Fiction Reviews

A widower, suddenly bereft, finds an unexpected future when he goes to Amsterdam looking for his past in Lent’s intricate and rewarding fourth novel. Henry Dorn is an upright college professor whose relatively tranquil existence is upended when his wife and son are killed in a car accident in the 1920s. As the novel follows Henry in flashbacks to before and after the crash, we get a closeup view of the loss of innocence of a person and a world. Henry’s relationship with his son, a morphine-addicted WWI veteran, had grown deeply fraught, while glimpses of Henry’s childhood in Nova Scotia reveal a hardscrabble fishing family torn apart. After the accident, Henry travels to Amsterdam to research his family history, and an unexpected affair kicks off a period of indulgence on a continent whose need for postwar recovery matches his own psychic wounds. At times, the dialogue can feel wooden, but the narrative’s course back and forth through time and across the Atlantic creates an aura of mystery and tension that’s amplified by Lent’s vivid depiction of the era. It’s a nice contrast to the aimless youngsters often associated with the lost generation canon. (Mar.)

In his unrelentingly downbeat debut, Meyer offers up a character-driven near-noir set in Buell, a dying Pennsylvania steel town, where aimless friends Billy Poe and Isaac English are trapped by economic and personal circumstance. Just before their halfhearted escape to California, Isaac accidentally kills a transient who tries to rob Poe. The boys return to the crime scene the next day with plans to cover up the crime, setting the plot in motion. Poe is soon under suspicion, and Isaac, distraught after discovering Poe has been carrying on a relationship with Isaac’s sister, Lee, sets off for California alone. Meanwhile, Poe’s mother, Grace, mourns her own lost opportunities, broods over her son and pines for her on-again-off-again love, the local sheriff. A fully realized tragic heroine, Grace is the poignant thrust of the novel, embodying enough rural tragedy to nearly atone for the novel’s weakness: a sense that some of the plot mechanics are arbitrary. Still, Meyer has a thrilling eye for failed dreams and writes uncommonly tense scenes of violence, and in the character of Grace creates a woeful heroine. Fans of Cormac McCarthy or Dennis Lehane will find in Meyer an author worth watching. (Feb.)

Brit chick-lit author (Sparkles) and Conservative Party pol Bagshawe delivers a potent mix of sizzling sex and girl-power savvy with this riches-to-rags-to-riches saga. Three best friends—twangy Texas tart Sally Lassiter, English diplo-brat Jane Morgan and Jordanian beauty Helen Yanna—navigate the clique-infested waters of their elite Beverly Hills high school. But before they graduate, family tragedies for Sally and Jane, and an abrupt arranged marriage for Helen, pull the trio apart and trigger their separate rises to mistresses of the boardroom and bedroom. Jane brashly uses a family scandal to step into the world of commerce, while Sally goes back to her Texas roots to dispense “Hollywood dazzle.” Helen, meanwhile, discovers passion and her Middle East roots as the wife of an Egyptian carpet dealer. When the three meet 10 years later in Los Angeles, their idea for a glitzy superstore with a fair-trade conscience takes off, leaving the gals to swipe at one another over the business and choose what really matters. In this intoxicating fantasy of fame, fortune and red-hot sex, all that glitters really is gold. (Feb.)

Ford’s strained debut concerns Henry Lee, a Chinese-American in Seattle who, in 1986, has just lost his wife to cancer. After Henry hears that the belongings of Japanese immigrants interned during WWII have been found in the basement of the Panama Hotel, the narrative shuttles between 1986 and the 1940s in a predictable story that chronicles the losses of old age and the bewilderment of youth. Henry recalls the difficulties of life in America during WWII, when he and his Japanese-American school friend, Keiko, wandered through wartime Seattle. Keiko and her family are later interned in a camp, and Henry, horrified by America’s anti-Japanese hysteria, is further conflicted because of his Chinese father’s anti-Japanese sentiment. Henry’s adult life in 1986 is rather mechanically rendered, and Ford clumsily contrasts Henry’s difficulty in communicating with his college-age son, Marty, with Henry’s own alienation from his father, who was determined to Americanize him. The wartime persecution of Japanese immigrants is presented well, but the flatness of the narrative and Ford’s reliance on numerous cultural clichés make for a disappointing read. (Feb.)

Booker Prize–winning Unsworth (The Ruby in Her Navel) sets his intelligent and timely new book in Mesopotamia during the spring of 1914, just before the chaos of WWI. John Somerville, a British archeologist desperate for fame, worries that his new discovery, an ancient tomb, will be compromised by the construction—funded by Germany—of a new railway line. At the excavation site, Somerville’s wife, Edith, wonders if her marriage has fizzled, especially after the arrival of Alex Elliott, a handsome American posing as a geologist but secretly searching for new sources of oil. Meanwhile, Jehar, an Arab confidence man, brings often fabricated messages to Somerville, warning him that the Germans are quickly approaching. The tension between the players—all eager to claim rights to what the land provides—builds toward a violent, unexpected finale. In elegantly modulated prose, Unsworth creates a tapestry of ambition and greed while, at the same time, foreshadowing the current conflict in the region. (Jan.)

With the record industry in turmoil, this thoroughly twisted roman à clef from a former A&R insider couldn’t seem timelier. Set in 1997, this debut novel follows the loathsome and morally bankrupt 27-year-old Steven Stelfox as he curses, drinks and snorts his way through a cutthroat career. Crass and bitter, Steven despises everything that originally inspired him, and as the bills pile up from his various illicit habits and ventures, he tries in vain to find the “next big thing” so he can secure another bundle of money. Satirizing Big Music, the novel brims with self-evident truths—as Steven explains, he usually only hits one in every 10 acts, but even that allows him to do better than most. As Steven’s arrogance precariously struggles against a healthy dose of paranoia, he faces his ultimate nightmare: he might actually have to sober up, do some work and break out a decent record by a decent act. This is not for the easily offended, but readers with at least a slightly deranged bent will have a ball. (Jan.)

Former television producer and writer Semple (Arrested Development; Mad About You) bashes Hollywood celebrity, New Age nonsense and struggling relationships in this smart and funny debut. Violet Parry, who puts aside a TV writing career to have a baby and take care of the sumptuous L.A. home of her legendary impresario hubby, David, scratches a seven-year itch with D-list rocker Teddy Reyes. Yet Violet is hardly ready for the roller-coaster ride with a man who thinks only “about my rent and my car and getting laid and staying sober.” Meanwhile, David’s conniving sister, Sally, sets out to snag a rich husband, training her sights on Jeremy, a robotic sports-stats genius with a promising TV career. In one of the most hilarious sendups of New Age claptrap, David figures out if he’s willing to stick around to see where Violet’s wild ride will take them. Semple’s takes are tack sharp as her delightful cast is driven comically and tragically ever deeper into a culture of artifice. Semple obviously knows her turf, and she does an exquisite job of stomping all over it. (Dec.)

