Fiction Reviews: Week of 5/26/2008

The steely Proulx (The Shipping News, etc.) returns with another astonishing series of hardscrabble lives lived in the sparse, inhospitable West, where one mistake can put you on a long-winding trail to disaster. “Family Man” is set in the Mellowhorn Home for old cowboys and aging ranch widows, where resident curmudgeon Ray Forkenbrock shares memories of his father with his granddaughter and an eavesdropping caretaker; the secret he reveals gives new meaning to the word “relative.” In two demonically clever riffs on human weakness, “I've Always Loved This Place” and “Swamp Mischief,” the Devil, accompanied by his secretary, Duane Fork, must entertain himself thinking up new ways to bother the living and the dead, as temptation is no longer a necessary evil. Saving the best for last, “Tits-up in a Ditch” breaks new literary ground with the gut-wrenching tale of an Iraq veteran who returns to her family raw with grief. Pioneer homesteaders facing drought and debt give way to modern-day hippies trying to lose themselves in the vanishing wilderness and real estate developers out to make a buck—unforgettable characters in nine stories that range in tone from crude cowboy humor to heartbreaking American tragedy. (Sept.)

Former journalist McNally puts a magical spin on the last days of the Third Reich in his debut, a busy, beguiling novel perhaps too overstuffed with a dizzying cast and troves of lesser-known historical footnotes. Embedded in politics and far from the atrocities of the Nazi regime, figures like Albert Speer, Heinrich Himmler and Karl Dönitz become curiously sympathetic as they try to manipulate their ways out of their ineluctable futures. Woven throughout is the story of the Loerber quadruplets (known before the war as the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers—think: the Comedian Harmonists), who have psychic abilities and positions of power inside and in opposition to the Nazi regime: Manni is an assassin who can manipulate people's wills; Sebastian, long thought dead, works for the Blood of Israel resistance and can mass-broadcast dreams; Ziggy is a U-boat captain who can hear and control others' thoughts; and Franzi is a triple-agent in the SS's occult studies division and becomes Himmler's masseur and psychic adviser. The Loerber brothers, however, turn out to be less interesting on the page than Himmler, Speer and their contemporaries, though McNally's blending of the fantastical with historical record broadens and enriches an oft-told story. (Sept.)

A retired book critic is targeted by an assassin from an alternate universe in Auster's flawed latest. August Brill lies awake in his daughter's Vermont home, making up stories to fight against insomnia and depression. The stories coalesce around a character, Owen Brick, a professional magician transported to an alternate reality in which the U.S. fell into a civil war after the 2000 election. His mission: to end the war by assassinating August. Back in the real world, August is worried about his 23-year-old granddaughter, who moved back in with her mother after her boyfriend was killed in Iraq. The suspense about whether August's reality and the assassin in his fantasy will collide baits a sharp hook, but about halfway in, the narrative devolves into a long night's tale of the literary New York of yore as August regales his granddaughter with stories. The merging of nostalgia with a Philip K. Dick conceit doesn't wholly succeed, but Auster's juxtaposition of two worlds is compelling and intellectually rigorous in Auster's trademark claustrophobic hall-of-mirrors fashion. (Aug.)

This disappointing thriller from bestseller Cannell (Three Shirt Deal) features 55-year-old Chick Best, a failed California businessman whose DVD business has been overtaken by companies like Netflix. While on vacation in Hawaii with his druggy daughter and his unfaithful wife, Chick falls instantly in lust with newlywed Paige Ellis and manages to strike up an acquaintance with Paige and her wealthy husband, Chandler. Obsessed with Paige, Chick later detours from a New York City business trip and drives south to her home in Charlotte, N.C. That diversion proves fatal for Chandler, who somehow ends up run over repeatedly by Chick's rental car. Oddly, Chandler's family displays no curiosity about the circumstances of his death, and the investigation is left to a Bible-quoting local cop. Fans will miss the intelligence and wit typical of Cannell's TV shows The Rockford Files and Wiseguy. 8-city author tour. (July)

In this excellent novella from Edgar-finalist Banville (Christine Falls), John Glass, an Irish-born journalist living in New York, reluctantly accepts an offer from his father-in-law, William “Big Bill” Mulholland, to write the older man's biography for $1 million. Big Bill, a former CIA agent turned communications tycoon, is the kind of man whose secrets are matters of national security. In preparation for the project, Glass contacts Dylan Riley, a shifty researcher Glass dubs the titular lemur. Riley tries to blackmail Glass, but ends up dead before Glass can find out what “the lemur” knows. Afraid that the secret might involve his ongoing affair with fellow Irish ex-pat Alison O'Keeffe, Glass starts digging into Big Bill's past. First serialized in the New York Times Magazine, this crime novel showcases the author's trademark dry wit, tight plotting and appealing, flawed characters. Black is the pen name of Booker Prize–winner John Banville. (July)

A Nazi quest for an ancient map pinpointing the source of black magic, Vatican spies and Spanish Civil War refugees in 1930s Rome fail to coalesce and pay off in Calderón's intriguing debut. In late 1937, Jose Maria Hurtado de Mendoza, an apolitical Spanish architectural student at Rome's Spanish Academy, is recruited by a mysterious antifascist organization called Smith (all its agents are “Smith”) to help search for the mystical Creator's Map, sought by the Nazis to aid in evildoing. He soon finds himself part of a love triangle with Montse, a beautiful young Spanish refugee, and Prince Junio Valerio Cima Vivarini, a Venetian paleographer secretly working with the SS. While Jose attempts to survive in fascist Italy and Germany, where he goes to work as an architect of bunkers and fortifications, the map's mystical qualities are relegated to the background. An ingenious denouement, set in 1952 and narrated in epistolary fashion by one character from beyond the grave, doesn't make up for the fact that Jose remains a passive and oftentimes peripheral figure in his own less than dramatic story. (July)

