Fiction Reviews

Flanagan follows The Unknown Terrorist with an intricate exploration of civility and savagery that hinges on two famous 19th-century Englishmen: Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin and Charles Dickens. In 1839 Tasmania, a tribe of Aboriginals are in the Van Diemen's Land penal colony, soon to be governed by Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane. The Franklins adopt a native girl, Mathinna, whom Lady Jane hopes to use as proof that civility lies in all human beings, even savages. Years later, in 1854 London, Lady Jane asks Charles Dickens to help defend her late husband's honor from accusations of cannibalism. Dickens, devastated by his daughter's death from pneumonia, publishes a defense of Franklin's honor, then develops a stage adaptation of Franklin's demise that forces the writer to face his suffering and introduces him to a comely young actress. The interlaced stories focus on conquering the yearning that exists both in the Aboriginals and the noble English gentlemen, and though Flanagan has a tendency to hammer home his ideas, his prose is strong and precise, and the depiction of desire's effects is sublime. (Apr.)

In this charming tale of family, community and the struggle for understanding, young Korean immigrant David Kim learns to acculturate to a new American life. After five years on their own in Seoul, 12-year-old David, his big sister and mother reunite with his father in Oakbridge, N.J. Now known as Harry, David's father has a gift shop in a rundown strip mall called Peddlers Town. Though told largely by a grown-up David, some chapters switch to a third-person voice to examine other characters, including members of the Kim family and the other store owners at Peddler's Town (including an American with a cross-dressing son and a down-on-his-luck detective). Woo eschews immigrant clichés to focus on complicated familial relationships and surprising, sympathetic characters; alternating between humor and melancholy, Woo's text strikes a true chord while drawing readers into its strange, strip-mall world. (Apr.)

Goldman (Where the Money Is) brings to life the sleazy underbelly of professional boxing in the 1980s, where double crosses, thievery and cheating were commonplace. After instigating a bar brawl that leads to his arrest, former army-trained boxer and journalist Lee Cheskis lands in anger management class. There he meets Marvin, the former gangbanger who is desperate to box. Lee introduces Marvin to Eddie, the salty old boxing trainer and gym owner, who discovers that Marvin is a natural. As Marvin works his way up from small auditoriums to big arenas, it becomes obvious just how seedy and disreputable the boxing world really is as fighters, fights and allegiances are easily bought and sold. Goldman's ear for dialogue and snappy pace make this latest an entertaining read, and boxing fans may recognize some of the sport's famous personalities as inspirations for the characters. Though the boxing-as-salvation story is nothing new, readers will root for this little band of misfits to succeed against the odds. (Apr.)

Edgar-finalist Steinhauer takes a break from his crime series set in an unnamed Eastern European country under Communist rule (Liberation Movements, etc.) to deliver an outstanding stand-alone, a contemporary spy thriller. Milo Weaver used to be a “tourist,” one of the CIA's special field agents without a home or a name. Six years after leaving that career, Milo has found a certain amount of satisfaction as a husband and a father and with a desk job at the CIA's New York headquarters. The arrest of an international hit man and a meeting with a former colleague yank Milo back into his old role, from which retirement is never really possible. While plenty of breathtaking scenes in the world's most beautiful places bolster the heart-stopping action, the real story is the soul-crushing toil the job inflicts on a person who can't trust anyone, whose life is a lie fueled by paranoia. George Clooney's company has bought the film rights with the actor slated to star and produce. 100,000 first printing; author tour. (Mar.)

Maureen Paschal, last seen discovering the secrets of Mary Magdalene in The Expected One, returns in this overstuffed sequel. Haunted by dreams of Jesus telling her to search for “the Book of Love,” Maureen, now a bestselling novelist, takes off for France, where her estranged lover, Bérenger Sinclair, reveals that the mysterious manuscript is supposed to be a gospel written by Christ and whose existence is merely a rumor. Both Maureen and Bérenger receive strange clues pointing them toward the story of Countess Matilda of Tuscany, an 11th-century noblewoman and an early champion of the Book of Love. With the help of Maureen's cousin, a Jesuit scholar at the Vatican, Maureen confronts dangerous forces bent on covering up the truth and follows Matilde's trail though Belgium, Italy and France, culminating in a stunning sequence within the Chartres Cathedral. However, Matilda's hefty story line exists uneasily next to Maureen's contemporary narrative and relies too much on long-winded narration to explain Christian esoterica. Series fans and readers into Da Vinci Code–style church intrigue will enjoy the hell out of this. (Mar.)

In this unsettling thriller from Barry Award–winner Doolittle (The Cleanup), Boston transplants Paul Callaway and his wife, Sara, scare off a violent intruder their first night in their new home in Clark Falls, Iowa, where Paul has taken up a post as an English professor at the local university. As a result of this incident, the Callaways meet members of their tight-knit community, including ex-cop Roger Mallory, the neighborhood's unofficial protector. Though Paul is initially welcomed into Roger's circle of friends, Paul becomes suspicious when he discovers Roger is conducting secret surveillance of the neighborhood. Tensions mount between the two men, coming to a head after Paul is arrested for child pornography, a charge he's sure Roger helped concoct. Desperate to clear his name, Paul begins his own investigation into Roger's past. Despite Doolittle's admirably complex plot and empathetic hero, readers may question just how many skeletons a single small town can have in its closets. (Mar.)

