Fiction Reviews: Week of 5/25/2009

In Baker's lovely 10th novel, readers are introduced to Paul Chowder, a “study in failure,” at a very dark time in his life. He has lost the two things that he values most: his girlfriend, Roz, and his ability to write. The looming introduction to an anthology of poems he owes a friend, credit card debt and frequent finger injuries aren't helping either. Chowder narrates in a professorial and often very funny stream of consciousness as he relates his woes and shares his knowledge of poetry, and though a desire to learn about verse will certainly make the novel more accessible and interesting, it isn't a prerequisite to enjoying it. Chowder's interest in poetry extends beyond meter and enjambment; alongside discussions of craft, he explores the often sordid lives of poets (Poe, Tennyson and Rothke are just some of the poets who figuratively and literally haunt Chowder). And when he isn't missing Roz or waxing on poetics, he busies himself with a slow and strangely compelling attempt at cleaning up his office. Baker pulls off an original and touching story, demonstrating his remarkable writing ability while putting it under a microscope. (Sept.)

Bestseller Iles's stellar third suspense novel to feature Penn Cage (after Turning Angel) finds the former prosecutor and bestselling novelist serving as the mayor of Natchez, Miss., his hometown. Frustrated by his limited ability to change the system, Cage is plunged into a deadly duel of wits with some bad guys after a childhood friend, Tim Jessup, now a card dealer, alerts him to illegal dog fighting and sexual abuse connected with a floating casino. Before Jessup can deliver proof of his allegations, he's tortured and killed. Convinced Jessup managed to pass on the evidence to the mayor, Jessup's boss confronts and threatens Cage. Daniel Kelly, an old friend working for a private security organization, lends support, sneaking Cage's 11-year-old daughter out of town to safety. Iles brilliantly creates opportunities for his characters to demonstrate principle and courage, both on a large and small scale, making this much more than just an exciting read. (July)

In Shamus-winner Hughes's solid fourth crime thriller to feature Dublin PI Ed Loy (after The Price of Blood), Anne Fogarty hires Loy to re-examine the facts surrounding her father's unsolved murder in 1991—her mother's boyfriend was found guilty but later released on appeal for the fatal beating. Loy has a second murder to look into after Paul Delaney, a promising footballer on whom Loy was keeping unofficial tabs, is gunned down. The PI learns that Anne's father, a tax inspector, had prepared informal dossiers on three men he believed to be evading taxes and, not coincidentally, members of the IRA. One of the men is a Dublin gangster with ties to the IRA who may have been grooming Paul as a protégé. While U.S. readers unschooled with the particulars of the Troubles may have difficulty differentiating the IRA from the less familiar INLA (Irish National Liberation Army), Hughes's ear for dialogue and his liberal—but never gratuitous—use of violence make for an intense read. (July)

Barbieri (Snow in July) sets her latest in a small Irish town, Glenmara, where a heartbroken American tourist, Kate Robinson, finds her one-night stay extended with the help of some motherly role models. Kate's hostess, chronically grieving widow Bernie, draws the young Seattleite into a gossipy ring of lace makers. Kate, a former fashion designer, takes to them perfectly (one of several head-scratching coincidences), inspiring them to take on an empowering but controversial project. Although the focus is always on the positive, the narrative's strongest when exploring the less charming sides of Glenmara; rich sources of missed potential include the local priest, nicknamed Father Dominic Burn-in-Hell Byrne, and Bernie's irritable best friend Aileen, the only “lace society” member to regard Kate with anything but syrupy goodwill. The result is a sweet novel with few surprises. Even Kate's pivotal, inspirational idea—embellishing the ladies' undergarments with lace—suffers from murky logic (as do reactions from characters like Father Byrne). Still, Barbieri's world generates convincing warmth and emotion, making it worth a look for Friday Night Knitting Club fans between sequels. (July)

In this captivating debut, Yunis takes readers on a magic carpet ride examining the lives of Fatima Abdullah and her huge dysfunctional family. Imitating Scheherazade, Fatima—in a clever twist—spins her own tales to the legendary storyteller. And she has plenty of material: Fatima is dying, and more interested in her prized possessions—including a house in Lebanon—than in reuniting her splintered offspring and her estranged husband, Ibraham, whose enduring love is proved in a neat twist at the end of the novel. Fatima's family is all over the country, all with issues, including daughter Laila battling breast cancer in Detroit, openly gay actor grandson Amir in Los Angeles and pregnant great-granddaughter Aisha in Minneapolis. Gradually, Fatima learns that her true treasure isn't the house in Lebanon that she's pined after for decades, but her imperfect, loving family. Add in a bumbling neophyte FBI agent seeing al-Qaeda smoke where there is no fire and the result is a sometimes serious, sometimes funny, but always touching tale of a Middle Eastern family putting down deep roots on U.S. soil. (July)

Dolan gets everything right in his debut, a suspense novel that breathes new life into familiar themes. The enigmatic David Loogan, who's recently moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., has stumbled into an editing job for Gray Streets, a mystery magazine, after anonymously submitting a short story. One night, Loogan's boss, Tom Kristoll, asks him for help in disposing of a corpse. Loogan goes to Kristoll's house and does so, despite his suspicions that Kristoll's account of how the man ended up dead is incomplete at best. When Kristoll later dies in a fall from his office window, the police mark Loogan, who's been having an affair with Kristoll's wife, as a person of interest. Pitch-perfect prose and sophisticated characterizations drive the noirish plot, which offers plenty of unexpected twists. Fans of Peter Abrahams and Scott Turow will find a lot to like. While the solution may strike some as a tad improbable, the talent Dolan displays suggests he has a bright future. (July)

Meloy (Liars and Saints) hits some high notes in these stories of people juggling conflicting emotions with varying shades of success. In “The Children,” a man's resolve to leave his wife for his now-grown children's former swimming instructor is unexpectedly “doomed to ambivalence and desire” when he's confronted by the comforting “habit of his marriage.” Marital tensions are also at the heart of “O Tannenbaum,” in which a couple, while hunting for a Christmas tree with their daughter, pick up a stranded couple whose bickering casts into relief the cracks in their own relationship. Other pieces focus on loneliness, as in the opening story about a young ranch hand's efforts to connect with a lawyer moonlighting as a night-school teacher, or as in “Agustín,” where an elderly widower yearns for a lost, illicit lover. Meloy's characters frequently leave each other or let each other down, and it is precisely that—their vulnerabilities, failures and flaws—that make them so wonderful to follow as they vacillate between isolation and connection. (July)

