Fiction Reviews

Wray's captivating third novel drifts between psychological realities while exploring the narrative poetics of schizophrenia. The story centers on Will Heller, a 16-year-old New Yorker who has stopped taking his antipsychotic medication and wandered away from the mental hospital into the subway tunnels believing that the world will end within a few hours and that only he can save it. It's a novel that defies easy categorization, although in one sense it's a mystery, as a detective, Lateef, is on the case, assisted by Will's troubled mother, Violet. As Lateef tracks Will and gains some startling insight into Violet, Wray deploys brilliant hallucinatory visuals, including chilling descriptions of the subway system and an imaginary river flowing beneath Manhattan. In his previous works, Wray has shown that he's not a stranger to dark themes, and with this tightly wound novel, he reaches new heights. (Mar.)

This chunky paperback collects Flying Home, the final installment to Kraft's Flying trilogy, along with its predecessors to give readers the full, nutty story of Peter Leroy's solo cross-country “aerocycle” flight 50 years ago. Alternating with Peter's memoir of the summer after his cross-country odyssey is the story of his return to hometown Babbington, N.Y., as a man in his 60s prepared to confess that his hand-built contraption never made it off the ground. As Peter and his wife, Albertine, continue the road trip begun in On the Wing, Peter reads aloud from his memoir, recalling the bizarre goings-on at the Summer Institute of Mathematics, Physics, and Weaponry. His recollections show Peter to be an unreliable narrator whose wandering mind ends up being far more revealing than his impressions of reality might have been. The simple narrative structure belies the complex way that Kraft interweaves philosophy and science while gently pushing Peter and Albertine toward the big moment of truth. Kraft brings the trilogy to a fitting end, and the collected works comprise an intricate, intelligent and finely crafted saga. (Mar.)

London (Gilgamesh) delivers an excellent family drama rooted in rural Australian lives. The novel opens with a lengthy glimpse into the life of 20-year-old Maya de Jong, who has recently left her small hometown for a new job (and subsequently an affair with the new boss) in Melbourne. As early as the second chapter, however, it's clear that the narrative interest lies with Maya's parents, Toni and Jacob, who arrive for an extended vacation to discover Maya's gone missing. Maya's puzzling, abrupt absence—which will leave readers perplexed nearly as long as the de Jongs are—leaves Toni and Jacob with little to do but wait for her to contact them; this period of enforced helplessness and isolation provides a metaphorical insight into the parents of adult children, who, as Jacob reflects, reveal their own self-doubts and self-awareness once their parental role is finished. The narrative shifts subtly among the past and present of a wide cast, each of whom has his or her own story of abandoning one life for another. This insightful novel illuminates with seeming ease the fraught relationships among friends, families and entire communities. (Feb.)

Prolific writer Wheeler has penned more than 60 westerns. This, the 17th novel in his Skye's West series featuring venerable mountain man Barnaby Skye, finds Skye—after more than 50 years of trapping beaver, hunting bear, fighting Indians and living outdoors—in constant rheumatic pain, losing his eyesight and wishing to live out his days in a house with a roof, a floor and a real bed. It is 1870, the fur business is dead and white men are taking all the Indian lands. His two Indian wives, Victoria and Mary, have different feelings about these changes. Victoria dreads leaving her Indian family for a white man's life, and Mary longs to see her son, Dirk, whom Skye had sent away to school several years earlier. There is little gun smoke, but plenty of suspense as Skye and Victoria confront brutal Texas cattlemen and cheating Indian agents, and Mary travels to St. Louis to find her son. Skye may be old, but he is wise and crafty. Wheeler may be at the end of the Barnaby Skye stories, but this is a fine way for the old guy to go out. (Feb.)

When it rains, it pours for Tee Hodges, the spirited, stiff-upper-lipped protagonist of DeBerry and Grant's latest. Tee, the longtime right-hand woman of fragrance entrepreneur Olivia Markson, gets the shock of her life when, shortly after Olivia dies, Olivia's daughter pink-slips her. Even worse, the bad news hits just as Tee's putting the finishing touches on her daughter's elaborate wedding. Yet even when she finds her world swirling out of her grasp, she maintains the image that she has everything together. As her savings dwindle, her employment prospects look bleak, creditors begin calling, her parents explore the possibility of divorce and friends she trusted turn out to be less than supportive, Tee begins to trust her instincts, which sharpens her confidence in her entrepreneurial drive and leads her into the arms of a doting man. This is the anti-pity party: snappy, fun and inspiring. (Jan.)

For single Houston gal Jessica Luna, deciding what she really wants involves searching for signs and sage advice from a fortune-teller in Zepeda's snazzy first novel (after short story collection To the Last Man I Slept With and All the Jerks Just Like Him). The superstitious Latina becomes devoted to Madame Hortensia, a psychic with questionable abilities (but a good heart) after three eerie predictions come true. So it's with Hortensia's help that Jessica hopes to overcome her professional, personal and romantic woes. Jessica has a B.A. in art history yet unhappily toils for an insurance firm, is torn between two men—one a sexy but flaky artist, the other a rich but snobby businessman—and believes her parents may be on the verge of divorce. Jessica's evolution from self-uncertainty to self-empowerment is amusingly charted, and Zepeda's take on the popular fascination with good luck charms, horoscopes, psychics and unreliable predictions is laced with rueful zeal. (Jan.)

