Fiction Reviews

Professors Kamensky and Lepore try for playful historical romance, but deliver instead a novel that is, if rich in period detail, also overwrought, predictably plotted and at times embarrassingly purple. The year is 1764 and portrait painter Stewart Jameson has been chased by debtors from his native Scotland to Boston, where he quickly opens shop and takes an apprentice, the half-starved orphan, Francis Weston, who turns out to be Fanny Easton, the disgraced daughter of one of Boston’s leading citizens. Stewart does a good business with Boston’s better class, which puts Stewart and Fanny in a good position to solve the murder of an abolitionist. They are joined at this task by Stewart’s old friend from Edinburgh, Dr. Ignatius Alexander, a university-trained runaway slave. The mystery plays out with little surprise; rather, the narrative is driven by Alexander’s hatred of slavery and by Stewart and Fanny’s tawdry relationship. Unfortunately, however, both of these lines prove awkward, and while students of the era may find enough period detail to carry them through, the cheesy plot and facile characterizations are likely to turn off most readers. (Dec.)

Leigh follows her internationally acclaimed The Hunter with a haunting family drama tightly packed into a tense novella. Olivia, referred to primarily (and somewhat affectedly) as “the woman,” has fled her abusive husband with her two sharp-tongued young children. She seeks refuge at her mother’s chateau in France, which she left on bad terms to get married 12 years earlier. Soon after Olivia’s unexpected arrival, her brother shows up with his wife, Sophie, and the body of their stillborn child. Although the plot feels a bit slight, there is great emotional weight and disturbing imagery, as Sophie wanders aimlessly, still wearing her hospital ID bracelet and carrying her lifeless daughter in her arms as if the baby were a doll. The chateau is an ideal gothic setting for the morbid events that occur over the course of several days; indeed, there is only one scene that takes place off the chateau’s grounds, infusing the novel with an unsettling atmosphere of claustrophobia. Death and impending death reign, but Leigh also paints a subtle portrait of a broken family trying to piece itself back together. (Dec.)

The patriarch of a chaotic family living in a hectic land must come to terms with himself and what he’s wrought at home and at work in this excellent debut. Rakesh Ahuja battles the twin bedlams of his sprawling family and overcrowded home city of New Delhi while simultaneously trying to save his career as the minister of urban development. Rakesh attempts to manipulate and cajole his way through the corrupt and sometimes illogical Indian civil service, often finding himself embroiled in absurd intrigues. Home is no less fraught, where his 13 children battle each other for their often-absent father’s love. The lone exception is Arjun, the eldest, whose adolescent rebellion and nascent romantic inclinations prompt him to form a rock band and pull away from his frenetic family. As Rakesh clumsily reaches out to his first-born son, the twists of fate that shaped both their lives are revealed, providing a portrait of a family that is both comical and heartbreaking. Mahajan’s effortless blending of comedy and tragedy is irresistible and should help his book stand out. (Dec.)

In her debut novel, Wing uses Sun-Tzu’s classic The Art of War and her own difficult transition from New York to L.A. to craft a brainy, satiric chick lit novel that forgoes a typical looking-for-love plot in favor of a happy-couple-against-the-world story. Tried and true New Yorker Stacey Knight is marrying the man of her dreams, businessman Jamie, who recently acquired a sinking Hollywood studio, necessitating their move to L.A. During the wedding reception, however, the antagonistic “Trio of Terror” studio heads Simon, Barb and Phil volley the first shot in a smooth but sinister dinner toast. As her enemies go all out, Stacy plays the victim for an irritating length of time before getting wise. The twists and turns, once they become clear, are entertaining, but Wing’s characters aren’t terribly likable, especially compared to some of the well-drawn minor characters. Though her concept, weaving in passages from Sun Tzu, is clever, the read slows to a crawl under the weight of difficult-to-follow conversations, a strange narrative style and frequent use of two-dollar words. (Dec.)

Bulgarian author and screenwriter Wagenstein devotes his powerful novel to an affable Jewish tailor from a small town in Eastern Europe who survives the reigns of Hitler and Stalin. Wagenstein himself escaped from a concentration camp and was saved from execution when the Soviets entered Bulgaria. Half a century later, he creates self-effacing narrator Isaac Jacob Blumenfeld, threading Jewish jokes throughout the narrative not only to sweeten the bitter material but also because they encapsulate the humanistic foundation of Isaac’s philosophy. Isaac’s town of Kolodetz in the Austro-Hungarian empire becomes part of Poland, then the U.S.S.R., before being overtaken by Nazi Germany and eventually reclaimed by the Soviets. He is drafted into military service by each of his first three motherlands. The Germans invade, and Isaac, posing as a Pole, is sent to a Nazi labor camp. Inadvertently revealing himself as a Jew, he ends up in a concentration camp, after which the liberating Soviets exile him to Siberia. Isaac’s mesmerizing voice charms through every disaster, and engages and delights the reader without distracting from Wagenstein’s profound insights into life’s absurdities. (Nov.)

Gunnar Huttunen, the cranky protagonist of Paasilinna’s dreary novel, never learned to use an inside voice. Ranging north from southern Finland after WWII, the widower takes over a long-abandoned mill in Suukosi, much to the amusement of the uptight townspeople. He quickly becomes the local eccentric, renowned for, among other things, his imitations of forest creatures. Despite winning the affection of respected local Sanelma Käyrämö, Gunnar gets into trouble after going on a drunken rampage. He’s institutionalized and escapes, only to find himself persona non grata back in the village. Here, though, Paasilinna—whose work has been widely translated—loses steam as the narrative becomes a slow dirge of Gunnar’s exiled life in the woods as he gets by on dumb luck and help from Sanelma and a few sympathetic townsfolk. While, for instance, Gunnar’s daring trip to town to watch a sporting event adds excitement, the play-by-play of his life on the lam is more a whimper than a howl. (Nov.)