Strohmeyer's bubbly farce finds a shopaholic New Jersey wife worried about hanging on to her husband and trying to curb her lavish lifestyle. Katarina “Kat” Griffiths, a 40-something interior designer, joins the eccentric supersavers of the Rocky River Penny Pinchers Club to get out of debt, put her daughter, Laura, through college and save her marriage to Emerly College economics professor Griff Griffiths. Suspecting that Griff is having an affair with the more economically sound Bree, his sexy assistant, Kat vows to save her marriage, even if it means giving up her Lexus and her Starbucks triple venti lattes. Hilarity ensues as Kat discovers, among other things, two Mint Tingle condoms in the pocket of her husband's khakis right before their 20th anniversary as well as his secret $10,000 bank account. When newly divorced Liam Novak, Kat's first love, returns to town, complications ensue. While Strohmeyer's plot may appear overly cutesy, she (The Cinderella Pact) finds ample humor in her family-centric story, and the list of Top 15 Dos and Don'ts from the Penny Pinchers Club is spot-on. (July)

Longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Arnold's accomplished debut is a fictionalized take on the tumultuous marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens. On the day of famed writer Alfred Gibson's public funeral, his estranged widow, Dorothea (Dodo), sits alone in her small London apartment, reminiscing about “the One and Only.” Although caring deeply about his public image as a family man, Alfred's actual relationship with his brood is fraught by his egomaniacal demands and philandering, his career eclipsing everything else. Dodo wishes she could climb onto the page, become one of her husband's protagonists and cajole him to pay attention to her. After years of marriage, Alfred casts Dodo out of the family home after taking up with a mistress, publicly shaming her, and admonishing their children not to visit her. After Alfred's death, Dodo grapples with the choice of emerging from her self-imposed exile or remaining in seclusion without facing the public who revered him. Arnold's impeccable research paints an entirely different portrait of Dickens than that assumed by readers of his fiction. (July)

In Ward's overblown crime novel, two Los Angeles FBI agents, Jack Harper and Oscar Hidalgo, are thrilled when their successful sting brings down South African jewel smuggler Karl Steinbach. They laugh off Steinbach's promise that everyone involved will soon die, but when a fellow agent's brakes fail and another is pushed in front of an oncoming train, Harper and Hidalgo fear they might be next. As the pair investigate their slain comrades' lives, they discover that what looked like a case of retribution is actually tied to a web of deceit that stretches to the highest echelons of the FBI. Ward (Four Kinds of Rain) mixes in a melodramatic subplot involving Harper's young son, Kevin, whose attempts at teenage rebellion coincidentally put him in the center of his father's investigation. A former writer for Miami Vice, Ward weighs down what could have been a slick tale of greed and corruption with hollow heroes and stereotypical villains. (July)

Recently transferred from homicide to sex crimes, Chicago police detective Sloane Pearson pursues a serial rapist in Edgar-winner Schwegel's gritty fourth crime novel. Called in to interview the second in a series of victims who were beaten, raped and nearly strangled to death, Pearson knows the only way she'll have a case is if the traumatized woman will talk. But without a crime scene or detailed description of the attacker, Pearson's leads dry up fast. As she retraces the victims' steps, she uncovers a common thread that winds from the dilapidated blocks where the rapes occurred to one of the city's glitzy property development companies. Introduced in 2006's Probable Cause, Pearson, the odd woman out in her new squad, shoulders the burden of a troublesome case even when her boss insists she quit. Despite a minimal body count, Schwegel ratchets up the tension, leaving readers breathless through to the last page. Author tour. (July)

In her sophomore effort, Leffler spins another heartfelt tale about the search for love and acceptance, focusing on minor characters from her debut, The Diagnosis of Love. Di, a young woman with a two-year-old son, was kidnapped as a child by her mother and taken to England. Now, she's returned to the U.S., hoping to finally impose normalcy on her life. After moving in with her cousin Alecia, who's engaged, Di begins working as a nanny for the troubled son of wealthy (and newly single) Augustus Catalano. While staying with the Catalanos, Di also meets their handsome gardener, Dave, and soon finds herself torn by her feelings for the two men. Meanwhile, Alecia's relationship begins to break under the strain of the upcoming wedding and the quotidian pressures of work, family and finances. Struggling with similar emotional scars, the two cousins' attempts to build new families and identities is grounded in loving, complicated relationships. The characters are endearing and the plot straightforward (if sometimes clichéd), making this an excellent summer read. (June)

In her second novel, Guène poignantly chronicles the lives of Algerian immigrant Ahlème and her family in their adopted France, delicately linking anguish and humor in a realistic portrayal of displacement. After losing her mother to violence at a young age, Ahlème becomes caretaker of her father, “The Boss,” incapacitated after a work-related injury, as well as her younger brother, Foued, whose ambitions veer to the criminal. Relegated to working odd jobs, Ahlème drifts, knowing her life might hold more, but held back by the pressing concern of providing for her family. Even though she's lived in France for years, Ahlème remains an orphan of the world at 25, frequently reapplying for residency, hoping to find a boyfriend with documentation. Tellingly, Ahlème muses, “I imagine men with little mustaches in the offices who only have to push a button for it to become an ejector seat and for me to find myself back in the village.” Guène aptly depicts how small joys—glimpsing the cohesive family life that friend Auntie Mariatou leads, celebrating the Boss's birthday—take on weight as Ahlème dreams of the future. (July)