Eve is grateful for the family and friends that surround her Thanksgiving table, including her husband, Jonathon; their five-year-old son, Jacob; and a baby due to make its arrival in a few short weeks. But in this predictable second novel from Shumas (Five Things I Can't Live Without), Eve's idyll gets trashed when a phone call interrupts their holiday dinner and exposes Jonathon's too-cozy friendship with another woman. What turns out to be an emotional affair launches a maelstrom of emotions for both Eve and Jon, neither of whom realized how much their marriage had disintegrated. As they struggle to work things out, they learn a lot about themselves and each other. Throughout the novel, Shumas, a therapist, invites the reader to consider the question—is it cheating if nothing physical happens? Shumas relies heavily on the standard marriage-in-trouble arc (separation, his disheveled bachelor apartment, her ill-fated fling), and readers familiar with the formula will know what to expect. (Jan.)

Bestseller Cussler and son Dirk imagine the U.S. and Canada on the brink of war in their third collaborative Dirk Pitt novel (after Treasure of Khan and Black Wind). In 2011, as the price of gas hits $10 a gallon, President Garner Ward must contend with a corrupt Canadian cabal that's subverting efforts to solve America's energy problems. Pitt barely escapes serious injury when a bomb destroys a D.C. lab along with records of research into an artificial photosynthesis process that could, almost immediately, eliminate the threat of global warming. That discovery may be connected with a legendary failed 19th-century sailing expedition to the Arctic as well as a series of deaths due to the phenomena that the Native Americans of British Columbia know as “the Devil's Breath.” The Cusslers won't suspend many readers' disbelief, but thriller fans in search of a quick, exciting read should be satisfied. 750,000 printing; author tour. (Dec.)

“Private papers left by the dead may present difficult problems for the survivor,” Auchincloss writes in his latest chronicle of the WASP wealthy, and they do for Adrian Suydam, “an American gentleman of the old school,” who sets about writing the biography of his deceased corporate law partner, Ernest Saunders. It's 1944, and grand old New York is in its full glory as Adrian digs into Ernest's past (and, by virtue of their close relationship, his own), touching on muffled scandals that could threaten “the old order of the wellborn and highly educated.” The tone is cool and reserved as Adrian examines how Ernest's passionate devotion to the firm—founded in 1883—precludes him from finding true love and how his colleague foresees the loss of “the homogeneity, the esprit de corps, the intimacy” that “the changing conditions of modern law practice” presage. The law partners' friendship constitutes a classic fraternal love story, and Auchincloss, for all his narrative stuffiness, effortlessly conjures a bygone world of privilege. (Dec.)

Luciano, the wily hero of Newmark's entertaining first novel, is only a street urchin when the doge of Venice's chef finds him, but once dragged into the kitchen as an apprentice, he discovers more bubbling than boiling water. While the town is in an uproar over the rumor of an ancient book containing magical potions and lessons on alchemy, Luciano pines away for a girl and learns the basics of chopping, sweeping and eavesdropping. As he and his maestro become friendlier, Luciano begins to learn that there's more to his teacher than a garden of strange plants and a box of spices. Newmark does a fine job of building suspense and keeping the novel barreling along, and her knowledge of and affection for 15th-century Venice adds charm to this nicely told adventure yarn. (Dec.)

A ghost narrates Reig's whimsical speculative novel, set in the same alternative Madrid as Blood on the Saddle (2006). After a thug fires a bullet into the head of 35-year-old María Dolores Eguíbar Madrazo, a children's book author who writes under the name Lola Lios, her ghost seeks to find out why she was murdered. Might there be some connection with her ex-husband, Fernando Eguilaz, a famous scientist who's been hard at work “synthesising neuroprotein K666” (discovered by Lola's psychiatrist father) as a potential cure for death? Lola's most popular fictional character, Benito Viruta, provides solace as she muses on what was, what might have been and what is. “To really live you have to learn to die,” she concludes. Reig conjures an extraordinary ending that's as elusive as a butterfly's kiss. (Dec.)

O'Nan proves that uncertainty can be the worst punishment of all in this unflinching look at an unraveling family. In the small town of Kingsville, Ohio, 18-year-old Kim Larsen—popular and bound for college in the fall—disappears on her way to work one afternoon. Not until the next morning do her parents, Ed and Fran, and 15-year-old sister, Lindsay, realize Kim is missing. The lead detective on the case tells the Larsens that since Kim is an adult, she could, if the police find her, ask that the police not disclose her location to her parents. When Kim's car later turns up in nearby Sandusky, Ed, desperate to help, joins the official search. Meanwhile, Fran stays home putting all her energy into community fund-raisers, and Lindsay struggles to maintain a normal life. Through shifting points of view, chiefly those of the shell-shocked parents and the moody Lindsay, O'Nan raises the suspense while conveying the sheer torture of what it's like not to know what has happened to a loved one. When—if ever—do you stop looking? 6-city author tour. (Nov.)

Near the start of bestseller Baldacci's less than compelling fourth Camel Club thriller (after Stone Cold), former CIA assassin Oliver Stone (aka John Carr) boards a New Orleans–bound train at Washington's Union Station after shooting to death “a well-known U.S. senator and the nation's intelligence chief,” the two men responsible for his wife's murder. Ever the Good Samaritan, Stone intervenes in a fight on the train, but when the Amtrak conductor asks to see his ID, he gets off at the next station, knowing his fake ID won't withstand scrutiny. So much for Stone's vaunted ability as a resourceful planner. This sudden detour takes Stone to Divine, Va., a mining town where he becomes enmeshed in corruption and intrigue—and falls, in just one of several clichéd situations, for an attractive if beleaguered widow. Series fans should be satisfied, but this effort lacks the imagination that distinguished Baldacci's debut, Absolute Power (1996). (Nov.)