The hero of British author McCrery's tepid thriller, DCI Mark Lapslie of the Essex police, suffers from synesthesia, a rare neurological condition that causes him to taste sounds. At the scene of what appears to be a run-of-the-mill car crash, Det. Sgt. Emma Bradbury shows Lapslie the corpse of an elderly woman, wrapped in plastic sheeting and unearthed when the car plowed into a field. Violet Chambers, they later learn, was poisoned with a common garden plant and the fingers of her right hand snipped off. When Lapslie and Bradbury begin to connect Chambers to the disappearances of other elderly women, they fear a serial killer may be at work, perhaps even one from Lapslie's own past. McCrery, creator of the long-running BBC crime drama Silent Witness, fails to exploit the full narrative potential of Lapslie's synesthesia, using it merely as a trait to define an otherwise bland character. Most readers will solve the mystery long before Lapslie puts together the pieces. (July)

In Carey's fine second supernatural thriller (after The Devil You Know), FelixCastor, an exorcist with paranormal abilities who lives in a near-future England where ghosts and zombies are an accepted reality, is suffering from guilt after an attempt to separate a master demon, Asmodeus, from a friend, Rafi, ended with the evil spirit gaining even more control over Rafi. Fortunately, a new case provides distraction. Melanie and Stephen Torrington, who believe that their young daughter's ghost has been kidnapped, hire Castor to uncover some last trace of their child. The investigator soon finds that his employers haven't been fully truthful with him as he starts crossing paths with lycanthropes and other undead beings. Carey's imagined universe has some nice satiric touches (the term “zombie” has been designated a form of hate speech), and the well-developed main character appears more than capable of carrying a series for many books to come. (July)

Short on moral complexity, bestseller Silva's eighth thriller starring Israeli master-spy Gabriel Allon (after The Secret Servant) may remind some readers of an action-packed and suspenseful episode of TV's Mission Impossible. Allon's honeymoon with his second wife comes to an abrupt end on his learning that a Russian arms dealer, Ivan Kharkov, is involved in a weapons shipment to al-Qaeda for use in a major terrorist attack whose details are a mystery to the CIA as well as to British and Israeli intelligence. Since this tip originated with the death merchant's wife, Elena, Allon persuades his superiors and his American allies to authorize a complex plan to use Elena to gain access to Kharkov's secrets. Obvious good guys and bad guys, coupled with a straightforward plot in which Allon and Elena owe their lives to a lucky chance at the climax, make this one of the less satisfying entries in the series. (July)

A surfeit of characters and subplots weigh down Brundage's overwrought second novel (after 2005's The Doctor's Wife). Seventeen years after San Francisco heroin junkies Nate and his then wife gave up their infant daughter, Willa, for adoption to a wealthy couple in Stockbridge, Mass., Nate has cleaned up his act and landed a job as a writing instructor at Pioneer, the elite private school Willa attends in the Berkshires. Everyone has something to hide: the head of Pioneer is stuck in a loveless marriage with his mentally unstable wife; Willa's adoptive father owns a lucrative porn studio. Willa grapples with peer pressure and her feelings for Teddy Squire, the school's newest bad boy, while Nate falls for Teddy's sculptor mother. As tensions near the boiling point, past indiscretions and long-buried secrets threaten to spill over and ruin the superficially idyllic community. Though the ingredients exist for a powerful drama, readers will be disappointed when the suspense fizzles early on and never reignites. 4-city author tour. (July)

This charming first novel maps the landscape and lives of a small town where ghosts and the living are sometimes indistinguishable from one another. That's what police officer Michael Mercer discovers the night he saves the life of a teenage boy left unconscious and at the mercy of the elements in a Colma, Calif., cemetery. Later, Michael witnesses nocturnal incidents that turn out to be the afterlife activities of local residents who've been dead for decades. The repetitive and unresolved activities of the dead slyly parallel Michael's aimless life and the lives of friends and colleagues similarly mired in day-to-day routine. Though the supernatural elements aren't as well integrated into the main action as they might be, Dorst strikes a perfect balance between humor and pathos. His ability to show the magic potential of everyday lives marks him as an author to watch. (July)

Kneale, who won the Whitbread for English Passengers (2000), returns with a tale narrated by fiery, precocious, pitch-perfect Lawrence, who at nine years old struggles with being at once a normal kid and, with his parents' estrangement, the man of the house. Living with his baby sister Jemima, and his mother, Hannah, in a cottage by a wood, Lawrence and Co. are menaced by their father, “Mikie,” who seems to come down from Scotland at will to stalk them. At her wits end, Hannah packs the family into the car and heads (through the Channel Tunnel) for Rome, where she had lived in early adulthood and where, it soon becomes clear, she still has a lot of friends. Bewildered but brave Lawrence wonderfully describes the people they encounter: as he attempts to figure out who is an “enimy” and who a friend, he muses on deep space and gladiatorial Roman history (“Nero was so pleased, he thought 'hurrah, I really am a good singer' ”). As small incongruities pile up between what Lawrence sees and how he interprets what happens to him, the family's hurtlings across Europe and the city take on a shattered poignancy. (July)

In this sentimental story about a terminal cancer patient's demise, Martin (When Crickets Cry) examines the lengths to which a loving husband will go for his dying wife. Doss Michaels, a portrait painter with a “trailer trash” background, marries Charleston, S.C., debutante Abbie Eliot Coleman, raised primarily by her demanding U.S. senator father after her mother died of ovarian cancer when Abbie was two. A decade after Abbie and Doss's marriage, her father and stepmother will still have little to do with Doss. Abbie develops breast cancer that later metastasizes to her brain, and tensions rise when Abbie's parents want her to spend her last days with them. But Doss and Abbie, armed with Abbie's top 10 wish list and fistfuls of medication, begin a 129-mile river journey from the small town of Moniac, Ga., on the St. Mary River out to the ocean. Martin brings to life the varying flora and fauna of this often fraught journey, while he captures the singular atmosphere of life on a changeable river as it traverses through varying Georgian and Floridian terrain. In the tradition of Nicholas Sparks and Robert James Waller, Martin has fashioned a heartbreaking story. (July)