This crushing novel by the author of A Mouthful of Air is a shocking portrait of suburban ennui gone horribly awry. Laney Brooks, approaching middle age in Short Hills, N.J., appears to have it all: doting husband, two beautiful children, the big house with a kidney-shaped pool. But beneath the facade of upper-middle-class perfection, Laney’s life descends into a chasm of indiscriminate sex and drug and alcohol abuse. Koppelman’s prose style is understated and crackling; each sentence is laden with a foreboding sense of menace, whether she’s describing a sunny Florida resort or the back alley of a seedy strip mall. Laney’s self-debasement can be a bit over-the-top at times, but like a crime scene or a flaming car wreck, it becomes impossible not to stare. (Dec.)

Bloxam delivers fine Sicilian literary horror in the vein of Tom Piccirilli and Sara Gran. When Joan Severance finds her career as an anthropology professor on the rocks, she returns to Sicily, her childhood home, and finds work as an archivist, performing research in the coastal village of Valparuta. Immediately, she is attracted to fellow archivist Cosimo Chiesa, who reacquaints Joan with Sicily’s Mafia. (Years earlier, Joan’s mother, a crusading anti-Mafia journalist, became a victim of their vengeance.) Paranormal forces are also at work: Joan learns of the benandanti, a fertility cult whose spirits battle evil witches to ensure a bountiful harvest. This spiritual struggle has continued until now, as Joan and Cosimo, a self-admitted benandanti, are thrust into the terrifying “night battles.” Joan and Cosimo also discover a valuable Cadmus bible, clash with the mob and become star-crossed lovers. Bloxam’s ornate prose is the perfect complement to her complex heroine and the creepy goings-on in this eerie and satisfying debut novel. (Dec.)

Nobel laureate Morrison returns more explicitly to the net of pain cast by slavery, a theme she detailed so memorably in Beloved. Set at the close of the 17th century, the book details America’s untoward foundation: dominion over Native Americans, indentured workers, women and slaves. A slave at a plantation in Maryland offers up her daughter, Florens, to a relatively humane Northern farmer, Jacob, as debt payment from their owner. The ripples of this choice spread to the inhabitants of Jacob’s farm, populated by women with intersecting and conflicting desires. Jacob’s wife, Rebekka, struggles with her faith as she loses one child after another to the harsh New World. A Native servant, Lina, survivor of a smallpox outbreak, craves Florens’s love to replace the family taken from her, and distrusts the other servant, a peculiar girl named Sorrow. When Jacob falls ill, all these women are threatened. Morrison’s lyricism infuses the shifting voices of her characters as they describe a brutal society being forged in the wilderness. Morrison’s unflinching narrative is all the more powerful for its relative brevity; it takes hold of the reader and doesn’t let go until the wrenching final-page crescendo. (Nov.)

Usually a strong plotter, bestseller Deaver (The Bone Collector) fails to deliver on the promise of this stand-alone thriller’s nicely creepy opening. When two masked men break into the isolated lakeside weekend house of Steven Feldman, who works for the Milwaukee Department of Social Services, and his wife, Emma, an attorney who may have stumbled on union corruption in the course of some corporate research, Steven has just enough time to phone 911 before the intruders shoot him and Emma dead. That interrupted plea for help brings Deputy Brynn McKenzie, who possesses a set of predictable emotional baggage (an abusive ex-wife, a troubled teenage son), to the scene. A protracted and less than suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse between McKenzie and the hired guns responsible for the murders ensues. A few twists will catch some readers by surprise, but the pacing and characterizations aren’t up to Deaver’s best. (Nov.)

In 1953, a major flood devastated Britain’s Canvey Island, killing dozens of residents. Runcie (The Discovery of Chocolate) uses this disaster as the starting point for his beautifully crafted novel, which examines the effects of guilt, love, lust and betrayal in the wake of tragedy. On the night of the flood, Lily skips the big dance on the mainland to stay home with her young son, Martin, telling her husband, Len, to go with her sister, Violet, and her husband. When the flood waters rise, Lily and Martin try to escape but Lily gets stuck, sends Martin for help yet drowns before rescuers arrive. Though Martin leaves the island to attend Cambridge, he cannot shake his guilt over his mother’s death and resents his father and aunt, who take up together soon after the flood. Years later, when he’s a parent himself, Martin returns to Canvey Island and is forced to confront everything he thought he had left behind. Told through multiple perspectives, Runcie’s story eloquently weaves together a national tragedy and the fate of a single family with powerful results. (Nov.)

Lauded historian Montefiore (Young Stalin) ventures successfully into fiction with the epic story of Sashenka Zeitlin, a privileged Russian Jew caught up in the romance of the Russian revolution and then destroyed by the Stalinist secret police. The novel’s first section, set in 1916, describes how, under the tutelage of her Bolshevik uncle, Sashenka becomes a naïve, idealistic revolutionary charmed by her role as a courier for the underground and rejecting her own bourgeois background. Skip forward to 1939, when Sashenka and her party apparatchik husband are at the zenith of success until Sashenka’s affair with a disgraced writer leads to arrests and accusations; in vivid scenes of psychological and physical torture, Sashenka is forced to choose between her family, her lover and her cause. But as this section ends, many questions remain, and it is up to historian Katinka Vinsky in 1994 to find the answers to what really happened to Sashenka and her family. Montefiore’s prose is unexciting, but the tale is thick and complex, and the characters’ lives take on a palpable urgency against a wonderfully realized backdrop. Readers with an interest in Russian history will particularly delight in Sashenka’s story. (Nov.)

With a captivating mix of fact and fiction, Braver (Mr. Lincoln’s Wars) chronicles the events surrounding JFK’s assassination to moving effect. The event is no stranger to the literary world, but Braver’s recreation, owing to small and often previously off-camera details, remains hauntingly original. Some of these details, like the ones that open the book and dwell on Jackie’s fashion preferences, present a factual backdrop against which later scenes—e.g., where Jackie refuses to remove her blood-splattered pink suit—tragically play out. Others, like the way JFK’s eyes keep popping open during the autopsy, underscore the grisly reality of his death. While the accumulation of small moments gives the book its weightiness, the stories of people peripherally associated with the assassination make the book sing; through the experiences of the Texan who sold the government Kennedy’s casket, the mechanic in charge of the limousine in which Kennedy was shot and numerous others, Braver reveals the tragedy of a national story that decades later can still be acutely felt. (Nov.)

Billy the Kid rides again in this literary retelling of his legendary and bloody career. The story begins with his bold escape from the Lincoln, N.Mex., jail in April 1881, then flashes back to his capture by former friend Sheriff Pat Garrett. The narrative travels back and forth between Billy’s final escape and his earlier role in the Lincoln County war. Although the novel touches on familiar incidents in Billy’s life, it also hews close to historical research in showing how the war for control of Lincoln County between the Murphy-Dolan Irish merchant ring and upstart English rancher/merchant John Tunstall was a continuation of Anglo-Irish enmity. After Tunstall is murdered, Billy goes gunning for members of the Irish ring. A pardon from New Mexico territorial governor Gen. Lew Wallace comes to naught, and the familiar story grinds to its inevitable end. Although Doyle makes dramatic use of research into Anglo-Irish tensions in the Old West, the Billy presented here is too one-dimensional to make us understand why his legend continues to hold sway in the popular imagination 127 years after his death. (Nov.)

