Fiction Reviews: 8/17/2009

In his latest, Auster is in classic form, perhaps too perfectly satisfying the contention of his wearied protagonist: “there is far more poetry in the world than justice.” Adam Walker, a poetry student at Columbia in the spring of 1967, is Auster's latest everyman, revealed in four parts through the diary entries of a onetime admirer, the confessions of his once-close friend, the denials of his sister and Walker's own self-made frame. With crisp, taut prose, Auster pushes the tension and his characters' peculiar self-awareness to their limits, giving Walker a fractured, knowing quality that doesn't always hold. The best moments from Walker's disparate, disturbing coming-of-age come in lush passages detailing Walker's conflicted, incestuous love life (paramount to his “education as a human being,” but a violation of his self-made promise to live “as an ethical human being”). As the plot moves toward a Heart of Darkness–style journey into madness, the limits of Auster's formalism become more apparent, but this study of a young poet doomed to life as a manifestation of poetry carries startling weight. (Nov.)

Munro's latest collection is satisfyingly true to form and demonstrates why she continues to garner laurels (such as this year's Man Booker International Prize). Through carefully crafted situations, Munro breathes arresting life into her characters, their relationships and their traumas. In “Wenlock Edge,” a college student in London, Ontario, acquires a curious roommate in Nina, who tricks the narrator into a revealing dinner date with Nina's paramour, the significantly older Mr. Purvis. “Child's Play,” a dark story about children's capacity for cruelty and the longevity of their secrets, introduces two summer camp friends, Marlene and Charlene, who form a pact against the slightly disturbing Verna, whose family used to share Marlene's duplex. The title, and final, story, the collection's longest and most ambitious, takes the reader to 19th-century Europe to meet Sophia Kovalevski, a talented mathematician and novelist who grapples with the politics of the age and the consequences of success. While this story lacks some of the effortlessness found in Munro's finest work, the collection delivers what she's renowned for: poignancy, flesh and blood characters and a style nothing short of elegant. (Nov.)

Bestseller Parker makes producing snappy banter look easy in his 37th Spenser novel (after Rough Weather). He also manages to draw new readers into the Boston PI's major personal relationships—with love interest Susan Silverman and friend/ally/bodyguard Hawk—without shoveling on the backstory. Spenser agrees to help a quartet of married women fend off extortion demands from stud Gary Eisenhower, with whom each has had an affair. Meanwhile, the husband of one of the women under blackmail threat hires some thugs to deal with the matter. The action takes its time getting to a dead body, but, as usual, the smooth, entertaining prose more than compensates for any deficiencies of plot. The absence of major personal developments for Spenser or his associates marks this as a less memorable entry than others in this iconic series, but it remains a solid, enjoyable contemporary detective novel. (Oct.)

The vivid portrait of 21st-century Thailand in part redeems the meandering plot of Burdett's fourth thriller to feature corrupt Bangkok police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep (after Bangkok Haunts). Jitpleecheep, a marijuana-smoking Buddhist whose marriage collapsed after his young son's death, investigates the peculiar murder of Frank Charles, a Hollywood director who regularly visited Thailand to sample the sexual delights offered by its young women. Someone disemboweled Charles, then cut his skull open and dined on his brains. Among the victim's books at the crime scene are The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Too much musing on spiritual awakenings and Tibetan philosophy as well as commentary on mundane details of daily life distract from the search for Charles's killer and a related subplot involving the heroin-smuggling operation controlled by Jitpleecheep's boss, Colonel Vikorn. Hopefully, Burdett will regain his usual narrative snap next time. (Oct.)

When Det. Insp. Thorne receives an anonymous text message with a blurry photograph of a dead man, Thorne wonders if someone is playing a macabre trick in Billingham's outstanding seventh novel to feature the London policeman (after 2007's Buried). But when another, similar photo arrives, Thorne knows it's something much worse. Both victims are identified as members of the Black Dogs, a notorious biker gang, and fingerprints point to Marcus Brooks, recently paroled after serving time for allegedly killing the Black Dogs' leader. Brooks claims he was framed for the gang leader's murder; a few weeks before his release, Brooks's girlfriend and son are killed in a suspicious hit-and-run. Now Thorne fears that Brooks is out for revenge, targeting both the gang that landed him in prison and the bent coppers who may be behind it all. Billingham continues to enrich Thorne's world by introducing new villains and by highlighting connections to old cases and older wounds. (Oct.)