Seven foreboding tales from Keegan (Antarctica) examine family, buried secrets and forbidden love in contemporary rural Ireland. In the title story, a priest questions his calling as he performs the wedding ceremony of a girl he once loved; after marrying her off to a lesser man, laments that “two people hardly ever want the same thing at any given point in life.” “The Forester's Daughter” follows a tragic chain of events prompted by a woman who agrees to marry against her better instincts “because if she said no, the question might never be asked of her again.” The final and strongest story centers on Margaret Flusk, a superstitious woman retreating from a personal tragedy into the farmhouse of her recently deceased cousin, who was a priest, and with whom she shared an abiding love. Word of her mysterious ability to heal soon gets out to the parish, breaking her isolation decisively. The more whimsical narratives fall a little flat (they're also brief), but in the longer, stronger pieces, Keegan's poetic prose, spot-on dialogue and well paced plot twists keep the pages turning through sadness, grief, rage and compromise. (July)

In the latest cautionary tale from bestseller Harris (I Say a Little Prayer, etc.), Brady Bledsoe, Georgia Central University football star and Heisman trophy hopeful, is a squeaky clean, churchgoing sort who has taken a public vow of celibacy until marriage. Shady sports agent Nico Benson hires hottie Raquel Murphy to work his hormones and get him to sign up with Nico's agency. She poses as Barrett Manning, a Georgia Central University cheerleader, and is soon Brady's cell's most dialed number. But Raquel/Barrett has a formidable adversary in Brady's mother, Camryn, the churchly owner of a popular Atlanta beauty salon. The cardboard characters and the flimsy attempts at college football verisimilitude make it difficult to suspend disbelief. Harris does eventually deliver enough steamy twists and revealed secrets to get the ball within field goal range, but the ending bangs against the uprights and falls with a thud. (July)

With help from playwright Johnston and a handbag-full of chick lit clichés, former Republican fund-raiser Sexton offers a behind the scenes peek at the world of political fund-raising, as seen through the eyes of naïve but plucky Louisianan Temple Sachet. In D.C. as a White House intern, Temple's Southern charm and talent for throwing parties earn her job offers from the big wigs. As she climbs the career ladder, her beloved Yorkie, Goldie Hawn, forever at her side (in a Louis Vuitton Sac Chien), Temple gets a crash course in greed and dishonesty from the senators, staffers, lobbyists and donors who fight over money and influence. Blackberry abuzz, Temple works to rake in the cash, finding herself finance director for the Republican Senate campaign committee, charged with the task of raising $95 million (an effort Sexton herself led in 2004). Though she thrives on the power and status, Temple can't trust anyone, can't find a man (a straight man, at least) and wonders if all she's doing is funding hypocrisy. It's mildly charming Beltway chick lit. (July)

A former grade school teacher haunted by a terrible past narrates this thin, predictable debut novel. An aging, conservative dresser with a deep paranoid streak, Elda Graff lives with her ghoulish husband, Mack, and a sweet little girl named Sarah Pogford, doing her best to avoid intimate contact with others. Elda's one regular commitment is volunteer work at a local children's theater, where she meets Joanne Davies, a young high school English teacher who requests Elda as a long-term substitute during her maternity leave. Elda's return to teaching draws her back into her own past, and she discovers that Tucker Harding, a student with violent tendencies, might have some ghosts of his own. Elda is a classic unreliable narrator, but she's also remarkably transparent; the reader knows her secret as well as Tucker's long before she admits them, which all but flattens the dramatic art. There are a few moments of suspense, but the novel is marred by stock characterizations, didactic moralizing and a too-facile treatment of mental illness. (July)

A bitter 1979 labor strike at southern Indiana's Borden Casket Company serves as the volatile backdrop for this haunting coming-of-age novel from nonfiction writer Tucker (The Great Starvation Experiment). With their fathers on opposite sides of the dispute, Andrew Jackson Gray and Thomas Jefferson Kruer, both 14, learn there is more to life than exploring caves, shooting targets with their prized M-6 Scout rifles and sneaking out on starry nights to run through the woods. Andy, who narrates in retrospect from adulthood, has a father who's a manager; Tom's dad is a laborer with “knotty, showy muscles.” The boys' friendship takes on complicated nuances—especially in the wake of a factory explosion that kills the casket company's president. Tucker convincingly makes Andy's voice at once eloquent and gritty, and makes the rural Indiana landscape palpable. Secondaries such as Andy's mother (who has a mysterious past) and Andy's would-be girlfriend, Taffy Judd (who has an abusive father), add further depth to this poignant and memorable tale of lost innocence. (July)

Donovan (Julius Winsome) writes convincingly about loss and survival in an Ireland where big gaps remain between what his characters want and what they have. The aging, recently fired electronics salesman narrating “Harry Dietz” drives on and on one morning in his bathrobe until he's pulled over and has to take a good look at himself. One of several stories about absent parents, “Glass,” follows a young boy who stops speaking after his father is killed, and his mother, trying to pretend she isn't a widow, accepts an inadequate substitute for her dead husband. Lyrical passages are less effective in such stories as “By Irish Nights,” which buries a tragic boating story within a description of Ireland's metaphorical and literal wanderers, cast adrift by politics and a troubled economy. In the main, however, Donovan has a spareness that matches the bleak lives he chronicles. (July)

