Fiction Book Reviews: Week of 3/30/09

Lyrical but atypically monotonous, bestseller Hoffman's (The Third Angel) latest follows the dark family saga of Elv, Megan and Claire Story, sisters plagued by uncommon sadness. As a child, Elv spun fairy tales of a magical world for her sisters, but a period of savage sexual abuse—information about which slowly leaks out—sends her spiraling into years of drug addiction and painful self-abuse. Elv's story is unrelentingly grim, and without Hoffman's characteristic magic realism, its simple downward spiral becomes exhausting. Tragedy after tragedy befalls the family—Elv's commitment to a juvenile rehab facility, a deadly accident, a fatal illness and betrayal after betrayal. When the last third of the book turns to focus on Claire, who has been so damaged by the family crises that she refuses to speak, the slight glimmers of hope and goodness are too little, too late. Hoffman's prose is as lovely as ever: the imagined and real worlds of the Story sisters are rich and clear, but Elv's troubles and the Story family's nonstop catastrophes are wearying. (June)

Lynch digs into the strange culture of a U.S.-Canada border town in his lush second novel (after The Highest Tide). Brandon Vanderkool, the town freak people talk about “the way they discuss earthquakes, eclipses and other phenomena,” is pushed into joining the Border Patrol by his dairy-farmer father. Though the dyslexic, six-foot-eight Brandon prefers to bird-watch and tend to the cows on his father's farm, he proves to be surprisingly adept at spotting drug smugglers and illegal immigrants, which brings a wave of attention to both him and the town. The illegal goings-on provide excellent plot fodder, though the novel is equally concerned with smalltown life: Brandon's mother is noticing the first sign of Alzheimer's; his father's struggling dairy farm hits a low point when his herd becomes diseased; a local masseuse records the town's activities with her camera; and the beautiful, enigmatic Madeline provides an object of affection for Brandon. Lynch's depiction of the natural world and his deep sympathy for his characters carry the book, and while it's a bit quiet, there are majestic moments. (June)

Bestseller Connelly comments on the plight of print journalism in a nail-biting thriller featuring reporter Jack McEvoy, last seen in 2004's The Narrows. When Jack is laid off from the L.A. Times with 14 days' notice to tie up loose ends, he decides to go out with a bang. What starts as a story about the wrongful arrest of a young gangbanger for the brutal rape and murder of an exotic dancer turns out to be just the tip of an iceberg that takes McEvoy from the Nevada desert to a futuristic data-hosting facility in Arizona. FBI agent Rachel Walling, with whom he worked on a serial killer case in 1996's The Poet, soon joins the hunt, but as the pair uncover more about the killer and his unsettling predilections, they realize that they too are being hunted. With every switch between McEvoy's voice and the villain's, Connelly ratchets up the tension. This magnificent effort is a reminder of why Connelly is one of today's top crime authors. 8-city author tour. (May)

Parker's gunslinging saddle pals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch return for their third adventure, in which the two lawmen-for-hire exchange snappy dialogue and hot lead with assorted owlhoots, deadbeats and unwashed baddies in south Texas. Here, Virgil and Everett rescue Allie French, Virgil's former sweetie who ran off to become a prostitute, and head to Brimstone, where the two gunmen sign on as deputy sheriffs. Brimstone, however, doesn't exactly provide a quiet respite for this trio. Virgil and Allie have a hard time getting over his hurt and her shame, a mysterious Indian is killing local folks and leaving taunting messages, and brutal saloon owner Pike and corrupt preacher Brother Percival are headed for a showdown. Virgil and Everett settle on a tricky solution that involves a talented tracker, a bribe, a double-cross, a noxious cloud of gun smoke and a pile of perforated bodies. The result is classic Parker—exciting, suspenseful, fast-moving and entertaining. (May)

In Persons's middling third paranormal crime thriller to feature Minnesota FBI agent Bernadette Saint Clare (after Blind Rage), Saint Clair and her boss, Tony Garcia, look into the murder of pregnant, 16-year-old Lydia Dunton, found butchered in Paul Bunyan State Forest with her full-term fetus removed and now missing. To make matters worse for the investigators, the victim's father is a U.S. senator, Magnus Dunton, an outspoken critic of the bureau. The inverted red pentagram that marked the dead girl's head mysteriously vanishes soon after the corpse arrives at the morgue, leading to suspicions centering on a local coven. Saint Clare finds a similar case in Wisconsin as well as evidence Lydia visited the scene of that crime. While Saint Clare can see the world through the eyes of killers, this gift does little to enhance her role as a stock lead character, nor does it add much to the law enforcement routine. (May)

From the bestselling author of Carter Beats the Devil comes an elegant blend of reality and fiction, war drama and Hollywood glamour. Gold sets into motion his cameo-heavy, multipronged plot with a bizarre incident in winter 1916, when Charlie Chaplin is spotted simultaneously in 800 places across the country, causing mass hysteria and panic. The primary story line follows Chaplin's struggles with women, creativity, film budgets and his opposition to the war. In a second, intersecting world, Leland Wheeler moves from the hinterlands to San Francisco with dreams of being a film star. He rechristens himself Leland Duncan, and though he gets shipped to the battlefields of France, the two ailing puppies he finds over there later provide his entrée to the movie biz. Finally, Hugo Black is a Detroit gentleman who volunteers for the infantry in an uncharacteristic whim and finds himself fighting in America's secret invasion of Russia. The result is a dramatic narrative of chance and coincidence, and also a serious reconstruction of an evolving social landscape. It is wholly exhausting and entirely satisfying: to borrow an idea from Chaplin's great personal-artistic quest in the book, it's a work as good as Gold. (May)