Poyer's fine military thriller, the 11th in his Dan Lenson series (after Korea Strait), provides what his fans have come to expect—tight structure, plenty of authentic technological detail and a hero who acts like a man rather than a cartoon superhero. When the Russians offer a powerful new rocket torpedo they've developed for sale to the world, the U.S. government sends Cdr. Dan Lenson, U.S.N., to purchase one. After the deal falls apart, Dan attempts to “liberate” one of the new weapons from a container ship headed for China. When that mission goes to hell, he and his team steal an Iranian submarine carrying one of the super torpedoes. From then on, we're submerged deep into Das Boot territory with Dan and his small crew playing cat and mouse with a deadly Iranian frigate. Those who relish naval action won't be able to come up for air until they turn the last page of this nail-biter. (Nov.)

Allen's (Slaves of the Shinar) sophomore effort effectively combines Civil War–era history and surreal fantasy to create an enthralling, eclectic story. Chinese teen Tzu-lu (“Lu”) gets swept up in a cross-country adventure after legendary gunfighter Jack Straw meets with Lu's grandfather to discuss going west to seek gold. Their troupe, traveling by horse and wagon, consists of Chino, a Mexican outlaw; Henry Jesus, a freed slave and marksman; and rogue Confederate Jack MacLemore and his sharpshooting teenage daughter, Sadie. As they cross the country exchanging stories, Lu becomes educated in cooking, horsemanship, hunting and weaponry before spying the mythical ghost riders. Meanwhile, storms, Confederate soldiers, an evil-Yankee legend, horse problems and a shortage of food spell trouble for the posse as they amble toward a fiery face-off with greedy gold miners. The narrative trucks along and indulges in all the trappings of a larger-than-life adventure tale. It's a folkloric Wild West story told with contemporary brio. (Nov.)

Alec Milius, the protagonist of Cumming's well-received first novel, A Spy by Nature (2007), has created a new life in Madrid working as a researcher for a British private bank in this sterling sequel. His former employer, MI6, dismissed him in disgrace after a plot against the CIA went wrong. Alec lives alone, constantly watching for agents from his past who he thinks are intent on hunting him down and exacting revenge. He's having an affair with his boss's wife, drinks too much and is consumed by regret and guilt. When his boss, Julian Church, sends him to Basque country on a project, he meets Mikel Arenaza, a former member of the ETA, the Basque separatist party, who quickly turns up dead. The plot is pleasingly convoluted, the twists unexpected, the characters flawed and interesting. This is spy fiction of the highest order; Cumming deserves to be ranked with the best of the genre's practitioners. (Nov.)

A London therapist gets a lesson in pain and empathy in Brownrigg's sparkling latest (after Morality Tale). It's 1998, and Mira Braverman's home office (dubbed “the delivery room” by her husband) overfloweth with troubled types. There's “the Bigot,” Howard, a divorced diplomat who needles Mira about her Serbian heritage; “the American,” Jess, a single female journalist who longs for a baby; “the Aristocrat,” Caroline, who is fighting a battle with infertility; and “the Mourning Madonna,” Kate, who lost a daughter in utero. Only when Mira's husband, Peter, is diagnosed with terminal lymphoma is Mira able to empathize with her patients, particularly as Peter's health declines. In many ways, this novel is also about parenting—those who long to be mothers and can't, and those who are ambivalent about the responsibilities. Because so much of the novel revolves around sessions, the narrative can become claustrophobic, but patient readers will appreciate Brownrigg's detailed portrayals of the therapist and client dynamic, and the prose is tack sharp and effortlessly lyrical. (Nov.)

Barzak's accomplished novel-in-stories dwells on people dealing with life's sorrows through somewhat tenuous connections. Set in Japan, the narratives focus on protagonists from the country and travelers in search of a new life, as in “Realer Than You,” in which 16-year-old Elijah Fulton longs for his native America while struggling to fit into his new surroundings outside of Tokyo. “The Suicide Club” is made up of four young adults on the fringe of Japanese society attempting to make sense of their lives, while “Sleeping Beauties” concerns, albeit sappily, an American teacher and his Japanese lover; the narrator loses his identity through total immersion in his lover's life, yet it's the slow return to self that is even more devastating. “If You Can Read This You're Too Close” centers on a disillusioned, selfish young man whose life is changed after a blind man sees him. Barzak's perceptive writing evinces the fragile and overwhelming desire for meaning and love. (Nov.)

Impoverished twins living along the Mississippi Gulf Coast struggle to survive after high school in Ward's starkly beautiful debut. Abandoned by their mother and raised by their loving but ailing grandmother, Joshua and Christophe DeLisle know job prospects are slim in rural Bois Sauvage, so they spend their days playing basketball and flirting with the local girls. Eventually, even with no work history, Joshua is hired to work on the docks, but Christophe falls in with the brothers' drug-dealing cousin. Too ashamed to admit that he spends his days in the park selling marijuana, Christophe secretly contributes to the family's expenses with regular “deposits” to his grandmother's purse. But when Christophe decides to start selling more dangerous drugs, tensions between the twins grow, and the arrival of their long-absent drug addict father sparks a violent confrontation. A fresh new voice in American literature, Ward unflinchingly describes a world full of despair but not devoid of hope. (Nov.)