Perennial bestseller Picoult (Change of Heart) delivers another engrossing family drama, spiced with her trademark blend of medicine, law and love. Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's daughter, Willow, was born with brittle bone disease, a condition that requires Charlotte to act as full-time caregiver and has strained their emotional and financial limits. Willow's teenaged half-sister, Amelia, suffers as well, overshadowed by Willow's needs and lost in her own adolescent turmoil. When Charlotte decides to sue for wrongful birth in order to obtain a settlement to ensure Willow's future, the already strained family begins to implode. Not only is the defendant Charlotte's longtime friend, but the case requires Charlotte and Sean to claim that had they known of Willow's condition, they would have terminated the pregnancy, a statement that strikes at the core of their faith and family. Picoult individualizes the alternating voices of the narrators more believably than she has previously, and weaves in subplots to underscore the themes of hope, regret, identity and family, leading up to her signature closing twists. (Mar.)

In 1994 Havana, times are hard: for maladroitly named Usnavy and his family, home is one windowless, sparsely furnished room, and rationing is so tight that “pieces of a blanket... beaten and marinated in spices and a little beef broth” pass for sandwich meat. When not managing the local bodega or playing dominoes with childhood friends, earnest Usnavy tries to keep his out-of-work wife and 14-year-old daughter from despair and disillusionment. His one treasure, as precious as his mother's legacy, is a “most extraordinary lamp… of multicolor stained glass and shaped like an oversized dome.” Around this lamp (a genuine Tiffany?), poet and novelist Obejas spins a mystery with political ramifications. Keeping within the tight frame of Usnavy's day-to-day life, Obejas confronts the ruin of Cuba; the fate of those who escape to the States, and those who remain; and broad issues of religious and sexual identity. With the deft and evocative detail of a poet's, Obejas's prose is as illuminating and honest as her struggling protagonist. (Mar.)

With a laconic voice and a despairing sense of humor, film location scout Eve Broussard narrates award-winning Robison's (Why Did I Ever) grim yet witty novella about the dissolution of a family and a city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Eve and unstable-but-armed Petal are married to 42-year-old twins, Adam and Saunders, who—not unlike the two black swans forever circling the statue commemorating their sister's suicide—spin their nearly identical lives aimlessly: drinking, fretting over hepatitis C and hording cocaine in their parents' stately New Orleans mansion. This family's Big Easy is a world where lush excess and harsh deprivation work side-by-side to create a malaise sinister in its paralyzing appeal. Told in terse, numbered passages, Robison's narrative is jumpy but effective, interspersed with and informed by startling statistics (“More than 50 former NOPD officers are in prison, 2 on death row”). Distilled episodes of mistaken identity, marriage trouble and potential infidelity build to a crucial decision for Eve, who may be damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. (Mar.)

Mansell's mostly fun latest (after Falling for You) recounts how a 17-year-old's decision to accept a bribe affects her life several years down the road. After her beloved stepfather, Alex, confesses to a large gambling debt, Lola accepts a payment from her boyfriend Dougie's disapproving mother, who wants Lola gone. Lola pays off her father's debt and disappears from London for 10 years, after which she returns. In a too coincidental twist, she rescues a woman from a mugging, only to later learn—at a thank-you party the victim throws—that the woman she helped is Dougie's mother. Dougie, meanwhile, has a new girl and is still disgusted that Lola accepted the bribe, though that doesn't keep Lola from trying to re-insert herself into Dougie's life. A subplot involving Lola's mother and biological father adds to the mix, as do the romantic foibles of the cast. Mansell stumbles, however, in the unlikely final chapters, which stick too closely to the genre formula. A fast pace and fun writing make the story fly by, but the happily-ever-after doesn't feel right. (Mar.)

Seitz (The Spirit of Sweetgrass) focuses on two families irrevocably changed by the Vietnam War in her latest Lowcountry saga. All Lisa Le knows of her father is that he was an American soldier who died in Vietnam, before Lisa's Vietnamese mother and uncle moved to America, and that her mother continues to mourn him in their Georgetown, S.C., home. John Porter, of Charleston, is a veteran haunted by his past. His daughter, happily married Katherine, hopes to help by taking him to a veterans' event, but instead sets in motion a chain of events that will bring the two families crashing together. Seitz deftly shifts perspective among Lisa, Katherine, John and a koi fish in Vietnam who was once an American soldier named Ernest, giving her familiar themes—posttraumatic stress disorder, adjusting to civilian life, survivor's guilt, smalltown Southern living, aging, the quest to belong—sensitive and original treatment. For anyone touched by war, this tale of life after wartime should resonate strongly. (Mar.)

Welling recycles thematic elements from her first novel, Crybaby Ranch, in this underwhelming yarn of midlife empowerment. Annie McFall, fed up with her stifling marriage, leaves her husband, Jess, in the middle of their 26th anniversary dinner and flies from Wyoming to Florida, where her aging father and sister live. Annie indulges in self-betterment exercises and meets new friends. Writing from both Annie's and Jess's perspectives, Welling punches up her scenes with appealing splashes of humor. But the story proceeds in muted fashion as Jess slowly comes to terms with a past trauma, and Annie compiles a mundane list of steps to help her thrive within her marriage (e.g., “Enjoy personal friends,” “Claim personal power”). Despite an odd though engaging incident involving a former drug smuggler and a spectacular lack of judgment on Annie's part, the novel never takes off. (Mar.)