At the start of this unsettling novel of supernatural suspense from bestseller Marshall (The Intruders), four-year-old Scott Henderson dies from no apparent cause after falling into a lake in Black Ridge, Wash. The boy's devastated parents, John and Carol, divorce, and both leave the area. Three years later, John is lured back to Black Ridge by a chilling message from a woman who says she knows what killed his son—a siren call that John can't ignore. John's return is a trigger for other ominous events that will lead him to relive Scott's death and confront the dissolution of his former life. The small town's surface normality contrasts nicely with the unnerving behavior of some residents and even inanimate objects (e.g., cars that suddenly won't start). While much of what's going on doesn't make a lot of sense, this spooky tale shows Marshall (who writes horror and SF as Michael Marshall Smith) has a knack not only for the frisson of dread but also the telling psychological insight. (May)

Broner (A Weave of Women) succeeds in capturing the political spirit of the 1960s and '70s in this character-driven tale of English graduate students and teachers struggling to come to grips with who they are. In the approximate present-day, academic Anka Pappas finds tossed on her front stoop a file documenting her activities as an “opinionated, rebellious, and assertive” English instructor in the 1960s, but the most shocking thing is that it appears one of her confidantes from that era was a government informer. As she sifts through her recollections and the file contents, Anka reflects on a lifetime's worth of activism, teaching and friendships. There was Mr. Berger, who provided frequent humorous fodder for Anka and her peers; O'Dwyer, who disappeared from campus life after being arrested; Bernstein, who obsessed over moving to Israel; and Kevin, the priest-turned-student object of Anka's crush. Broner captures the mannerisms, witticisms and transparent insecurities of her young idealists, and the who-was-the-rat mystery will keep readers involved through the too-tidy conclusion. (May)

The 2008 Republican convention serves as the backdrop for bestseller Sandford's amped-up, ultra-violent 19th thriller to feature Lucas Davenport of the Minneapolis Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after Phantom Prey). An assassination plot aimed at John McCain turns out to be just a sidebar to another criminal operation—extremely slick thieves have come to the twin cities to rob Republican political operatives loaded down with millions of dollars of “street money,” illegal handouts for low-level campaign workers. Mastermind Rosie Cruz handles the gang's complicated planning, while gangster Brutus Cohn does the robbery and killing aided by a couple of lesser thugs. A subplot involving Davenport's teenage ward, Letty West, who's provided interesting complications in the series, establishes her as a brave and intrepid investigator. A slam-bang shootout climax proves that Davenport still has what it takes when it comes to guts and gunplay. 500,000 first printing; author tour. (May)

Doctor-author Huyler offers in his second novel (after The Laws of Invisible Things) a clear-eyed if occasionally overwrought exploration of grief and redemption in a refugee camp set in an unnamed mountainous Islamic country. After witnessing his wife's slow death, cardiologist Charles Anderson volunteers to be the doctor at a remote refugee camp set up in the aftermath of an earthquake. He is joined by Elise, a German geneticist studying the DNA of a mountain tribe, and Sanjit Rai, a local military officer assigned to protect the camp. As the days pass and the refugees fail to appear, Anderson questions the motivations of those who put him there and his own reasons for fleeing into the mountains, including his decision to not face his devastated son. Anderson's desire to heal becomes twisted up with the clash between east and west, rich and poor, as well as with regional conflict. The prose is sturdy and evocative in this perhaps too sincere and sentimental exploration of what limited power any given individual has to change the world. (May)

Romantic suspense fans will welcome the second BAD (Bureau of American Defense) Agent novel from bestseller Kenyon and RITA Award–winner Love (after Phantom in the Night). E-mail tips under a pseudonym from French heiress Gabrielle Tynte Saxe to law-enforcement agencies lead to the rescue of a diplomat's daughter from the Fratelli de il Sovrano, an international terrorist organization bent on world domination. Gabrielle, who secretly works for world peace, is lying low in a planned community near Atlanta, out of reach of her vengeful movie star ex-husband and the South American criminal responsible for the fatal bombing of a van whose passengers included her mother. When her cover is blown, BAD agent Carlos Delgado rides to the rescue, joining Gabrielle in a mission to stop the Fratellis' latest nefarious and far-fetched plot, which involves using disabled teens. Fortunately, amid the overblown action, there's always time for hot sex breaks. (May)

A quirky, colloquial time-traveling novel by Share (The Emergency) carries two men back to their days at Trinity College circa 1949. Two aging salesmen run into each other at an airport somewhere in the Arab world; disoriented by passing through numerous time zones and unsure whether they have met before, they have drinks and fall into a familiar banter before one of them, known by his school nickname, A N Other, discovers a secret chamber in the men's room. There, the clothes and currency are throwbacks, the clocks have stopped and the inhabitants are discussing the declaration of the Irish Republic. Other and Rimmer, as his companion is called, travel to 1949 and 1950 and wander about Trinity, where they recall their student days and learn how one of Rimmer's romantic mishaps later turns out to be quite the opposite for Other. It's quaint and fun, though the oddballness sometimes comes across as too orchestrated. (May)

In this imaginative story collection, author Boswell (Century's Son) examines the limits and losses of ordinary souls with technical mastery and profound sympathy. In “No River Wide,” a widowed woman visiting a longtime friend in Florida discovers that their friendship is over; her story unfolds in overlapping narratives that form a startling, resonant meditation on the nature of time. Another story finds a 30-something returning to his North Dakota home to identify the body of his missing mother; what he finds instead frees him from the long shadow of his embittered father. In the title story, a gang spends the summer squatting in the home of a vacationing family, with dire consequences; in “Supreme Beings,” a priest's attempts to intervene in the lives of three troubled youths lead him to confront personal and professional failure. Boswell conveys the sordid but hopeful inner lives of average people with insight and care; his shorter stories (“Miss Famous,” “Skin Deep”) showcase his pleasure in language and invention, and his longer tales pack the emotional weight of a novel. (May)