Screenwriter, producer and author of Famine, Komarnicki delivers a maudlin dystopian war novel. The narrator, referred to as “-----”, joins a secret government military group and awaits orders in a hotel with no television, unlimited alcohol and an unrecognizable war-torn city outside. The monotony is briefly broken by Mc., a bawdy storyteller who returns from a mission in bad shape. The protagonist is soon dispatched into the war zone, and after his foray into chaos, he returns to find his comrades dead and the hotel a bombed-out wreck. Putting together the clues after finding Mc.'s body missing and a suspicious quantity of explosives absent from the hotel safe, the protagonist concludes that Mc. bombed the hotel, and begins searching him out while looking for clues about the enemy and any indication of where he is. But because all identifying characteristics from the setting and characters have been stripped, there's too much pressure on the narrator's bombastic prose and sentimental flashbacks, and they aren't strong enough to carry the novel. (July)

In this well-crafted thriller from Braver (Flashback), Lt. Steve Markarian, a Boston police detective with marital and alcohol problems, investigates the strangling death of Terry Farina, whose naked body was found in her bedroom with no signs of a struggle or sexual activity. Is it suicide, accident or murder? Teasing flashbacks to the 1970s chronicle the incestuous ordeal of a disturbed New Hampshire boy at the hands (and breasts) of his sexy, Bible-thumping stepmother. An extraneous subplot concerns Markarian's possible role in the first murder he investigates. More compelling is the relationship Markarian's wife, Dana, develops with a plastic surgeon, Aaron Monks, who enters her life just as the Markarians are contemplating divorce. The pace accelerates toward a climax whose revelations of extensive evildoing may strike some readers as farfetched. Still, fans of psychological suspense with a medical angle will be amply rewarded. (July)

At the outset of this dark jewel of a thriller, Hewson's sixth to feature Roman detective Nic Costa (after The Seventh Sacrament), Costa and his team are just starting to process a crime scene in an artist's shabby studio, where two corpses lie sprawled before a painting of a rapturous female nude redolent of Caravaggio, when they flush out a hooded gunman. The gunman escapes in the ensuing chase, but not before shooting dead Costa's wife of three months, former FBI agent Emily Deacon. While Costa is taken off the case, his rule-bending boss finds a way for him to help on the sly, assisting the unusual art expert—young Sister Agata Graziano—called in to investigate whether the canvas could really be a Caravaggio and what light it might shed on the murders. You don't have to be much of a sleuth to foresee danger for Sister Agata, but that's about the only predictable element in a plot otherwise as serpentine—and suspense filled—as the ancient Roman byways through which Costa stalks his prey. (July)

This inspiring urban thriller from gospel songwriter Rhodes charts the meteoric rise of Brandi Hutchinson, a smart “fabulously beautiful” 18-year-old, who forms the Conquerors, a powerful female posse that seeks to rule South Central L.A. Recruits include street-savvy sistahs Tata Davis, “a fifth-generation projects girl,” and Tangie Parker, whose bro, Fishbone, leads L.A.'s biggest male gang. Brandi's instant success is the bane of a rival female gang, whose leader kills a child whose jump-roping skill Brandi admired. As a gang war shifts into high gear, Brandi finds herself drawn to seductive Chase Ajani, an avid student of African studies. Rhodes (The Forgotten Spirit) tells it like it is for many teens in (and outside) the hood who struggle to deal with a violent society that all too often embraces money over faith. (July)

Hickman's slow-paced but best novel since Katrina's Wings begins with protagonist Gaylen Boatwright, whose life is a mess. In her late 20s, she's called home to Boiling Waters, N.C., because of her father's death. When her unbalanced sister, Delia, shoots a woman, Gaylen decides to flee the law with her. Along the way, Gaylen and Delia deliver some unusual painted dresses their deceased aunt bequeathed to family friends and relatives, each dress symbolic of an incident in the past. These visits provide clues to the puzzle of Gaylen's life. With divorce papers in her pocket, she wonders about love, God, her sanity and the role of an incarcerated older brother in her nightmares. When the law catches up with Delia, Gaylen must determine whether her past will define her and what her future will hold. Hickman gamely unpacks the lies families tell each other, the cost of family secrets to ourselves and others, the bonds between sisters and the walls between husbands and wives. Her sparkling talent is evident in this engrossing story. (July)

Memoirist (But Enough About Me) and Rolling Stone writer Dunn turns in a first-class piece of reunion lit. After her husband announces “I'm bored by our life” and leaves, childless Manhattanite Lillian Curtis, almost 38, takes a sabbatical from producing Tell Me Everything!—a talk show geared toward senior citizens—and heads for her childhood home in Morristown, N.J., to lick her wounds. The break is suggested by Tell Me's wise star Vi Barbour (“Vi is short for vibrant!”), whom Lillian adores, and it gives Lillian a chance to attend her class of '88 high school reunion and reclaim her old self. Lillian's old boyfriend, Christian Somer, is still single, still hot and in town, and getting smashed at the beach and making out might be just the thing. The setup is beyond familiar, but Dunn's delicious wit enlivens this sparkling dramedy, depicting the perils of trying to recapture a John Hughes–era past that doesn't belong in the present. (July)

Urban fiction fans will welcome the melodramatic final entry in bestseller Woods's True to the Game trilogy, which vividly depicts the 1990s drug culture. After a vicious beating, Gena Scott, a child of the Philadelphia housing projects, awakes in a four-poster bed in a luxurious house and is overjoyed to see her drug-dealer lover, Quadir, whom she thought was dead. Quadir, she learns, has been in hiding, protected by the beautiful Dr. Amelia Hopkins, who saved his life after he was shot full of bullets. Gena is torn between her passion for Quadir and her new relationship with Jerrell Jackson, who happens to be Quadir's arch enemy. Fortunately for our heroine, neither a stalker, a rapist, nor crooked cops can thwart the progress of true love. (July)

At the start of Fountain's middling debut, a mélange of political thriller, X-Files-ish science fiction and romance, CIA officer John Gideon saves the life of attractive FBI agent Natalie Reyes during a botched FBI operation in Lisbon, Portugal. Back in the U.S., Gideon and Reyes join forces to investigate some strange doings at Kulbeda Station, an obscure satellite base in Delaware. The base turns out to be the cover for an underground, miniature city housing twin girls known as “wellwishers” whose paranormal abilities enable them to influence world events. The girls of “Littleton” become the target of a crack team from North Korea, which hopes to use their gifts to achieve world domination. Gideon and Reyes must use all their resourcefulness to foil the scheme. Paper-thin characters and routine prose don't help the implausible plot. Author tour. (July)