Well-known for his eviscerating book reviews, Peck (Hatchet Jobs) takes a stab at visceral horror in this sex-laden supernatural thriller set in upstate New York. Since time immemorial, a race of sexually voracious demons known as Mogran have “surfed” the bodies of human victims, taking temporary possession before exiting at orgasm. While possessed, their hosts enjoy miraculous powers to recover from catastrophic injury, as teenager Jasper Van Arsdale discovers when his best friend, Q., in the clutches of a polymorphously perverse Mogran named Leo, drives a speeding car with them and their girlfriends into a mountain. After the accident, Jasper and Q. team up with a pair of Mogran hunters to track down the malevolent Leo. Peck paces his tale at breakneck speed, twisting the plot through numerous surprises that are perfectly accommodated by the elaborate metaphysics of Mogran existence. Gleefully gory, sexually provocative and surprisingly funny, this tale of lusty demons and their human prey is one hell of a ride. (Feb.)

Phillips (It Had to Be You) makes old Hollywood gossip new again in this over-the-top, hot-under-the-sheets rom-com. Sitcom Skip and Scooter co-stars Georgie York, who like her character exudes spunky charm, and Bram Shepard, whose upbringing couldn't be more different from the nice boy he plays, hate each other even before Bram's offscreen sexual escapades lead to the sitcom's cancellation. Flash forward eight years: his career has cratered, and her biggest accomplishment has been briefly marrying hunky star Lance Marks, who abandons her for sex-goddess-turned-international-do-gooder Jade Gentry. So when Bram and Georgie wake up from a Vegas bender and find themselves married to each other, they make the most of it: Georgie aims to undo the damage Lance has done to her heart and her public image, while Bram is gunning for a second chance at life, love and stardom. It's a blast to watch the hate-each-other-yet-made-for-each-other couple as they duck paparazzi or spar before falling into bed. In this massively entertaining romp, redemption is always possible, and even a fake Hollywood couple trapped in a pretend marriage might find true love. (Feb.)

As much spy thriller as crime story, bestseller Robinson's solid 18th DCI Alan Banks novel (after Friend of the Devil) finds the Yorkshire copper trying to unravel a murder-suicide with potential ties to national security. While Banks is on holiday, Det. Insp. Annie Cabbot is called to the woods outside Eastvale, where a hanged man—soon identified as Mark Hardcastle, the local theater's set designer—is discovered in a tree. What looks like a simple suicide takes an unexpected turn when the badly beaten body of Hardcastle's boyfriend, Laurence Silber, is found in Silber's posh home. Banks, who returns to assist in the investigation, uncovers Silber's past life as a spy in MI6, which makes Banks doubt the prevailing theory that Hardcastle murdered Silber and then hanged himself. Robinson deftly integrates the requisite espionage elements with his regular cast. The unexpected cliffhanger will assure readers that this chapter in Banks's life is far from over. 11-city author tour. (Feb.)

Bestseller Berenson's well-plotted and thoughtful third thriller to feature CIA agent John Wells (after The Ghost War) finds Wells and his fellow CIA agent and fiancée, Jenny Exley, living happily together in Washington, D.C., content to devote themselves to fighting the forces of evil. One morning, while stuck in traffic on their way to CIA headquarters, men on motorcycles attack them in their minivan. Exley suffers a serious gunshot injury in an act of revenge by minions of Pierre Kowalski, an enemy from an earlier book. Meanwhile, jihadists bent on destroying America steal two small atomic bombs. These extremely clever villains, per Berenson's style, aren't mad dog idiots but credible characters with reasons, at least from their own perspective, to be doing the great evil they're planning. Fast and furious when it needs to be, this is a welcome addition to an excellent series. Berenson won an Edgar for his first novel, The Faithful Spy. (Feb.)

Pasadena police detective Nan Vining once again confronts her “personal bad man,” the serial killer known as T.B. Mann, who's been stalking her and murdering California policewomen for years, in the sharp conclusion to Emley's romantic suspense trilogy (after Cut to the Quick). Encouraged by her lover and Pasadena PD partner, Det. Jim Kissick, Nan's determined to catch T.B., though she's barely recovered from being stabbed by the psycho a year earlier. An alarming new twist—a cryptic message T.B. leaves at a crime scene where a former NLK (Northside Latin Kings) gang member, Scrappy Espinoza, was fatally shot—leads Nan to pursue an Asian gang connection. The stress builds as Emily's budding relationship with Ken Zhang, the 17-year-old son of the owner of the building where Scrappy was killed, complicates the investigation. Lucid prose and an ending that leaves the door open for further Vining exploits more than make up for the familiar serial-killer plot line. (Feb.)