Baruth (The X-President) shows his versatility with this chilling literary thriller. In 1763 London, John Boswell, the resentful younger brother of Samuel Johnson's future biographer, is stalking Boswell and Johnson, who have recently become friends. John bribes the boatmen who ferry his quarry on the Thames for the smallest details of their conversations. As he remembers the past, John reveals a personal link with the great lexicographer, with whom he once shared a brief, close relationship. Despite the inherent lack of suspense about the outcome of John's murderous quest, the subtle way the author examines his character's twisted mind draws the reader in, as does the evocative prose, as illustrated, for example, in a passage describing St. James's Park at night (“the vast empty dirt-packed space... takes on a dull luminosity, picks up the leavings of the moon and gives back a quarter-light, just enough to perceive the outline of figures moving at one slowly from the trees”). (May)

Pirate Captain returns in this installment of Defoe's loony pirate yarns (The Pirates! in an Adventure with Ahab; The Pirates! in an Adventure with Communists), only to lose the Pirate of the Year awards. (Though Captain's beard is “fantastically glossy and luxuriant,” he has oiled himself in preparation for a swimsuit round that doesn't exist.) Smarting from his loss, Captain retreats to the island of St. Helena, where—to the chagrin of his crew, including “the pirate with the scarf,” and “the pirate who liked kittens and sunsets”—he delves into bee husbandry. Alas, geography, goats and the machinations of Napoleon Bonaparte threaten to disrupt a life of bucolic contemplation. Lovers of Monty Python and the novels of Cabin Boy star Chris Elliott will appreciate this sendup of swashbuckling sea adventures. (May)

Three Notting Hill 50-somethings meet in a choral class and join together to overcome the vicissitudes of midlife in Leith's tribute to friendship. Lucy is a still-grieving widow and food writer who's just lost her newspaper column to a celebrity hotshot. Rebecca is a posh single with a trail of breakups behind her. Joanna works for a venture capital firm and is hungry for something exciting to happen to her. Nelson, their choral director, embarks on an affair with Rebecca as the three form strong bonds that will see them through a pivotal time of changes. Joanna falls in love and discovers mixing business with pleasure can be troublesome; Lucy finds a new lust for life after Rebecca gives her a makeover, and her shot at teaching a food-writing class could lead to bigger developments yet. Leith, a popular British food writer, depicts these smart coming-of-middle-age denizens with wisdom, humor and a dollop of realistic angst. (May)

In her debut collection, Milanés tells varied, often heartbreaking tales of Cuban-American exiles. With young Carmen, Milanés introduces readers to the community's exodus, the 1980 Mariel boatlift, when Castro reluctantly let 10,000 Cubans leave the country. Carmen's simple but eye-opening story features a radio broadcast cataloguing the difficulties those marielitos have since faced in the U.S. In this emotional tour through the semiconnected lives of these immigrants, and the rafters who came after (the balseros), hardworking dishwasher Juan loses the job he loves, becomes homeless and discovers unexpected opportunity; his abrupt fate turns up in a later story about José Vidal, a dangerous marielito who's lost his mind. For her family, Damarys has clawed her way to freedom and success by whatever means necessary; in his own story, her brother Fito refuses to take part in his beloved sister's illegitimate schemes. Complex and woeful, Milanés's rich ensemble act may remind readers of Junot Diaz's Drown and Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. (May)

Life in Matlock's nostalgic Valentine, Okla., is a Bradburyesque vision with drugstore soda fountains, old-timey radio shows filling the airwaves and a cast of characters who wouldn't be out of place in Lake Wobegon. Her latest charmer, the seventh installment of the smalltown series (after Cold Tea on a Hot Day), finds Valentine preparing for the wedding of Johnny Ray Berry, popular son of Emma Lou and John Cole (scion of the local Quick Start convenience store empire), to Gracie Louise Kinney, daughter of Sylvia, the snooty owner of several upmarket fashion boutiques. Sylvia is none too pleased with the “red-neck white boy” her daughter has chosen to marry and tries to sabotage the affair by finally revealing the identity of Gracie's father, a black Creole. As the union is thrown into question, the main attraction is the hilarious love dance between Johnny's estranged parents, who've put their divorce on hold for Johnny's sake. Matlock conjures a sweet spell accented by tart drama, as refreshing and delightful as a lemony sweet tea. (May)

Belgian author Claus (1929–2008) reveals in this haunting, polyglot novel (first published in the Netherlands in 1962) the deep psychological scars lingering in Flemish society following the German occupation of WWII. Over the course of a strange, disorienting weekend, protagonist Victor-Denijs de Rijckel, a divorced 37-year-old English and German teacher in Flanders, observes an intriguing woman at the local summer ball and pursues her, with the help of one of his young students, to her castle home on the coast. Once there, he and the student, Verzele, ingratiate themselves to mystery woman Alessandra and her aging parents, who turn out to be unrepentant Nazi collaborators, still glorifying the memory of Allessandra's former lover, a local pro-German hero who vanished at war's end. The narrative fragments that make up the account grow increasingly hallucinatory as the novel proceeds, shifting points of view and time period, and soon it becomes clear that the storyteller is reassembling the action some months later in a mental hospital. A bizarre, kaleidoscopic hide-and-seek narrative, this novel draws forth history's phantoms with a true sense of menace. (May)