In this collection, his American debut, Tsutsui—recipient of a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres—amplifies the absurdities of contemporary life to usually entertaining results. In “The Dabba Dabba Tree,” the erotic dreams caused by a phallus-shaped plant create havoc, as sleeping and waking life are confused for both dreamers and nondreamers alike. In “Rumours about Me,” a dull office drone becomes an unwilling celebrity, his every action recounted in breathless detail by the media. Other stories are less lighthearted, such as “Commuter Army,” featuring a weapons supplier in the thick of a foreign war, and “Hello, Hello, Hello!” in which a “Household Economy Consultant” cheerfully insinuates himself into a couple’s life and leaches every small happiness from them. Tsutsui is less interested in his characters than in teasing his ideas out as far as possible. While this technique has its cerebral pleasures and his writing can be humorous, the application of his one-size-fits-all narrative mold grows tiresome. (Nov.)

Goldreich’s latest wide-ranging novel, rooted in suburban New York, skillfully delineates contemporary and conservative Jewish life, but with a less-than-compelling story. Goldreich’s protagonist, ceramic artist Elaine Gordon, is neither warm nor particularly sympathetic. Putting her husband first and art second, she’s effectively shut out her four children. But after her husband dies, those grown children, each of whom has a successful life outside New York City, convene and convince Elaine to visit, hoping she’ll choose to live near one of them. First stop is Sandy (now Sarah) in Jerusalem, then Peter in California, both of whom have children Elaine gets to bond with. Next, she travels to Russia with Lisa, an unmarried professional who wants to adopt a child. Finally, she arrives in New Mexico where her gay son, Denis, lives with his partner; Elaine’s always been uncomfortable with Denis’s homosexuality, and Goldreich (Leah’s Journey) doesn’t let us forget it. Unfortunately, Elaine’s sudden emotional turnarounds never ring true, making last-act reconciliations feel like too little too late. (Nov.)

Death is not the end but rather the start of a series of madcap and sometimes moving adventures for characters in this spry novel about the un-afterlife. Events begin on a wintry day in Connecticut when Ben Gould slips and hits his head on a curb. He should have died, but owing to a “virus” in heaven’s computer system, Ben’s body lives on. Soon, Ben and others in his life—including his talking dog, Pilot, and his own ghost (named Ling)—find themselves endowed with extraordinary and unpredictable talents, including time traveling, the ability to hobnob with multiple incarnations of their younger selves, and a capacity to see otherwise invisible forces of fate manifested in bizarre physical forms. Carroll (Glass Soup) tethers the series of loopy incidents that ensues and their shaggy-dog explanation to incisive and poignant observations about the wondrous possibilities of everyday life that are the hallmark of his flippant style of fantasy. Carroll fans will best appreciate this jeu d’esprit. (Oct.)

In Walton’s fine conclusion to her alternative-history trilogy (after Ha’penny), former Scotland Yarder Peter Carmichael, now head of the secret police organization known as the Watch, must prepare for a peace conference to be held in London two decades after Britain reached an accommodation with Hitler’s Germany in the early 1940s. Carmichael also has to worry about his sexual relationship with his valet, Jack, and the covert unit within the Watch he’s created to smuggle British Jews out of the country. Then his naïve 18-year-old ward, Elvira Royston, who’s about to be presented to the queen, overhears a conversation that could compromise her protector. Elvira, who winds up in police custody after attending a political rally that turns violent, accepts her authoritarian society with a casualness that’s truly chilling. Walton’s understated prose and deft characterizations elevate this above similar works such as Fatherlandand SS-GB. Some readers, though, may feel let down by an optimistic ending that jars with the series’ overall downbeat tone. (Oct.)

When boxer Melik Oktay and his mother, both Turkish Muslims living in Hamburg, take in a street person calling himself Issa at the start of this morally complex thriller from le Carré (The Mission Song), they set off a chain of events implicating intelligence agencies from three countries. Issa, who claims to be a Muslim medical student, is, in fact, a wanted terrorist and the son of Grigori Karpov, a Red Army colonel whose considerable assets are concealed in a mysterious portfolio at a Hamburg bank. Tommy Brue, a stereotypical flawed everyman caught up in the machinations of spies and counterspies, enters the plot when Issa’s attorney seeks to claim these assets. The book works best in its depiction of the rivalries besetting even post-9/11 intelligence agencies that should be allies, but none of the characters is as memorable as George Smiley or Magnus Pym. Still, even a lesser le Carré effort is far above the common run of thrillers. (Oct.)

De Bernières (Corelli’s Mandolin) delivers an oddball love story of two spiritually displaced would-be lovers. During a dreary late 1970s London winter, stolid and discontented Chris is drawn to seedy and mysterious Roza, a Yugoslav émigrée he initially believes is a prostitute. She isn’t (though she claims to have been), and soon the two embark on an awkward friendship (Chris would like to imagine it as a romance) in which Roza spins her life’s stories for her nondescript, erstwhile suitor. Roza, whose father supported Tito, moved to London for opportunity but instead found a school of hard knocks, and she’s all too happy to dole out the lessons she learned to the slavering Chris. The questions of whether Roza will fall for Chris and whether Chris will leave his wife (he calls her “the Great White Loaf”) carry the reader along, as the reliability of Chris and Roza, who trade off narration duties, is called into question—sometimes to less than ideal effect. The conclusion is crushing, and Chris’s scorching regret burns brightly to the last line. (Oct.)

The aftermath of a child’s injury leaves a trail of love, loss and mystery around generations of women in British author—and former nurse—Ferguson’s finely wrought American debut. After an accident in 1953 threatens a young boy named George with blindness, his mother, Ruby, becomes the target of an anonymous, vicious letter-writer and begins to lose her grip on reality. Meanwhile a young nurse and a medical student meet while sitting over George’s hospital bed and begin an all-consuming romance. Their happy courtship worries working-class nurse Iris when she enters her boyfriend Rob’s posh and unwelcoming world. Forty years later, Sylvia, a talented London eye surgeon reads the crumbling old hospital notes detailing George’s surgery and must confront her lack of inner vision when it comes to her new child, her family and a life-long friendship. Ferguson does a beautiful job of drawing together the pieces—the relationship between our physical and moral ailments, and injuries with our inner pain and suffering—and her nonlinear storytelling builds a sense of foreboding, mystery and pathos as the fates of all these characters’ interlocking lives are revealed. (Oct.)