Originally self-published, Moody's nail-biter of a debut plausibly creates a nightmare world. Danny McCoyne, an employee of the Parking Fine Processing office in an unnamed, possibly British city, barely manages to support his wife and children. Things get a lot worse after incidents of random violence escalate to a condition that threatens the social fabric of the country. Those afflicted with the violent impulse are dubbed Haters. The rapid onset of the disorder, exacerbated by the frighteningly inadequate government response, leaves Danny and his family virtual prisoners in their own home. While the major twist and the final payoff aren't particularly surprising, the sections building up to them perfectly evoke the quiet desperation of an ordinary life. Moody might have been better off explaining less, but this intelligent, well-written chiller heralds a significant new talent. Guillermo Del Toro has bought film rights. (Feb.)

The discovery of a missing Nazi U-boat off the coast of Florida in 2001 is the catalyst for Kerr's predictable thriller, notable only for his willingness to let harm befall a major character. Soon after Matt Berkeley, of NAARPA (the North American Archeological Research and Preservation Association), stakes a claim to the sub, a cold-blooded assassin begins eliminating anyone who can prove Berkeley's claim. Aided by his private investigator wife, Berkeley begins to probe why the old wreck is of current interest, an inquiry that takes him across the Atlantic. While in Europe, he learns that the submarine was rumored to be transporting an incendiary document whose existence could still have major international ramifications. A gratuitous lesbian sex scene isn't enough to distinguish this from countless other action yarns long on violence and improbable escapes but short on psychological depth. (Feb.)

In her debut novel, Sekaran indulges in beautiful prose that unfortunately obscures a ponderous narrative. Art history scholar and Englishman George Armitage went to India for the research, but returned with an Indian wife, Viji, so out of sorts she can't even recognize her husband when they get separated at the airport (“They all looked like George. Which one had she married?”). In short order, they move to Sacramento and Viji gives birth to triplets. As their children wade into adolescence, George blandly flirts with infidelity, and Viji is afflicted with poorly explained midlife ennui. The plot, as it is, involves the arrival of George's widowed father and Viji's solo visit to India at the request of her sister. Lovely writing doesn't make up for Sekaran's vacant characterization; as the characters' problems are never clearly established, readers won't find much satisfaction in the old family secrets and healed wounds meant to resolve them. (Feb.)

Kicked out of the convent at seventeen, Jeanne Du Bois, the heroine of Morin's uneven historical, returns to Louis XIV's court only to rebel against her father's plans to marry her off to a fop. With training and a false moustache provided by a sympathetic uncle, Jeanne disguises herself as Jean-Luc, a gifted swordsman who fights alongside musketeers Henri and Antoine. She leads a tricky double life, particularly when, dressed as Jeanne, she wins Henri's heart and helps him uncover a threat to the queen. Morin fills her tale with maidens, mistresses and musketeers mired in intrigue, but her attempts to heighten dramatic intensity prove artificial: Jeanne's father is not only tyrannical, he's abusive; royal mistresses are not only conniving, they're murderous; and Jeanne's visit to a courtesan for advice seems particularly contrived. The novice novelist makes up for such simplistic technique by supplying lots of action, as Jeanne goes through quick costume changes, one minute a voluptuous virgin about to be raped, another a daring do-gooder, rapier in hand. (Feb.)

Whelan's morose debut begins with the 1959 death of Mick Brogan, who leaves behind a lovely young wife and two small children. Cathleen and the girls' dreary London existence improves when Mick's cousin, Jerry, a handsome priest, joins a church in the city. Jerry gives Cathleen the courage to take better care of her daughters, and, sure enough, Cathleen soon begins to have romantic feelings for Jerry. But the love story's muted by the depiction of what it's like to scrape by in 1960s London and in the small Irish village where Mick grew up. Whelan nicely handles the forbidden love between Cathleen and Jerry, but loses her footing as the novel nears its almost-unexpected conclusion. For a romance, it's awfully gloomy. (Feb.)

Anna Norton, the nasty star of screenwriter Daneshvari's unfortunate novel, was at the bottom of the social totem pole growing up. Fat, slovenly, covered in acne, she was constantly abused by her peers. As an adult, she escapes to New York and gets the Cinderella treatment from her emotionally abusive, control freak boss. With her brand-new beauty, she snags herself a hot boyfriend, but is paralyzed with fear that he will see her inner fatty and leave her. So she embarks on a secret campaign to transform Ben into a slovenly wreck. But it remains a mystery why Ben, or anyone else, would stick around. As Anna's shallow torment of the man she purports to love drags on, the watching-a-car-wreck pleasures rapidly diminish. It's like a really bad Mean Girls, executed without the insight or humor. (Feb.)

Set in France in 1906, Dickinson's eighth Lord Powerscourt investigation (after 2008's Death on the Holy Mountain) visits Agatha Christie terrain with limited success. When Englishman John Delaney dies on a family pilgrimage organized by his unscrupulous American cousin, magnate Michael Delaney (who once bought all the copies of a book that labeled him a robber baron), Powerscourt concludes that John was murdered, but the aristocrat's deductions concerning the person responsible don't come in time to prevent further deaths. Indeed, the killer continues his mysterious vendetta against the Delaney family, racking up an impressive body count. The mechanical unmasking of the culprit and the stock ending aren't up to the author's usual high standard. Hopefully, Dickinson, who has a real gift for evoking period and creating well-rounded characters, will come up with a stronger story line next time. (Mar.)