Florian, a Romanian journalist and Radio Free Europe reporter, weaves together several narratives in his debut novel, a strange story of war, death, alienation, politics and bizarre miracles told in brilliant prose. During the construction of a church, a mass grave filled with skeletal remains is discovered in a small Romanian town. The local police chief hopes to rise to fame by proclaiming the piles of bones evidence of a brutal genocide committed by the secret police of the former regime. Petrus, an eager young archeologist, has come to town to excavate the grave site, which is near an ancient Roman fort, but Major Maxim refuses to allow him near the bones. Add to this the priest Onufrie, who believes the mysterious bones are a sign from the Virgin Mary (and whose head sprouts a weird black tuft of hair that wilts “like frost-nipped flowers”). Many characters and overlapping stories can cause confusion but never boredom as everyone awaits the arrival of a group of forensic anthropologists from Argentina (a country of mass graves) to settle the dispute over how the victims ended up dumped indiscriminately together. (July)

Bestseller Neggers's third FBI romantic suspense novel lacks the Celtic charm and passion of its predecessor, 2008's The Angel. Norman Estabrook, “a thrill-seeking billionaire,” is confined to his Montana ranch after his arrest on suspicion of money laundering and aiding drug traffickers. Estabrook yearns to kill FBI director John March and special agent Simon Cahill as well as catch the anonymous snitch, hotelier Lizzie Rush, who turned him in. Rush has flown to Ireland to warn Kiera Sullivan, Cahill's lover, that their lives are in danger, but her mission gets complicated when she runs into Lord Will Davenport, an attractive SIS agent. In Boston, March's homicide detective daughter, Abigail Browning, goes missing after Estabrook's cohorts bomb the triple-decker house where she lives with her fiancé. Neggers juggles the developing romance between Davenport and Rush with standard search and rescue fare as this foggy manhunt rumbles to a predictable conclusion. (July)

At the start of La Plante's excellent fourth crime drama to feature London Det. Insp. Anna Travis (after 2008's Clean Cut), wanted drug kingpin Alexander Fitzpatrick returns home to England after plastic surgery in Mexico, desperate to collect funds that Julia Kendal, his recently married ex-partner in the drug smuggling business, has squirreled away. When Julia's new husband, a former cop who was also acting as her bodyguard, is shot to death at a seedy Chalk Farm drug squat, Anna discovers an unexpected link between Julia and Anthony Collingwood, a Fitzpatrick alias. More bodies of Fitzpatrick's former associates pile up, including some poisoned with an overdose of Fentanyl, an illegal opiate with which Fitzpatrick plans to flood the U.K. market. Supt. Jimmy Langton, Anna's tetchy ex-lover and former superior, who's dismayed to notice she's dangerously attracted to a professor connected to the elusive Fitzpatrick, retains his enigmatic appeal. (July)

Indianapolis PI Frank Behr juggles two cases in Levien's disjointed follow-up to City of the Sun. When Behr's Brazilian jujitsu instructor is shot to death execution-style at the Brazilian's martial arts studio, he decides to investigate unofficially. A real job soon comes Behr's way when a high-powered PI firm asks him to track down two of their missing investigators, who disappeared in the middle of a case involving derelict properties being used for illegal gambling dens. In taking a close look at the gaming dens, Behr comes face to face with a family of thugs who have launched a turf war to secure a monopoly on neighborhood crime. Despite the book's hefty body count, Levien is more interested in exploring the nature of violence, contrasting the controlled beauty of jujitsu with the unpredictable dangers of gunfights. While readers will admire Behr's determination to solve his friend's murder, some may feel that case distracts too much from his formal assignment. (July)

Luke Dantry, while working as an intern for his stepfather's think-tank in Austin, Tex., stumbles on a group of home-grown terrorists known as the Night Road (because of their nocturnal Internet chatter) in this furiously paced if less than compelling thriller from Abbott (Collision). The Night Road has held several warmup activities—plane crashes, train derailments, chemical explosions—and is now gearing up for Hellfire, the code name for a secret mission that's supposed to be the mother of all terrorist acts. As Dantry scrambles from city to city (Houston, Chicago, New York) to thwart Hellfire and bring its planners to justice, the story strikes a number of false notes—convenient plot twists, hard-to-swallow dialogue and a main character who all too easily goes from wimpy grad student to brawny crime fighter over the course of just a few days. Still, Abbott has an instinctive feel for how to draw adrenaline from words on a page. (July)

Sanchez's debut is a sweeping, intense novel of extremism, fear and consequences. In Los Angeles in the near future, tensions run high between Hispanics and Anglos, especially after the death of an innocent Latina bystander in Texas sparks nationwide riots. In need of a job, ex-Army Ranger Manolo “Mano” Suaraz joins La Defensa del Pueblo, started by wealthy Ramon Garcia to foster Hispanic unity in the face of Anglo violence. Despite his wife's growing reservations, Mano and the group are able to turn Hispanic gangs into allies against a common enemy. As violence and fear escalate—and are manipulated—“Quarantine Zones” and camps are created to segregate Hispanics from the general population. Mano, who dedicated his life to patriotism, sees his own country turn on him because of his heritage, disregarding his value as an individual. Originally self-published, Ramos y Sanchez's ambitious, cautionary tale poses questions without easy answers, but its flaw, ironically, is the lack of diversity, with all the characters being either Hispanic or Anglo. (July)

In Coburn's third novel (after Owl Island), mid-30s landscape architect Stevie Pollack has just fled a failed project in Chicago and a failed relationship in New York to be with Hank, her querulous, dying father, in her Hawaiian hometown. Every turn of events—every argument between father and daughter, every meeting with a lover, every sleepless or dream-filled night—seems to be watched over by the book's most colorful and passionate character, the “swirling wonder” that is the island, whose prophetic creatures and therapeutic beaches add eccentric splendor. Coincidentally, in Chicago, Stevie meets her cousin, Margo, who reveals that Stevie's father has a hidden sister. Reconnecting with Margo gives Stevie the chance to “talk story,” or reminisce, about Hank's family life, giving Stevie some much-needed perspective on her contentious relationship with the old man. As her own icy edge melts in the presence of a lost puppy, an approachable veterinarian named Japhy, childhood friends and a blossoming appreciation for Hawaiian folklore, Stevie becomes an engrossing character who makes up for a predictable plot and a cascade of unlikely coincidences. (July)