In discrete, delightfully composed vignettes, Sutin, a biographer of Aleister Crowley and Philip K. Dick, tells the rags-to-riches story of a French peasant farmer. Born in 1900 on a farm in eastern France, Hector de Saint-Aureole, the humble protagonist of this clever pseudobiography, gravitates first to Paris, where he works as a renderer in an abattoir, then to London, where he becomes a barman in Bloomsbury. Luck strikes the young man in the form of a friendship with a Scotsman who dies and leaves Hector his considerable estate: “a fortune to assure a lifetime of ease and choice.” Hector sets out to explore the world, determined to leave a record of his passage, which takes the shape of his life's opus, When to Go into the Water. Sutin alternates this factual-sounding narrative of Hector's journeys with more contemporary dispatches about readers who have over the decades come upon Hector's work, e.g., “a fading male movie star of the 1990s.” It's fascinating to watch Sutin turn his biographer's wiles toward fiction, and the result is charmingly original and intelligent. (May)

In her second novel, Friddle (The Garden Angel) returns to the family plot for the surprising story of a dysfunctional Southern family, a long-buried secret and the possibility of redemption. Aging housewife Emma Hanley lives in Palmetto, S.C., but dreams of traveling the world; unfortunately, her long-planned European vacation must be postponed when her erstwhile husband up and dies after his regular Saturday coffee klatch with a gaggle of female admirers. Left alone, Emma must learn to deal one-on-one with her mentally troubled son Bobby, born-again daughter Dora and the ghost of son Will, who was killed in Vietnam. While her family goes to pieces, Emma lets her yard go to seed; enter gardener Jake Cary, Dora's old flame, whose efforts to cultivate Emma's garden soon spill into her family life. With fluid prose and telling details, Friddle deftly captures the downward pull of the past and the Southern penchant for mythmaking; transcending the easy stereotypes of Southern dysfunctional family sagas, Friddle's clan is a genuinely quirky lot with its own unlikely ideas of happiness. (May)

Set in 1970s Iran during the shah's regime, this earnest, semiautobiographical debut novel is told from the perspective of bookish 17-year-old Pasha Shahed, who, along with his best friend Ahmed, plays soccer, goofs off and thinks about girls. But Pasha pines for one girl in particular—his neighbor Zari, betrothed since birth to Pasha's mentor, the neighborhood radical, Ramin Sobhi, whom everyone calls Doctor. Over a summer Ahmed orchestrates daily meetups with his own beloved, Faheemeh, and includes Pasha and Zari. Despite knowing he shouldn't, Pasha falls in love with Zari. The idyllic summer comes to an end when Doctor is abducted and killed by SAVAK, the not-so-secret police. The effects of Doctor's death on Pasha and Zari are traumatic and lead each to acts of transgression with tragic results. The prose has the simplicity of a nonnative English speaker, which could be seen as clichéd (“treasure of love,” “dark winter of my life”) or charmingly romantic. Seraji captures the thoughts and emotions of a young boy and creates a moving portrait of the history and customs of the Persians and life in Iran during this period. (May)

A too spare debut collection of five elegantly crafted stories by translator Searls (Rilke's The Inner Sky) explores the exquisite indignities suffered by those with rich inner lives. The well-read narrator of the dry “56 Water Street” attempts to write a novel about a man who circles back to where he came from, much like the fastidious writer himself whose girlfriend is soon to leave him because he is unable to plan what happens next. “The Cubicles” is a delightful dig at the vacuous “new economy” of Northern California, wherein the narrator is ensconced in a nebulous position at the punnily nicknamed Prophet Corp. There, leading a “life of Circean pleasures” which keeps him from becoming a writer, he chronicles the other sad cube-dwellers. Self-consciously writerly, Searls's work possesses a schoolmarmish charm and hints at the fresh, smart talent he may one day become. (May)

North Carolina writer March (Catbird) has written an accomplished, intricate coming-of-age tale set in a small Southern city where Jesse, the 16-year-old narrator, is always getting into violent scrapes. Abandoned by his mother, his father brain-damaged and institutionalized after a brutal mugging, he's living with and sorely testing his Uncle G.T., a hardworking roofer, when he's arrested for vandalizing a synagogue. Sentenced to a two-year probation and community service assisting Mendal Ebban, an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor, Jesse is an angry young man. Between run-ins with the city police, Jesse reads religious texts to entertain the spiritual Mr. Ebban and while the old man's preaching can sometimes feel excessive and melodramatic, the two form a friendship, united by their mutual loss. Jesse's thirst to avenge his father conflicts with Mr. Ebban's teachings, while the plot thickens among eccentric and entertaining secondary characters. A likable protagonist, Jesse comes across as a sensitive thinker under his rough upbringing in this well-plotted, well-written solid read. (May)

DeWoskin, author of the memoir Foreign Babies in Beijing, presents a complex love story of cultural intersection, communication barriers, psychotic breakdowns and the search for life's big, unknowable truths. On Manhattan's Upper West Side, several months after 1989's Tiananmen Square massacre, young college dropout Aysha Silvermintz is recovering from an emotional collapse. Teaching an adult class on English as a second language, she meets a young Chinese student named Chen Da Ge, an even more unstable soul she finds herself falling for. Under the pretense of helping him gain citizenship, but hoping for a romantic relationship, Silvermintz agrees to marry Chen, whose feelings and past she still finds a mystery. Silvermintz narrates her story from 13 years later, and the parallel narrative finds Chen dead and Silvermintz living in Beijing with their daughter. Immersing them both in the world of Chen's past, Silvermintz struggles to gain a better understanding of her husband and their time together. A tender story of manic love and loss, this is a heartbreaking and uplifting novel with memorably off-kilter leads. (May)