Ben Kincaid is back in Tulsa, Okla., after finishing a term as an appointed U.S. senator at the start of Bernhardt's solid 17th thriller to feature the humane, principled lawyer (after Capitol Conspiracy). Dr. Joslyn Thomas spends seven days trapped in the wreckage of her car after a terrible accident before dying. During this period, her frantic professor husband, Dennis, tries to persuade police detective Chris Sentz to open a missing person case, but, inexplicably, Sentz resists until Joslyn is dead. Later, Dennis goes to a hotel where Sentz is conducting an undercover sting operation and shoots—or maybe doesn't shoot—the detective. Ben has a political campaign to plan, but since he's always a soft touch for impossible legal cases, he's easily talked into defending Dennis against a murder charge. Series fans will be happy with the legal and romantic byplay, but those who expect a complete resolution to the case will be disappointed. (Oct.)

In Patton's plucky debut, naïve daddy's girl Leelee Satterfield acquiesces yet again to her spoiled husband, Baker, who wants to move the family of four from Leelee's beloved Memphis to middle-of-nowhere Vermont to buy and run an inn. Leelee grudgingly agrees to keep the inn as is for a year while the former owners, less-than-personable German siblings Helga and Rolf Schloygin, dictate how the delicate Southern belle should run her home and the business. Though readers will initially agree with Helga's stern pointers, they will inevitably adore Leelee as she weathers each storm, gaining backbone while simultaneously shedding the helpless princess persona. Her transformation is (of course) accomplished with the aid of boisterous best friends, unlikely new allies and a heaping helping of girl power. The author is none-too-subtle about the changes (Leelee, for instance, “never, ever would have had the nerve to say any of the things I did if Daddy were still alive”), and, though owing heavily to formula, Patton's novel delivers on its feel-good moments and inspiring fantasies of finally making it on your own. (Oct.)

In Arsenault's quirky, arresting debut, two young lexicographers find clues to an old murder case hidden in the files at their dictionary company. Billy, the narrator, is a “strapping” recent grad with a football player's physique, a penchant for philosophy and a painful chapter in his past that he hasn't quite closed. Mona is a girls' college grad with an ambivalent relationship to her stepfather's wealth and a habit of falling for older, wiser men. The two are drawn together by tantalizing clues left—they assume by a former employee—in the company's citation files. As Billy and Mona spend more and more time hunched over the mysterious “cits” from a book called The Broken Teaglass, they realize the murder may involve colleagues and acquaintances who are still roaming around the office, and Billy struggles to overcome the challenges of entering the adult world and leaving his old life behind. The result is an absorbing, offbeat mystery–meets–coming-of-age novel that's as sweet as it is suspenseful. (Oct.)

Henry VIII's challenge to the church's power with his desire to divorce his queen and marry Anne Boleyn set off a tidal wave of religious, political and societal turmoil that reverberated throughout 16th-century Europe. Mantel boldly attempts to capture the sweeping internecine machinations of the times from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, the lowborn man who became one of Henry's closest advisers. Cromwell's actual beginnings are historically ambiguous, and Mantel admirably fills in the blanks, portraying Cromwell as an oft-beaten son who fled his father's home, fought for the French, studied law and was fluent in French, Latin and Italian. Mixing fiction with fact, Mantel captures the atmosphere of the times and brings to life the important players: Henry VIII; his wife, Katherine of Aragon; the bewitching Boleyn sisters; and the difficult Thomas More, who opposes the king. Unfortunately, Mantel also includes a distracting abundance of dizzying detail and Henry's all too voluminous political defeats and triumphs, which overshadows the more winning story of Cromwell and his influence on the events that led to the creation of the Church of England. (Oct.)