Fans of Neville’s debut, The Eight (1988), which long before there was a Da Vinci Code featured a complex historical setting, ciphers, conspiracies, puzzles and a hunt for an object that could change the course of the world, will welcome this stellar sequel. Alexandra Solarin, child chess prodigy now grown, finds herself immersed in “the Game,” searching for a legendary chess set, the Montglane Service, which when assembled spells out the formula for the secret of immortality. The quest for the set ranges from the harem of Ali Pasha in 19th-century Albania to present-day Baghdad and Washington, D.C., and involves such historic figures as Charlemagne, Isaac Newton, Lord Byron and Napoleon. Despite the staggering amount and quality of the research, nothing feels shoehorned or extraneous. The story’s relentless pace is matched by characters both sympathetic and real. In the end, readers will be heartened to find signs pointing to the continuation of the Game in future novels. (Oct.)

This collection by celebrated Mexican author Fuentes (The Eagle’s Throne) treks a wide swath of Mexican history, encompassing revolutions won and brutally suppressed, evolving sexual mores and economic upheaval. While all kinds of relationships are explored—lovers and friends, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers—the most revealing of Fuentes’s work are father-son stories. In “The Disobedient Son,” a father demands that his sons become priests to honor their dead mother; “The Official Family” posits a fictional president of Mexico who controls fiercely his own passions by imposing limits on his wayward boy; and in “The Star’s Son,” a fading movie star takes belated responsibility for a son with a crippling disability. Interspersed with short chapters of free-form poetry that turn an unflinching eye on homelessness, sexual abuse, gangs and drugs, Fuentes’s urgent stories make clear that Mexico is too full of life and tragedy to be controlled or constrained. Desperately holding the turbulence still for a moment, Fuentes examines closely hard lives in an unforgiving place. (Oct.)

Full of horrific violence, this solid third thriller to feature scarred FBI agent Smoky Barrett (after The Face of Death) shows that McFadyen knows how to shock. When the FBI director calls Smoky to Washington, D.C., to inspect the body of a beautiful young woman stabbed to death aboard an airplane, Smoky can’t figure out why she’s been assigned a case so far outside her L.A. jurisdiction. But when Smoky learns that not only was the victim, Lisa Reid, the child of a powerful Democratic senator but also that “she” was a pre-op transsexual, Smoky realizes that this is more than a bizarre homicide. Smoky and her team soon get on the trail of the man they dub “the Preacher,” a sin collector who murders people to obtain their darkest secrets. Harboring secrets of her own, Smoky must stay one step ahead of the killer if she’s to bring him down. The forays into the victims’ minds to expose their “secrets” are unnecessary, but the formidable Smoky makes up for the occasional plot tangent. (Oct.)

Set in and around Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York City in the years after the Revolutionary War, this clever thriller from Liss (The Ethical Assassin) follows the adventures of Ethan Saunders, once a valiant spy for General Washington, who’s fallen on hard times by war’s end. Suspected of treason, Ethan has lost the love of his life, Cynthia, who’s married the fiendish Jacob Pearson, an entrepreneur who managed to prosper during the British occupation of Philadelphia. At Cynthia’s urging, Ethan agrees to go looking for the missing Jacob, prompted in large part by a desire to redeem his reputation. Meanwhile, the so-called whiskey rebels on the western frontier are trying to bring down the hated Alexander Hamilton and his Bank of the United States. The courageous Ethan is a likable rogue, and even though Ethan spends too much time delving into the complications of 18th-century finance, he can be counted on when the chips are down and the odds against him soar. (Oct.)

Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, MacBride’s superbly unsettling fourth novel (after Bloodshot) sets Det. Sgt. Logan McRae on the trail of a serial killer in Aberdeen, Scotland. When human remains are discovered first in a shipping container and later in a local butcher shop, McRae’s superiors send him to round up Kenneth Wiseman (aka “the Flesher”), who terrorized the city 20 years earlier but was released on a technicality. Det. Insp. David Insch, who was part of the original Wiseman investigation, is determined to see the man behind bars. But when tragedy strikes, leaving Insch teetering on the edge of throwing away his entire career, McRae realizes that the police have been looking in the wrong direction. As more body parts turn up, McRae must fit the grisly pieces together before time runs out. MacBride’s dry wit turns what could have been a gratuitously gory slasher story into a crackling thriller. (Oct.)

The bestselling Rice teams up with Monninger in this epistolary novel of an unraveling marriage. Sam and Hadley West separated following the death of their grown son, Paul. Sam is in Laika Star, Alaska, where he is arranging to travel via dog sled to the site where Paul died in a plane crash. Hadley, meanwhile, has moved to an island off the coast of Maine and thinks Sam’s trip is a bad idea. Both Sam and Hadley initially come off as unsympathetic (he too self-centered, she too bitter and jaded), but as the letters pile up and they delve deeper into their anguish while sorting out “what [their] marriage means or how it should end,” they endear themselves to the reader. The book is unabashedly melodramatic, but readers into the sappy will be reaching for a Kleenex by the end. (Oct.)

Fans of Vigorito’s originally self-published 2007 cult hit Just a Couple of Days will have a ball with this hyperactive, zany novel. Twenty-year-old drifter Diablo spies on Bridget Snapdragon, the pagan wife of a Normal, Ill., actuary, skinny dipping in her backyard creek. He is soon arrested, and while in jail, flips a playing card onto the back of a bee, setting in motion an atmospheric disturbance that begets the storm of the century. Meanwhile, a select group of misfits are unknowingly thrown into the storm’s path. There’s J.J. Speed, a priest turned special agent after becoming “insane from celibacy”; Elizabeth Wildhack, Bridget’s stripper daughter; Billy Pronto, a man who speaks in terms of the here and now only; and Clovis, a ninth-century serf, who, with the aid of gnomes, time-travels to Normal. Vigorito has no trouble stringing together words and writes goofball fiction as well as anyone, but the book’s time shifts, innumerable eccentricities, chaotic narrative and 400 pages are enough to wear a reader out. (Oct.)