Illustrated with Motley's inky, scruffy black-and-white sketches, many of these 29 shorts from poet and novelist Ducornet aim to push readers' buttons, such as the exclamatory narrative by the feral young creature in “Wild Child,” who pretends to “repent” of her savage ways, but secretly wants to run and hunt. Themes of female entrapment recur, as in “Guilia on Her Knees,” the tale of an old sculptor's marriage to a young Italian peasant girl and her removal to a farmhouse in northern Vermont where she spends the rest of her days “scrubbing spattered grease off the floor so that some mean bastard can walk on it.” Another marriage runs afoul in “The Dickmare,” set amid a community of grotesque organisms in the sea, and Ducornet similarly pulls the stops out of her whimsical vocabulary in “The One Marvelous Thing,” about two dissimilar women who go shopping together. These stories spotlight Ducornet's linguistic pyrotechnics and will delight readers who, like Ducornet, can find the beauty in the irreverent and absurd. (Nov.)

Born in 1945 into a privileged New England family, Leah Stockbridge, the engaging heroine of this initially sluggish novel of romantic suspense from Swiss-American author Nelson (The Card), defies her parents' wishes by enrolling in a Boston art school instead of attending a liberal arts college. After a devastating personal tragedy, Leah moves to Paris to fulfill her desire to paint in the City of Light. There, she falls under the spell of a handsome Swiss banker, Jean-Luc Perroset, whom she eventually marries. Leah sets aside her artistic career to become the perfect Swiss wife, mother and chatelaine of a massive estate. The pace picks up as mysterious incidents start to befall Leah, and her fairy tale life with Jean-Luc unravels. Flashbacks to Leah's youth growing up in New England help heighten the suspense. (Nov.)

Despite their hip exteriors, the four Toronto 20-somethings at the heart of Brand's solid novel all struggle with issues of race and identity. Tuyen, a lesbian artist, is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who still grieve for the son they lost in Vietnam. Carla, a biracial woman, grapples with a misplaced sense of responsibility for her younger brother, Jamal, whose rap sheet is more than Carla can fix. Oku struggles under the watchful, and often resentful, eye of his father, a Jamaican immigrant who feels both threatened and frustrated by his son's poetic aspiration. Jackie, a young black woman whose family came to Toronto from Halifax, vicariously mourns the loss of her parents' youthful dreams. Although the friends have an unspoken rule never to talk of family, the problems of home spill inevitably into their daily lives, culminating in an explosive moment when the families finally meet. Brand's “slice-of-life” style is often at odds with her melodramatic subject matter. But the emotional depth of her characters provides original insight on the young urban dweller. (Nov.)

In the workmanlike 24th and presumably last Capital Crimes novel (after Murder on K Street) from bestseller Truman (1924–2008), the murder of escort Rosalie Curzon, who was savagely beaten before being strangled, panics her many high-powered clients after the local police find she'd been videotaping her sessions. The detectives on the case—Walter Hatcher, a racist dinosaur mulling over retirement, and his two younger assistants, naïve Matt Jackson, who's shocked that some of his colleagues are on the take, and Mary Hall, who's secretly involved with Jackson—are walking clichés. The probe takes on national implications when rumors circulate that presidential challenger Robert Colgate, who's been dogged by allegations of infidelity, was one of Curzon's clients. Readers should be prepared for some clunky prose (e.g., a character's face is described as “a series of small, finely chiseled granite blocks covered by a coal-black membrane pulled tight”). (Nov.)

Kendrick (Nearlyweds; Exes and Ohs) centers her painfully formulaic latest tale of domestic woe on that most unromantic document: the prenuptial agreement. Stay-at-home mom Ellie Barton, a twinset and pearls type, thought her life and family (blonde, curly haired little girl and a Ken-doll old-money husband) were perfect—until she sees a racy e-mail intended for her husband. Ellie's marriage isn't the only one going down the tubes; her two witty girlfriends are having pre-nup issues of their own: Mara, a lawyer with commitment issues, is having trouble drafting her own pre-nup, while health nut entrepreneur Jen's pre-nup could cost her her darling startup company. When Ellie's husband throws some punches in the divorce arrangements, the ladies roll out some dirty tricks of their own. It hits the required bases, but that's about it. (Nov.)

McCarthy strays from her more recent Vegas Vampires series and heads to the world of racing for a steamy romance. Two years after Tamara Briggs's husband was killed in a wreck at Talladega, she's back to dating, but her latest beau is a dud. She dumps him and remains intent on not ending up with another race-car driver, but that's exactly what she gets when she meets Elec Monroe. Things progress quickly, and soon she's having dynamite sex with this younger man who's nice to her kids—who could ask for more? There's a catch of course: Elec is the son of Tamara's dead husband's father's sworn enemy. The narrative is fast-paced and red hot; fans of more graphic romances will enjoy this and welcome the next—a sequel is in the works. (Nov.)

In recent years, Baldwin (The Unusual Suspect) has put his acting career on the back burner in order to develop his Christian ministry. Not surprisingly, his foray into fiction writing is part detective movie and part sermon. Religious fiction sometimes sacrifices plot development to preach a message, and Baldwin, unfortunately, is unable to avoid this temptation. The lead character, Det. Andy Myers, responds to a call and finds a boy he knows who appears to have been brutally murdered. The boy's father, an ex-con and recent born-again Christian, does not seem to be fazed by his son's death, believing him to now be in a better place with God. Myers is appalled by the father's lack of emotion and goes on a crusade to make sure he is convicted of his son's murder. Myers is the most three-dimensional character in the book and is developed with some skill. But he is surrounded by a number of unbelievable figures who obfuscate an uneven plot that ultimately does not satisfy. (Nov. 5)

The romance in Dimon's latest romp (To All a Good Night) definitely rates as hot—so hot, in fact, that it cools down the thriller elements. As estranged lovers Noah Paxton and Lexy Stuart reluctantly reunite—he's tracked her down to a Utah desert spa “forty miles from the nearest anything”—and do some investigating to hunt for a killer, their playful banter and lovers' spats weigh down the proceedings. Noah works as a security expert for Stuart Enterprises, Lexy's family business, and he's surprised Lexy at her retreat. What he doesn't know is that Lexy's supposed vacation is actually her attempt to investigate Noah himself, whose marriage proposal she's turned down because she suspects he's stealing from one of the company's big clients. Though she's out to discredit him, she may be more interested in his scorching body. When Lexy's only source, the resort's security chief, turns up dead before he can help her, Noah and Lexy begin a protracted game of cat and mouse—with, quite possibly, no mouse at all. Though steamy, Dimon's latest won't thrill anywhere but between the sheets. (Nov.)