Near the start of Rose’s fascinating follow-up to The Reincarnationist (2007), Meer Logan visits the Manhattan office of Malachai Samuels, the erudite head of a reincarnation foundation. When Malachai shows her an auction catalogue photo of a gaming box once owned by a friend of Ludwig van Beethoven, the photo closely resembles a sketch Meer made as a child based on what Meer wishes were false memories. Malachai believes Meer has been haunted by past-life memories, in particular those of Margaux Neidermier, whose husband in 1814 asked Beethoven to decipher a song inscribed on an ancient flute. The box turns out to contain a Beethoven letter suggesting the composer didn’t destroy the “memory flute” as he claimed to have done at the time. When the box is stolen soon after Meer examines it, she heads to Vienna for answers. Alas, others are on the same trail, including FBI Special Agent Lucien Glass of the Art Crime Team, Austrian authorities and assorted thieves. Rose skillfully blends past-life mysteries with present-day chills. The result is a smashing good read. (Nov.)

Tongue-in-cheek humor lifts this weird but fun hybrid, part knitting cozy, part paranormal romance, from romance veteran Bretton (Just Desserts). After a classy female tourist drowns mysteriously in an icy lake in remote Sugar Maple, Vt., the Montpelier authorities ask Boston homicide cop Luke MacKenzie to investigate. As Sugar Maple’s temporary police chief, Luke soon notices the village’s odd ambience. Originally a haven for witches who fled the Salem witchcraft trials three centuries earlier, Sugar Maple is now home to witches, vampires, fairies and trolls. Luke is also attracted to Chloe Hobbs, the half-human owner of the knitting shop Sticks & Strings, who must find Mr. Right if she’s to preserve the spell that sustains the town’s unusual residents. As sparks literally fly between the two, Chloe’s “magickal” side stirs into life. Bretton charmingly depicts how love empowers Chloe and awakens Luke to some major surprises. (Nov.)

Lawton’s engrossing sixth entry but the first chronologically in his Inspector Troy thriller series (Black Out, etc.) chronicles the major events leading up to WWII—Germany’s annexation of Austria, Chamberlain’s peace efforts, Kristallnacht—while providing a disturbing picture of anti-Semitism and class frictions in England at the time. As part of Scotland Yard’s murder squad, Insp. Frederick Troy investigates a series of slayings of London rabbis, but various subplots equally intrigue, notably one that unfolds in an internment camp for Germans, Jews and foreigners—including Troy’s Austrian-born brother, Rod—rounded up after Britain’s entry into the war. At one point, Troy and a lady friend discover the “aphrodisia of war” in Hyde Park, a spot popular with couples for copulation during the blitz. Lawton does a fine job of incorporating such lesser known period details into his saga, though some readers may find he relies too often on deus ex machina for their taste. (Nov.)

In Jacobson’s tepid third thriller (after Hunted and False Accusations), FBI profiler Karen Vail is obsessed with bringing to justice the Dead Eyes Killer, who’s gruesomely slain several women in Virginia. The action alternates between Karen’s attempts to unravel the clues left behind at the crime scenes and glimpses of the Dead Eyes Killer himself as he stalks future victims. A messy divorce and custody battle threaten to distract Karen, as do her tentative relationship with a local detective and disturbing revelations about her family history. The author fails to put a fresh spin on any of the genre’s clichés—the serial killer who taunts law enforcement, the FBI agent with an implausible connection to the case, the chaotic crime scene that contains clues only the hero can crack. Though Jacobson’s research into the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit is evident, he overloads his story with too much information and unbelievable coincidences. 5-city author tour. (Nov.)

Discriminating general readers as well as whodunit fans will enjoy this outstanding puzzler, winner of the first Casa de las Américas prize for best Latin American novel. Argentine author De Santis conjures up a veritable Justice League of 19th-century master sleuths—the 12 Detectives—who meet for the first time in Paris, at the 1889 World’s Fair. Argentine Sigmundo Salvatrio, loyal assistant to founding member Renaldo Craig, represents the absent Craig. When Louis Darbon, one of two claimants among the 12 for the title of Detective of Paris, falls to his death from the Eiffel Tower shortly before the fair’s opening, Darbon’s rival, Polish expatriate Viktor Arkazy, takes Salvatrio on as his apprentice, and the pair struggle to solve the mystery before more victims are claimed. De Santis adroitly explores such issues as the difference between image and reality while providing intelligent and entertaining discussions of alternate approaches to detection. (Nov.)

Journalist Shelton’s poignant third novel (after What Comes After Crazy) elevates the oft-told stories of opposites attracting and sons struggling against their fathers. The residents of Chester, Conn., assumed that 60-something Harris Goddard was up to his old womanizing ways when single mother Jamie McClintock and her five-year-old son, Arley, moved in with him and his five-year-old grandson, Christopher. Though Harris and Jamie’s affections are purely platonic, the rumor mill begins to churn when Harris dies and is discovered naked in Jamie’s bed. Everyone is suspicious of her, including Nate Goddard, Christopher’s father, who shows up to finally claim his son with plans to sell Harris’s house and take his grieving son on the road with him. As Nate tries to put his plan into play, the surprising Goddard family backstory unwinds and Jamie, also wracked with pain, finds herself attracted to Nate and vice versa. An absolute treat, Shelton’s work rarely falters and is filled with realistic twists, complex characters and a moving conclusion. (Nov.)

The music students who inspired Vivaldi and the city where they performed the great composer’s works come to life in Corona’s adult fiction debut. In 1695, three-year-old Maddalena and her infant sister, Chiaretta, are abandoned on the doorstep of Venice’s Pietà foundling hospital. Groomed for the Pietà’s renowned music academy, Chiaretta, with her pretty blonde looks and beautiful voice, earns a place as celebrated soloist and marriage to an aristocrat. Dark, quiet Maddalena remains in the shadows until she takes up the violin, and a controversial musician and cleric, Antonio Vivaldi, becomes her teacher. Vivaldi represses his romantic feeling for Maddalena and instead writes concert pieces into which they can both put their hearts. According to Corona, women like the orphaned sisters inspired the fervor and brilliance of Vivaldi’s music. Fans of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring will welcome another novel about how a masterpiece is created. Corona shines when showing musicians at work, especially through secondary characters both real (opera star Anna Giro) and imagined (violin teacher Silvia the Rat). (Nov.)

New York diamond expert Lonny Cushman returns to Africa for more adventure in Robinson’s middling second gemstone thriller (after The Sapphire Sea). Cushman’s new mission is to safeguard 19-year-old Alice Carpenter, a divinity student “on track to become the youngest female priest in Anglican history,” while she looks for her missing father in Rwanda, where she also wants to get course credit by visiting atrocity sites. Cushman soon finds himself involved in a CIA search for “The Jeweler,” who financed the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, as well as intrigue surrounding a cache of precious green diamonds. Robinson, who lived for years in Africa, highlights the corruption and crooked politics of the region, but readers looking for a morally complex tale will be disappointed. Some overheated prose (“The darkness was as thick and pungent as a serpent’s bowels, alive, vibrating with energy, beyond comprehension”) doesn’t help. (Nov.)