When wounded bank robber Phil Dixon flees a botched holdup in New Jersey at the start of this entertaining crime novel from Levison (Working Stiff’s Manifesto), he winds up at the Tiburn, N.H., home of Elias White, a history professor whose academic aspirations far outmatch his abilities. Dixon intimidates White into sheltering him until he’s ready to escape to Canada, where he plans to start a new life as a farmer. White, meanwhile, sees opportunities to further his career in the situation. Later, FBI agent Denise Lupo, eager for an excuse to leave her dead-end New York City job for a couple of days, follows a slim clue that points to Dixon’s presence in New Hampshire. The prison-schooled Dixon, the pretentious White and Lupo with her shattered idealism give the author ample scope to nail a lot of targets. Not only does Levison score high on the satirical scale, he manages some ingenious plot shifts that should provoke both appreciative smiles and laughter. (Oct.)

In Hannah’s intense second thriller (after Little Face), Det. Sgt. Charlie Zailer and her sidekick, Det. Constable Simon Waterhouse, pursue a serial rapist who preys on successful single career women and sells tickets to “live” rape parties. Naomi Jenkins, a sundial maker prone to panic attacks, reports her married lover, Robert Haworth, missing after he fails to show up for their weekly tryst. Later, in order to speed up the search, Naomi informs the police that Robert raped her three years earlier. Simon finds Robert at home, near death, after possibly being bludgeoned by his wife. But there’s far more going on, and making matters more dodgy, aside from a growing victim list, is the foolish fling Charlie has with the owner of a chalet-style resort in Scotland. Full of clever plot twists, this satisfying shocker about “the victims and the perpetrators of violent crimes” suggests how obsessive love, while not a crime, is certainly within hurting distance. (Oct.)

A boy genius has a rough go of it in college in Jacoby’s uneven debut. While Theodore Mead Fegley’s domineering mother looked over his shoulder and his father ran a funeral home and furniture store, Mead’s early years were defined by bullies and comparisons to his popular, athletic cousin Percy. At 15, Mead is accepted to the prestigious Chicago University and put on the accelerated track to graduate in three years. With the help of the eccentric Dr. Alexander, Mead is determined to solve the Riemann Hypothesis, a conundrum that has plagued mathematicians for over a century. But Mead’s life is soon thrown into disarray by Herman Weinstein, a cunning frenemy and fellow math student, and, as graduation—where Mead is supposed to give a much anticipated presentation—nears, Mead grows increasingly insecure. The tropes are familiar—troubled genius, overbearing mother, kooky mentor—and Jacoby, sadly, doesn’t do much to tweak the formula. It’s a pleasant enough diversion, but there’s nothing especially exciting or original going on. (Oct.)

The client: a woman in peril. The case: a missing person. The hero: an investigator. The complication: thugs and secrets. MWA Grand Master Pronzini (The Crimes of Jordan Wise) has used this recipe effectively for nearly four decades, including in this highly competent, if somewhat mechanical, suspense novel set in Las Vegas and California’s Mohave Desert. While camping in the desert, Rick Fallon, a corporate security officer whose marriage has finally crumbled in the wake of his son’s accidental death, comes across Casey Dunbar, who’s tried and failed to kill herself after months of fruitlessly searching for her young son, who’s been abducted by her ex-husband. Fallon empathizes with the woman, and what follows is a good old-fashioned search-and-capture mission with all the usual Pronzini virtues: a simple yet disciplined prose style; a strong, multilayered central character; and a compelling plot that builds to a nice little closing twist. (Oct.)

Spens’s protagonist, Alice, just a few years older than the debut novelist herself, is the product of a transcontinental teenagehood, a British-born child of exceptionally wealthy, divorced parents with a tony Connecticut boarding school education—including intensives in psychedelics, cocaine and the old vodka-in-an-Evian-bottle trick. After graduation, Alice hangs around London dabbling in fashion and the attention of men—first Hugo, a man twice her age, and then Harry, a depressed would-be songwriter with a pedigree similar to her own. Ostensibly the story of Alice’s unrequited love for Harry, Spens’s novel also forward marches through fashion shows and fetes, cigarettes and pills, stargazing and navel-gazing. The narrative flits back and forth in time and alternates hazy points of view among Alice, Harry and Alice’s pill-happy best friend, Rose. The big field party that brings all three stories together, the Wrecking Ball, gives them a suitably soft spot to land, but the confessional narrative collapses in amoral inanity before then, ending up in a discomfiting netherworld between Gossip Girl and A Million Little Pieces. (Oct.)

In this posthumous novel, Asinof (who died in June and is best known for Eight Men Out) presents a cartoonish indictment of Bush-era morals with a story narrated by Kenneth Flear, a novelist-turned-English professor at a northeastern university. Flear meets an impassioned student, Anne Miner, who wants to block the commencement speech of George W. Bush at the university. Flear, a “middle-aged radical who had been mugged by time” is now reluctant to jeopardize his chances for tenure and opts not to participate in Anne’s protest. In the meantime, he is wined and dined by publishing bigwig Jonathan Purcell and finds himself attracted to Purcell’s slick moneyed world. Flear’s sense of who he wants to be is challenged when Anne interrupts commencement with an act that shocks the nation, and Purcell soon has Flear writing a smear book about Anne. What starts decently enough quickly devolves, and the narrative grows more absurd as it goes on; by the climax—at a taping of Good Morning America at Book Expo America featuring Barack Obama, Charlie Gibson, Bill O’Reilly, Bob Woodward and, of course, Flear—well, it’s nearly impossible to suspend that much disbelief.(Oct.)