A murky first novel by Lebanese poet and journalist Beydoun follows a young man's obsession with his dead uncle along his journey to manhood. The narrator is a young student who suddenly finds himself the head of his household after the deaths of his sickly father, his brother in an untimely accident and his legendary uncle some years earlier. Into the mix comes Safia, once engaged to the narrator's uncle and now married to a rich artist, Hashim, and with a young daughter. As the narrator sifts through his father's effects, speculating on his own past and his competitive relationship with his brother, he finds himself attracted to the older Safia, partly out of his identification with his larger-than-life uncle. The two become lovers, but as Safia's relationship with her husband deteriorates, the narrator realizes their complicated familial ties prohibit him from running away with her. Except for the immediate drama of the love affair, Beydoun's novel consists primarily of stories within stories about family members whose significance is largely unclear to the reader. (Nov.)

Lunstrum's uninspired second collection of short stories focuses on women unhappy in their lives and relationships. In “Islands,” an older couple are prompted to reexamine their relationship after befriending a younger couple on a small Pacific Northwest island, while in “Familial Kindness,” the conflict is between a woman and her long absent brother-in-law who returns to town for a funeral. Lunstrum returns often to the theme of love slowly burning out as years pass, as in “Carmel,” where the husband reminisces about his wife's once smooth thighs and how she used to revel in parties rather than avoid them. In “The Drowning,” a teenage girl is pursued by a persistent lifeguard at the summer camp where they work and her wariness to commit reflects her parents' own strained relationship. While the writing is generally competent, Lunstrum's plot lines veer into the unlikely, and the dialogue is too often unnatural. (Nov.)

Originally published in 1937, the fifth and final Det. Sgt. Jakob Studer mystery (after The Chinaman) offers just enough eccentricity to support the author's reputation as the Swiss Simenon. The Bern policeman and his wife are on holiday in the town of Schwarzenstein, where their daughter is getting married, when a man, Jean Stieger, is found dead in the Hôtel zum Hirschen, stabbed with a sharpened bicycle spoke. The local police take the obvious suspect, bicycle mechanic Ernst Graf, into custody. Studer, however, isn't convinced they have their man. Then Stieger's financier boss is poisoned to death. As Studer investigates, using his own peculiar method of ratiocination, he discovers any number of suspects in what is essentially a variant on the classic locked-room murder puzzle. If the forensic methods the detective employs appear quaint to the contemporary reader, that's half the fun. (Jan.)

Webb, author of Desert Cut and four other Lena Jones mysteries, launches a new series featuring a warm and unconventional heroine, zookeeper Theodora “Teddy” Bentley. Teddy is dismayed to learn that a pregnant anteater in her care, Lucy, appears to have mauled to death a prominent patron of California's Gunn Landing Zoo, Grayson Harrill. When it turns out that someone shot Harrill first, Teddy turns sleuth to discover who framed her beloved Lucy. The colorful supporting cast includes Teddy's beauty queen mother, who makes her daughter call her Caro; Harrill's wife and descendant of the zoo's founder; and the zoo's controversial director. Webb deftly weaves zoological lore into the fast-moving plot. She errs only in going too far in giving the anteater's point-of-view (“Get out. If you don't get out, I'll uncurl my claws and give you a rake down your belly”). The book's human perspective conveys everything we need to know about Lucy, her habitat and her behavior. (Dec.)

In Logue's disturbing seventh mystery to feature Wisconsin deputy sheriff Claire Watkins (after 2007's Maiden Rock), Claire's live-in boyfriend, Rich Haggard, gets a frantic, middle-of-the-night call from an old friend, Chet Baldwin. Rich rushes to Chet's house to find Chet lying in bed next to the body of his wife, Anne, who's been shot in the forehead. When Claire arrives at the scene soon after, Chet gets up and drops the handgun he's been cradling. Rich resents the strictly official posture Claire adopts, and their relationship deteriorates further after Claire conceals the fact that Chet attempts suicide while in her custody. Meanwhile, Claire's protégé on the force, Amy Schroeder, looks into the murder of a stranger found floating in the Mississippi River, a case that, predictably, ends up connected with the Baldwin case. Readers who care more about intelligent depictions of passionate emotions than the details of police work will be most satisfied. (Dec.)

Ex-NYPD homicide cop Jackson “Jake” Steeg, who took a bullet in Family Matters (2006), can't get away from his Hell's Kitchen heritage in Berkowitz's violent and entertaining sequel. Jake's hateful ex-mother-in-law, Jeanmarie Doyle, wants him to help his ex, Ginny, and her new husband, Tony Ferris, who are getting death threats. A reluctant Jake can't avoid getting involved after Tony is brutally murdered. A recovering alcoholic with one good lung, Jake can still mix it up with the tough guys and is quick to do so. The busy plot finds him dealing with corrupt cops and politicians, skinheads, an Israeli gangster and other creeps. Deftly rendering such New York City neighborhoods as Alphabet City and Brighton Beach (Little Odessa), Berkowitz keeps the dialogue rough, the action fast and the characterization thin but sharp as Jake steers his way through the myriad traps thrown in his way. (Dec.)