Edgar-winner Gores has not only pulled off the Herculean task of writing a prequel to The Maltese Falcon but also created a rip-roaring yarn of his own that will please even the crustiest of Hammett devotees. In 1921, Samuel Spade leaves the Continental Detective Agency and opens up his own office. One of his first cases, which the local cops have bungled, involves the robbery of $125,00 worth of gold coins from the San Anselmo, a passenger ship. Gores cuts forward twice, to 1925 and 1928, along the way setting the iconic Spade off on various adventures throughout the Bay Area. The author, who does a brilliant job of bringing Prohibition-era San Francisco to life with street-level detail and a native's perspective, also captures Hammett's spare style and tone perfectly. The only thing missing is a real femme fatale, but Gores, himself a former PI, gives us a number of young beauties to keep Spade busy until Miss Wonderly finally appears at his door. 5-city author tour. (Feb.)

This classics entry in Akashic's noir anthology series boasts an impressive roster of names, including such standard authors as Mark Twain, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce and Dashiell Hammett. Unsurprisingly, Hammett, one of the fathers of American hard-boiled fiction, supplies the best story, “The Scorched Face,” which sets his Continental Op on the trail of two missing women. Marcia Muller's “Deceptions” makes good use of the Golden Gate Bridge's appeal to potential suicides in a short but gripping exploit of her series PI, Sharon McCone. Readers looking for lesser-known talent will welcome Janet Dawson's “Invisible Time,” which presents a grim view of life on the streets for two young people. Don Herron's gritty “Knives in the Dark,” with its Chandler-like plot line, convincingly depicts Prohibition-era tough guys. As usual, the overall caliber of the writing in this reprint volume is superior to the average all-original book in the series. (Feb.)

Sheriff Dan Rhodes claims he can't join the Clearview Community Barbershop Chorus because he's too busy “busting crime twenty-four hours a day” in Crider's wryly humorous if somewhat sleepy 16th sleuthathon (after 2008's Of All Sad Words). Chief among those crimes is the murder of Lloyd Berry, the chorus director and local florist, whose head somebody bashed in with a pipe cutter wrench. Also causing the Texas lawman considerable consternation is locating the owner of a chicken-eating alligator, calming down two feuding neighbors and dissecting the cause of the chorus's internal strife. Then there's the nude bozo doing jumping jacks in front of what Rhodes calls the Lawj Mahal, the big new law offices of the county's most successful attorney. Trying to solve the various puzzles leads Rhodes into some less than agreeable situations, like pulling a Charles Bronson—chasing a bad guy on top of a moving train—at the mystery's satisfying climax. (Feb.)

At the start of Greeley's spirited 12th Nuala Anne McGrail novel (after 2008's Irish Tiger), his feisty heroine delivers a black belt kick to the unlikable new principal's stomach in a schoolyard brawl involving all four of her children. Solving the bullying problem at St. Joe's isn't the only challenge facing Irish-born Nuala and her adoring husband, Dermot Michael Coyne. They must also figure out who beat and threw Finnbar Burke, the “nice fella” with whom their shy, golden-haired nanny has fallen in love, into the Chicago River. Interspersed with the present-day action is the poignant story of an Irish girl who came to America after all her immediate family died in the famine of 1875. While some readers may feel Greeley dwells too much on Nuala and Dermot's joyous sex life and overdoes the Irish dialect, few can resist the charm of these colorful, warm characters and the author's sympathetic view of the Irish of Chicago. (Feb.)

Cole's entertaining debut, winner of Minotaur and Malice Domestic's Best First Traditional Mystery competition, introduces fine art photographer Lydia McKenzie. Before the cheap wine is gone, the police arrive at Lydia's first New York solo exhibit, a collection of meticulously reconstructed homicide scenes, to inform her that one of her models, a good friend, has been killed and posed in the same manner as one of Lydia's photos. After another of her models suffers the same fate, attractive NYPD Det. Daniel Romero warns that Lydia may be next. Lydia begins to investigate, albeit in amateur fashion. Several members of her artist critique group make promising suspects, one of whom is arrested, but too late Lydia realizes she and the NYPD may be mistaken. She soon has cause to be grateful for her newly acquired self-defense techniques, learned at her best friend's insistence. Contemporary Manhattan, viewed through a struggling artist's eyes, lends social and cultural interest. (Feb.)

A grisly discovery sets the stage for Morson's solid sixth whodunit to feature William Falconer (after 1999's Falconer and the Great Beast). In 1271, workmen tearing down a house to make way for Oxford University's first residential college uncover skeletal remains in a wall. The body's age forces Falconer to probe events two decades earlier when the house was first built. England in 1250 was beset by rumors that the End of Days was coming, and that the Jewish community was responsible for a child's horrific ritual murder. The cold case becomes much warmer after one of the men who found the remains turns up dead himself. The academic sleuth comes to suspect that the truth behind the killings may revolve around closely guarded secrets about the Knights Templar. Morson, who does a nice job conveying the bigotry of 13th-century England, convincingly renders the period through well-chosen detail. (Feb.)