This overwrought sophomore effort from novelist Francis (The Great Inland Sea) finds young gay Australian artist Darcy Bright reluctantly traveling to Moscow in 1984 at the beck of his half-sister/cousin Fin, a fellow artist commissioned to paint the city’s “industrial landscapes.” Interspersing flashbacks of Darcy and Fin’s childhood, Francis does little to explain the deep connection, or even the anomalous sexual attraction Darcy feels for the aloof Fin; still, he’s helpless against Fin’s manipulations, which include her using Darcy’s portfolio to score her job. An innocent abroad pulled in different directions by strong-willed people, Darcy must also contend with expatriate Cuban Aurelio, a Moscow patrolman who rounds up hooligans and “homosexes.” After Darcy’s brief affair with Aurelio, the novel ricochets into thriller territory, layered with blackmail, political intrigue, sex, secret agendas and escalating violence. As the plot becomes more tangled, however, Francis’s impressionistic style and lack of restraint (“He removed Aurelio’s coat. It was heavy, like a shawl of dread”) stand in the way of clarity, rendering his breakneck plot more exhausting than page-turning. (Oct.)

From Self, the British master of the satirical fantasy, comes a loquacious and inventive farce about the demise of civilization. Tom Brodzinski, relaxing on vacation in the postcolonial Feltham Islands, sets off a string of unfortunate events when he flicks a cigarette butt off his hotel balcony. It lands on the scalp of tourist Reginald Lincoln III. Reggie’s happy to laugh it off, but things slide from bad to worse when Reggie is hospitalized and Tom is charged with assault with “a projectile weapon with a toxic payload.” After a chaotic trial, Tom is ordered to pay a restitution of two good hunting “riffles,” a set “coking pots” and $10,000. The catch is that the restitution needs to take place in the tribal heartland. This launches Tom and Brian Prentice, another foreign transgressor (Tom suspects pedophilia), on an expedition of Conradian proportions during which Tom is tormented by Brian’s “rotten, cloacal physicality.” Self (The Book of Dave; How the Dead Live; etc.) confirms his reputation for pulling off cleverly modeled literary experiments. This one is at times exhausting, but if you can stick with him, Self successfully presents an ironic and timely metaphor for our post-9/11 Bigger Brother world. (Sept.)

In this sweeping drama, Coleridge (A Much Married Man) zeroes in on a charismatic tycoon whose desires and drive know no bounds. As a godfather of six, wealthy and domineering Marcus Brand is largely absent, except for his occasional invitations to visit him at his enchanting island getaway. What develops is a confounding routine; at unexpected intervals, Brand summons his godchildren, only to wreak havoc on their lives and complicate their already conflicted opinions of him. The kids include arrogant and selfish Charlie, enthralled with Brand’s billions; lovable but drifting Jamie, out to score with his godfather’s girlfriends; beautiful Saffron, intermittently enamored with and indifferent to Brand’s romantic attentions; sweet Mary, yearning for Charlie’s affection; Stuart, plagued by his father’s role in the death of Marcus’s wife; and overweight, self-conscious Abigail, mesmerized but largely ignored by Brand. Told through the godchildren’s eyes over the course of three decades, Brand’s illicit passions and activities come to startling life, as well as the extraordinary impact he has on his charges, despite the paucity of their interactions. Coleridge’s latest family epic will hold readers spellbound. (Sept.)

In May’s dark, intense third mystery to feature Scottish forensic scientist Enzo Macleod, Enzo takes on his third cold case described in a book by Parisian journalist Roger Raffin—the murder of a “rent boy” 16 years earlier—but Enzo’s investigation runs into trouble after he’s diagnosed with terminal cancer and he’s framed for murder. Evidently, the rent boy’s killer fears Enzo will solve the crime if he ever gets a chance. May makes the French settings sharply real, while creating a seething tangle of emotional conflicts between Enzo and the people around him. By novel’s end, the overall plot, like the emotional relationships, isn’t really settled, which may feel frustrating—or may hook readers into following the developments of an unusually compelling ongoing saga. Those already familiar with the previous two books in the series, Extraordinary People (2006) and The Critic (2007), will be at an advantage. (Nov.)

The quiet, charming wit that’s the hallmark of Brownley’s second mystery to feature floundering British journalist Alison Glasby (after A Picture of Guilt) makes the book’s watershed moments all the more explosive. When an anonymous source lands Alison in legal hot water over an article she published on police corruption only to disappear soon after, Alison too eagerly turns elsewhere for a sensational story. Eccentric, reclusive Michael Fisher offers to blow the lid off the decades-old death of a school gym teacher. Police corruption, prostitution and anti-Semitism all come into play as Alison tries to make a story out of Fisher’s cryptic claims—all the while attempting to reconcile with her police officer ex-boyfriend and get into the good graces of her patronizing editor. Readers will readily get lost in the rich and adeptly nuanced passages of this engrossing novel. (Oct.)

In La Plante’s solid third police procedural to feature London Det. Insp. Anna Travis (after 2007’s The Red Dahlia), Anna’s lover and superior, Det. Chief Insp. Jimmy Langton, is knifed while investigating the murder of a young prostitute. As Anna helps him recuperate, Jimmy becomes obsessed with catching his assailant, rumored to be Clinton Camorra, a notorious drug trafficker and voodoo practitioner. Anna discovers another link to Camorra’s gang of illegal immigrants in one of her own murder cases, the apparently motiveless killing of a woman by Arthur George Murphy, who also practices voodoo. After Arthur’s sister and niece are murdered and another niece and nephew disappear, Anna suspects that not only is Camorra behind the crimes but that she may be the next target. Though her stance on illegal immigration is sometimes too strident for the story to support, La Plante has created another damaged heroine almost as appealing as her inimitable Jane Tennison. (Oct.)

Dagger Award–winner Cleverly’s third Laetitia Talbot mystery falls short of the high standard set by the first in this historical series, The Tomb of Zeus (2007). Talbot, a fiercely independent amateur sleuth in the spirit of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher, is plunged into international intrigue after her godfather, Daniel Thorndon, is stabbed to death in Burgundy in 1926. Before dying, Thorndon managed to mail a coded postcard to Talbot, using a cipher the two had shared when she was much younger. Aided by an improbable bodyguard, a military chaplain who served in WWI, Talbot journeys to France, where she uses her archeological skills to link up with a dig that may enable her to solve the mystery of Thorndon’s death. Stock characters abound, like an enigmatic but handsome French nobleman, rather than the original creations who populate Cleverly’s Joe Sandilands historical series (Ragtime in Simla, etc.). (Oct.)