In Cleverly's fine seventh 1920s historical to feature Scotland Yard's Joe Sandilands (after 2007's Tug of War), the engaging sleuth refuses to believe his old friend and mentor, Sir George Jardine, stuck a knife in Sir Stanley Somerton, Jardine's former fellow soldier with an unsavory reputation, after a chance encounter at a Paris theater. Sandilands, aided by a French detective he worked with on an earlier case, Insp. Jean-Philippe Bonnefoye, pursues the real killer. The pair get a major break when Dr. Moulin, the pathologist assigned to the Paris morgue, suggests Somerton's killing was carried out at the direction of a master criminal responsible for a number of bizarre high-profile murders over the previous four years. While the payoff is a little too predictable and the solution doesn't match the setup as well as it might, Cleverly still manages to craft a puzzling whodunit. (Aug.)

Lt. Sarah Armstrong balances the challenges of being the Texas Rangers' lone criminal profiler and a single mom in the riveting fiction debut from true-crime journalist Casey (A Descent into Hell). A recent widow with a young daughter, Sarah deals with her loss by vigorously investigating the ritualistic murder of a wealthy Houston businessman, Edward Travis Lucas III, and his mistress, lawyer Annmarie Knowles, at his Galveston beach house. Galveston PD, the rangers and FBI unite their efforts, but turf battles erupt as they differ on whodunit. Sarah and FBI profiler David Garrity don't believe the local police's prime suspect—Lucas's unhappy wife, Priscilla—was the culprit. A serial killer appears more likely, and they soon uncover similar Texas murders. Casey's solid research, smooth plotting and sensitive depiction of Sarah's relationship with her grieving daughter lift what could've been standard serial-killer fare into poignant, exciting family drama. (July)

In Thomas's lively fifth Victorian historical to feature “enquiry agents” Cyrus “Guv” Barker and Thomas Llewelyn (after 2007's The Hellfire Conspiracy), Barker and Llewelyn investigate Sicilian immigrants, led by mob boss Victor Gigliotti, who are trying to gain control of London's lucrative dock trade. Rumors abound that underworld chief Marco Faldo is in town after several throats are slit, each body accompanied by a threatening note. Barker seeks help from a local Chinese gang and other colorful hooligans eager for both action and profit. A diverting trip to the south of England takes the pair to the estate of Barker's secret girlfriend, Philippa Ashleigh, who reveals startling if incongruous truths about Barker's swashbuckling past. Following this respite by the sea, the valiant sleuths steel themselves for a final, if slightly anticlimactic, battle to save London's waterfront. (July)

Sarah Booth Delaney heads for Hollywood in Haines's entertaining eighth cozy to feature the Zinnia, Miss., PI (after 2007's Ham Bones). Lucky enough to be cast as the female lead in the remake of the movie Body Heat, Sarah Booth is reunited with her onscreen and offscreen lover, Graf Milieu, but she also becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a woman whose body is found near her and Graf's rented home. When the cast travels to Costa Rica for filming on location, Sarah Booth discovers her family ghost has followed her. A second ghost, which resembles the director's deceased wife and appears before someone suffers serious injury, adds to the paranormal mischief. The chemistry sizzles between Graf and Sarah Booth as she sets out to discover exactly who's trying to sabotage the film. (July)

Kilgore follows his enigmatic debut, Who Is Shayla Hacker? (2007), with a melodramatic mystery that readers are likely to find equally perplexing. More than a decade after the disappearance of Sam Mackie's first son, Riley, a strange man tries to kidnap Sam's second son, Daniel, from the Mackies' house in a generic American town. A deliveryman's chance arrival causes the kidnapper to flee, but not before he jabs something sharp into grade-schooler Daniel's neck. Daniel is soon in the hospital, ill with what turns out to be radiation poisoning. A bloody attempt to seize Daniel in the hospital fails. In his increasingly frantic efforts to save Daniel, Sam chases down military officials, sneaks into his own office after hours, gets shot and signs Daniel over to his boss. As the story veers further into the absurd, Sam discovers an awful truth about Riley's fate, which leads to a far-fetched rescue attempt in the Republic of Congo. (July)

At the start of Lynn's charming third Shady Grove mystery (after 2007's Jacob's Ladder), series heroine Rose Franklin, who's temporarily in charge of the West Memphis, Ark., campground, takes in Chariot Stevens, a young woman who has fled her South Dakota home, where she witnessed the murder of her boyfriend, Jason Holmes. Chariot is barely settled at the tent site before she's arrested for Jason's murder. Rose and her Shady Grove friends must help prove Chariot's innocence by finding out what Jason stole to precipitate his murder—and persuade Sheriff Montgomery not to allow Chariot's extradition to South Dakota. After many an exciting twist, a worse-for-wear Rose joins Shady Grove's owners in a last-minute deliverance that will have the reader breathing a very satisfied sigh of relief. (July)

In Edgar-winner Elkins's absorbing 15th novel to feature forensics anthropology professor Gideon Oliver (after 2007's Little Tiny Teeth), Oliver and his wife, Julie, are off to Gibraltar so he can take part in a conference honoring the discovery of the First Family, the skeletons of a human woman buried with her half-Neanderthal child. After he narrowly escapes death twice before he can take part in the program, however, Gideon becomes suspicious that other “accidental” deaths associated with the archeological dig may actually be murders. Gideon interacts with a small group of scholars who display amusing quirks while also showing enough professional vanity to make them suspects. When Gideon studies the bone evidence, he gets the job done without CSI gimmicks and glitz, and Julie presses him for explanations if matters get too technical. In addition, Elkins offers readers a pleasant tour of the Rock and its neighborhood. (July)