Epic in scope, Mayo's impressively researched novel set in mid-19th century Mexico City mines the true story of the short turbulent reign of the archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Hapsburg, who was made emperor of Mexico in 1864. Childless and desperate for an heir, the emperor makes substantial monetary promises to the parents of a young boy named Agustin. With much trepidation, they agree to give over the boy, who becomes a pawn in a custody battle that begins when Maximilian adopts the two-year-old Agustin with the hopes of having him inherit the throne. Agustin's American mother, Madame de Iturbide (née Alice Green), soon becomes dissatisfied with the arrangement and pleads with Maximilian to return her son. Maximilian has Alice deported, which sets off an international brawl. Maximilian finally concedes as Mexico devolves “into bankruptcy and lawlessness” and Maximilian's wife, Carlota, becomes increasingly “unmoored.” Lengthy, expository, meandering and grandiose, Mayo's reanimation of a crucial period in Mexican history should satisfy history buffs and those in the mood for an engaging story brimming with majestic ambition. (May)

Young's 35th novel comes from an evangelical Christian imprint, and this outing adds to her blend of suspense and romance spiritual elements that would make sense to many readers outside the Christian market. Lawyer Camille St. James gets a convicted murderer exonerated and off Death Row, only to see him arrested for murder days after his release. Camille's ex-husband, Jack, a former lawyer and recovering alcoholic turned minister, re-enters her life because the murder victim is his sister. The two are thrown together again as Camille pushes hard to discover the real murderer, drawing not only a response from a criminal but from a small Louisiana town eager to blame her for freeing a man capable of murder. The experienced author competently spins suspense and romance while adding the element of redemption through faith that is natural to her plot. Camille is skeptical about the thoroughness of her ex-husband's spiritual rebirth, making the faith component even more credible. Young's readers can easily follow her move to more explicit spiritual character development, and she should gain new readers in the Christian market with her well-crafted inspirational fiction. (May)

Plenty of intense action drives bestseller Baldacci's stellar fourth novel to feature former Secret Service agents Michelle Maxwell and Sean King (after Simple Genius). Maxwell and King, D.C. PIs, step on the toes of everyone, including the FBI and the Secret Service. They even manage to bruise the ego of First Lady Jane Cox, who hires them after her 12-year-old niece is kidnapped following a birthday party at Camp David. Baldacci excels at making the improbable believable as one obsessed man, 62-year-old Sam Quarry, takes on the best security the U.S. can muster from his Alabama redoubt. Even more impressive than Quarry's determined campaign is the ingeniousness with which Baldacci manages to disguise both Quarry's precise motivation and aims. Meanwhile, Maxwell has to deal with her mother's death and a host of other personal issues. Baldacci's careful plotting and confidant depictions of national security procedures make this a thinking man's thriller. (Apr. 21)

In this intense novel of suspense from bestseller Clark (Where Are You Now?), the obvious suspect in the shooting murder of famous actress Natalie Raines at her Closter, N.J., home is her husband and theatrical agent, Gregg Aldrich, whom she was divorcing. Gregg never wavers from his innocent plea, but Bergen County assistant prosecutor Emily Wallace nails his conviction thanks to the evidence of an ex-con, who testifies Gregg tried to hire him to kill Natalie. Clark neatly details the courtroom proceedings, though of more dramatic interest is a subplot involving oddball serial killer Zach Lanning, who's been stalking Emily while pretending to be a good neighbor. Clark slowly reveals that Emily's recent heart transplant has given the attorney extra sensitivity to Natalie's past. As Emily's doubts about Gregg's guilt grow, the action hurtles to a surprising if abrupt resolution. (Apr.)

The July 1880 visit of former president Ulysses S. Grant to the mining community of Leadville, Colo., sparks Parker's third mystery (after 2006's Iron Ties), a twisty tale of murder and ambition. Saloon co-owner Inez Stannert is preoccupied with divorcing her missing husband, her affair with the local minister and her secret business partnership with the local madam when one of the madam's prostitutes is first attacked and later killed. Eager to protect her investment, Inez begins to look into the case, confronting mine owners with personal agendas; local politicians; zealous journalists; a mapmaker with a past; a determined mother with aspirations for her wastrel son; a prostitute with family obligations and hopes for a better life; and a ruthless city tax collector, appropriately nicknamed the Hatchet. Parker is proficient in showing the crossroads between civilization and the frontier, including emerging new roles for women. A cliffhanger ending sets a promising stage for the next installment. (July)

In Stanley's fine second mystery to feature Botswana police detective David Bengu (after 2008's A Carrion Death), Bengu, an overweight gourmet aptly nicknamed Kubu (Setswana for hippopotamus), investigates the murders of two male guests at an isolated bush camp. One victim was a black South African tourist; the other, according to his fingerprints, was Goodluck Tinubu, supposedly killed 29 years earlier in the Rhodesian civil war. A third camp guest, who's disappeared, becomes the prime suspect. While the local police want to blame the country's lucrative drug trade for the murders, Bengu believes the key lies in Goodluck's background, though many people, including Bengu's father, knew Goodluck as a thoughtful, devoted teacher. The story runs on a little too long, as though Stanley, the South African writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, couldn't bear to leave this evocative setting. Readers will feel the same way. (June)