Elena, princess of Wales, the Diana-like heroine of this enjoyable mystery thriller from Froetschel (Interruptions), yearns for respect, to be free of her claustrophobic marriage and to lead a fulfilling life. Adding to her woes is an antiroyal faction intent on destroying the British monarchy, whose members include the widowed queen, Catherine II; Elena's estranged husband, Edward, prince of Wales; and their sons, 13-year-old Richard and 10-year-old Lawrence. When several of Elena's protectors are murdered, starting with her divorce solicitor, Elena fears she may be next and begins to plot an escape aided by a daring American freelance journalist, Michael McLarrity. Froetschel offers a nuanced view of Elena's relations with the royal family that closely follows the obvious historical model. Readers looking for a less tragic fate for the late Diana, princess of Wales, will find much to like in this beguiling what-if. (Dec.)

In James's stellar 14th Adam Dalgliesh mystery (after 2006's The Lighthouse), the charismatic police commander knows the case of Rhoda Gradwyn, a 47-year-old journalist murdered soon after undergoing the removal of an old disfiguring scar at a private plastic surgery clinic in Dorset, may be his last; James's readers will fervently hope it isn't. Dalgliesh probes the convoluted tangle of motives and hidden desires that swirl around the clinic, Cheverell Manor, and its grimly fascinating suspects in the death of Gradwyn, herself “a stalker of minds” driven by her lifelong passion for rooting out the truth people would prefer left unknown and then selling it for money. Beyond the book's central moral concern, James meditates on universal problems like aging (“the amorphous flattening of self”) and the government's education policy, which targets 50% of the young as university-bound while ensuring that another 40% are uneducated on leaving secondary school. Against her relentless intellectual view of our dying earth, James pits the love she finally grants Dalgleish—sufficient to reinvigorate hope and faith so rare in both fiction and reality today. (Nov.)

Bestseller Perry's sixth Christmas novel (after 2007's A Christmas Beginning), one of the stronger entries in the series, explores further mysteries of the soul. A few weeks before Christmas, 1895, Emily Radley, the sister of Charlotte Pitt (last seen with husband, Thomas Pitt, in Buckingham Palace Gardens), answers a summons from Father Tyndale, spiritual leader of a small Western Ireland community. The Catholic priest is concerned about Emily's dying aunt, Susannah Ross, who's been estranged from her family since marrying outside their Protestant faith. Once in Ireland, Emily finds her aunt's entire village in the grip of fear, haunted by a secret. A shipwreck during a ferocious storm, the rescue of a young man from the sea's clutches and another young man's mysterious murder complicate Emily's mission. Perry effortlessly evokes the region's insularity and isolation while imbuing religious themes into a whodunit without being preachy. (Nov.)

At the outset of MacInerney's entertaining third cozy (after 2007's Dead and Berried), innkeeper Natalie Barnes is pleased to be hosting the Lose-It-All Weight Loss retreat at her Gray Whale Inn on Maine's Cranberry Island. Natalie hopes to shed some weight herself since the romance with her shipwright neighbor, John Quinton, is heating up. When the buff corpse of trainer Dirk De Leon, whose regimen included suspicious dietary supplements, turns up near Cranberry Point Lighthouse, the police discover Dirk was poisoned and, to Natalie's dismay, investigate her kitchen. Natalie receives further shocks after John becomes a suspect and another guest is murdered. Adding to the intrigue is the skeleton estimated to be 150 years old that surfaces during the lighthouse's renovation. MacInerney adds a dash of the supernatural, throws in some touristy tidbits and finishes with some tasty diet-right recipes. (Nov.)

Twenty satisfying tales spanning two decades make up this collection of Roberson's short feminist fantasy fiction. Arranged marriages are brutally depicted in “Spoils of War,” while “Of Honor and the Lion” and “Blood of Sorcery,” linked to Roberson's popular Chronicles of the Cheysuli, describe cultural clashes between normal humans and shape-changing Others from the viewpoints of wives, sisters and mothers. More recent contemporary fantasies, like the wry “Jesus Freaks” and the hilarious “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” examine ordinary people under contemporary religious and societal pressures. The collection is bookended by tender and reflective Arthurian tales “A Lesser Working,” a gentle study in what may be, and “Guinevere's Truth,” a somber meditation on what should have been. Roberson quietly illuminates the fascinating, terrifying and perhaps inevitable gulf between women's destinies and men's desires. (Nov.)

McDevitt fills the fourth far-future Alex Benedict adventure (after 2005's Nebula-winning Seeker) with historical details and thrilling stunts as well as sharp political allegory. When famous horror writer Vicki Greene leaves antiquities dealer Alex a desperate message and then voluntarily has her memory erased, he and his pilot companion, Chase Kolpath, follow clues literally to the end of the galaxy, where Vicky had been researching her next novel. Official threats and a kidnapping reveal a planet-threatening catastrophe, covered up for years by hapless bureaucrats. As panic ensues and evacuation looks hopeless, the space opera turns into commentary on government reaction to emergencies and the values of openness. McDevitt balances the two sides of his story well, never losing sight of either the fast-paced action or the message behind it. (Nov.)