In the Medieval Murderers' absorbing fourth serial historical (after 2007's House of Shadows), six British mystery authors—Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Michael Jecks, Philip Gooden, Susanna Gregory, C.J. Sansom—chart the impact of the Black Book of Brân over the centuries. In 574, the infant Brân washes ashore in Ireland with the eponymous book of prophesies, leading local churchmen to believe him to be demonic. More than 600 years later, the sinister tome causes havoc in Exeter when coroner John de Wolfe and cleric Thomas de Peyne must cope with priests who have caught gold fever during a killing spree. Brân's manuscript makes an implausible side trip to snowy 1262 Russia, but it's soon back in England amid mayhem in Westminster Abbey. The prophetic book, which has “a habit of bringing out the worst in people,” winds up in an appropriately apocalyptic future of polar ice melt, nuclear war, earthquakes and floods. (Feb.)

Melko (Singularity's Ring) sends a naïve high school senior on a sharply imagined trip across divergent time lines in an adventure with both brains and heart. John Rayburn is approached by John Prime, another universe's version of himself, who lends him a device that permits travel to parallel worlds. John realizes he's been tricked when he can't get back home. He stops in an almost-familiar universe to analyze the device and return to his own world, where John Prime is trying to get rich quick by “inventing” gadgets that his new home lacks. Soon the two are making friends and putting down roots, each discovering that he carries his own fundamentally empathetic, responsible personality from one universe to another. With imagination and sympathy, Melko makes the journey genuinely exciting and leaves plenty of room for future exploits. (Feb.)

Bringing all guns to bear, Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Reddy (now Supreme Commander by acclamation after the events of 2008's Crusade), trapped in an alternate dimension with the crew of the WWII destroyer USS Walker, must unite and lead a coalition of displaced American sailors and native, pacifist Lemurians against the raptorlike Grik and their Japanese allies, who possess a more modern battle cruiser. To defeat the Invincible Swarm, the Walker braves the perils of the deep seas, where “mountain fish” threaten to swallow the ship whole. Anderson adds friendly Grik and the descendants of previously displaced humans to the mix of tense battles against impossible odds and close observations of how warriors and weapons perform under stress. Experienced military SF readers will enjoy the attention to technical and historical detail while likely forgiving the occasional bout of melodrama. (Feb.)

This prequel to Canavan's Black Magician trilogy (The Magicians' Guild, etc.) fails to distinguish itself from other magical coming-of-age tales. Tessia treads the well-worn path of a girl in a low-tech monarchy, determined to be a healer like her father but discouraged from pursuing a career. When her insistence on practicing medicine brings her up against the arrogant Sachakan wizard Ashaki Takado, Tessia discovers a natural talent for magic in self-defense. She hires on with magician Lord Dakon, competing with his more experienced apprentice and hoping to combine her powers with her interest in healing. Meanwhile, the encroaching Sachakan army threatens Tessia's hometown, forcing her thoughts to turn to war. Although the plot is well paced and Tessia is a sympathetic protagonist, Canavan never manages to make the world and other characters distinctive or memorable. (Feb.)

Friedman delivers a rushed second installment of the Magister Trilogy (after 2008's Feast of Souls), set in a casually grim world where cloak-and-dagger political intrigue is necessary for survival. Kamala, witch turned immortal Magister, flees north to the barrier called the Wrath of the Gods in a desperate attempt to uncover the truth about how the mysterious Souleaters were once defeated. What she learns soon leads her to a dire prophecy that paves the way to war. Heroes and villains (if such terms make sense in this morally gray world) struggle with difficult and often sinister decisions, and while strong female characters dominate, male characters remain underdeveloped. Beautifully written but too short, this volume falls victim to overly simplistic plotting, and many unresolved questions await book three. (Feb.)

This modern retelling of a tragic Irish myth is rich in well-researched detail but moves too slowly and reverently. Deirdre, a young woman prophesied to bring down the kingdom of Ulster, is torn between druidical mysticism and her love for Naisi, a warrior prince who flees with her to protect her from Ulster's covetous king. Watson (The Song of the North) emphasizes the sensuality suggested in the myth and carefully recreates the culture and people of Iron Age Ireland, but the grandeur and elegance of the original are lost in overwriting, clichéd scenes of passion and an interminable build to the inevitable conclusion. (Feb.)

A fusion of historical fiction and adventure fantasy, the first volume of Heermann's Ronin Trilogy is a page-turning folkloric narrative of epic proportions. In a strange, supernatural feudal Japan, 17-year-old warrior Ken'ishi, a masterless samurai with a mysterious past and a legendary sword, saves the life of Kazuko, a powerful lord's daughter. Soon he becomes entangled in a deadly web of treachery, obsession and vengeance along with a bevy of conspirators, spies, assassins and otherworldly monstrosities. Though Heermann does little to push the boundaries of the subgenre, his writing style is confident and fluid, his characters well developed and his serpentine story line anything but predictable. Numerous tantalizingly unresolved plot threads will have readers anxiously awaiting the second installment in this gripping tale of ill-fated love, betrayal and destiny. (Feb.)