In Johnson's superb fifth contemporary mystery to feature Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire (after 2008's Another Man's Moccasins), Walt has his doubts about Mary Barsad's guilt when she confesses to shooting her husband, Wade, after Wade allegedly burned down their barn with all Mary's horses inside. Even though the crime is out of his jurisdiction in a neighboring county, Walt can't shake the feeling that there's more to Mary's story. Posing as an insurance agent, Walt starts poking around the tiny town of Absalom, whose main attraction are the fights at the local bar. He meets an illegal immigrant bartender with a knack for crime solving, the Barsads' loyal cowhand and some ranchers who may have had their own reasons for wanting Wade dead. Walt digs deep into the dilapidated town's history, unearthing secrets that might be better left buried. Series fans will delight in seeing Walt return to his cowboy roots as he mounts a horse and navigates the sparsely populated state. 8-city author tour. (June)

Vish Puri, the head of Delhi's Most Private Investigators Ltd., tackles a rather prosaic domestic case in this first of a projected series, the fiction debut of British author Hall (Salaam Brick Lane). Ajay Kasliwal, a lawyer who has brought cases against corrupt government officials, retains Puri to find a maid, Mary, who has gone missing from his household. Rumor has it that Kasliwal killed Mary because he got her pregnant, and when Mary turns up dead, the authorities arrest Puri's client. While the 51-year-old married detective, who could lose some weight and is affectionately called “Chubby,” has a certain quirky charm, the resolution of the mystery of Mary's murder is less than satisfying. Hopefully, a future installment will go into what sounds like a more unusual matter, “the Case of the Missing Polo Elephant,” for which Puri won the fictional “Super Sleuth” award in 1999. (June)

In Edgar-winner Housewright's enjoyable sixth novel to feature PI Rushmore “Mac” McKenzie (after 2008's Madman on a Drum), graduate student Ivy Flynn, last seen in 2005's Tin City, and her new boyfriend believe gold from a 1933 bank robbery engineered by Frank “Jelly” Nash is still hidden somewhere in St. Paul, Minn. When Mac agrees to investigate, it becomes apparent others are after the same pot of gold, now worth at least $8 million. The searchers consult historical archives and private letters, interview descendants of crooks and bigwigs, and even manage to locate one ancient ex-con who knew Nash. Readers get a dual treat as the likable Mac deals with a parade of present-day sharpies and gold hunters, while Housewright retells the story of the wholesale corruption that for decades made St. Paul a playground for a who's who of gangsters, including John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and others who hobnobbed with St. Paul's upper crust. (June)

Robinson's second anthology derived from the online magazine Thuglit is an improvement over 2008's Hardcore Hardboiled. Jason Starr gets things off on the right foot with “Double Down,” a short but punchy contemporary PI tale, with an unapologetically amoral main character largely indifferent to the consequences of his greed. Joe R. Lansdale offers perhaps the strongest entry with “Bullets and Fire,” in which the narrator gets accepted into a hardcore urban gang by punching out a little girl, for reasons that only become apparent in the denouement. An ex-con's despair over his estranged grown daughter drives Marcus Sakey's “The Days When You Were Anything Else,” which ends with a twist that's no less powerful for being predictable. While not every selection is top-notch, this volume also showcases a number of lesser-known authors who will undoubtedly be heard from more in the future. Sarah Weinman's introduction extols the virtues of online publication. (June)

The intriguing first in a new series from Clemens (Different Paths and four other Stella Crown mysteries) introduces a classic tragic heroine, Casey Maldonado, and her companion, the Grim Reaper. Casey, who's trying to come to terms with personal losses suffered in a fatal car accident, regularly wishes that Death will take her so she can spend eternity with her departed loved ones. Unfortunately for Casey, it's not her time, and Death decides only to tag along on her sad journey. Hitching rides to anywhere, Casey ends up in Clymer, Ohio, a town as deeply troubled as she is. Casey is soon drawn into investigating the death of a young mother, who supposedly committed suicide after losing her job. Clemens is adept at creating an appealing cast of characters while keeping the plot moving at a fast clip. Casey and Death make an oddly entertaining pair, and readers will hope to see their relationship fleshed out in future titles. (May)

When Tobias Elmkvist, a Stockholm novelist with career troubles, visits his farmer father, Carl, in the country, he finds himself attracted to Carl's younger partner, Sabina Johansson, in this Hitchcockian tale from Frimansson (The Shadow in the Water), who's twice won the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers' Award. Shortly after Tobias and Sabina give in to their desires in a barn tack-room, a disapproving local, Hardy Lindström, walks in and confronts them. Afraid of blackmail, Tobias plunges a handy screwdriver into Lindström's throat, apparently killing him. Later, after the writer returns to the barn and sees no trace of the body or blood, he wonders whether he imagined the fatal assault. Meanwhile, the police start to look into Lindström's disappearance. Frimansson vividly conveys Tobias's inner torments in a hypnotic psychological study sure to gain her new American readers. (May)

In Clark's rambunctious 12th Regan Reilly mystery (after 2008's Zapped), the New York City PI heads for Los Angeles to help an old neighbor, film hairstylist Abigail Feeney, track down her ex-boyfriend, producer Cody Castle, who owes Abigail $100,000 she loaned him. Born on a Friday the 13th, Abigail has always felt cursed, and this is just the latest disaster in a run of bad luck. The missing Cody's filmmaking partner, Dean Puntler, is also worried, since Cody has squandered funding they needed for their production to boost “hot young actress” Stella Gardner. The murder of 85-year-old Nicky Tendril, one of Cody and Dean's prospective investors, adds extra stress. Might Abigail be the killer? Abigail had been cutting Nicky's hair for free until he began getting rude, but Regan is sure she's innocent. Clark's bubbly humor makes this a great vacation read for mystery-lite fans who love a Hollywood twist. (Apr.)