Despite endorsements from Gayle Lynds, James Rollins and Ken Bruen, Stanley's debut offers little new that fans of ancient historicals—in particular, the detective series set in Roman Britain of Rosemary Rowe and Ruth Downie—haven't seen before. Julius Alpinus Classicanus Favonianus (aka Arcturus), a doctor whose mixed ancestry gives him insight into both the Romans and the Britons, serves Britannia's governor, Agricola, in first-century London. When a Syrian, Vibius Maecenas, is found with a slit throat in a temple, Arcturus is under intense pressure to solve the case. Maecenas was a messenger from Roman emperor Domitian bearing news threatening Agricola's position. In the end, Arcturus relies on a trick rather than any detecting skills to expose the killer. Readers should be prepared for a routine plot and prose (“They loved one another. Somewhat unusual. Love always is”). (July)

In Anthony-winner Dunlap's intriguing second mystery to feature Buddhist stuntwoman Darcy Lott (after 2007's A Single Eye), Darcy returns to her native San Francisco, where she attends the opening ceremony of a new Buddhist zendo center. To her surprise, the center's new landlord is a dead ringer for her missing brother, Mike, and he's on the arm of Tia Dru, who used to know Mike. When Tia disappears the next day, after intimating she had new information about Mike, Darcy races around the city, but finds Tia murdered in the zendo, with circumstantial evidence pointing at the zen master. With the aid of a suspiciously available cab driver, Darcy investigates the guests who had toured the old pirate tunnels beneath the zendo the previous evening, finding that nothing is as it first appears. By the end, Darcy has cleared her teacher, but awaits further enlightenment about her beloved missing brother. (July)

The “infinite bridge spirals of Shadowbridge” cover a watery world full of enchanting stories, the wonderfully eerie environment for this stirring sequel to 2007's Shadowbridge. Gifted shadow puppeteer Leodora, who disguises herself as a man to perform under the name of Jax, finds herself whisked away to the nebulous afterlife called Edgeworld. When the gods return her to the town of Colemaigne, blighted by soul-devouring Lord Tophet, her presence restores it to its former glory, restoring buildings and drawing the adoration of the populace. Tophet, “the embodiment of Chaos,” furious at finding his curse has been broken, sends his sinister Agents after “Jax,” not realizing a mere girl is the legendary puppeteer. Frost brings the charm of an ancient storyteller and the wit of a contemporary tale-spinner to this dramatic tale, effortlessly manipulating his troupe of mortals and immortals and bringing the truths and myths of Shadowbridge equally to life. (July)

A sly variation on the traditional cyberpunk novel, Edelman's sequel to 2006's Infoquake views a stunning new technology through the eyes of the cutthroat executives vying to market it. MultiReal, a reality-altering tool combining biological programming and quantum physics, threatens to plunge a far-future world into chaos, but before it can penetrate the furthest reaches of society, Natch, an entrepreneur and rebel, must find a way to market and distribute it. He faces tremendous resistance from legislative bodies, competing business concerns and the ominous black code embedded in the mechanisms that enhance his body. Edelman brings fresh air to the technological thriller, but his characters remain somewhat anemic and caricatured, particularly Jara, Natch's second-in-command. MultiReal itself is firmly established as one of the most fascinating singularity technologies in years, and the inconclusive feel of this installment will build anticipation for the third Jump 225 book. (July)

Aurealis-winner Wilkins (The Autumn Castle) refracts Russian history through a brilliantly jeweled kaleidoscope of folklore in this sparkling tale. Papa Grigory, a powerful shape-shifting creature who claims intimate familiarity with Russian celebrities from Konstantin to Rasputin, narrates the story of the Golden Bear, a magical statuette. When human enchantress Rosa Kovalenka finds the Bear hidden in the wall of a Russian bathhouse, the Bear sends Rosa's lover, Daniel, and his boss, Em Hayward, to Skazki, the fabled “land of enchantments.” There they struggle to survive encounters with mythic Russian creatures banished across the veil centuries ago by foolish humans. Rosa must learn to use her magical inheritance and solve the riddle of the doomed Snow Queen to save her human friends and keep Skazki from oblivion. Wilkins's human characters are endearing and her mythic monsters spring into vibrant life. Adult fairy tales don't come any better than this. (July)

Lost time and stolen memories make life difficult for a bar's patrons in this slim volume from prolific editor Silva (Post Mortem). Strangers rarely visit the Last Stop, a mom-and-pop establishment with a steady flow of regulars and almost no other customers, so when an old man with an oddly carved box drops by and barely touches his beer, his presence draws notice. Then the box opens, the room spins, and everyone present descends into madness. Bar owner Chase Hanford struggles particularly hard as pieces of his life are stripped from his memory; he leaves himself notes and photographs, but he's impeded by his deteriorating mental state and the nightmarish “stragglers” that haunt and threaten to consume him. Due largely to Chase's dwindling sanity, the story topples into a loose assortment of bland, disconnected vignettes, leaving readers as confused as the characters. (July)

Slapstick humor, mostly aimed at big business and the entertainment industry, fuels this mix of older works by veteran hard SF writer Bova (The Aftermath). The collection opens with the 1975 novel The Starcrossed, about a television studio's bumbling attempts to rehash Romeo and Juliet with a space opera spin, showcasing Hollywood's uneasy three-way relationship between creativity, stroking egos and making money. The handful of short stories primarily use SF ideas to flavor humorous situations: “Crisis of the Month” reveals the truth behind the international crises that take over the news with clocklike regularity, while “The Great Moon Hoax, or A Princess of Mars” proposes an alternate history where Martians scuttle the American space program. The most successful piece, despite its awkward extrapolation, is the 1989 novel Cyberbooks, which skewers the publishing industry while envisioning the chaos that could ensue with the invention of “electrical books.” (July)