In Heller’s wonderfully wicked revenge thriller, British TV host Larry Logan loses his job after he performs drunk on a children’s charity telethon and, in an even dumber move, has a boozy fling with a 16-year-old female fan . Two years later, a desperate Larry agrees to host fake game show Gotcha! for American TV that’s actually a police sting operation to catch real British felons, including notorious bail jumper Derek “Dex” Lewis. Manchester Insp. Bill Keeton persuades Larry to schmooze the slippery crook to lure him to the fake set. After the cops bust him, Dex vows vengeance, as does his teen daughter Molly, mom Nora, brother Patrick and ex-wife, Jane. Meanwhile, Dex’s disgruntled girlfriend concocts a scheme to score secret payback. Suspense intersects brilliantly with savage pop culture satire as Heller (The Club) reveals just how twisted life can be when it connects with crimes of the head and heart. (Nov.)

Schulze’s dense and beguiling novel about the reunification of Germany consists of the collected works of Enrico “Heinrich” Türmer, a member of the East German intelligentsia. The works are his correspondence with his sister, Vera, with whom he has an incestuous relationship; his best friend, Johann Ziehlke; and his future lover, a photographer named Nicoletta Hanson. The remainder is rounded out by an appendix that contains a novella, plus nitpicking footnotes from Schulze, who casts himself as the volume’s editor. As we learn from Türmer’s letters, he quits the theater job he’d been given by the state to partner up in running a newspaper. His guide to the new world of capitalism is “Baron” Dr. Clemens von Barrista, a sort of Mephistophelian mini-Soros. Throughout, Schulze captures something ephemeral but critical about how the idealism that brought down the Wall also brought down itself. Or as Türmer remarks about his fellow intellectual dissidents, “Any attention paid to us—the attention that called us onstage—would vanish from the face of the earth” when they succeeded. This novel shows the tragicomic prescience of that remark. (Oct.)

The sum is greater than the parts in Nersesian’s frustrating second of a five-novel series (after The Swing Voter of Staten Island). A dual narrative charts the lives of Paul Moses and his infamous power broker brother, Robert: Paul follows his girlfriend into the Mexican revolution, and his involvement sets his life’s course; his adulthood is marked by a series of setbacks stemming from his connection with the anarchist movement. Robert, meanwhile, is a mama’s boy who uses family wealth and connections to begin his ascent to power. A second narrative takes place in the postapocalyptic America of The Swing Voter of Staten Island and features a former FBI agent as he tries to escape a subterranean purgatory while his mind is invaded by the memories of Paul Moses. There are some interesting elements at play, but Nersesian’s prose doesn’t exhibit its customary zing, and the characters never quite come alive. The novel is somewhat redeemed by the two narratives’ late-book connection, but the flat nature of the bulk of the novel may prevent all but the most insistent adherents to Nersesian’s dyspeptic vision from finding the experience rewarding. (Oct.)

Most of the highly detailed scenes in this third collection from Lindsay (Primate Behavior) come from an invented ancient Near Eastern city called Nab, where Lindsay’s imaginary archeologists excavate evidence of ancient gods, ancient building projects and ancient quandaries not unlike our own: “a dry land pounded down at too many crossroads.” Nab fell victim to shifting “trade routes,/ drought, scouring winds, jerboas and salt.” Superb set pieces imitate modern investigators’ methods: Lindsay gives us a set of infants preserved in jars, the “abashed... new priest of a god without hands” and a “Reconstruction of Temple Area, Seventh Level” that is also a lament for modern old age. Before and after archeology, at the beginning and end of this capacious collection, comes ecology, along with geography and biology. In work reminiscent of Amy Clampitt and of Albert Goldbarth, Lindsay weaves informed and moving lyric claims around scientific facts, lamenting extinct species or following local rivers. Some poems warn us to care better for Earth, and all become reminders of our own short spans here, as when this extraordinary writer envisions her own life as a river, “full/ of salmon shoving upstream to breed and die,/ not one of them saying/ remember, remember me.” (Nov.)

In this adventurous mix of taut lyrics, dramatic monologues and free-ranging typographical experiments, Buchanan (What Animal), who is also a pianist, has an ear for mellifluous runs and beautifully, at times humorously, evoked emotions: “the vast veld, the funnel of black wings/ landing on the rack en masse, a smoothing,/ a soothing of black, the indivisible plumage.” This same musical sensibility, however, can lead the poems into murky, precious territory (“u r so Mesozoic era”). Images of the natural world and scientific language abound in this National Poetry Series–winning second book, selected by Mark Doty. “Dear lonely animal,” begins a typical poem from the series of that name, “I miss you. The other animals/ are looking at porn again./ I will never dress or disrobe.” This voice is clear and direct, a startling contrast to the book’s more coded closing sections, such as “The Mandrake Vehicles,” in which Buchanan’s natural-world preoccupations and fecund music explode into the experimental, fractal territory, à la Jorie Graham and Alice Fulton. There are accompanying notes to the “paper” version of this series, as well as digital version on a multimedia CD included with the book. Both are dazzling displays of textual hijinks and combine to make an interesting foray into hypertextuality. (Oct.)

A virtuoso of rhyming form, a master of puns and a subtle verse autobiographer, Merrill (1926–1995) got attacked during his lifetime as too fancy or artful. He is now generally considered one of his generation’s greats. Readers prize his gemlike early lyrics; his autobiographical poems of friendship, illness, privilege (his father cofounded Merrill Lynch), travel (Greece, New England, Florida) and same-sex love; his science-fictional epic The Changing Light at Sandover (written with help from a Ouija board); and the rueful, reflective, sometimes very funny poems of his last years, from “Rhapsody on Czech Themes” to “b o d y” (“Looked at too long, words fail,/ phase out”). Some readers thought his final poems his best, though they were necessarily omitted from his previous Selected, compiled before they were written. Also here are slices of Sandover, and the classics from the 1960s and 1970s. These include “An Urban Convalescence,” in which Merrill muses on his New York City block and on the renovation—or is it destruction—of modern language; fine sonnets such as “Marsyas”; and trick-ending stories in verse, such as “Chimes for Yahya.” This rigorous cull seems designed for new readers (or students). Those who don’t want to spring for the heavy Collected Poems will also want to see what this book holds. (Oct.)

Inspired by the variety of objects—such as the Singer sewing machine and an 80-blade sportsman’s knife—presented at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (a kind of proto-world’s fair), Schiff’s astonishing second collection owes its title, and that of its whirlwind first poem, to another such object, the Colt rapid fire revolver. As in her debut, Worth, Schiff uses fashion houses and designers as delegates for the material world, effortlessly placing contemporary references beside mid–19th-century objects and ideas, encompassing all the history in between: “Might I, if there’s one in stock, be sent the/ Ralph Lauren Winchester Tote/ shaped like the feedbags I’ve seen strapped on the/ fierce muzzles of the horses in pictures/ children are shown to depict/ for them how tasks, such as the/ feeding of horses, were accomplished in/ the Old West.” The scope is dizzyingly wide, yet each shift in these poems feels necessary, and Schiff’s long, beautiful sentences and relentless attention to language, history and the mystery of the human heart make these poems both thrillingly daunting and compulsively readable. This book springs from an imagination and vocabulary so surprising and intriguing that, in many poems, every line is a revelation. (Oct.)