Pediatrician Ella Stuart has it all—a loving husband, a great career and a devoted lover, William Ashfield. For his part, William has a troubled wife, Beth, and a rebellious teenage daughter, Cate. When Ella's husband dies unexpectedly, it sends everyone spiraling out of control, and forces Ella and William to decide what they really want—and how many lives they're willing to ruin to get it. Despite a small cast of characters, readers will want a diagram to chart their overcomplicated relationships. Novelist Stimson (The Adultery Club) comes perilously close to soap opera territory, but maintains integrity with a canny roving perspective that takes into account each character's point of view, including a well-handled bipolar personality. Unfortunately, the device isn't enough to save a plot far too implausible and drawn out. Though Stimson manages to elevate her material above the chick lit fray, her contrived ending gives readers little reward for keeping up. (July)

Author of the collection Out on the Marsh and several YA titles, a son of John returns with another collection that examines the many sides of romantic and familial love. In the title story, Trevor and his Holocaust-survivor psychotherapist, Sonya, are working together to help him get over his former girlfriend and to remain single for an extended period so that he can learn about his feelings toward women. “Love Songs from America” has an American father bringing his biracial son, Harold, to his wife's Kenyan homeland, underscoring the randomness of comfort and tragedy. “Adjunct” tells of an aimless instructor, Robert, who's looking for “that illicit spark of attraction that lent to the class a certain romantic undertone and, if nothing else, made the term go faster.” Though carefully observed, most of these stories suffer from a narrative passivity or abstract musing—“It was a relief to be outside again, and not have to look at her eyes, or keep up with the bantering, dangerous pace of her conversation”—that simply doesn't match the pacing and tone of the tales themselves. (July)

From the bestselling author of Time Is a River and Swimming Lessons comes a serviceable novel set in present-day coastal South Carolina. The tale follows shrimp boat captain Bud Morrison, and his wife, Carolina, through one eventful day. Despite their ardent love for one another, and how wildly passionate their love affair began, after 33 years of marriage, imprudence, distrust, financial strain and poor communication have clouded their relationship. When Bud's deckhand is a no-show for work, Bud decides to take his boat out alone, despite a fast approaching storm. After he's injured in a boating accident, he begins to reflect on his life and love. Meanwhile, Carolina has had a premonition and spends her day reminiscing about her marriage and analyzing the missteps. Although the story is a frank and easy to relate to look at a long-term marriage, some maudlin passages and uninspired thematic work can make it feel borrowed from a Lifetime movie. (July)

This reworked and streamlined version of Goytisolo's 1975 novel spins the reader through an angry, prickly catalogue of Spanish colonialism and slavery. Goytisolo writes in wildly run-on sentences (colons are heavily used), offering an exhaustive litany of evils, beginning with a Cuban sugar plantation where “little Adelaida plays the violin and an inspired young Master Jorge melodramatically thuds the ivories... the little mulatto absorbed in his cameo role as a cherub tirelessly fends off flies.” Gradually it becomes clear that the “you” addressed here is a descendant of the slaves of this sugar plantation. In exile from the despised mother country, “you” searches for refuge in a teeming world, traveling from North African souks to Manhattan, where, “inspired by King Kong's grandiose majesty, you now sing of the abominable, the aberrant, and the illicit.” The narrative ruptures into parodies of medieval Latinate and segues into a blistering attack on authoritarianism and the cult of personality (read: Franco). In the end, transformation is only achieved through the derangement of language: hats off to Bush for a striking translation. (July)

A divorcée is handed a swath of Gulf Coast Florida real estate in Richards's slow if involving latest. After Tracy Deloche's ex-husband lands in federal prison, she takes control of his Happiness Key development, which consists mostly of a handful of ramshackle cottages. Her tenants—Wanda Gray, Janya Kapur, Alice Brooks and Herb Krause—are misfits, but when Herb dies, Tracy goes on a quest to find his family that ends up forcing her to bond with her tenants in ways she never thought possible. In the meantime, the mismatched crew learns that in helping each other, they are really helping themselves. This quintessential beach read is full of intrigue, romance, comedy and a splash of mystery, and while it could be shorter and faster paced, the women at its center—and the problems they face—are fully believable. They deserve a better plot. (July)

In Ansay's slight new novel, Jeanette Hochmann is a recently divorced mother writing a novel based on the 40-year relationship between 19th-century German pianist Clara Schumann and her husband's protégé, composer Johannes Brahms. Through a dating service, Jeanette meets a German entrepreneur, Hart, and while they appear to have little in common, Hart's 16-year-old daughter—like Jeannette in her youth—is a budding musical prodigy, who lives in Leipzig near the former residence of the subject of Jeanette's book. Although Jeanette and Hart attempt to have a platonic friendship, it quickly (and predictably) evolves into more, and their lives begin to overlap with the characters of Jeanette's novel. The story is most compelling when examining the fascinating bond between the 19th-century musicians. Less compelling are the pages devoted to navigating the more mundane contemporary world of dating and Starbucks coffee runs. While the photographs, sketches and letters interspersed throughout the book provide interest and help to elevate the material, in the end, Ansay's novel feels piddling and ordinary. We know exactly where Hart and Jeanette's relationship is going, and as a result, it's a strain to get there. (July)

In his first novel, writer and television producer Wellen (author of the memoir Barman) presents an uncommon love story; having already won the heart of his dream girl, college dropout Andy Altman now faces the hard part, winning the blessing of her crotchety father, Gregory Day, who also happens to be Andy's boss. After moving back to his hometown, Andy takes a job at the pharmacy and finds a great mentor in Gregory, the old pharmacist, until Gregory finds out that Andy's dating his daughter, Paige. Wellen balances a wacky plot about an illicit senior citizen drug ring with heartfelt coming-of-age storytelling and complicated family drama. Andy is endearingly dorky (charts and drawings of his amateur inventions are scattered throughout), and his close-to-cloying romance with Paige is saved by realistic roadblocks. A mid-book twist takes the story down an unexpectedly melancholy path, but Wellen pulls off a satisfying romantic conclusion. Part mystery, part romance and part screwball comedy, this novel keeps its varied elements from spinning out of control with a fresh, confident voice. (July)