Nebula-winner Asaro gives her tried-and-true romance formula another run in the passionate fifth installment of the Lost Continent series (after 2007's The Fire Opal). Beautiful young novice mage Allegra, abducted from her homeland by violent desert raiders intent on selling her into slavery, desperately plots her escape from the male-dominated Jazid culture, where women are legally animals, but finds herself irresistibly drawn to her handsome owner, the renegade prince regent Markus Onyx. Her unusual mage skills may gain her freedom, but the intense bond between her and Markus could give her the political power to change their lands forever. Asaro offers intriguing glimpses into Jazid society amid the sweaty bedsheets and intense machinations over treaties and wars. Though reminiscent of her earlier works and a bit heavy on the stereotypes, this rousing adventure of forbidden love, daredevil exploits and magic will captivate readers who like a little fantasy and politics in their romance. (July)

Hugo- and Nebula-winner Kress (Beggar's Ride) offers a spine-chilling, suspense-laden story of pets turned unwitting killers. Why are previously well-behaved pet dogs in rural Tyler, Md., turning on their owners and biting them? What is it that makes the dog bites so lethal? And what about these random events makes the Feds so touchy? Former FBI agent Tessa Sanderson, a dog owner and recent widow who just moved to Tyler, wants to know, and insists on helping Jess Langstrom, a longtime resident of Tyler and its chief animal control officer, to investigate, even as the FBI begins investigating her for suspected links to terrorist organizations. Together and separately, Tessa and Jess track down the answers to Tyler's frightening human and animal crisis. Kress brings her thorough knowledge of genetics and biology to bear in this nicely creepy thriller. (July)

In this series inaugural urban fantasy from Saintcrow (Working for the Devil), Jill Kismet is a Hunter, which means her life largely consists of tracking and slaying hellbreeds. To make her job easier, she has struck an unholy bargain with hellbreed Perry: he lends her his supernatural powers; she sits for emotionally trying s&m encounters with him once a month. When something supernatural massacres five city police officers, she senses that the killer is a rogue Were, which means that other Weres have to be called in to hunt him—but somehow he's capable of screening his tracks. Matters soon get even more complicated before an explosive finale. With a past as a teenage prostitute, Jill is a much darker character than most fantasy heroines, and her grit is palpable. The realm of hellbreeds and Weres remains somewhat murky, but Saintcrow gives herself ample room to develop a world around the promising Jill. (July)

The latest Dodd saga following the Wilder and Varinski clans features third brother Adrik Wilder, who, transforming into a panther, goes feral and becomes a vicious warlord. As such, he comes to strong-willed, nocturnal construction supervisor Karen Sonnet; he's soon her secret lover, then her savior in a very rocky situation. As the two maintain a complicated relationship, Adrik's evil Varinski cousins discover that Karen possesses one of the icons that the Wilders have been collecting to stop the Varinski curse. While the story is fairly inaccessible to those who have not read the previous books, readers familiar with the story will find the action brisk and immediate. Adrik's story is as intense as that of his brothers, and Karen is a tough, worthy sparring partner. Though the series' larger plot lines don't much advance, the cliffhanger ending is sure to whet appetites. (July)

In this exciting series inaugural from Liu (The Last Twilight), Maxine Kiss is the last in her family's line of Hunters, women who wear living demon tattoos that render them invulnerable by day and, as sentient creatures, protect the women at night—in order that they can in turn protect mankind. Maxine, abandoning one of the Hunter's primary tenets, has developed a relationship with Grant, a mysterious former priest. When Maxine's name is found on the dead body of a private investigator, she gets drawn into a complex web of demons and avatars, and is forced into discovering her deadly potential. The world Liu sets up is intriguing, but she's slow in getting it moving, so that even though Maxine is a strong character, the book has a hard time standing on its own. Still, Liu is one of the best new voices in paranormal fiction, and the series has potential. (June)

Long before he was a novelist of some repute, Ames was a teenage drunk of fearsome abilities. As Ames relates in this autobiographical graphic novel, he got drunk for the first time at the age of 15 in 1979 and found he loved it. The years that followed might have been a vomit-soaked mess, but that didn't stop Ames from keeping on with it. Even later, once Ames gets sober and becomes a writer, he continues his romance with alcohol by having the hero of his mystery novels be a serious drinker. Told in flashback fashion (with occasional sardonic asides) from a particularly horrendous postdrinking blackout, Ames's novel is primarily, and admittedly, a self-obsessed narrative of self-destructive behavior, with a particular emphasis on bad breakups and sexual misbehavior. The insular narrative is given drive by Haspiel's characteristic slash and jab illustrating style. But with the exception of the hauntingly unresolved story of Ames's painfully fraught childhood friendship with Sal, his original drinking partner, this is standard-issue graphic confessional, enlivened by the occasional bit of debauchery. (Sept.)

Before becoming one of America's leading editorial cartoonists, Mauldin (1921–2003) first achieved national fame as a young artist during WWII, drawing his iconic pair of soldiers, Willie and Joe. This deluxe two-volume slipcased set, edited by Todd DePastino, collects all of Mauldin's extant wartime cartoons. Volume 1, “Homefront, 1940–1943,” traces the teenage soldier's rapid development as an artist, imparting increasing realism to his original “cartoony” style, but these cartoons are unmemorable. Mauldin reaches greatness in the second volume, “Overseas: 1943–1945.” Sent to Italy as a member of the 45th Division's press corps, Mauldin observed soldiers in the midst of war, and Willie and Joe emerged. The public image of the American soldier, fostered both by the armed forces and Hollywood, had been an actively heroic, handsome, clean-cut youth. In startling contrast, Willie and Joe, Mauldin's everymen at war, were unshaven and unkempt “dogfaces”; they characteristically slouched with weariness. While funny, Mauldin's cartoons were also darkly ironic. It was clear that Willie and Joe had been beaten down by both the tedium of army life and the overwhelming dangers of combat. Their heroism lies in continuing to survive despite the odds, and these cartoons retain their power and relevance. (May)