In this ambitious debut, the narration alternates between Satomi, a Japanese girl pushed by her mother to make her mark on the world, and Rumi, Satomi's American daughter who grows up in the mid-late 1960s believing her mother is dead. The novel is strongest at the beginning, as Satomi tells of her postwar childhood in a small Japanese village, the only girl without a father and the only girl with a talent: she is going to be a world-famous concert pianist. After her mother remarries, Satomi goes away to music school and, later, to Paris to perfect her craft. In Paris and back in Japan, Satomi falls in with the Western antique dealers who will eventually take her to the United States after her mother dies. The second half switches between the stories of Satomi and Rumi, who develops a skill at “reading” Asian antiques and begins to wonder about her mother when an old friend of her parents re-enters her life. Rumi's quest to unravel her tricky family history is absorbing, and even if it lacks the simple beauty of Satomi's coming-of-age narrative, Mockett succeeds where many others fail: making the reader care. (Oct.)

Mewshaw (Year of the Gun) tackles a dysfunctional Irish-American family in an emotional novel narrated by the three adult children: 60-year-old Candy, who reluctantly cares for their manipulative and gravely ill mother; the Asperger's-afflicted former convict, Maury, who went to jail at 13 for killing their father; and the successful, London-based actor Quinn. As they are called to mom's bedside, the nonlinear story travels back to the origins of this “radioactive” family, dredging up dark secrets. Candy, who contracted polio as a child and endured her mother's physical and verbal abuse, wants to marry and move to North Carolina. Maury is dealing with Asperger's syndrome, which renders him intolerant of people touching him; and Quinn, despite his success, is haunted by his familial past. The three jaded yet sympathetic voices of the siblings are darkly expressive, supplying unnerving comic moments and unexpected twists. Mewshaw waxes poetic throughout while keeping the story moving forward to its shocking conclusion. (Oct.)

While writers as far back as Poe have crafted crime stories centered on a narrator with a guilty conscience, few have done so as subtly as Kettenbach in this novel of psychological suspense. Seven years earlier, while visiting Tbilisi, Georgia, “senior schoolteacher” Christian Kestner nearly seduced the attractive wife of publishing agent David Ninoshvili. Now Ninoshvili writes Kestner to announce his impending arrival in Germany to attempt to get his country's literature published in translation, reawakening Kestner's fears that the Georgian found out he was nearly cuckolded and is plotting revenge. Ninoshvili soon insinuates himself into the Kestner household, which includes Kestner's attorney wife, Julia, and their loutish son, Ralf, who has unsettling associations with right-wingers. Action junkies may find the pacing slow, but others will appreciate the patient, deliberate unfolding of the plot. (Oct.)

Some readers may find the jaunty, jokey voice of 28-year-old naturalist Charlie Doig, the narrator of Fleming's turgid sequel to White Blood (2008), at odds with his graphic accounts of atrocities in 1917 Russia. Others, perhaps fans of the James Bond books of the author's uncle, Ian Fleming, will overlook the mismatch between tone and content. Early on, Doig comments, “I'd had a beetle named after me, catalogued the passerines of Central Asia, survived typhus, had my only family members slain by the Bolsheviks—and been compelled to shoot my wife. If that isn't learning the hard way, I don't know what is.” Forced to put his wife out of her misery after a Bolshevik fiend raped and tortured her, Doig sets out on a quest for vengeance. A scheme to steal 690 tons of gold thickens the plot. The late George Macdonald Fraser did a far better job of combining a realistic historical backdrop with sex and violence (and humor) in his Flashman series. (Oct.)

Malott follows several characters negotiating the searing and scarring effects of war in his trenchant debut. In 1995, Chinese-American Lian Zhao travels to Sarajevo looking for her lover, Gray Banick, an American journalist who has disappeared. She's helped by Jack MacKenzie, Gray's mentor, and Emil Todorovic, Gray's interpreter. Malott explores each character, opening their lives to expose the wounds the war has inflicted upon them. While the novel does include its share of wrenching battle scenes, its emotional center comes from more nuanced themes: the friendship between Gray, Jack and Emil; Gray and Jack's addiction to war journalism; the hopelessness of Lian's loveless marriage; Jack's nihilistic attitude after being surrounded by death for so long. This could easily have been a clichéd war diary, but Malott avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality, providing a refreshingly clear-eyed evocation of friendship, love and loss. (Oct.)