In this sexy but frustrating paranormal romance, the ancient and powerful Chinese scroll of Earth couldn't have found a more unwelcoming new Guardian than Gabrielle Sansouci Chin, a San Francisco free spirit who tends bar to support her painting career. Unfortunately, her title is inherited, so upon her father's death she gets the scroll. In spite of a sudden infusion of scary, unfocused power, the appeals of her dead father's spirit and the arrival of sexy treasure-hunter Rhys Llewellyn, Gabe dodges responsibility until nearly the end of the book, repeatedly—and repetitively—ignoring clues about the danger closing in on her and the patently obvious machinations of the villain. Perry's breezy writing style and steamy love scenes may carry some readers along, but most will feel like they're driving a car that's stuck in first gear. (Feb.)

Sorenson (Dangerous to Touch) sends tough, emotionally withdrawn FBI agent Sonora “Sonny” Vasquez to a small California town to investigate a series of murders in this high-tension romantic thriller. The prime suspect is famed pro surfer Ben Fortune, who lives with his emotionally damaged teenage daughter, Carly. When Sonny saves Carly from a possible suicide attempt, she meets Ben, and sparks ignite. As Sonny struggles to keep her distance, other suspects emerge: Carly's troubled friend James, his monstrous father and his strange older brother. The tension revs as more corpses and clues seem to point back to Ben, culminating in a page-turning climax as the killer is finally unmasked. Despite the mystery, the real energy comes from the emotional relationships full of explosive sex and terrible secrets. (Feb.)

A previously published romance writer kicks off an urban fantasy romance series, her first under the Ashwood pseudonym, with this well-paced tale of supernaturally infested Fairview, U.S.A. First a haunted house nearly kills witch Holly Carver. Then her boyfriend dumps her. Finally, a demon escapes from a portal that her ancestors tried and failed to close. Though Holly's not great at big magic, she determines to finish the job, aided by her sage grandmother's advice and spell books and handsome police detective Conall Macmillan, who got “some sort of psychic flu” after being kissed by a strange woman in a bar. As for Holly's undead business partner, Alessandro Caravelli, his loyalties are split between his vampire queen, Omara, and Holly, whom he realizes he loves. Strong world-building and romantic elements benefit from deft touches of humor; readers will look forward to the sequel. (Feb.)

A sweetly satisfying love story barely manages to compete with a myriad of fantasy elements in this stand-alone from C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp (the Tales of the Sazi series). Upon awakening from one of her periodic blackouts, Ukrainian egg artist Mila Penkin meets the injured Talos Onan, an Overworld Police agent bent on capturing Vegre, a criminal who escaped a magical underground prison. To her surprise, Mila heals Talos psychically. She soon learns that her mother stole her memories and discovers her connection to the ailing Sacred Tree of Life. Mila turns her healing magic to reviving the tree while helping Talos to thwart Vegre's evil plot. Some subtle foreshadowing builds powerfully, but too often the focus on small details and confusing political machinations means the bigger picture is lost. (Feb.)

There's a sort of finality about this massive, ambitious art object of an anthology, produced with the finest paper stock and printing available. Editor Harkham has assembled the best-known names in art comics to use the huge page size—16"×21", larger than a newspaper page—as a blank canvas for experiments in storytelling. The result is a delirious, fantastic newspaper supplement as imagined through the lens of the last 20 years of comics experimentation and formalism. Although a few artists like Mat Brinkman and Helge Reumann use the giant page size as the setting for abstract art, many—Seth, Josh Simmons and Gabrielle Bell—cram intense yet minimalist narratives into a parade of tiny panels. The overall effect is overwhelming, but some stories stand out—Shari Boyle's gorgeous elephant fantasy, Tom Gauld's nearly abstract retelling of the Noah myth, Dan Clowes's one-page hard-boiled tragedy, Jaime Hernandez's compact triolet about cosmic unjustness and Matthew Thurber's lyrical nonsense about Brian Eno and a parrot. While the price tag is high, and some stories lack real narrative punch, this anthology is a high-water mark of intelligence and artistry, and will reward many rereadings by those who can find the shelf space to house it properly. (Dec.)

Hal Jordan, Green Lantern 2814.1, has had a rough time. He's been mind-controlled into supervillainy, killed, brought back as a spirit of vengeance and miraculously returned to sanity and superpowers. Unsurprisingly, new readers find it confusing. Now Booster Gold writer Johns has gone back to the beginning for a flashback explaining who Hal Jordan is and why we should care. A hardy, brash sort of hero, undeterred by constant danger and heartbreak, Hal won't let anything stop him from piloting. One day he stumbles upon what he assumes is a crashed plane, only to find it is the ship of a dying alien. Recruited into the Green Lantern Corps of galactic police as the dead being's replacement, in quick succession, Hall is issued with a superpowered Green Lantern ring and shipped off to the planet Oa for training. Rather than beginning his heroic career as the golden boy of the corps, Hal instead immediately starts questioning his more powerful and experienced superiors and bonds with future supervillain Sinestro. Johns gets across what makes Jordan unusual for a superhero—he's more of a lucky choice than a destined hero. The clean, expressive art by Reis and Albert captures the heedless, fearless Hal perfectly in a story that isn't horribly daunting for newcomers. (Dec.)