Stoker-winner Lebbon returns to the magic-saturated land of Noreela (most recently the setting for 2008's Fallen) for this gripping adventure. Kel Boon deserted the Core, a secret organization that hunts the mysterious Strangers who spy on humans, after one mission went badly and his lover was butchered. Now settled in an isolated fishing village, Kel is shocked when the island of Komadia appears in the ocean after a devastating tsunami. Distrustful of the seemingly benign Komadians, Kel and his new inamorata, the young witch Namior, make a clandestine trip to the island. What they find ends Kel's dreams of safe anonymity. While slightly less intense than earlier Noreela tales that slid from dark fantasy into horror, this solidly constructed tale offers hope that the compelling protagonists can achieve believable heroism if they're willing to pay for it. (May)

Baker seamlessly expands her 2004 Hugo and Nebula–nominated novella of the same title into tale of nonconformist survival. Widow Mary Griffith and her daughters relocate to an oddly anachronistic Mars, a world dominated by the badly run British Arean Company. Declared redundant by BAC, Mary establishes the first bar on Mars, which prevails despite the moralistic disapproval of her former bosses. Her customers are colorful characters who exist at the periphery of Martian society, from shyster Stanford Crosley to would-be “space cowboy” Ottorio Vespucci. Mary's family, friends and neighbors struggle to survive economic setbacks, the inhospitable climate and BAC's hostility to all forms of eccentricity. Though the international politics are sometimes threadbare, Baker's tale of individualists battling enforced conformity is a worthy evolution of her novella and will especially appeal to longtime science fiction fans. (May)

Telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse braces herself for trouble when another group of supernatural beings goes public in her disjointed eighth adventure (after 2008's From Dead to Worse). Following the vampires' lead, the shape-shifters decide to step out of the woodwork and announce their existence to the world. While the initial reveal goes smoothly, the brutal crucifixion of a young werepanther behind the local bar makes Sookie wonder if the people of Bon Temps, La., are as tolerant as she thought. Meanwhile, the FBI is asking questions about Sookie's uncanny ability to locate survivors after an explosion, and trouble is brewing among the secretive fae. Harris tries to cram too much into a single story, and even die-hard fans of Sookie's adventures in print and on HBO's True Blood will complain about the plot gaps. (May)

Fox (Fat White Vampire Blues) pens a half-baked riff on Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 that imagines a near-future America where the government brutally enforces dietary laws through vigilante squads in repossessed ice cream trucks. When a raid on contraband cheese turns deadly, middle-aged Good Humor man Louis Shmalzberg, a former liposuction surgeon, predictably begins to question his vocation. When a pair of mysterious men demand that Louis turn over a vacuum jar of fat and stomach fluid removed during the botched lipo operation Louis's father performed on Elvis, Louis embarks on a contrived chase across the country, incidentally investigating a corporate conspiracy that's fast becoming a national health crisis. Fox's pseudosatirical premise could work as farce, but endless expository conversations and lifeless characters (including some eyebrow-raising racial stereotypes) make this contrived yarn unconvincing. (May)

In an engrossing, daring and occasionally overambitious novel, Baxter (Weaver) narrates the final 42 years of dry land on earth. Four political hostages are freed in Barcelona in 2016, and their stories through the years show the attempts to save the planet even as rapidly rising ocean levels wipe out major cities. USAF Capt. Lily Brooke works with billionaire Nathan Lammockson to build a haven, while oceanographer Thandie Jones attempts to determine the causes of the flooding. Baxter skips ahead years at a time, often eliding major conflict resolutions, character development and deaths; this choice disrupts the storytelling but smartly underscores the isolation in which the characters often operate. Readers who push through will be rewarded with a fascinating apocalyptic vision—but little resolution—a nice setup for a sequel. (May)

Medical thriller meets gritty detective novel in this extremely well-written and suspenseful tale of a most unusual dog. When police detective Elliot Elliot is ordered to recover a missing research canine, he stumbles across a mysterious brain scan that contradicts the official records on his ex-girlfriend's comatose husband. In counterpoint, ruthless contract killer Victor Korvin seeks to capture the dog and deliver her to a financier desperate to save himself from a rapidly advancing medical condition. The nameless dog herself provides a third major viewpoint as her enhanced brain tries to make sense of the changing conditions that threaten her survival. Davis (The Third Pandemic as Pierre Ouellette) skillfully interweaves taut plotting, nuanced characters and convincing insight into the mind of a superintelligent animal who's still, at heart, a dog. (May)

Chapman revisits her time-traveling band of medieval Scots warriors in the first of a series spun off from 2008's Secrets of the Highlander. Kenzie Gregor is a centuries-old warrior who moves to modern smalltown Maine to help his friend William thwart the curse that turned him into a dragon. Accompanied by Daar, a smart-mouthed 1,800-year-old Druidic priest with waning powers and an enormous appetite, Kenzie unknowingly displaces Eve Anderson and her mother, Mabel, from their foreclosed home. Worried about Mabel's dementia and how to save the family business, Eve reluctantly allows Kenzie to hire her as a caretaker while he turns the land into a working farm. There's plenty of good humor, while Mabel's illness and the curse add necessary pathos. Lovable characters, a sweet romance and the grouchy troublemaker dragon combine for a delightful read. (May)