An expert thief unexpectedly finds himself aiding his victims in Dicks's charming if rambling debut. During his hours off, barista Martin Railsback burgles the houses of folks he calls his “clients,” taking only what they won't notice is missing: for instance, “three boxes of long grain rice... two rolls of toilet paper (in Martin's estimation, the Gallos had excellent taste in toilet paper), three cups of olive oil” and, on occasion, something really valuable. The system works beautifully until the day Martin drops a client's toothbrush into the toilet and feels compelled to replace it. This act of simple decency sets him on an entirely different course, and pretty soon he's breaking into houses to improve the lives of their occupants. Martin's own life starts looking up, too, with the possibility of romance and a new avocation, but the specter of real peril looms. Dicks struggles with digression and repetition—Martin's obsessive allegiance to the rules of his pastime becomes exasperating—but he's created a winning hero in Martin, a crook with a heart of gold. (July)

In the first of Swedish novelist Ekman's trilogy, a young urban midwife moves to the remote Svartattnet, where she struggles to understand the culture of the Sami Lapp reindeer herders. Narrator Risten introduces readers to her adoptive mother, Hillevi Klarin, who grew up with Hillevi's aunt and uncle. Though the aunt considers Hillevi's passion for midwifery to be a career beneath her, Hillevi leaves Uppsala in 1916 and moves to the northern wilderness. One night, Hillevi is summoned to the isolated village of Lubben to deliver a baby she suspects is the result of abuse. When she arrives, she realizes she is in over her head. When Elis, a boy from Lubben, follows Hillevi back to her home, he sets in motion an unexpected chain of events that will haunt her for years. Hillevi also struggles to fit into the tight-knit Lapp community and begins to understand the difficulties of being an outsider. Ekman (A City of Light) describes everything with an unflinching eye, from tuberculosis to the particulars of sex and birth, and the harsh beauty of the Swedish landscape. (July)

Like her first novel, Mosquito, Tearne's initially engrossing newest is rooted in strife-torn 20th-century Ceylon/Sri Lanka. This time she tackles a three-generation family saga, the island's independence from Britain and subsequent civil war, with mixed results. By 1939, Aloysius de Silva has gambled away most of wife Grace's inherited wealth, and his recklessness has far-reaching consequences. The appropriately named Grace sits at the heart of the story; equally clear-minded and romantic, she has her hands full with her children: Jacob and Christopher's aspirations are snuffed out by the financial losses; Thornton relies on charm and a winning smile; Alicia is a gifted pianist with big dreams; and quiet Frieda struggles to find an identity for herself in her vivacious family. Later comes Savitha, who marries Thornton and captures Grace's heart. There's much love in this family, and much tragedy around them, but by the time Thornton, Savitha and their daughter, Meeka, follow Thornton's brothers to the U.K., the story becomes a less inspired immigrant story. Tearne describes the beauty and devastation of Sri Lanka with passion and insight, but things quickly get dull in the U.K. (July)

The dozen lyrically descriptive stories in this eclectic collection by Lebanese-born poet and novelist Adnan range over a startling period of time and place, from 1930s Beirut through early '60s San Francisco to the first Gulf War. In the title story, the narrator meets the poet Buland in Italy, just as “the bombs are falling mercilessly on Iraq.” Buland recounts his abject life story, especially his harrowing guilt in having loved the generous and larger-than-life Saddam Hussein. In “The Power of Death,” a similarly haunted poet, Wassef, asks the narrator, based in Paris, to meet him in Stockholm, where he is literally losing his mind from grief over the death of a woman he had loved and left many years before. The first-person narrator in the wise, reflective story “First Passion” summons her enduring affection for a girlhood friend as a way of recapturing her richly textured life—and fending off death. Nostalgic and meanderingly autobiographical, these powerful emotional tales seem almost magically wrought, offering a flavor of the author's own vast experience and travels. (July)

At the start of this middling thriller, the first in a new series from Walker (PSI: Blue), Marcus Rydell, a disgraced ex-cop and failed PI on the verge of suicide, and Kat Holley, an attractive doctor bent on revenge, join forces to catch a psychopathic killer. Iden Cantu, four years earlier, slew six people in an Atlanta bloodbath, including Rydell's then police partner and Holley's cop husband. Cantu, who's made a game of stalking and killing the surviving relatives from the bloodbath, never becomes more than an unseen bogeyman until late in the story, when Rydell, Holley and another at-risk family seek refuge in a remote cabin in Georgia's Blue Ridge Lake area. Besieged and taunted by Cantu, Rydell and Holley seek to turn the tables on the sadistic hunter. The climactic struggle arrives too late to save the cumbersome setup and slow-developing plot. Leaden dialogue doesn't help. (July)

Anybody who can make the apocalypse funny without being patronizing deserves attention. Stennett (The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher) brings a dramatist's sensibility (his professional background is theater) to this story of a “test market for the rapture”: Goodland, Kan., home not of everyman but the Henderson family, whose members include fifth-grader Will. Lost in a cornfield, Will receives a vision of three signs of the rapture, a time when, according to Christian teaching, true believers will be lifted from the world before it dissolves in chaos and tribulation. That teaching was the basis for the gazillion-selling Left Behind apocalyptic novels. Stennett offers the apocalypse for the wry and non-literal-minded. Parables may be old-fashioned, but satire fits the times. Stennett's imaginative twist is not entirely successful; sometimes the narrative drags as it presents widely varying viewpoints. But the family at the heart of this satire is goofily believable, and examining the nature of belief—whatever its content—is not at all goofy. (July)

Zuckerman's uneven debut, the first in a possible series of political thrillers, starts off with an intriguing premise. In 1938, the Sentinels, a group of six economics doctoral students at the University of California, Berkeley, claim to have discovered “a pattern that explains and can even predict repeating cycles of the rise and fall of world powers.” In particular, the Sentinels assert that German industrialists are pushing Europe into war. They propose a watchdog organization “to eradicate these cancers when lower-level means can still be used effectively.” Of course, it's too late for anyone to stop WWII. Once the bad guys learn of our heroes' intentions, they seek to forestall the Sentinels in a plot full of predictable abduction and rescue sequences. Tepid romantic subplots and cardboard lead characters don't help. (July)