The eighth volume and first retrospective from MacArthur winner Bierds (First Hand) makes her powers clear while showing how little her work has changed since the 1980s. She uses the English language as a composer of symphonic music might use an orchestra, taking romantic sighs, noble passages and high-flown trills from a full range of vocabulary and reference. She applies her lyrical, humane sensibility and her way with descriptive language to her own life occasionally, but far more often to the lives of eminent artists, writers, inventors and scientists—Erasmus and Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Anton van Leeuwenhoek (who invented the microscope), Marc Chagall, Dr. Tulp (of Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson), Dorothy Wordsworth, the British physicist and public lecturer Michael Faraday. Ever alert to loss, Bierds finds the human and natural worlds worthy of fragile praise. In her marriage of research with appreciation, Bierds can recall Amy Clampitt, though she may lack Clampitt’s range. In one of several new poems set in Venice, Bierds watches “the sea quickly cast/ its daily mass, herringbone brick by brick.” An older poem sees farmers in an English village grind cow horns into translucent house windows, whose “moth-wing haze... softened our guests with the gauze light/ of the Scriptures.” (Oct.)

The 45 almost-sonnets in this second collection from Lederer (Winter Sex) meditate on money and commerce (“The earth is a dollar and the moon is a silvery coin”), wondering how to find meaning as a cog in a capitalist machine. At times, the poems yearn to be free of big business, but the vibrancy of this series is found in the viscous push-pull between money and Eros; the tension sings (“I’ve brought you all these presents which I’ve placed beneath this/ flowering tree:/ Bright red box, bright blue box, and a small vial of Botox”). In an era when business asks, “Who stole my cheese?” these poems are populated with superbly chosen allusions to finance and literature. “Heaven-sent Leaf” comes from Goethe; “Brainworker,” the title of several poems, was coined by the influential economist J.K. Galbraith. Nietzsche and Lyn Hejinian, among others, also appear. At times, Lederer’s verse is sparkling, though a meandering prosiness sometimes flattens the lines. But at her best, Lederer combines musical lines with excitingly jerky leaps of thought, claiming for poetry a fact that usually seems farthest from it: “There is, in the heart, the hard-rendering profit.” (Oct.)

This pair of new long works from the California-based experimental poetry master (The Fatalist) makes a fine introduction to her current powers. Hejinian—admired in avant-garde circles since the 1970s—combines epistemological investigations with deft jokes. “Circus” is both prose poem and experimental, nonlinear fiction: named characters (Sally Dover, Quindlan, the talkative Askari Nate Martin) chase one another through short nonlinear chapters (one sequence includes, in order, “Chapter Two,” “Chapter One,” “Chapter 3 and Chapter Two,” “Chapter Between” and another “Chapter Two”). Sometimes kids, sometimes gossipy wives, sometimes circus performers and sometimes figures in a whodunit; these are characters meant to dismantle expectations, in quotable sentences and baffling passages reminiscent of Gertrude Stein: “Quindlan refuses to recognize anything as a digression, to take a suggestion, to accept a designation.” Less whimsical and perhaps more profound, “Saga” comprises 37 numbered free-verse segments: each imagines a long journey on a seagoing vessel as a figure for poetry, history, life. Along with Hejinian’s usual canny smarts, this newest long poem includes unexpected Romantic aspirations, with nods to Wordsworth and Coleridge: Hejinian, or her persona, says she “felt uprooted even/ At an early age perhaps from gods, my deities/ Were streaming/ Or grinding like a boat being hauled over stony ground.” (Sept.)

Wit, versatility and gloom are the watchwords in this ninth collection from the celebrated Englishman Maxwell. He worries about his own demise (“Do me my elegy now”), about the inefficacies and uncertainties in his own poetic language (“Dream I had had depended/ on puns”), about old age (in “Lit Windows,” a fine if covert homage to Philip Larkin) and about ecological disaster. Maxwell’s greatest concern, however, in the wake of 9/11, is about the fate of the world’s great cities and of its all too bellicose nation-states. Maxwell holds the volume together with several poems on modern incarnations of the cursed ancient prophet Cassandra, whose predictions were always dismissed. He concludes with three such poems in a row, among them “Blues for Cassie,” a haunting bit of cultural cross-pollination in which the fall of Troy becomes the fall of the Twin Towers: “Woke up as lonesome as the single/ snapshot at Grand Central—/ of thousands on a wall/ one endless fall.” Maxwell’s skill with the spoken language is on display again, as he stitches casual phrase work into bolts of meter and swaths of rhyme. Supporters will no doubt again liken him to Auden; detractors may once again find him a bit glib. (Sept.)

In his wily, edgy and hyperactive debut collection of thematically linked poems, Marinovich follows a prodigal grandson—ostensibly the poet—who returns to Belgrade, or “Marinovichland,” over the course of five years. During each visit, the poet transcribes conversations and shapes them into “typewriter portraits,” poems meant to be like family photographs. Opening with the darkly beautiful “Belgrade Eyes,” Marinovich elegizes a relative who has committed suicide, unable to face “twelve years of war.” Second-guessing his right to celebrate or mourn his own ethnic and familial history—“[w]ho are you to sing the dead you never knew?”—each poem comes closer to embracing the self-appointed role of bard journalist by addressing war and its aftermath in a removed albeit intimate manner: “befriend radiation—/ deal with traces of/ depleted uranium bombing/by NATO in ’99.” Later, Marinovich points out ironies in the U.S.: “O look at this photo opportunity/ a Non-President jogging with a soldier with a prosthetic right leg.” Ranging from the highly political to the sweetly playful and tenderly sentimental, Marinovich, who is neither outsider nor insider in either of his homes, reveals that national identity can be fluid when “from one side or another/ no one can be secure in the global cell.” (Sept.)

In her fifth collection, Strickland (V: WaveSon.nets) continues her investigatory hypertext antics, challenging readers with poem sequences refracted through conceptual use of the page and expansive reading of social and scientific histories. These poems swell with allusion and quotation, capturing the paradox of our contemporary moment’s clipped attention span and obsession with information. We find Lot’s wife and Patti Smith on facing pages; “the Half-Life and Quake game engines” in close proximity to Desert Shield; and the 32-page “Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot,” an enigmatic pairing of characters and their pun-filled adventures (“Sand panned speed. Languid was she. Oh seeming fast, fine foil for/ de... lay”). Strickland’s poems have an impressive sonic range, from the quotidian and subdued (“who can open/ who can/ hold it/ constant/ quiet”) to the unbridled (“a disaster a pilaster and a jailmeister play/ pool.littlegreen willytadpoles//jasper”). Occasionally, Strickland’s copious notes are more intriguing than the poems’ elaborate structural elements; this is due in part, no doubt, to Strickland’s attempt to squeeze work originally designed to take advantage of the bells and whistles of the computer screen into the confines of the page, a problem the accompanying CD, with digital versions of two of the book’s sequences, attempts to solve. (Sept.)