Modesitt returns to the setting of two earlier trilogies with a stand-alone novel that keeps readers engaged right up to the perfunctory conclusion. As oldest daughter of the ruler of Lanachrona, Mykella has high rank but no real power. Though intelligent and diligent enough to uncover an embezzlement plot, she cannot inherit and expects to be married off for political alliance. Then she receives a supernatural warning of danger and is told she must discover her psionic Talent to save her loved ones. As she struggles to defeat both evil nonhuman powers and treachery within her own family, her fumbling but determined efforts are endearing. Unfortunately, the abrupt ending leaves unresolved the larger issues of the role of magic in public life and the position of women in society. (Nov.)

Decrying but not despairing, this collection of 19 later short pieces by author and poet Disch (1940–2008) lovingly tears into the realities and fantasies of American life. Belief and delusion walk side by side as primal fears of vampirism overtake so-called civilized society (“The White Man”) and alien abduction hoaxes are used to rescue abused children (“The Abduction of Bunny Steiner, or, A Shameless Lie”). Art is commerce in “Canned Goods” and it's transcendence in “The Wall of America,” and Disch offers delicious revenge on those who exploit art as mere entertainment (“One Night, or, Scheherazade's Bare Minimum”) or treat it condescendingly as a charity case (“The First Annual Performance Art Festival at the Slaughter Rock Battlefield”). Though sometimes light and slight, these tales show Disch at his masterful, acerbic best. (Nov.)

Parzybok's delightfully lighthearted writing successfully diverts attention from the heavy-handed plot devices that threaten to overwhelm this ambitious debut. An apartment flood destroys almost everything owned by mismatched roommates Thom, Tree and Erik, leaving only the handmade orange couch, which the landlord demands they remove. Broke, jobless and now homeless, the roommates begin carrying their couch through the streets of Portland, Ore., and quickly discover two things: it might be magical, and Goodwill won't take it. They reluctantly embark on a hapless quest to take the couch exactly where it “wants to go.” Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, the enthusiastic prose carries readers through sporadic dark moments, though it can't save a clunky finale that leaves too many unanswered questions, including the survival of its heroes. Parzybok's quirky humor recalls the flaws and successes of early Douglas Adams. (Nov.)

Marin selects 15 fantasy stories from the first 25 issues of webzine Lone Star Stories, with moderate success. In Catherynne M. Valente's stunning “Thread: A Triptych,” a fantastical mail-order bride is brought to the “real” world, only to be cast aside. The western meets dark fantasy in Martha Wells's standout “Wolf Night,” when a group of people barricaded in a stockade are attacked by an otherworldly creature. Other standouts include Ekaterina Sedia's “The Disemboweler,” where a robot explores a world where little spirits animate machines, and Sarah Monette's “A Night in Electric Squidland,” where two queer psychic cops infiltrate an occult BDSM nightclub. Most of the stories have a writer's-workshop sameness to them that flattens their range, but the gems really shine. (Nov.)

This SF/horror thriller gathers considerable momentum before concluding weakly. Computer researcher Doug Carey uses virtual reality to help people mentally control prosthetic limbs, but other, less benign programmers are producing destructive viruses and worms. The military-industrial complex recklessly encourages the development of a problem-solving program that soon becomes independently intelligent and escapes control. Crises escalate until the entity fries some scientists' brains, causes nationwide network outages and takes charge of the U.S. arsenal of nuclear missiles. Lerner (Fleet of Worlds) convincingly shows the development of the electronic consciousness and its groping interaction with humanity. Nonelectronic characters are streamlined, but usually bright and sympathetic even when they're fatally wrong. Though warnings against invasive, malicious machine intelligences are nothing new, good science and entertaining writing make this a fast, fascinating read. (Nov.)

In this clever and compulsively readable debut, set in a magical analog of Portland, Ore., Allie Beckstrom is a Hound, able to trace a spell back to its caster. When a young boy is injured by a spell, Allie tracks it back to her estranged father, Daniel, a ruthless businessman who protests his innocence. Then someone magically disguised as Allie kills Daniel. Allie and sexy corporate operative Zayvion race against time to find the answers. Magic is common in this alternate universe, but using it always incurs a physical or mental cost, rendering it a commodity to be bought and sold, used and abused. Allie's internal and external struggles are brilliantly and tightly written, creating a multifaceted character who will surprise, amuse, amaze and absorb readers. (Nov.)

Like an ornate Victorian house, Bentley's debut mystery is built on a solid foundation but winds up laden with gewgaws and light on practical basics. New York textile designer Avery Marie Baker inherits a run-down New England manse from a reclusive aunt who died under mysterious circumstances. Avery “is little and cunning and pouts a lot,” and she's about as bright as her boy friend's crowbar. She instantly suspects dislikable people of having a hand in her aunt's death, while completely missing blatant clues pointing to the killer. Avery soon winds up in predictable anticlimactic peril, waiting for buff handyman Derek Ellis to rescue her. The characters and the town are charming, but without any real suspense—except whether Avery can convince Derek to let her mosaic tile the kitchen counter—there's no substance to the mystery. (Nov.)

The high seas make for great adventure and red-hot passion as a beleaguered ship captain meets his match in the notorious scoundrel Red Robert. When Scottish lord Logan Haggerty is captured at sea, he is shocked to discover that “Robert” is a beautiful and fearless woman leading the boat of dutiful and deferential pirates. Red is wary of Logan but cannot deny the chemistry they have, though she refuses to let it interfere with her single-minded devotion to taking vengeance on the murderous con man who ruined her life. As disaster threatens, identities are finally unmasked, and Red and Logan seize the chance for passion. Drake (The Queen's Lady) constructs a well-drawn plot and provides plenty of sexual tension and romantic encounters as well as exotic scenery. (Nov.)

