't going well for top secret agent Lila Moreau. Her new partner, a handsome archivist named Joel Faraday, gets the drop on her when she tries to teach him who's boss; someone within her government agency, the Office for Political Unity and Security—OPUS—is leaking information; and she's up against an arch villain known as the Sorcerer. But the bad guy's having problems of his own in this mildly amusing action romance from the author of Express Male and You've Got Male. The Sorcerer's attempt to hold the world hostage via a computer virus keeps running into snags, thanks to the three unreliable nerds he's depending on, plus a female geek named Iris who's gotten under his skin. Despite some deft writing, Bevarly can't draw tension from her bevy of misfits, and the inept sleuthing never rises to the level of farce. She does, however, provide the true love and happy endings fans will be looking for. (June)

In the latest Light Warriors novel from O'Shea (In the Midnight Hour), Creed Blackwood remains a demon hunter, and he is plagued by the temptations of the dark side. Seth, a demon far more powerful than any Creed has encountered, unsuccessfully tempted Maia Frasier: she stole some of Seth's power before forsaking her own power and giving up demon hunting. Enraged, Seth vows to destroy Maia the best way he knows how—by attacking her powerful sister, Ryne, and stealing her power. Creed shows up on Maia's door, injured and in need of assistance. Maia, despite having no magic, determines to help him and to do anything to save her sister from harm. The plot tends toward involution, but Maia is a strong, realistically vulnerable heroine, and gruff Creed melts almost immediately. (June)

Ridgeway's frothy latest (after Bachelor Boss) combines Malibu beachnik appeal with trendy knitting Zen. Malibu & Ewe is a knit shop run by Cassandra Riley. There, hip knitters gather every Tuesday for Knitter's Night. Nikki Carmichael is new to knitting and to Malibu, where she is the new personal chef for Jay “Hef Junior” Buchanan, 32, a dedicated playboy who edits NYFM (Not Your Father's Magazine). Nikki resists his attentions, but opposites attract, and steam rises in the kitchen and in the bedroom. Ridgeway mixes in savory subplots concerning Jay's visiting teen niece Fern and Nikki's friendship with Cassandra. (June)

Quinn (The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever) embarks on a new series with Grace Eversleigh, companion to the dowager duchess of Wyndham, unwillingly helping the dowager kidnap a highwayman. The dowager believes Jack Audley, a former Army Captain, to be her grandson, the son of her long-deceased favorite son. But the current Duke of Wyndham, Thomas Cavendish, Jack's ostensible cousin, learns that he could be disposed of a title if it is proven that Jack's parents were married in Ireland before their untimely deaths. Jack attempts to overcome his tortured past with a quick smile and easy wit, and sparks between Jack and Grace result in a number of sizzling scenes that are made more powerful by the intensity of emotions involved. In her strongest effort to date, Quinn delivers complex, multifaceted characters who come vividly to life. (May)

The fourth collection of this liberal alt-weekly political strip takes on the Bush administration, fire-breathing right-wing pundits and the frankly sexual Drooly Julie. The four-panel strip, which has hints of Matt Groening, is drawn in a rounded, earnest style good for depicting Americans who are freaked-out, very right-wing or totally apathetic. The humor is a bit puerile, but in an engaging way. “We would never flush their silly little book down the toilet,” says a right-wing protester about the alleged abuse of the Koran at Guantánamo Bay; or sending the troops in Iraq empty tuna cans as armor, and the White House demanding all the NSA's phone records from the New York Times. Still, sarcasm is the protest of the weak, and the snark that's refreshing in small doses feels like overkill en masse (a problem with many collections of political cartoons). Text on each page, which Sorensen often uses to explain that many of her crazy facts are real, will be of use to future historians. But they intensify the feeling of being swamped. A good book to read a bit at a time, maybe have around on a coffee-table or in a coffee shop that keeps the Indigo Girls on repeat. (Apr.)

Kurimoto's fantasy adventure novel series The Guin Saga sells millions of copies in Japan, and while Yanagisawa's manga adaptation isn't going to quite echo that success in the U.S., the original appeal does flicker through. This final installment of a three-volume side project to the main Guin Saga story line follows the warrior-king of Cheironia, Guin, as he does battle with a palpitating, plague-spreading mass of evil that threatens his realm. Guin—a massively muscled hero with a leopard-mask permanently affixed to his face—takes on the assembled villainous sorcerers (the magi of the title) lurking inside the sinister growth, while his sidekicks try to puzzle out the danger's deeper magical meaning. Although Guin seems more the strong and silent type, he does evince a certain Conan-like weakness for the feminine, evidenced in the seductive thrall he's held in by the strongest of the magi, the Black Witch Thamia. While the Kurimoto story line is byzantine in the extreme (there's clearly backstory upon backstory beyond the reach of all but the initiated), Yanagisawa's illustrations cut cleanly through much of the exposition, yielding a surprisingly graceful action-adventure series with a handful of darker adult themes. (Mar.)