Anthony-finalist Hellmann's taut second novel of suspense to feature Chicago PI Georgia Davis (after Easy Innocence) teams Davis with video producer Ellie Foreman, the heroine of the author's other series (A Shot to Die for, etc.). When eight-year-old Molly Messenger is apparently kidnapped, a family friend turns to Ellie for help. Feeling out of her depth, Ellie asks Georgia to get involved, only to have the girl reappear unharmed just days later. After Molly's bank manager mother, Christine, dies in a suspicious car accident, Georgia gets on a trail that leads from Wisconsin to Arizona. Meanwhile, Ellie stumbles onto a paramilitary training camp connected to Christine's bank. Hellmann skillfully juggles disparate threads of bank fraud, extortion, drugs and illegal immigration. While some may find the use of dual narrators confusing, it works with Ellie's cooler-head yin balancing out Georgia's take-no-prisoners yang. (Oct.)

For her follow-up to international bestseller The Island, British author Hislop has friends Sonia and Maggie jetting off for flamenco lessons in Granada, Spain. Sonia is escaping monotony and a souring marriage to an older man while Maggie is celebrating her 35th birthday. The trip proves an odyssey of discovery for Sonia, who over a morning cup of coffee is mesmerized by an elderly cafe owner's stories of the Spanish Civil War and the Ramirez family who once owned the cafe and were torn apart during the time of Franco and the upheaval of war. Most intriguing was the story of Mercedes, whose passion for flamenco dancing was matched only by her love for renowned guitarist Javier Montero with whom she performed. Separated from her fractured family, she set out to search for Javier in the chaos of Civil War Spain. Dance holds a place of importance in the tale, especially when Sonia learns the truth about her own mother in a twist that adds suspense to the romance and familial drama. The well-done historical background is a rewarding plus in this fast-paced account of love's power through generations. (Oct.)

In his ninth novel, K'Wan (Gangsta; Road Dawgz) continues his popular Hood Rat series, with yet more of what his readers expect: action, murder, betrayal, sex, more action, familiar faces and a few surprises. Readers are first introduced to Tionna, a single mom of two, desperate to recover her footing after her man gets arrested for his involvement in drug and gun dealing. Moving back to her old neighborhood in shame, Tionna devises a plan with her girlfriends—Gucci, Boots and Tracy—to con local record label mogul Don B. Meanwhile, Gucci meets and falls for Animal, a notorious criminal who's on the fence about going legitimate as a rapper. As their pursuits intertwine, Tionna and friends find much to learn about unintended consequences. Quick and entertaining, K'wan's latest captures a small slice of modern urban life with a great degree of credibility and finds in Animal his most conflicted, memorable and likable character yet. Unfortunately, the plot hinges on some implausible (and cheesy) developments, which may try readers' patience. (Oct.)

Childhood friends desperate for love square off over untrustworthy men in Poole's frantic if not totally satisfying latest (after A Rich Man's Baby). Nikki Edwards has had enough of lying men, especially after learning that her biological father, Raymond Hawks, has died without acknowledging her existence. She decides she's finished with “Married Man Malcolm” Walker who's strung her along for three years. Approaching 30, Nikki and her friends Reshaun and Tia face a crossroads. Reshaun decides to marry a Liberian after a whirlwind courtship, while Tia, a police officer, becomes pregnant with a thug's baby. An accident with a drunken Nikki at the wheel of her mom Lolo's car with Tia as a passenger disrupts their friendship when Tia sues Lolo's insurance company. Meeting single hottie Dre Hill seems like a dream come true for Nikki and wedding bells start to ring, but troubles suddenly escalate as sticky revelations about Dre's past cause major conflicts. Poole's rueful page-turner is diverting, and Nikki's emotional narration keeps it real, suggesting trust is always a work-in-progress. (Oct.)

After hacking their way through the Civil War and WWII, former House Speaker Gingrich and historian Forstchen take on the Revolutionary War with decidedly mixed results. Sharing narration duties are Thomas Paine, George Washington and Jonathan van Dorn, a young private in Washington's army. From Washington's crossing of the Delaware River to a daring night raid on the better-armed Hessians, the authors do a decent job of depicting the dire plight of the Continental Army, though the big chunks of backstory wedged into the narrative add little texture while slowing the pace dramatically. Historical cameos abound, and these, combined with the attention devoted to the gritty details of army life, help to offset Washington's acts of patriotic melodrama in what is surely to become another popular book for Gingrich and Forstchen. (Oct.)