Politics are on everybody’s mind. Wave editors and poets Beckman and Zapruder enter this slim gathering of poems—charged with cynicism, seething, sadness, surrealism and schadenfreude—into the discussion. From big names (John Ashbery, Lucille Clifton) to contemporary favorites (Terrence Hayes, Peter Gizzi) and newcomers (like Mathias Svalina, whose “Forgiveness” is a highlight: “This is a lesson on/ forgiveness: the scar/ forgives the knife”), many of these poets come at politics with hip aesthetics and liberal leanings. In her spare, affecting opener, Noelle Kocot writes, “Look at the landscape,/ A lot of damage, no?” Matthew Rohrer, addressing Dick Cheney, admits “it is a very good thing/ to watch you die.” Yet many of these poems seem reluctant to answer what may be their central questions: What exactly is a political poem? What is a poet’s responsibility toward politics? What can a poem accomplish? Or maybe the uncertain attitude often on display is a kind of answer for an America where it’s become so hard to trust or tell what’s going on, where, as Joe Wenderoth says, we must look to “transparency after transparency/ adorning whatever it is that moves us/ no closer to knowing.” (Sept.)

In his bullet-pointed introduction to this year’s volume in this popular annual anthology series, prolific Pulitzer winner Wright makes it known that he is interested in emotional intensity, and its capacity to give poems shape and beauty, more than in any particular aesthetic camp: “cleverness is not what endures. Only pain endures. And the rhythm of pain.” Poems here might be called confessional, hip, avant-garde, edgy and conservative. Powerful if hairy poems by Marvin Bell, Alex Lemon and D. Nurkse are good examples of the range of what Wright likes, as is Rae Armantrout’s stark and hurting elegy for Robert Creeley: “The present is cupped// by a small effort/ of focus—// its muscular surround.// You’re left out.” Many of the usual suspects—Ashbery, Glück, Merwin, Graham, Charles Simic—are represented by strong poems. Also here are representatives of the generation now entering mid-career, like D.A. Powell, Natasha Trethewey and Kevin Young. Some of the most exciting poems come from writers whose stars are still rising, such as an extraordinary meditation on love by Mary Szybist: “The Puritans thought that we are granted the ability to love/ Only through miracle,/ But the troubadours knew how to burn themselves through,/ How to make themselves shrines to their own longing.” (Sept.)

Sherlock Holmes expert Davies relies too much on contrived plot twists in his second WWII novel to feature PI Johnny Hawke (after 2007’s Forests of the Night). Sandra Riley, who suspects her husband, Walter, of infidelity, hires Hawke to investigate. No sooner does Hawke learn that Walter is a secret cross-dresser than Hawke witnesses his murder. The heartbroken widow then asks Hawke to find the killer, a probe that intersects with the manhunt for army deserter Harryboy Jenkins, whose crime spree has already claimed the lives of a vicar and a police officer. Meanwhile, Peter Blake, an orphan Hawke once rescued who’s targeted by bullies at his school, flees to London to seek out his hero and protector. Davies repeatedly sets up coincidences to advance the plot, including a link between Hawke and Jenkins that leads to Blake’s being taken hostage. Those looking for a nuanced view of the English home front on a par with, say, TV’s Foyle’s War may be disappointed. (Dec.)

A traditional whodunit turns into an unsettling journey of murder, obsession and a crisis of faith in the skillful hands of British author Hamand (The Rocket Man). In the middle of vicar Richard Page’s Good Friday service, a man, bleeding from a knife wound to the chest, staggers into Page’s church in the poor London neighborhood of Hackney. As his parishioners rush to the man’s aid, Richard to his shame feels paralyzed, unable to act when faced with real wounds after contemplating Christ’s suffering on the cross. The victim dies soon after in the hospital. While putting the finishing touches on his Easter Sunday sermon, Richard learns from the police that the body has disappeared from the morgue. When a parishioner reports seeing the supposed dead man working as a gardener, Richard begins his own investigation. As he delves deeper, fantasy and reality become blurred, and he questions even his own sanity. A compelling story builds to a chilling conclusion. (Nov.)

A rich sense of character and place invigorates Havill’s sixth Posadas County, N.Mex., police procedural (after 2007’s Final Payment). Anomalies that surface in the investigation of a fatal traffic accident concern under-sheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, who’s also bothered by the feeling that someone, somehow is scamming her friends in a little village just north of the border. Meanwhile, a crowd of drunken teenagers provokes a young cop into carelessly discharging his pistol, and the presence of illegal immigrants flowing through the community is a constant distraction. If all this weren’t enough to frazzle Estelle, a journalist is arriving in town to do a story for A Woman’s World magazine about how she balances professional and personal demands. Havill is especially good at showing how connecting facts depends on recognizing relationships within a family or a neighborhood. Arid, harshly beautiful Posadas County turns out to be full of captivating stories. (Nov.)

Black’s kickboxing PI, Ron Shade (Windy City Knights), and Hyzy’s TV reporter/sleuth, Alex St. James (Deadly Blessings), both based in Chicago, blend their talents nicely in this first team effort from their creators. Shade is working for an insurance company that paid out $12 million in an accidental death case, but now has reason to believe that the insured is still alive. St. James is working on a story about the homeless that requires going underground equipped with a Taser for protection. Told in roughly alternating chapters, their assignments eventually merge as they separately, then jointly, uncover a massive case of fraud with murder a frequent byproduct. The bad guys, as deadly as they are, are pretty easy to identify, but the way the physically tough Shade and the gutsy St. James deal with them shows the protagonists to be a well-matched pair. The frisson of mutual attraction between St. James and Shade should make readers hope for future joint endeavors. (Nov.)

In the juicy 16th Jane Lawless mystery (after 2007’s The Mortal Groove), the lesbian restaurateur worries about her father Ray’s upcoming bid for governor of Minnesota. Corey Hodge, a convicted rapist Ray once defended in court, has just been released from prison. Nursing a grudge, he volunteers at Ray’s campaign headquarters until his identity is exposed. Life gets more intense after Corey becomes a suspect in the murder of one of Ray’s top volunteers, Charity Miller. Charity was being stalked by her ex-boyfriend, who may have committed a hate crime against a gay United Methodist minister involved with a male campaign worker. Also causing Jane concern is the unexpected return from Africa of her ex-lover, Dr. Julia Martinsen. Julia plots to reignite her relationship with Jane, who’s involved in a troubled long-distance relationship with Kenzie, a Nebraska professor. Hart fans will enjoy the many twists, both personal and criminal. (Nov.)

British author Mackesy (The Temp) deftly juggles two realities—the natural and the supernatural—in her compelling debut mystery. Desperate for income and a place to hide from an abusive ex-husband, Londoner Bridget Sweeny takes a job as the caretaker of a Cornish manor that’s now a hotel, Rospetroc. Accompanying Bridget is her young daughter, Yasmin, who soon becomes the confidante of a ghost—Lily, a nine-year-old refugee from Hitler’s blitzkrieg who vanished while boarding with Rospetroc’s long-dead mistress during WWII. Lily, who does palpable damage to the premises, becomes a second source of terror for Bridget. Mackesy’s stream-of-consciousness narrative successfully delineates these characters’ inner lives, though at first most function as stock figures—the mother frightened for her child, the brutal husband, the plucky best friend. But Mackesy’s prose—spare, taut and robust as haiku—lessens the implausibility of the novel’s resolution. (Nov.)