James Reasoner (the Civil War Battle series) is the first to take the shared Hunt pen name and launch an adventure series that raises the action bar to nosebleed heights. After a mysterious beauty delivers a bloodstained Confederate flag and a whiskey bottle full of water to the Hunt brothers at a fund-raising reception, millionaire adventurer Gabriel Hunt and beautiful, gun-toting museum director Dr. Cierra Almanzar follow clues and an ambiguous map from Manhattan to Guatemala, only certain they're on the right path when somebody's shooting at them. Hunt, armed only with his fists, bullwhips, a Colt .45 double-action Peacemaker and a vintage Civil War muzzle loader, is often outnumbered but never outwitted. Pulp adventure fans will be thrilled to see the genre so smashingly resurrected. (May)

In this alternate, mangafied vision of Wolverine's past, we find a teenage Logan living at the Quiet Earth School in Canada and studying martial arts. Bored, restless and channeling James Dean, the young rebel worries about his upcoming graduation as well as his missing past. A trip to New York complicates things by introducing Logan's first rival, a former student named Morgan. Johnston's characters are overdramatized and flamboyant; Logan is more like an angst-ridden teen than a future X-Man. Master Mr. Elliot and daughter Tamara are caring and yet one-sided. Hopefully, subsequent volumes will provide more character development and flesh out the personalities of the cast. Tortosa's art is an interesting blend of obvious manga influence with a fluidity of movement that makes the art easy to follow. The fight scenes look natural and are not overly posed or stylized. This will hold the most amount of appeal for fans who are more into manga than comics and are not familiar with the existing nuances of Wolverine's story. (Apr.)

This collaboration between multiple-award winners Yang (American Born Chinese) and Kim (Same Difference and Other Stories) is an eagerly awaited event that actually pays off. Yang writes and Kim illustrates in a medley of different styles united by meticulous detail, almost throwaway beauty and riveting storytelling. All three stories deal with levels of fantasy and how humans use it to escape or transcend everyday tedium and suffering. In “Duncan's Kingdom,” a fairy tale about a brave youth, beautiful princess and dastardly frog king is played out; the fantasy is so note perfect that the truth of the situation comes as a shock. In “The Eternal Smile,” Gran'pa Greenbax is an avaricious frog whose moneymaking schemes are first boosted then dashed by the appearance of a mysterious, peaceful smile in the sky. Riffing off classic Disney comic books and evangelical clichés, it's a sharp satire far more complex than it first appears. In “Urgent Request,” Janet, a schlumpy drone at a tech company, answer a Nigerian scam e-mail to liven up her drab life. However, her motives are not as they originally appear. Shattering the borders between our real and fantasy lives, these bold, masterfully crafted fables have real staying power. (Apr.)

Fans of Takaya's Fruits Basket may find Tsubasa a bit disappointing. Takaya's earlier work is a sprawling fantasy that lacks the originality and emotional impact of Fruits Basket. The weaker characters, mediocre artwork and poorly written and paced plot line does little to capture attention. The tale is set in a war-torn 22nd century mysteriously similar to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, where luxury and amenities are reserved for the upper classes. The common people live for the legend of the Tsubasa, a magical glowing object said to grant wishes to all who see it—not unlike the dragon in Dragonball. To add to the pastiche of clichés, heroine Kotobuki the thief is monkeylike, similar to Goku. Despite the epic setting, much of the story focuses on Kotobuki's hackneyed romance with Raimon, a “genius” who dropped out of a prestigious army position in order to date her. The slow-building junior high–like romance ties together a series of nearly unrelated episodes. Two-thirds of the way through, the book has a satisfying ending, yet the story continues. Although the series was six volumes long in Japan, Tokyopop has made the excellent choice to publish it here in fewer, thicker volumes. (Mar.)

Two of the three posthumous Updike books publishing this year deal heavily with late-life laments.

Updike compresses the strata of a life in his delicately rendered, tremendously moving posthumous collection. In “Free,” the memory of a life-affirming affair buckles against a man's loyalty to his deceased wife: he recognizes that becoming a “well-bred stick” offers more consolation in old age than the sluggish arousal of his sensuality. In “The Accelerating Expansion of the Universe,” the retired protagonist, depressed by what he perceives as the universe's indifference to human affairs, is done in by the accumulated detritus of his life. Many characters are haunted by a sense of isolation, such as the protagonist of “Personal Archaeology,” who roams his Massachusetts estate, searching for traces of previous ownership while sifting through his own petty contribution, or the emotionally stranded absentee landlord of an Alton, Pa., family farm in “The Road Home,” who returns after 50 years and finds himself lost in his hometown. From “Kinderszenen,” which depicts the anxious time of smalltown late 1930s, to “Varieties of Religious Experience,” in which a grandfather watches the twin towers fall, time ushers in brutal changes. With masterly assurance, Updike transforms the familiar into the mysterious. (June)

Many delights but very few surprises await Updike's admirers in this last book of poems from the prolific essayist and novelist, completed only weeks before his death. Much of it gathers calm, casual, loosely rhymed sonnets, first in autobiographical sequences, describing the first and the last years of the poet's life: “Age I must, but die I would rather not... Be with me, words, a little longer.” These sequences sketch Arizona and New England; single sonnets, placed later in the collection, offer impressions of Russia, India, the Irish seashore (“like loads of eternal laundry,/ onrolling breaks cresting into foam”) and of nearer phenomena, such as the noise made by men fixing Updike's house. Quiet poems pay tribute to golf and golfers, to Eros in old age and to “America, where beneath/ the good cheer and sly jazz the chance/ of failure is everybody's right,/ beginning with baseball.” Elegant samples of Updike's celebrated light verse are also in evidence. Mostly, though, these are serious, quiet, low-pressure, frequently elegiac poems, concerned with later life—”old doo-wop stars,” for example, “gray hairdos still conked,/ their up-from-the-choir baby faces lined/ with wrinkles now.” (Apr.)