Bestseller Evanovich recycles tired themes better executed in earlier adventures in her latest Stephanie Plum adventure (Fearless Fourteen, etc.). When Lula inadvertently witnesses the beheading of culinary TV star Stanley Chipotle in a Trenton, N.J., alley, Stephanie's on-again off-again boyfriend, cop Joe Morelli, reluctantly takes the case. Lula, with the help of Grandma Mazur, enters the same barbequing competition Chipotle was in town to promote, hoping to lure the murderers out of hiding. Meanwhile, Ranger has recruited Stephanie to help solve a series of break-ins at properties under the protection of Rangeman Security. The inevitable sparks fly between Stephanie and Ranger, with Morelli grumbling on the sidelines. Evanovich dishes up her usual mixture of shoot-'em-up action (numerous cars explode) and quirky characters (notably a neighborhood flasher with a devoted following), but the lackluster plot will disappoint fans. (June 23)

Set in Cambridge and Marblehead, Mass., Howe's propulsive if derivative novel alternates between the 1991 story of college student Connie Goodwin and a group of 17th-century outcasts. After moving into her grandmother's crumbling house to get it in shape for sale, Connie comes across a small key and piece of paper reading only “Deliverance Dane.” The Salem witch trials, contemporary Wicca and women's roles in early American history figure prominently as Connie does her academic detective work. What follows is a breezy read in which Connie must uncover the mystery of a shadowy book written by the enigmatic Deliverance Dane. During Connie's investigation, she relies on a handsome steeplejack for romance and her mother and an expert on American colonial history for clues and support. While the twisty plot and Howe's habit of ending chapters with cliffhangers are straight out of the thriller playbook, the writing is solid overall, and Howe's depiction of early American life and the witch trials should appeal to readers who enjoyed The Heretic's Daughter. The witchcraft angle and frenetic pacing beg for a screen adaptation. (June)

The winning first in a new WWI series from the bestselling mother-son Todds (A Matter of Justice and 10 other Inspector Rutledge mysteries) introduces Bess Crawford, a resourceful British army nurse who's injured when her ship is sunk in 1916. While convalescing in England, Bess is tormented because she's put off delivering a message from Arthur Graham, a dying soldier under her care for whom she'd developed strong feelings, to his family. Her own brush with death prompts her to travel to Kent and transmit Arthur's cryptic last words to one of his three brothers. Bess becomes further enmeshed in the family's affairs after she learns the obscure message may relate to Graham's half-brother, Peregrine, who was committed to a local asylum for a girl's murder years before. The more Bess seeks to sate her curiosity, the more she suspects that the truth about the murder was suppressed. Fans of independent women sleuths like Maisie Dobbs will welcome this new addition to their ranks. (Sept.)

The sudden, violent death of a British memsahib launches this pleasing prequel to the long-running Inspector Ghote series (Breaking and Entering, etc.) from CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger–winner Keating. Newly minted police inspector Ghote is summoned by Sir Rustom Engineer, the former Bombay police commissioner, to find out why the pregnant Iris Dawkins, who seemed the epitome of the contented young housewife, would shoot herself at the hill station of Mahableshwar. In uncovering the often sad facts of Dawkins's background, Ghote delicately navigates the minefields of touchy British officials, jealous and stupid subordinates, and frightened and obstructive servants while worrying about the impending arrival of his first child back home. Although the solution to Dawkins's death may not surprise many readers, loyal fans will welcome the return of the compassionate Indian investigator with the earnest determination to see right done. (Aug.)

After the brilliant triumph of 2008's Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk, Akunin's third and final Sister Pelagia mystery disappoints, in part because the 19th-century nun has little opportunity to display her deductive skills. Pelagia's use of her intellectual gifts for crime-solving draws the censure of St. Petersburg's Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, who believes she may be unfit to continue to wear the veil. Later, when someone bashes in the head of Manuila, the messianic leader of a rogue Jewish sect, aboard a steamboat on which Pelagia happens to be a passenger, her observations prove useful to the investigating officer. After several attempts on her life, she's shipped off to Palestine, where she continues to look for the truth behind Manuila's murder. In Palestine, she fends off a number of suitors, behaving less like a woman of faith with insights into human nature than a damsel in distress. (Aug.)

In O'Brien's exciting eighth Anne Cartier mystery (after 2008's Assassins' Rage), Anne learns while visiting London in the fall of 1789 that her well-to-do deaf friend, Janice Parker, was almost killed by a large stone that fell off a scaffold. Anne travels to Bath, the residence of Janice's uncle and guardian, Thomas Parker, to help Janice and also keep tabs on Parker as well as his half-brother, Capt. Seth Judd, both of whom have their eyes on Janice's fortune. As Anne tries to find evidence to implicate those behind what she comes to believe was an attempt on Janice's life, she must navigate both the legal and criminal worlds of Bath, Bristol and London, all while defying the period's social expectations for her gender. Despite the extensive cast of characters, the author manages to make each one lively and memorable. History enthusiasts will especially appreciate the careful research that O'Brien manages to seamlessly weave throughout the plot. (Aug.)