At the start of Doss’s entertaining 13th mystery to feature Ute investigator Charlie Moon (after 2007’s Three Sisters), the spirit of recently murdered Chiquita Yazzi expresses concern for her teenage daughter, Nancy, as well she should, since Nancy was left alone with an abusive stepfather, Hermann Wetzel, who’s about to meet the same fate as Chiquita. While Charlie prepares to pop the question to his favorite FBI agent, Lila Mae McTeague, he’s also putting together a 16th birthday party for his Aunt Daisy’s charge, orphan Sarah Frank. Hermann’s murder disrupts the party and brings Nancy to Charlie’s ranch, where she absconds with Sarah’s birthday gift and goes on a rampage of vengeance. The police chief of Granite Creek, Colo., and fellow officers search high and low to apprehend Hermann’s killer, but it’s Daisy and Hermann’s elderly landlady who team up to bring about the multifaceted solution. Lots of asides and tongue-in-cheek humor add to the fun. (Nov.)

Murder casts a shadow over the yuletide cheer in bestseller Brown’s 17th Mrs. Murphy mystery (after The Purrfect Murder) to feature Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen, former postmistress of Crozet, Va. On a visit to the Brothers of Love Christmas tree farm, Harry, her husband and their animal friends are dismayed to stumble on a murdered monk. Someone has cut the throat of Christopher Hewitt, a former insider trader, and placed a Greek coin, an obol, under his tongue (in Greek mythology an obol ensures safe passage to the underworld). Deputy Cynthia Cooper and sheriff Rick Shaw’s investigation grows to include the similar murder of Brother Speed, a former jockey. Who’s targeting the monks? Next, Harry’s almost killed after her wily pets alert her to money hidden on her land. Figuring out whodunit leads the Haristeens and the authorities to a double-edged discovery regarding the root of all evil that fans of the furry detectives and their two-legged pals will appreciate. (Nov.)

As intoxicating as Bradbury’s legendary Dandelion Wine, the 27 new and old stories in this potent collection resonate with timeless power. All set in Green Town, Ill., the vintage highlights include “Miss Bidwell,” a sweet romance about a spinster and the delayed homecoming of her first love; the brilliant “The Screaming Woman,” featuring the wide-eyed first person narration of a frantic 10-year-old who discovers a woman’s premature burial; and “At Midnight, in the Month of June,” in which a killer plays a demented game of hide and seek. Contemporary one-page shorts such as “The River that Went to the Sea” and “The Projector” round out a lyrical feast with the savor of “apricots and fresh apples and as water tastes when you rise at night and walk into a dark warm summer kitchen and drink from a cool tin cup.” (Nov.)

Lindskold (Through Wolf’s Eyes) delivers an enjoyable but unremarkable series launch. Brenda Morris, an innocent quarter-Chinese college student, is abruptly thrust into the hidden world of the Thirteen Orphans, descendants of magicians who take the forms of Chinese zodiac animals and draw magic from the game of mah-jongg. Brenda fights valiantly against otherworld elements who seek to steal the Orphans’ power, but indulges in a painfully juvenile crush on a killer who attacks her father. From a fascinating premise, the narrative stalls repeatedly under the weight of awkward exposition, explanation of magic and mah-jongg and analysis of offscreen events. Stiff, unrealistic dialogue interrupts crisp, clean narrative prose. The only sparkle comes from mysterious assassins Flying Claw and Righteous Drum. After this serviceable setup, readers will mostly hope for the interesting sequel promised by the abrupt conclusion. (Nov.)

Following 2007’s Reader and Raelynx, which wrapped up the original Twelve Houses fantasy quartet, this rousing sword-and-sorcery romance introduces Wen, a former elite warrior Rider haunted by her failure to protect King Baryn during a rebellion and heartbroken by her lover’s marriage to another. After Wen saves teen heiress Karryn, daughter of one of the rebels, from kidnapping and ravishment, Karryn’s uncle and guardian, Jasper Paladar, rewards Wen with an offer to train a cadre of bodyguards. Reluctant at first, Wen gradually faces her fears and falls in love with Jasper, the soul of sexy scholarly gallantry. Despite the tweeny dialogue and predictable derring-do, Shinn combines a substantial range of appealing characters with a solid reinforcement of women’s capabilities in peace and war, making the story comfortable, if not profound. (Nov.)

This hard SF collection wears its heart on its sleeve, along with the various passions (the Holocaust, education, moral dilemmas) of its author. Characters must reconcile their rational objectives with their emotional judgment, intervening to save history’s victims (“Time Ablaze”) or pleading for humanity’s ability to grow up (“Decisions”). The writing is often colorless, like the “transparent” prose of the classic SF writers Burstein idolizes, and the tone is elegiac and nostalgic, but the feelings are real if awkwardly expressed. Original material adds to one connected series and completes Burstein’s homages to Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke. Burstein may be too close to his models to keep younger readers satisfied, but older fans will admire his dedication to remembering and honoring the past. (Nov.)

Buckner (War Surf) theorizes a brand-new intelligence emerging from electronic trash in this cautionary near-future tale. When troubled MIT grad school dropout CJ Reilly encounters bizarre ice covering steamy Louisiana’s polluted Devil’s Pond, she has visions of saving the world after she analyzes a sample and discovers its power to purify water. Then the mysterious substance responds to music and begins to move, and Reilly becomes convinced of its sentience. When it kills a man, scientist Roman Sacony, whose company owns the pond, is determined to utterly destroy the emerging life form, while CJ insists on trying to save it. Despite the suspense and nonstop action, unlikable characters make it hard to root for anyone, and the scientifically sound ending is narratively unsatisfying. The story succeeds best when it traverses Louisiana’s geography, and only indifferently when it traverses the human heart. (Nov.)

Pseudo–Native American myth blends with passion in the colorful conclusion to Smith-Ready’s Aspect of Crow trilogy (after 2007’s Voice of Crow). A brutal war rages between those who embrace Spirit, animal magic that grows stronger with each generation, and the Descendants, who shun it. Twelve years have passed since the bloodthirsty Ilion Army of the Descendants invaded the cities of Velekos and Asermos, and the hoped-for Raven leader has yet to emerge. Spirit mages Rhia and Marek follow their son after he joins his uncle’s army to avenge his girlfriend’s murder by Ilion soldiers, while Asermon refugee Sura, recently bestowed with her Snake aspect, falls in love with Dravek, a Snake betrothed to someone else. Newcomers will feel a little lost, but those familiar with the soap opera will enjoy the satisfying conclusion. (Nov.)

In his jovially self-deprecating introduction, Campbell (Grin of the Dark) dismisses the career-spanning stories in this volume as “misshapen creatures” deserving of criticism. Though far from his best work, these 25 tales run the gamut from gothic horror to new wave SF and are notable for their crafty prose and absence of most genre clichés. A number, including “The Void” and “The Other House,” show the influence of Nabokov’s fiction and the films of Alain Resnais in their experiments at turning the uncertainty of the oblique and ambiguous into a mood of menace that admits the supernatural. Top horror honors go to “The Shadows in the Barn,” in which a magician finds that his shadow puppets take on malignant life, and “The Burning,” in which an unemployed man’s feelings of victimization are externalized in macabre fashion. At their worst, these stories show Campbell honing his craft for better efforts; at their best, they can stand proudly with most modern tales of their type. (Nov.)