At the start of Albert’s delightful fifth cottage tale (after 2007’s The Tale of Hawthorn House), Beatrix Potter, dismayed by the frosty atmosphere at home in London with her demanding parents, returns to Hill Top Farm in the Lake District, where she gets caught in a blizzard. As she catches up on local gossip, Beatrix learns of the demise of a longtime resident, Hugh Wickstead, killed by a falling tree limb in the woods. Was Hugh the victim of a curse after he unearthed ancient treasure? Of course, the animals have their own stories to tell, and Beatrix turns to them for help in the investigation. Familiar creatures pop up along the way, including Pickles, a fox terrier that belonged to Hugh and may hold the secret to his master’s death. As Beatrix reconnects with village life, her 1909 book, The Tale of Ginger and Pickles, begins to take shape. Readers will delight in Albert’s special blend of fact and fiction. (Oct.)

When elderly Mrs. Andrews blithely jumps to her death off the tower of Saint Odo the Severe during a church charity event in the Cotswolds village of Comfrey Magna, LSD-laced jam proves to be the cause in bestseller Beaton’s saucy 19th Agatha Raisin mystery (after 2007’s Kissing Christmas Goodbye). Agatha joins the local authorities in the investigation, which focuses on the six women who contributed jam to the church fete, including wealthy Sybilla Triast-Perkins. Agatha and Toni Gilmour, her young detective-in-training, soon find unmasking the lethal jam poisoner complicated by Sybilla’s sudden suicide and a murder connected to the theft of the fete’s proceeds. Beaton’s sly humor enhances the cozy-style plotting, while updates on Agatha’s and Toni’s respective romantic travails are delightful as ever. The open-ended resolution points to more madcap mayhem to come. (Oct.)

In this passable whodunit from Spinosa, the sequel to Hose Monkey (2006), Joe Serpe and Bob Healy, ex-cops and former adversaries who are now in the oil-delivery business on Long Island, get on the trail of the Oilman Murderer. The Oilman’s fourth victim, Rusty Monaco, like the previous three, is an oil truck driver, shot to death in an isolated area. Serpe and Healy soon find that Monaco, who was also an ex-cop, left behind a huge cache of cash that may be connected to a racially charged suspicious death in Harlem several years earlier. Spinosa, the pseudonym of Shamus-winner Reed Farrel Coleman, adds a conventional love-interest for Healy, an African-American internal affairs officer who risks her professional standing by digging into the past. This installment, with its routine shoot-outs, corruption and twists, falls short of the standard set by Coleman’s Moe Prager series (Soul Patch, etc.). (Oct.)

A murderous town-and-gown conflict propels the action of Gregory’s engrossing 13th mystery set in 14th-century Cambridge and featuring physician Matthew Bartholomew (after 2006’s The Tarnished Chalice). The various university colleges have been keeping students’ rents low so they can afford their academic fees, but avaricious landlords now want to triple the rents, a threat to the colleges’ existence. Meanwhile, Bartholomew and his three fellow Cambridge physicians find their income drained off by the chicanery of phony medicusRichard Arderne, out to make a killing healing the sick and raising the dead by waving a supposedly magic feather. Three grisly murders add to Bartholomew’s woes. Though the narrative often bogs down in philosophical disputations, Gregory excels at recreating the faces, menus, sounds and putrid smells of a medieval English town just recovering from the Black Death. Strong-stomached readers will relish this trip into England’s grim and grimy past. (Oct.)

Acclaimed SF writer Flynn (Eifelheim)delivers an epic tale of adventure, intrigue, suspense and mystery. Forced to land for repairs on an unnamed, remote planet, Captain Amos January and crew discover a cache of artifacts left by a cryptic alien race “long before humans went to space.” They soon retrieve the Dancer, a shape-changing stone that defies analysis. Possibly the scepter of a legendary prehuman king, certainly unique, the priceless trophy is desired by diverse governments, military powers, plutocrats and cabals throughout human-settled space. Flynn knits a richly detailed story of hunters, bandits and patriots that will keep even the most diligent readers on their toes. The plot evokes old-school space opera with its whirlwind pace, immense scope and twist ending, but cutting-edge extrapolation breathes vivid life into this universe of scoundrels, heroes and romantics. This multi-layered story demands much of the reader, but offers more than equivalent rewards. (Oct.)

Pulp icon Bloch (1917–1994) left his mark in many genres—crime fiction, fantasy, science fiction, mystery—but his most notable work was arguably in horror. The prolific volume, consistent quality and historic significance of Bloch’s collective work in the genre, especially his considerable short form output, is unparalleled. Subterranean’s second “Reader’s Bloch” collection (after 2004’s The Fear Planet and Other Unusual Destinations) features some of his best short horror stories. “The Bat Is My Brother” revolves around a newly unearthed vampire’s quest for release; the satirical “Tooth or Consequences” pits a dentist against an undead bloodsucker with a cavity; and the decidedly Lovecraftian “Black Lotus” chronicles a wisdom-seeking sultan’s drug-induced journey into madness. While many of these macabre tales are clearly dated, their influence on contemporary horror cannot be overlooked. Although young horror readers may find the language and plot conventions outmoded, genre aficionados will find this collection pure pulp gold. (Oct.)

The fourth Det. Insp. Chen mystery (after 2007’s Precious Dragon) adds a bit of Bollywood to the high-stakes intrigues of Celestials and demons in Williams’s clever mix of Chinese folklore and police procedural. Chen, of Singapore Three, is the city’s “liaison officer... between Earth and Hell and Heaven.” His latest set of troubles starts with the disappearance of his partner, the demon Zhu Irzh, along with Chen’s wife’s badger familiar. Then Chen learns that someone has hired the bigendered demon assassin Lord Lady Seijin to murder Mhara, the new Emperor of Heaven, and that a rising Bollywood star is actually a tigress demon escaped from the harem of the demon who’s trying to steal Zhu Irzh’s fiancée. The plot zips along via short, tightly written chapters, growing more and more intricate with each scene. Williams seamlessly blends the occult with modern issues like feminism and illegal immigration to create a thoroughly original fantasy. (Oct.)