In a knockout debut novel, art historian Bundrick (Music and Image in Classical Athens) brings Vincent Van Gogh's paintings and personal story to vibrant life. While Bundrick takes many liberties (recorded in an author's note) in her fictionalized account of Van Gogh's affair with her narrator, fille de maison Rachel Courteau, she gives Rachel such a believable voice that the proceedings seem genuine. At 35, Van Gogh meets lovable spitfire Rachel while surreptitiously sketching her in a garden. Having taken refuge in an Arles brothel after the death of her parents, Rachel greets Van Gogh as a customer not long after, and soon feelings blossom between them. Visiting friend Paul Gauguin and the cloud of Van Gogh's madness undercut the couple's bliss, as do financial troubles and Rachel's life at the maison, where she's kept a virtual prisoner. While infusing well-known historical moments (like Van Gogh's infamous self-mutilation) with vivid details, humanizing Van Gogh and putting his famous works in context, Bundrick generates an impressive volume of suspense, delight and heartbreak. (Oct.)

In Crane's hilarious third relationship soap (after Forget About It), a divorcing couple fights for custody, not of a child or a pet but of an entire family. Layla and Brett Foster became high school sweethearts after her mother died and her musician father abandoned her in the care of Brett's parents. Their subsequent marriage appeared rock solid, but now, on the verge of 30, still immature Brett is a college football coach who begins thinking the thrill is gone. Somewhat clueless Layla is a pet photographer and co-owner of TLC Paw Prints with sister-in-law Trish, and just when Layla brings up the possibility of having kids, Brett blurts out his desire to divorce. In the ensuing domestic battle royale, Brett's family become Layla's fierce allies, and Brett turns jealous and furious when Layla files a countersuit for joint custody of Brett's family. Watching this exceedingly unconventional family duke it out and grow up is truly delightful. (Oct.)

Turner (Black Widow) and four other sharp authors spin another mix of stories that mostly shout and sometimes whisper of the tough urban world of rap; “Chasing the Ring” by Harold L. Turley II is the lone exception, a backstage pass into the intense world of a basketball star who makes a big mistake. The other stories focus on the heartaches experienced by various industry sorts: Krista Johns's mesmerizing “I'm Good,” about Yummie, a self-combusting artist who'd “rather be dead than labeled a snitch”; Allah Adams's “Stolen Legacy,” a stolen lyrics revenge tale; Lana Ave's passionate “Lose to Win,” that ruefully explains the cost of Sakia “Saks” Sand's ambitious rise to CEO of Hustle Hard Records. Turner's cautionary rap thriller, “Gun Music,” one of the best entries, closes this anthology (with an introduction by rap icon Dana Dane), charting the twisted course of rappers Crook and Larceny, whose skyrocketing career begins with a big bang and ends on an even bigger bang. While gritty and very authentic in delivery, this series could benefit with less blood and guts and an infusion of, say, gospelized or jazzified tracks. (Oct.)

Allen, author of the historical fantasy Slaves of the Shinar, plots a supernatural wild west adventure in his sophomore outing that should hold appeal for younger readers. Chinese-American teenager Tzu-lu finds his life upended when his grandparents send him on an expedition west with famous gunslinger Jack Straw and his rag-tag crew of mercenaries. Exploring anew the tropes of the cowboy western—Indians, polygamous cultists, “Ghost Riders” and the perils of the open desert—Allen follows the gang to Silver City, the very edge of settled America, to reclaim a treasure stolen by a mysterious man known as “the Yankee,” and perhaps illuminate the fate of Tzu-lu's dead father. With a few playful nods to Washington Irving, Allen mixes western and fantasy into a high adventure coming-of-age, keeping his world's more outré elements grounded with a surfeit of dead-on historical details. (Oct.)