Bestseller Harper (Dark Angel) opens this romantic suspense novel with lost-child tracker Tara Kinsale reassembling her life after 11 months in a coma. Both her rich husband, Laird Lohan, and her old friend and physician, Jen DeMar, left Black Hawk, Colo. while Tara was comatose, and her best friend was killed, leaving behind her young daughter, Claire. Tara’s new doctor also tells her that she somehow gave birth during her coma; when Tara begins searching for the missing infant, a mysterious figure attacks her. Meanwhile, rugged, handsome Nick McMahon, Claire’s uncle, has returned from harrowing army service in Afghanistan to take custody of Claire. Romance blossoms as Nick and Tara work together through increasing danger. The story is rich with depictions of mountain biking, organ playing and dog training, and the tension steadily escalates to a pulse-pounding climax. (Nov.)

Following 2006’s Mysteria, this collection of steamy and sassy stories returns to supernatural suburbia in entertaining style. In “Disdaining Trouble,” Davidson introduces the devilish Desdaine triplets, whose encounter with a wishing well has too many repercussions to quite fit into the short format. Shay, the top-ranking she-demon in the devil’s army, strikes up a steamy romance with a demon hunter in Grant’s “The Nanny from Hell.” Showalter’s “A Tawdry Affair” combines revenge and red-hot sex when frustrated love-witch Glory uses a magic pen to write fantasies that come true. In Cast’s “It’s in His Kiss...,” hapless teacher Summer can’t seem to control her magic, her classroom or her feelings for a flirtatious fairy and a handsome vampire. Several characters from Mysteria make appearances, but new readers will have no trouble appreciating these charming tales. (Nov.)

Margaret Weis (Dragonlance) and daughter Lizz’s fantasy romance succeeds mostly in the fantasy department. Matthew Gallow, burned at the stake as a Christian martyr, fell from grace, returned to human form and now drinks too much and performs fake exorcisms for money. After he casts out a real demon from an adolescent girl, he becomes an overnight celebrity. Natalia Ashley, who manages rock star Cain, offers Matthew big money to “perform” nightly exorcisms while the rocker sings his hit song, “Possession.” Neither realizes that Cain’s possession is not metaphorical; he signed Satan’s dotted line and promised to turn his fans into hell’s army. Matthew, a compelling, tortured hero, is aided by an archangel with a black sense of humor, a dormouse and Natalia’s grandfather Woof, a Dead-head ghost. Natalia and Matthew’s romance is more explained than demonstrated in this otherwise intriguing supernatural thriller. (Nov.)

The complex, funny and powerful third entry in Pratt’s urban fantasy series (after 2008’s Poison Sleep) pits kick-ass sorceress Marla Mason, the guardian of East Coast metropolis Felport, against the newly reincarnated king of the underworld, a handsome and lusty fellow who calls himself Walking Death. He invades her territory in human guise and demands her prized artifact, a magical dagger that symbolizes her office and can cut through anything as long as its rightful owner wields it. When she refuses and Walking Death discovers that the weapon can’t be seized by force, he exiles her and takes over the city. While a few unpredictable allies start an underground resistance, Marla turns the tables on her enemy by launching her own invasion of Hell. Pratt’s writing is wildly imaginative, with roller-coaster pacing and startling twists galore. (Nov.)

This reprint of Spiegelman’s 1978 collection of comics is a must-have for any comics aficionado, art-house dude, hipster or anyone who ever thought to himself, “Hmm, comics are kinda cool.” It will also be liked by anyone who ever enjoyed Kafka or anything postmodern enough to be in McSweeney’s. There’s still enough here for regular people to enjoy, too. The 30-page memoirish introduction, all done in comics (in which we get to see Spiegelman mess up his son’s mind the way his was messed up) explains how comics came to be the shining light for so many messed-up adolescent boys: “Mad warped a generation in the bland American 1950s—something that’s been done before, but possibly not so well.” The early comics are a revelation. Spiegelman gives us the story that led to Maus, and we see how he evolved from an R. Crumb–loving artist with neuroses pertaining to The Dick Van Dyke Show to a tight storyteller of anxious, modern folktales. One of the functions of the artist is to take us to hell and get us out in one piece. Spiegelman’s early trips into hallucinatory darkness do this. We come out in one piece; it’s not clear he did. (Oct.)

The focus of this collection is not on any particular genre or style, but on stylistic and storytelling variety. There are slice-of-life stories, historical drama, humor, political satire, absurdist fables, serious autobiography and lighthearted ramblings. The art styles range from the tight, realistic precision of Jason Lute’s Berlin to the raw style of John Mejia’s vignettes of life as a public school art teacher. With each story the reader is drawn into a different world or presented with another perspective of the same world. Yet despite the variety of the stories, they join as a display of the power of comics as a means of storytelling that can concisely present some aspect of human nature so the reader can digest it, contemplate it and, perhaps, understand it, as Barry, this edition’s editor, suggests in her introduction. The variety conveys the continued growth of comics as a means of storytelling, growth brought about by a plethora of promising new creators and continued great work by established creators such as Jaime Hernandez, Matt Groening and Chris Ware. The book offers a strong sampling of the diversity available today and hints at more innovation and progression to come. (Oct.)

Based on a bestselling video game of the same name, this debut volume takes the time-worn manga tradition of turning everything into a battle to a ludicrous extreme. Phoenix Wright is a newly minted defense attorney, insecure in his skills and aided by the ghost of a departed mentor who speaks to him through her little sister. There’s a fairly interesting courtroom sequence early on that has a supernatural twist, but from there the book devolves into yelling matches, asinine plots and a visual style that changes on a dime. The writing implies that the hardest part about being an attorney, the decisive factor in any given case, is who can yell “Objection!” the loudest. Fairly little time is devoted to anything genuinely mysterious or procedural—the story concerns itself with ramen-eating contests and stolen lunches—making this a huge disappointment for anyone expecting real legal action. It works fairly well as a comedy, though, with the occasional self-referential jab (“That’s not cool enough for a main character!” Wright’s spectral teacher chides) and a generally manic tone and pacing. (Sept.)

Having already tackled the new millennium’s most explosive government document, The 9/11 Commission Report, in bestselling comic form, former Marvel Comics executive editor Jacobson and journeyman artist Colón go for a less scripted take on recent history with this vivid graphic take on the wars that erupted after 9/11. Not relying on one single source allows Jacobson and Colón to be more wide-ranging in their examination of the war on terror. As journalism, Jacobson’s work is nothing particularly fresh, relying on a steady march of bullet-point news squibs about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and sidebar background material to fill out its densely packed pages. Colón’s chaotic and highly physical artwork helps bring the occasionally dry recitation to life; his liberal use of bloody war-zone carnage shockingly illustrates how little such things are shown by the Western media. Jacobson keeps his tone as even as possible, save for the unavoidable details of hypocrisy or incompetence (of which there are sadly many), helping to make the book an excellent choice for educators looking for an accessible single-volume take on the subject. All in all, After 9/11 stands apart as the graphic novel equivalent of a particularly cogent Frontline report. (Sept.)