The fourth Aldabreshin Compass novel (after 2005’s Western Shore) raises the stakes for dragon-chasing Kheda, who has resorted to working with magewoman Velindre even though his fellow warlords will kill anyone who associates with magic-users. Kheda and his companions are drawn to two places threatened by the beasts: Shek, a domain where he owes the lord a debt of gratitude, and Daish, ruled by Kheda’s son. Kheda must ward off both dragons using tainted rubies, hide his relationship to the wizards and avoid being drawn into a web of political intrigues that could destroy him, his family and his future. New readers will have some trouble catching up, but once the book starts rolling, it’s an exciting read; McKenna creates fascinating tensions between magic and different societies. While this volume wraps up the Compass quartet, the ending leaves plenty of room for further books. (Oct.)

Although billed as the conclusion to Miller and Norton’s Oak, Yew, Ash and Rowan Cycle, this fifth installment (after 2005’s Dragon Blade) is a cliché-strewn mess that resolves few of the many plotlines. Former protagonists Ashen NordornQueen and Gaurin NordornKing are now aging, and their children begin to take center stage. Eleven-year-old Mikkel stows away on a warship and is captured by vicious northern Wykenigs, one of whom, the witchy Wysen-wife Gunnora, has a connection to his family’s past. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Elin allies with her manipulative grandmother Ysa to disrupt Ashen and Gaurin’s kingdom. As a new enemy emerges, the more benign grandmother, Wysen-wife Zazar, uses her magic to try to rescue Mikkel and save the kingdom. Longtime fans might find their frustration at the dangling plotlines is outweighed by character development, but newcomers will find only a world faintly copied from our own and a threadbare, unconvincing plot. (Oct.)

This captivating debut by criminal defense attorney Marsella kicks off a series with a complex, intriguing mystery. After a drunken night at a popular mob hangout, four friends employed at the Rhode Island attorney general’s office witness a brutal murder. Laurie, Shannon, Beth and narrator Marianna are soon thrown into the investigation, which leads directly to the posh private college attended by the victim. Buried behind the ivy walls are secrets and more bodies. The women tell desperate lies to their bosses, trying to hide their whereabouts on the night of the killing, as they dig deeper into the crime. At times the plot gets bogged down by Marianna’s wordy inner monologues, and the amateur detectives seem scarcely more mature than the college students they’re investigating, but the skillful twists and turns of the mystery will keep readers engaged. Additional elements of romance and humor keep the novel balanced and realistic and open the door for sequels. (Oct.)

In this leisurely sequel to 2007’s No Holding Back, beautiful Rachel Garrison, manager of the Garrison family NASCAR racing team, struggles with mixed feelings about insufferably egotistical Parker Huntington, who owns a hotel chain, talks like a professor and serial-dates bikini models. He’s also the team’s sponsor, so Rachel has to work with him, patiently deflecting his advances despite her attraction to him. To make matters worse, someone is embezzling Garrison family funds, Rachel’s parents have just gone through a bitter divorce and her brother Cade’s fiancée, Isabel, is having second thoughts about the wedding. Rachel, swamped, finally gives in and asks for Parker’s help, and their troubles fade into the background as sparks fly at last. Rachel’s lively banter with Parker and Isabel keeps the pace from lagging too much, and racing takes a definite back seat to romance, giving readers a little more of the sizzle that was missing from the previous book. (Oct.)

Packed full of family drama and small-town charm, Thayer’s enjoyable mystery series debut outshines most other crafting cozies. After her marriage crumbles and her interior decoration career deteriorates, April Buchert returns to her hometown of Aldenville, Pa., in search of a new beginning. She’s helping her father, Ed, on an extensive restoration project when a skull tumbles from the rubble of an old building. Ed was in charge of the building’s construction and demolition; a cop with a grudge now thinks he’s a killer, and April must clear his name. The only bright spot in April’s new life is the Stamping Sisters, a group of fellow craftswomen who support her when she feels like everything’s coming apart. Twists and turns keep the story fresh and compulsively readable, and the characters feel like family by the time the last page is turned. Thayer and the Stamping Sisters are worth keeping an eye on. (Sept.)

Australian author Gracie’s second “Devil Riders” Regency romance (after The Stolen Princess) is a breezy diversion that follows the trials of Lady Helen (“just Nell”) Freymore, a smart, tough woman fallen on hard times after her father bankrupts the family and loses their home in a card game. Harry Morant, an earl’s wealthy bastard son, falls for Nell after seeing her sneak into the Freymore estate stables to help a mare through a difficult labor. In an effort to woo her, he buys the estate and offers her the chance to return home and help him to breed the horses she loves. Nell is not so much captive as captivated by Harry’s charm, and fans of light romance will be drawn to this strong-willed couple and their steamy happily-ever-after tale. (Sept.)

Guibert writes and draws for American G.I. Alan Cope in this poignant and frank graphic memoir of young soldier who was told to serve his country in WWII and how it changed him forever. When he first enters Fort Knox at 18, he is young and impressionable, more of a dreamer than “the military type.” Slowly, Cope grows through his experiences in the war. He forges candid friendships with his fellow soldiers and remains ever insightful in his recollections of the war and his life afterward. Together, Cope and Guibert forge a story that resonates with humanity. Guibert’s illustrations capture the time period vividly. While the subject matter is familiar from many wartime memoirs, Guibert’s fluid, simple but assured linework captures the personalities of Cope and his friends, elevating the material to a far more affecting level. (Oct.)