A native Quebecois artist, Rabagliati has chronicled a thinly veiled version of his artistic and interior life in his previous three books, and the present volume finds his stand-in, Paul, entering into adult responsibilities with his fiancé, Lucie, and thoughts of a child on the way. On a long summer break, Paul remembers his childhood vacations and his own upbringing and early love affair with Lucie. Meanwhile, Lucie has a very difficult time sustaining pregnancies. All of this is told in a matter-of-fact, somewhat flat manner. Rabagliati is an everyman chronicler in that way—telling the facts of a story with no artificial drama or hysterics. Unfortunately, this makes for a somewhat dull read. This slightly boring telling is redeemed by Rabagliati's wonderful skill with a pen. His cartooning is steeped in the clean-line style of Hergé and other Europeans, and he cleverly delineates characters and their environs in this simple, elegant and reductive style. It's a pleasure to look at, even with somewhat limited returns. Paul Goes Fishing is a fine graphic novel—not great, not bad, but firmly in the middle, with a sharp sense of craft and a warm heart guiding it. (Mar.)

You know summer's on the way when the beachy jacket art starts showing up. Here are two by Nantucket writers set on the island, where you can't throw a lobster roll without hitting a Claire or a Clare.

Hilderbrand's seventh novel delves into the psyche of a guilt-ridden mother/artist who embarks on a self-destructive path. Nantucket glass artist Claire Danner Crispin has pieces in private collections and one in the Whitney, but is overwhelmed with the needs of her husband and four kids (she gave up full-time glassblowing to take care of the family). Her troubles worsen when Daphne, a friend she'd been drinking with, is severely injured in a drunken car wreck. Claire is convinced that Daphne's husband, Lockhart, holds her responsible, so she's surprised when he asks her to co-chair a charity gala and create a new piece of glass art for auction. The plot mushrooms as Claire and Lockhart begin an affair; Claire rethinks her priorities; a slew of gala-related complications arise; and Claire's ex-boyfriend turned rock star comes into play. Hilderbrand keeps a lot of balls in the air, and if she pays too much attention to event-planning minutiae, there are still enough conflicts to keep readers entertained. (July)

Childhood friends Clare Hart and Lexi Laney work toward reconciliation in this bland novel by The Hot Flash Club author. Lexi wants to leave stifling Nantucket, so when wealthy Ed Hardin proposes marriage, Lexi seizes the chance to live a life of off-island luxury. But after 10 years in a lonely and adulterous marriage, Lexi divorces Ed and lands back on the island seeking to repair the relationships she left behind. As Lexi and Clare take steps toward salvaging their friendship, their relationships with men—particularly Lexi's feelings for Clare's fiancé—test their loyalty. Unfortunately, Thayer's characters are as thin as a worn beach towel, and the phoned-in prose does little to make up for the contrived plot twists that dominate the final act. (June)

Signature

Reviewed by David Maine

This slender book packs an emotional wallop. Two thrill-seeking boys, Bruce and Loonie, are young teenagers in smalltown Australia, circa the early 1970s. Their attraction is focused on the water—ponds, rivers, the sea—but they do little more than play around until they fall in with a mysterious, older man named Sando. He recognizes their daredevil wildness and takes it upon himself to teach them to surf. As the boys become more skilled, their exploits become more reckless; narrator Bruce (nicknamed “Pikelet”) has doubts about where all this is heading, while the aptly named Loonie wants only bigger and bolder thrills. This mix of doubt and desire intensifies when the boys make a discovery about their mentor's past.

Surfing isn't the only dangerous game in town. As Sando's attentions and favor flip-flop from one boy to the other, the rivalry between the two, present from the beginning, grows stronger and more sinister. Sando's American wife, Eva, becomes more of a presence, too. She walks with a limp, has plenty of secrets of her own and becomes increasingly involved in Pikelet's life, in ways that even a 15-year-old might recognize as not entirely appropriate.

Winton's language, often terse, never showy, hovers convincingly between a teenager's inarticulateness and the staccato delivery of a grown man: “So there we were, this unlikely trio. A select and peculiar club, a tiny circle of friends, a cult, no less. Sando and his maniacal apprentices.” The language manages to summon up both the uncertain teenager and the jaded adult: “It transpired that I was not, after all, immune to a dare,” Pikelet tells us at one point, with both the breathtaking unawareness of the boy and the irony of the man.

Told from the perspective of the narrator's present life as a paramedic, Breath aims to recapture a long-passed episode in a boy's life and show how this shaped the man he grew into. The story contemplates what it means to be less ordinary in an era when “extreme” sports hadn't even been recognized. (The fear of being ordinary is one of the terrors that drives these daredevils to push themselves ever further.) The author of 13 previous books, Winton is well-known in Australia and should be here. He touches upon important themes, of death, life, breathing and its absence, while looking dispassionately upon the relentless pursuit of thrills, pleasure, sex, status: the mundane obsessions of the ordinary and extraordinary alike.

David Maine is the author of Fallen; The Book of Samson; and, most recently, Monster, 1959.