Set in 1835, the superb sequel to Pepper's The Last Days of Newgate (Reviews, May 18) finds Pyke, a former Bow Street Runner, turned semirespectable London banker. Tory leader Robert Peel asks Pyke to look into the murder of an unidentified, beheaded corpse at a time when a radical organizer calling himself Captain Paine is fomenting unrest among the working classes. Pyke's probe reveals a possible connection between the killing and the machinations of a railroad magnate, Edward James Morris, who seeks to derail a competitor. After Morris dies, evidence that Pyke made a substantial loan to Morris disappears, leaving Pyke under suspicion of fraud. Unusually for a historical, this mystery portrays brutal scenes of merciless violence, including some dished out by Pyke himself, more typical of hard-boiled PI yarns. Pepper's successful planting of diverse narrative threads—and making them all bear fruit—marks him as an author to watch. (July)

A rock solid plot and an intriguing backstory lift British author Shaw's fourth historical to feature Cambridge amateur sleuth Vanessa Weatherburn (after 2008's The Library Paradox). In the summer of 1898, Vanessa, now blessed with a baby boy and a supportive husband, looks into the death of a beautiful young woman found floating Ophelia-like in the river Cam. Actress Ivy Elliott, as she's later identified, proves to have been a victim of foul play. When a married gentleman admits to a dalliance with Elliott, Vanessa determines to see the case through. She attends a séance and poses as a single woman of easy virtue, walking a fine line between her traditional mores and whatever is necessary to ferret out a killer. After drawing some very wrong conclusions, Vanessa discovers that goodness and love can be found in the most unexpected of places. A number of real-life notables, in particular radio developer Guglielmo Marconi, play supporting roles. (July)

“Nothing ever goes the way I plan,” laments Otah, long-suffering emperor of the Khaiem, concisely summarizing Abraham's melancholy and near-perfect conclusion to the Long Price Quartet. Fifteen years after the disaster that led to the sterilization of all Khaiem women and Galtish men in 2008's An Autumn War, Otah seeks an alliance between the two long-warring nations in hopes of there being a next generation, while former poet Maati tries to teach young women to summon andat, beings that embody and control concepts. Maati's student Vanjit harnesses the andat Clarity-of-Sight, but war trauma transforms her from possible savior into deranged dictator. Abraham shies away from the blood and swashbuckling of the previous novels, instead telling a tale of forgiveness and catharsis that concludes this complex saga with mixed notes of sadness and hope. (July)

Lake (Green) and Reynolds (Return to Luna) present 21 tales of “non-human archaeologists” finding our traces on the lunar surface. The too-specific premise leads a diverse array of authors to create surprisingly similar stories; Jody Sherry's “All Things Divine” and Kate Kelly's “The Last Traces” independently present aliens too proud to tolerate evidence of previous civilizations, while J. Michael Shell, Eric Choi and David L. Clements offer benevolent invaders who resurrect humanity. The anthology is also marred by Alastair Mayer's trite moralizing about the need for a space program in “Snowball,” aliens with implausibly human motives in G.D. Falksen's “In the Footsteps of Giants” and technical errors such as A.D. Guzman's suggestion in “Ghosts” that galaxies have asteroid belts. The overall feel is one of failed promise. (July)

Veteran editor Dozois, 15-time Hugo winner, offers 30 stories, several of them Hugo-nominated. The table of contents is dominated by familiar names like Michael Swanwick and Greg Egan, but occasionally leavened with relative newcomers like Hannu Rajaniemi and more obscure authors like James Alan Gardner. Settings range from the present-day (Nancy Kress's “The Erdmann Nexus”) to the distant future (Ian McDonald's “The Tear”) and alternate history (Aliete de Bodard's “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn”). Similarly the moods range from relatively upbeat (Dominic Green's “Shining Armour”) to pessimistic (Swanwick's “From Babel's Fallen Glory We Fled”). In some entries the SF elements appear to be almost an afterthought, but most earn their inclusion. Dozois also provides short biographies, a detailed overview of the year in SF and a lengthy list of honorable mentions. This is a worthy addition to a venerable series. (July)

Barker (Renfield) shifts from horror to SF with this energetic and engrossing thrill ride. Recovering addict Helios makes his meager living selling ancient artifacts scavenged from the surface of Mars. Several disreputable criminals barge into his office one day, demanding he sell them the titular sphere, which he knows nothing about. Helios quickly finds himself on the run from both his clients and the law when his partner, Barabbas, is found knifed in the throat. Barker's well-crafted world absorbs and fascinates, populated by intriguing new races and the ominous Combine, a massive central processor that links together and eventually overshadows human minds. The plot is sometimes predictable, and overeager info-dumping from minor characters ties loose ends together a bit too aggressively, but the deft pacing and Helios's genuinely good nature are compelling to the end. (July)

Music professor Brady launches into her romantic suspense debut with a woman's torture-murder at the hands of clever but crazy serial killer Chevy Bankes. Using the dead woman's phone, he calls Beth Denison, who is haunted by seven years of secrets and terror, and threatens Beth's daughter, Abby. As Bankes continues roaming the Seattle area and torturing women to death, Neil Sheridan, a burned-out ex-FBI agent, joins the investigation through a connection to one of Bankes's earlier murders. Beth and Neil share emotional damage and attraction, revealing their secrets at a lugubrious pace. Their mutual unmasking parallels the desperate dig for clues, but as they race to find Bankes, he invades Beth's home to lie in wait. Snappy dialogue, good police procedural details and twisty psychology create white-hot tension that thriller fans will love, overwhelming the slow, bare-bones romance. (July)

Like Alaskan bush pilot Cort McClain's Cessna heading down the runway, this thrilling entry into romantic suspense from romance author Rowe (Must Love Dragons) starts slowly but soon picks up speed. A mysterious caller tells Kaylie Fletcher that her mother survived the mountain-climbing accident that supposedly killed her entire family. Adventure-phobic Kaylie packs her jewelry, silk blouses and outdoor gear and heads north. Cort, hired to fly Kaylie to her friend Sara's cabin, wants nothing to do with another city-slicker woman like his ex-wife, and Kaylie thinks Cort's “an adrenaline junkie bound for an ugly death,” but they can't resist each other. When they find their two best friends brutally murdered, Cort realizes only he can keep Kaylie safe from a psychotic killer. The opening chapters and later sex scenes suffer from turgid, overly florid prose, but Rowe comes through with crackling tension as the killer closes in. (July)

Set in 14th-century southern Scotland, this langorous series opener features a plucky heroine and an obstinate but caring leading man. Lady Jenny Easdale sneaks away with a group of traveling minstrels to have a final adventure before her wedding. When her betrothed's brother, Sir Hugh Douglas, catches up to her, they discover a plot involving stolen jewelry as well as a passion for each other that cannot be ignored. Hugh's efforts to control the headstrong Jenny are amusing, though at times her naïveté is more annoying than charming. Scott (Border Moonlight) creates a lovely, complex cast of secondary characters and has a deft touch with thorny period language, but when the jewelry theft conspiracy is resolved as quickly as Jenny's robe is removed, it's hard to justify the long buildup. (July)