Brazilian cartoonist Grampá has been the subject of considerable buzz on the strength of a few anthology appearances, but this is his first full-length comics project of his own. The story (with English dialogue by Ivan Brandon) is relatively negligible—it's a sort of hyperviolent, supernatural-tinged trucking Western, in which a milk-drinking ex-boxer and an aging Elvis impersonator pull into town in their 24-foot rig, stroll into a saloon and tick off the locals. Mayhem ensues and continues until blood flows in the streets and the survivors are picking teeth out of their fists. The book showcases the spectacular panache of Grampá's Grand Guignol linework—he draws with obsessive detail and tall-tale exaggerations, and everything from bodies to sound effects looms toward the reader as if seen through a fisheye lens. His artwork isn't for the weak of heart or stomach, but it's built around a series of indelible images: a torso so hypertrophied it crowds everything else out of the panel, a series of panels that zoom in through a screaming mouth as the head it belongs to is severed, a crotchety old man with muttonchop sideburns licking the blood off one of his curved blades. (Dec.)

In the introduction to this very underground, super X-rated manga, critic and university lecturer Tomofusa Kure argues that “flirting intentionally with true deviance” is not as easy as it looks. Hailed as R. Crumb's Japanese equivalent, Nemoto is one of Japan's most controversial underground manga creators. His short comics, which end with silly and simple punch lines, deliver absurd stories and unlikely scenarios that provide their own humor. But his long-form narrative, “The World According to Takeo,” meanders, combining casually depicted rape scenarios with an irradiated larger than life sperm, in a slice-of-life tone that borders on boring. To its credit, Monster Men is funny. Nemoto's heta-uma (bad but good) aesthetic is a well-honed, raw, drawing style. But it also happens to be depraved, grotesque and, at times, minimally entertaining. Nemoto's lighthearted humor offsets the perversion, yet his overpowering interest in the sexually grotesque more often than not derails any narrative or joke that he may be going for. (Dec.)

The Minx line of girl-themed graphic novels ends with its best book. In 1987 Miami, 15-year-old Shira dreams of old-fashioned adult glamour. Her reality is a lawyer father distracted by a new relationship with his secretary, an outspoken Jewish grandmother and mean girl classmates. Shira's painfully aware of how uncool she is. Her best friend is her grandmother's contemporary, Minerva, a former actress who talks about the old days. While the story is alternately touching and thought provoking, Jones's art is simply astounding. Her characters' expressions and attitudes are perfect in every panel to convey the emotion underlying the text. People are attractive—you want to keep your eyes on them—without being glossy or artificial. The story, while following the “life-changing turning point” focus of the Minx line, is more subtle and mature than many others. Shira's learning to make her own choices and let go of her father to have his own life, and she comes out the stronger for it. (Nov.)

Signature

Reviewed by Greg Bear

Caryatids, in Greek architecture, are stone women who support massive buildings. The Caryatids of Bruce Sterling's shimmering new novel—Vera, Radmila and Sonja—support the weight of a near-future world. They are the last of seven clone sisters created by a mother accused of Balkan war crimes, now exiled in orbit. We're 50-some years into the future, and the planet is split into an international, symbiotic competition between the hypernetworked Acquis, who train distressed, abandoned children into tight-knit cadres of activists, and the Dispensation, more sedate, mannered and cosmo-business in its orientation.

Vera works with an Acquis team remediating the Croatian island of Mljet, laid waste by toxic dumping and the rising waters of global warming. The Acquis technology is extreme but humanly adapted: the users wear bonewear (amplified skeletal suits that allow tremendous feats of speed and strength) and spex (laser-equipped eyeshades that hook their wearers into a postencyclopedic wonderworld of information.

In a beautifully realized and Huxleyan Los Angeles, Radmila has fit too snugly into a Dispensation Family, but California is being squeezed between a geological devil and the surging deep blue sea. The Family sees these changes in terms of economic potential, and they track real estate values by the second: Norwalk is glamorous; beach property is cheap.

Sonja, dotted with the shrapnel of her own self-destructive past, performs medical and social work in the middle of a constantly rebirthing China. Due to female infanticide, there are far more men than women in China—the reverse of Russia, where men die young—and Sonja hooks up with a Gobi jihadist who indulges both her sexual appetites and her political ambitions.

Sterling's language is kaleidoscopic. We swim into a chapter, and his ideas and language flash and dance like sunlight off the Adriatic, then coalesce in a moment of plot; the effect is unsettling, but suited to the world he reveals spark by hammered spark. Dispersed around the world, the sisters mirror Earth's difficulties: traumatized by their origin, they hate each other. Their solutions may be Earth's solutions as well.

In John Brunner's 1968 masterpiece, Stand on Zanzibar, excerpts from fictional author Chad C. Mulligan's “The Hipcrime Vocab” provide sharp, street-smart and world-wise commentary on the culture of 2010. Bruce Sterling is the closest we've come to Mulligan in the actual 21st century. His international perspective is rare in science fiction, which often suffers from Amerocentric bias. A new novel from Sterling is a guarantee of something wild and tasty, and The Caryatids amply fulfills that promise. (Mar.)

Greg Bear's latest science fiction novel, City at the End of Time, was published by Del Rey in August.