This brilliant, beautiful, nearly uncategorizable book is a print version of Barry's famous seminar “Writing the Unthinkable” a class about writing from “images,” recollected or imagined moments. It's part cartooning, part handwritten text, part ornate multimedia collage (with heartbreaking pieces of decades-old school papers and words snipped out of old textbooks)—all three appear on almost every page, most of which Barry constructed by decorating every available space on ruled yellow notebook paper. The first and longest section is a bizarre and hilarious memoir of Barry's creative impulses: how they developed when she was a child, how they flickered and faded when she started asking herself “Is this good?” and “Does this suck?” and how they returned when she learned to escape that trap. The core of the book, though, explains the “writing the unthinkable” technique; it's narrated by a sea monster and stars a “magic cephalopod.” Finally, Barry shows us a sheaf of her note pad, the pages she fills with doodles and spare phrases while she's working on a “real” project; they are, naturally, as vivid and radiantly eccentric as everything else here. The whole thing is overflowing with quirks, strangeness and charm, and makes palpable Barry's affection for her students and the act of art making itself. (May)

Two visions of New Orleans: one you may recognize, the other—hopefully not.

Former contortionist and trapeze artist Boyden (Pretty Little Dirty) invokes an array of New Orleans voices on Uptown's Orchid Street. Daniel Harris, a smalltime teenage drug dealer who goes by “Fearius,” hopes “[t]oday gone be his day” and the coming Hurricane Ivan will drive junkies into a stockpiling frenzy. Although his voice more often mimics street patois than evokes his character, language crystallizes with character in his white neighbor, the 57-year-old Philomenia Beauregard de Bruges, who seeks to divest her neighborhood of undesirables. Orchid Street's Minneapolis transplants, Ed Flank and Ariel May, meanwhile, struggle to maintain a family in an American Babylon that batters and woos with delights and disasters. Into the mix move the Guptas, an Indian family who have a difficult time breaking the ice. Though it could lose some extraneous passages, the book's nuanced story of people who “choose to live... inside the big lasso of river” reveals a side of the Crescent City not often seen in fiction. (Aug.)

In the second book in her fantasy-tinged New Orleans trilogy, Rhodes delivers a taut narrative with the creepy fantastical twists her fans will recognize and expect. Marie Levant, great-granddaughter of New Orleans voodoo queen Marie Laveau, is an ER doctor and voudooienne in her own right. When a spectral force starts killing people, she teams up with Det. Daniel Parks to solve the murders. However, she soon discovers that the force, summoned by music, is actually an African vampire with a personal link to Laveau. Marie is a strong heroine well matched by skeptical Parks, and her Crescent City is rife with music, danger, lust and mystery. While some of Rhodes's characters feel wooden, the plot sizzles, and the themes explored are grand. A solid installment to a strong series. (Aug.)

Two“Year's Best”anthologies approach the superlative.

Renowned editors Hartwell and Cramer return with an enjoyable anthology that nonetheless never quite convinces you these are really the best stories of 2007. The standout selections, such as Darryl Gregory's “Unpossible,” a lost boy's poignant return to a fantasy world, and Laird Barron's “The Forest,” an exquisitely sinister exploration of a Lovecraftian landscape, are far better than those by bigger names, such as Michael Moorcock's bitter, solipsistic “A Portrait in Ivory” or Elizabeth Hand's paint-by-numbers sword and sorcery story “Winter's Wife.” The predictability of Theodora Goss's can-do princess in “Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon” and Tad Williams's morally ambiguous good guy in “The Stranger's Hands” are balanced by the originality of the sprightly metalibrary in Holly Black's “Paper Cuts Scissors” and Fred Chappell's Vance-like fantasia “Dance of Shadows.” Most readers will enjoy the variety, though aficionados of the genre might be nonplussed at some choices. (July)

The 25th installment of editor extraordinaire Dozois's annual collection packs a wallop. Standout selections include Stephen Baxter's “Last Contact,” a decidedly understated hard SF tale wherein an astrophysicist and her elderly mother prepare for the looming end of the universe; “Sanjeev and Robotwallah” by Ian McDonald, a meticulously detailed coming-of-age story in a future India where a young boy learns firsthand the realities of war; and Ted Chiang's Nebula-winning “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate,” a powerfully emotional—and edifying—story about a Baghdad merchant who travels back in time to seek redemption for the errors of his youth. In a detailed introduction, Dozois credits online magazines, small press collections and several new annual original anthology series with making it a banner year for short science fiction. (July)

Meg Gardiner's Evan Delaney series, until recently only available in the U.K. (where the American Gardiner lives with her family), is coming to U.S. readers this summer.

After giving up her law career to work as a legal researcher and science fiction writer, Evan Delaney is also helping her fighter pilot brother, Brian, raise his six-year-old son, Luke. But soon Luke's mother, Tabitha, reappears as a member of the Remnant, a fundamentalist religious group that targets the funeral of Evan's friend Claudine, who died of AIDS. Led by the fanatical pastor Peter Wyoming, the Remnant preaches of a coming apocalypse and urges its members to cleanse themselves of all things satanic. Tabitha demands custody of Luke; the church attacks Evan for her “sacrilegious” books and Brian for his role in the evil known as the federal government. Things heat up when a member of the Remnant is murdered, and the police arrest Brian as the key suspect. Gardiner nimbly turns what could be a tired plot into a suspenseful thriller, thanks in part to the quick-witted—and even quicker tempered—Evan.

Gardiner's stand-alone novel, The Dirty Secrets Club (Dutton, July), will be the author's first simultaneous release in the U.S. and the U.K. Obsidian plans to release the remaining Evan Delaney novels monthly. China Lake's June release will be followed by Mission Canyon in July, Jericho Point in August, Crosscut in September and, in October, Kill Chain.