Hendrix (Runaway Bay) launches a paranormal medieval romance series featuring immortal Vikings cursed by the sorceress Cwen to live half of each day as animals. Sir Ivo de Vassy, an eagle by day, looks forward to the Northumberland title, land and wife that Norman King William just granted him, though he fears discovery and the possibility of passing the curse on to his children. His bride, Lady Alaida of Alnwick, is a political match, but she impresses Ivo with her beauty, strength and intelligence. Ivo's kindness warms her heart, and they slowly grow closer despite his daily absences and the schemes of Cwen and a jealous neighbor. Ivo's fellow immortals Brand (a daytime bear) and Ari (a nighttime raven) add color and charm to this story of martial and marital conquest. (Nov.)

For her 22nd birthday—and her mother's 50th—Lucy Knisley and her mother went to Paris. For more than a month, they toured the City of Lights from their fifth arrondissement flat, exploring museums and cafes, taking photographs, eating pastries and drinking French milk, which Knisley says is sweeter than its American counterpart; she compares it with the “influence we take in from our mothers.” Knisley's first book is unquestionably a travel journal first and foremost: Lucy-the-writer is so close to Lucy-the-subject that at times the story lacks background and emotional complexity. But as a travel journal French Milk shines. Knisley's photographs from the trip punctuate sketches of her daily adventures and musings about graduating from art school, first love and having an adult relationship with her mother. Best of all are Knisley's portraits of home at the beginning and end of the book, which capture her childhood home and college life lovingly but with clear eyes. Knisley's cartoony drawings are pleasingly clean in one panel and tellingly detailed in the next. A word-of-mouth hit when it first came out in a self-published limited edition, French Milk will remind readers of their own early trips to Europe and of traveling in their 20s. (Oct.)

Brunetti's second collection of his favorite cartoonists' work is even better than the first—more far-ranging, more personal and eccentric. Clearly a tour of one person's singular tastes, it's arranged in a stream-of-consciousness “oh, and you have to see this one” sort of way: work by 80-odd cartoonists, mostly from the past few decades, but also incorporating some early-1900s comic strips, a 1940s-vintage Fletcher Hanks story and several circa 1950 Harvey Kurtzman pieces as well as a smattering of previously unpublished gems. It's possible to quibble with some of Brunetti's aesthetic biases (or with his clustering most of the book's women cartoonists together in a block), but not with his selections. Nearly every piece is a killer, from big names like Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes as well as lesser-knowns like Laura Park and Matthew Thurber, and there's an enormous range of expressive styles and narrative approaches on display. The effect is something like Jerome Rothenberg's poetry anthologies: an investigation of unsettling, mind-opening places where only comics can travel. It's a pleasure to read straight through, and all but the most experienced art-comics enthusiasts are likely to discover a few new favorites. (Oct.)

Ueda is the author of Peach Girl, and the lovely figures and flowing lines of that shojo manga are on display here as well. Like that series, this story is about mistaken perceptions and competition. Twin girls were raised apart; now that they're reunited in high school, one is pretty, popular and outgoing, while the other is shy and plain. The title refers to the shy twin's wish to blossom from her cocoon like a butterfly. There might be deep psychological and/or cultural implications to be drawn from the concept that one twin sister could be gorgeous while the other isn't, but here, it's a twist on the Cinderella story, living proof that the shy girl will be able to become more than she is with effort, spiced up with the idea that behavior creates attractiveness. The one's got a crush on a schoolmate, a childhood friend who grew up handsome. A mysterious stranger tells her she can create that reality if she believes hard enough... and then the real story begins. No one here is exactly what they seem, providing welcome depth to an involving teen drama. (Oct.)

This handsome hardcover compilation of the popular Web comic Achewood follows the strip's most epic story arc and should win many new fans. When Ray Smuckles, a thong-clad anthropomorphic cat, discovers his father was a champion of the Great Outdoor Fight, a yearly competition held in Bakersfield, Calif., he decides to enter the nearly ruleless three-day fight. Ray's best friend, nicknamed Roast Beef, reveals himself to be an expert on the fight as well as a first-time entrant. Ray quickly finds that his soft life as a pencil-neck may not have prepared him for the brutal, masculine violence the 3,000-man fight promises, but stubbornly aims to win anyway, with Roast Beef as his ally and steadfast supporter. The humor works on many levels—from the absurd, unexpected characters, including a Soviet robot, to their quirky speech patterns. Onstad's minimalist art leaves some of the larger action sequences taking place off-camera. Nevertheless, the narrative shines through as an epic battle rages and friendship between the protagonists deepens. Achewood devotees who know the story line will be pleased with the bonuses: long supplemental texts detailing the history of the fight and seven recipes from a fictional cookbook. (Sept.)

This big volume, the third in the series, is an incredible value with a very high gem-to-dud ratio. Mickey Spillane's “Mike Hammer: Dark City” run of Sunday paper serials is presented in its original turn-the-book-sideways glory; Jack Kirby's “The Money-Making Machine Swindlers” is a retro blast, complete with cautionary monologue from the femme fatale. An opportunity is missed with the selection made to represent Will Eisner's The Spirit; the story chosen is tame and insubstantial. But there are a few standouts that make this book a strong buy candidate even for people who don't normally go in for noir: Max Allan Collins's Ms. Tree taking maternity leave; a lengthy continuity from Dashiell Hammett's newspaper strip Secret Agent X-9, with art by the great Alex Raymond; and most spectacular of all, an utterly odd story (author unknown) of a blind painter, set in the realm of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct. This wide-ranging collection is high on both visual appeal and entertainment value. (Aug.)