DeLisle’s (Pyongyang) latest exploration of Asian life is probably the best possible argument against the ruling junta in the embattled (and now nearly obliterated) nation also known as Myanmar. Readers will find themselves initially shocked and surprised at the country’s differences, then awestruck by the new traditions and finally in love with and yet enraged by Burmese daily life. DeLisle’s wife is a French aid worker with Medecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), leaving DeLisle alone with their son, Louis, and his cartooning. DeLisle’s style is simple but highly eloquent, and he tells more about the depth and breadth of the Burmese experience in the book’s little nonfiction vignettes than he ever could in an artificially imposed narrative. Burma Chronicles is not merely a neat piece of cartooning but a valuable artifact of a repressive and highly destructive culture that curtails free speech with unparalleled tenacity. Like Joe Sacco’s The Fixer and Safe Area Gorazde, DeLisle uses cartooning to dig into a story that demands to be told. (Sept.)

In Kafka’s famed story, bank clerk Joseph K is arrested for a crime that didn’t take place and put on a trial that never occurs. This faithful graphic novel adaptation depicts not just the comical, nightmarish and absurdist themes explored by Kafka but also his gravitation to and mistrust of women. Artist Montellier’s heavy shadows cast The Trial in a dark world framed with detailed embellishments that spill out of panels, creating a dreamlike (albeit a nightmare) quality. The surreal feeling of the story, and Kafka’s absurdist view of reality, make this adaptation a dense read, full of strange imagery and, overall, a bit overwhelming. Although a clear, visual rendering of the feeling kafkaesque, a new, grotesque element is added with every scene, making it difficult to digest the events of the plot. Likely good supplemental reading to Kafka’s actual novel, this graphic novel may serve as a useful entry point to his writing for teachers and librarians. (Aug.)

Superman. Batman. The Fantastic Four. Second-stringers, the lot of them, when measured against the awesomeness that is Herbie Popnecker. Perhaps the most unlikely and bizarre superhero in the history of comics, Herbie is “a little fat nothing,” as described by his staggeringly disappointed father, but what his dad doesn’t know is that young Herbie wields vast superpowers and saves the world on a daily basis. When not fending off extraterrestrial invasions or traveling through time and space as easily as you or I might cross the street, Herbie contends with talking animals, Frankenstein, Dracula, dinosaurs, and even Satan himself, while associating with JFK, LBJ, Queen Elizabeth II and Marie Antoinette. If all of this sounds absurd, it certainly is, and this mere description cannot do justice to the utter madness that flows from the minds of writer O’Shea and illustrator Whitney, whose “straight” drawing style only enhances the bullmoose strangeness. The classic stories found here, originally published mostly in the early to mid-’60s, are eagerly awaited by fans in the know, and for those previously unaware of Herbie, this collection will come as a hilarious look at what was going on elsewhere in comics during the storied “Marvel Age.” (Aug.)

The best thing about this project by Too Much Coffee Man creator Wheeler is its package: three tiny hardcover books inside a minuscule slipcase that recalls Maurice Sendak’s Nutshell Library. The books themselves collect the weekly comic strip Wheeler draws for the Onion: a single gag panel the size of a postage stamp. The jokes themselves are, by necessity, mighty simple—so simple, in fact, that they’re not actually all that funny, despite the classic magazine-cartoon setups most of them riff on. The most charitable interpretation is that Wheeler is trying to devise gags that just barely qualify as humor. (Woman to duck: “I’ve had it with your fowl language.” Chess piece: “I’m sick of being a pawn.” One man on a park bench to another: “I feel like I should be saying something funny.” That’s over 3% of the cartoons in this set right there, and quite a few of the rest are poop jokes.) Occasionally, hints of Wheeler’s warm, fluid linework from his bigger work shine through the format’s enforced minimalism, and there are a few bits of cute formal play (a man yelling “Aaarg!” as he’s skewered by the tail of his own word balloon, for instance). (Aug.)

Signature

Reviewed by Lydia Millet

The fictional palate of Julia Glass, bestselling author of 2002’s Three Junes, is one of dog-breeding women and foxhunts, tony Manhattan galleries and boutiques, European travel and haute-cuisine chefs. In common with Rebecca Wells’s Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood franchise, Glass’s third novel, I See You Everywhere, has female bonding among the landed gentry, a focus on relationships, and devil-may-care, enigmatically charming women of great romantic allure.

Like Three Junes, the novel is a series of vignettes across the years, in this instance from the points of view of two sisters with different personalities. Louisa, the elder, is the steady sister on the lookout for love, while Clem is the younger sister, an adventuring, restless spirit with an unfortunate habit of chewing men up and spitting them out. Their parents, too, resemble those in Three Junes: the mother is obsessed with raising and training expensive dogs on a country estate (this time in Rhode Island instead of Scotland); their father is a good-natured, kindly soul who plays second fiddle to a powerful wife. Louisa, not unlike Glass herself, is an urban woman who inhabits the New York art world and moves from making art (pottery) to writing; Clem, being a wilder sort, has a passion for wild animals and moves around the remoter reaches of the continent as an itinerant biologist to do contract work with charismatic fauna ranging from seals to grizzly bears. It’s not entirely clear how the sisters relate to each other’s livelihoods; Clem seems largely uninterested in art, whereas Louisa alternates between lavishly praising her sister’s work to save animals as heroic and referring to polar bears, in 2005, as “like Al Gore... suddenly all the alarmist rage.”

City and country mouse have a wary, competitive, sometimes antagonistic relationship grounded in affection; they occasionally steal each other’s boyfriends, but are usually there for each other in times of need, up to and including possible drowning, maiming and cancer. Both cook well, though Louisa is the true gourmet. Clem is better in the sack, at least if we take her word for it: as she says in a letter—reminding us, perhaps inadvertently, of the piña colada song—what she likes most in life are laughter, sex, champagne and sunsets. The sisters do have music in common: though both white, they listen almost exclusively to music by black performers, from Billie Holiday to Bob Marley.

I See You Everywhere has a bourgeois, chick lit sensibility, minus the proud vacuousness of the Bushnell set and plus a somewhat unexpected, sad vanishing act by one of the protagonists. It should prove an engaging and intelligent, though not literary, page-turner for sisters who like to revel in sisterhood.

Lydia Millet’s most recent novel is How the Dead Dream (Counterpoint).