Shaw (A Rare Groove) sets this contemporary romance in upper-middle-class San Diego, where software sales director Monique Evans, fresh out of a three-year relationship with a married man, fills time by playing basketball on a team captained by Tao Samuels, ex-navy SEAL turned security consultant. Tao's usual equilibrium is disturbed by Monique's beauty and grit. When they hook up, Monique specifies three rules: keep it casual, no romantic notions, sexual exclusivity. Tao adds a fourth rule—honesty—that they both find hard to hold to. Shaw's ability to sketch a community is a real strength, and though her richly interwoven characters are too prone to impersonal talk-show truisms like “Women have a false image of relationships and love,” her fans will enjoy watching Monique and Tao navigate the tricky waters of rumor and trust. (July)

As a visual representation of ADHD, this is a masterpiece. Sonoda's fashion manga consists of more than 100 short gags and strips with the barest narrative thread tying them together. Choco and Mimi are eighth graders and true BFFs; they are also perfect story opposites, the former mature, the latter impetuous and silly. The only other character of any real import is Ando, the rakish boy who appears from time to time to Choco's delight. Most of the stories are no more than four panels long; occasionally they spill over into subsequent strips, only to be interrupted by half-page “Fashion Notes,” obsessive breakdowns of what the girls are wearing. It's all very whimsical and overly cute; it ends with several pages of clothing and hair tips, plus cut-out instructions on how to make a pirate bear. The book's razor-sharp focus will make it a dream come true for one very specific demographic—preteen girls, especially those with a love for J-culture—and make it of utterly no interest to anyone else. (July)

Extremely beautiful, scary and wonderful, this Web comic takes readers to a pair of almost familiar, frequently threatening worlds. We first journey back in time to Mississippi, 1933, where a black sharecropper's daughter, Lee Wagstaff, is learning how to be strong in a segregated society. While Lee and her white friend, Lily, are playing near the bayou where black victims of racial violence are thrown, Lily is abducted by a monster—but Lee's father is blamed. To save him from a lynch mob by rescuing her friend, Lee enters the parallel universe of Dixie, where Southern folklore comes to life in disturbing echoes of our world. There she meets the eponymous character, a hulking creature living alone in a shack, troubled by disturbing memories and threatened by hateful embodiments of the South's violent past. When Lee convinces Bayou that he doesn't have to remain a victim, the two of them set off on a joint quest for understanding and redemption. Love's script and art, laid out in big blocks like Sunday comics, are lovely and eloquent; Morgan's coloring fills the panels with hazy sunlight and menacing darkness. (June)

In a book that bills itself as both illuminated manuscript and hero's journey, we see a writer/mother whose craft has slipped away from her as her two children have taken over her life. The story is written in prose with black and white drawings accompanying the text, and it grew out of Chaison's zine, Hausfrau Muthuh-zine The author tells her tale with high-spirited energy, drawing on multiple sources in order to portray her journey through motherhood and back into writing. This is no dreary maternal tale; it's a journey every bit as adventurous, thrilling and pitfall-laden as any male hero's. Faithful to her influences, Chaison's chapter headings include quotes from Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, while each page of text is bordered by cartoon illustrations with dialogue. This technique is enjoyable but suffers when the illustrations serve not, in fact, to illuminate the text but merely to repeat it. While fitting to the subject of motherhood, this style's run-on sentences, footnotes and constant references to books, films and pop culture icons can weigh down the story, while the constant stream of self-deprecation and cutesy language sometimes undercuts the wonderful foundation of motherhood as hero's journey. (June)

Sometimes less is more. Although only 80 pages long, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910 is a spectacular return to form for Moore's critically acclaimed adventure series about a turn of the century superteam made up of characters from pulp/genre literature both famed and obscure. This time out, Captain Nemo's daughter, Janni, angrily refuses to become his successor and leaves for London and a new life, only to walk straight into the plot of Three Penny Opera. While Mina Harker investigates Mac the Knife's killing spree and a mysterious prophecy—less than ably assisted by the incompetent and sexist current group of Extraordinary Gentlemen—Janni rises triumphantly as the Pirate Jenny of song and story, more terrifying in Nemo's mantle than her father ever was. Moore's writing sparkles as he weaves Brechtian lyrics into a sharp, tightly paced story, and O'Neill's sardonic stylized art captures the spirit of the tale and the era perfectly. It's a romp for comics and literature fans alike. (May)

Allen finds his groove for this second annual anthology of weird stories, selecting 16 wonderfully evocative, well-written tales. Marie Brennan's thought-provoking “Once a Goddess” considers the fate of a goddess abruptly returned to mortality. Tanith Lee puts a stunning twist in the story of a morose prince in “The Pain of Glass.” Mary Robinette Kowal's “At the Edge of Dying” describes a world where magic comes only to those at death's door. In “Hooves and the Hovelof Abdel Jameela,” Saladin Ahmed tellsof a small village on the edge of a desert, a hermit and a woman who may be a witch. Each story fits neatly alongside the next, and the diversity of topics, perspectives and authors makes this cosmopolitan anthology a winner. (July)

This solid follow-up anthology to 2007's The New Space Opera includes 19 new stories that show how far space opera has come since its pulp beginnings in the '30s and '40s. These entertaining and provocative tales of interstellar adventure, written by a laundry list of genre heavyweights, range from Mike Resnick's “Catastrophe Baker and a Canticle for Leibowitz,” a campy misadventure that follows a larger-than-life freelance hero on his quest to regain a musical theater producer's lost song, to John Meaney's “From the Heart,” set in his Nulapeiron universe, which revolves around spy Carl Blackstone and an unlikely—and surprisingly poignant—love story at the galactic core. The impressive diversity of stories reaffirms that space opera is alive and well, and where some of the genre's most innovative writing is taking place. (July)