Bestselling authors Goyer (Night Song) and Yorkey (Every Man's Battle series) collaborate for the first time in this WWII novel that centers around real historical events. Goyer and Yorkey open their text with a brief primer on the unsuccessful 1944 attempt on Adolf Hitler's life (dramatized in the movie Valkyrie). This story takes off immediately following that event; Hitler, bent on revenge, goes after anyone remotely capable of injuring him and sets up countless spies in key positions to take out persons with even the slightest Jewish heritage. Gabi Mueller, a Swiss-American woman who works for the American Office of Strategic Services, finds herself enlisted in safecracking, a job for which she is highly skilled. As Gabi seeks to make a difference in the face of evil, she is asked to help rescue a German physicist who is working on the atomic bomb. While her loyalties are not in question, Gabi struggles over whom to trust as the stakes become life and death. Goyer and Yorkey do a fine job presenting realistic characters and wartime scenarios; some readers, however, might find the sheer number of plot locations difficult to follow. (Oct.)

Inspirational author Carlson, whose sales exceed 2.5 million copies, offers her fans a delightful tale of a beautiful starlet whose life in the limelight has long passed the curtain-call stage. Claudette Fioré, widow of the deceased famed director Gavin Fioré, loses her home after an accountant misappropriates the family fortune. Claudette, despondent with grief, attempts to kill herself and lands in a hospital, where she implores her gay stepson to rescue her. Once Claudette is released, she is forced to return to her mother's home and, through a comedy of errors, realizes her once glamorous lifestyle has left her bereft of any life skills. With only an estranged sister to turn to, Claudette begrudgingly pays sister Violet a call in the local retirement facility. Too bad they refuse to make amends; Claudette must suffer yet more indignities as she slowly learns that her sister has similarly suffered in her own way. Carlson's story line, though implausible, is full of keen, dry wit and will more than make up for the unlikely events. (Oct.)

Smith's quietly triumphant sixth novel to feature Scottish philosopher Isabel Dalhousie (after 2008's The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday) shows that Isabel and the author's other, better-known female sleuth—Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series—are sisters under the skin, despite obvious differences. Minty Auchterlonie, who once alerted Isabel to some insider trading, fears someone is out to get her. The tax authorities have suddenly investigated Minty, and an unknown party has sent her a funeral wreath. When Isabel looks into these provocative acts, she draws on lessons learned from the journal she edits, the Review of Applied Ethics, to arrive at the complex truth behind them. Meanwhile, the father of Isabel's young son proposes marriage, and a defeated academic rival accuses her of knowingly publishing plagiarism. Smith's trademark humor and telling observations about people heighten the appeal. (Sept. 22)

This second volume by the late, great Palestinian poet Darwish (1941–2008) to be translated by Palestinian-American doctor/poet Joudah comprises four nonconsecutive books of longer poems spanning 1990 to 2005. These works follow Darwish's poetic development from a historically focused middle period to the devastatingly personal lyric-epic of his late style. Formally varied—Rubaiyats alternate with sprawling free-form poems, in which prose paragraphs meet both long and short verse lines—Darwish's Sufi-inspired poetry probes, admires, describes, longs for and questions. His subjects are often broad: the inheritance and disinheritance of lands, languages and histories. Sometimes, though, he turns to concrete need, confessing, for example, in “Mural,” his book-length poem about a brush with death: “I want to walk to the bathroom/ on my own.” But Darwish's poems are at their most singular and powerful when he collapses the boundaries between great and small concerns, as when he articulates, “Wars teach us to love detail: the shape of our door keys,/ how to comb our wheat with eyelashes and walk lightly on our land.” The stakes of this work—for Darwish and for his readers—are clear: “O my language,/ help me to adapt and embrace the universe.” (Nov.)

Disarmingly casual, unexpectedly serious, alert to his predecessors and mentors in literature and in life, Best American Poetry series editor Lehman (When a Woman Loves a Man) has produced a seventh book of uncommon variety. Some poems consider writing itself, as inspiration, as vocation, as business—“That's the thing about ambitious middle-aged writers/ who used to be young: each has a secret problem,/ and if they confess it, they think it will advance/ their careers.” Others seek the informality that Lehman's readers have come to expect. The Jewish content promised by the title arrives in force late in the volume, as the title poem cuts between Lehman's remembered childhood and his adult meditations on heritage and the Holocaust: “I feel as if my real life is somewhere else, I left it/ back in 1938.” (Lehman's mother, who speaks the prose epilogue, describes her life as a child in Vienna and as a refugee.) Lehman, who lives in New York, remains alert to many styles and forms; as a poet he has often followed in the tracks of Kenneth Koch and Frank O'Hara. The title poem, leaving those influences behind, will seem to some readers flat and without style, to others as personal and as profound as anything Lehman has written. (Nov.)

Lurid, dominated by teen antiheroes, with plenty of underage sex amid a 21st-century Southern gothic atmosphere, McGlynn's debut is at its best vivid, disturbing and fun. Despite hints and feints, it has no consistent narrative; instead, it offers scenes, asides, interior monologues, fragments and portrayals of dangerous playmates and sexual awakenings: “death & sex tickle the same damn spot,” McGlynn warns. One of her clearest and best poems of memory is called “God, I Got Down There to Get Off”: “I'm flat on my belly, hand in my jeans—/ and how to say every penny has become the eye/ of a dead relative watching me?” With her adults either inattentive or ill-intentioned, McGlynn's strongest pages remember how she looked up to adventurous peers: “Erin with the Feathered Hair,” for example, who “unpeels my northern pretense,/ leaves me quivering in a glitter tube-top/ as she unlocks the liquor cabinet.” Conscious of precursors in popular film, McGlynn may not always avoid cliché. Yet her experiences crackle with life, and her best lines know when to stop, when to set out sexy facts and when to reach for verbal ornament, distinguishing her work from anything merely confessional. (Nov.)

This forth collection of poems by Zucker (The Bad Wife Handbook) furthers her project to portray the dark underside of marriage and parenthood in 16 mostly long poems that are as formally wild as they are self-conscious and emotionally searing. Zucker's subject is not an unhappy marriage, but an average one, which, she wants to make clear, is full of as much pain, fear, lust and hopelessness as the fabled unions of some of her confessional forebears. There is happiness, too, but that's not the province of this book, in which romance can be reduced to a formula (“Thursday: we have sex (husband and I) lights on”), and a poem recounts how an audience member at a poetry reading says, after hearing the author read about her young son, “Someday, he'll grow up and read that and you'll pay.” In another, a fellow poet advises “the next time you feel yourself going dark/ in a poem, just don't, and see what happens,” yielding one of the oddest “happy” poems around. Zucker's willingness to put her own pain on display may frighten or even disgust some readers, but most will be grateful to find themselves less alone in their own everyday suffering. This is a book for all who seek what Zucker calls “the antidote for despair,” however elusive it may be. (Oct.)

This ambitious, sprawling book-length poem from one of Sweden's leading lights aspires to consider almost everything: music in composition and performance, friends' illness and death, cosmology, sex, and metaphysics: “Within myself I hear the dichotomies, recurrent/ on many levels, ontologically, epistemologically Also/ emotionally.” Such abstract musings cut against Sonnevi's striking lyric interludes, as when he evokes “The whirlwind of ash at my feet, invisible/ Where shall I set them down.” Composed between 1992 and 1996, its 164 sections also react to European politics, including Sweden's vote on whether to enter the E.U. and the conflict and slaughter in Bosnia. Political economy makes an appearance, too (“The sea of finance capital, of over 7 trillion dollars,/ moving freely over the surface of the globe”). He wants, also, to see how social and artistic life and the sciences can merge and interact in his own mind, where “There's no end to analyses We stand at the beginning of everything.” Sonnevi's sentences sound admirably idiomatic in Lesser's rendering. Yet even Swedish readers (as Lesser notes) remain both fascinated and baffled by Sonnevi's informality and by his reach: for every American drawn to these long meditations, another may regard them as merely journals, a thoughtful poet's lengthy notes for an unwritten poem. (Oct.)

“We still can't know/ anyone but we have a way of not minding not knowing,” says Lambda Award–winning poet Bibbins (Sky Lounge) in the first poem of this second collection, which takes much of its subject matter and its attitude from life in George W. Bush's America, where “a drop/ of empathy sinks into/ a millionth word for shit/ said a million times.” These poems are made powerful by the bitter energy of a voice not silenced but made to sound ridiculous in a political culture in which disagreement with the government is unpatriotic. A series of poems called “Forcefield” seeks to take stock of and reconcile the damage America has done to itself: “we inch/ away from the windows// the bones// come falling/ down the chimney// the bones are still wet.” Other poems elliptically speak for heartbroken citizens: “I mean not to trivialize, but once/ we experienced it as agoraphobia—// real work getting out the door—/ and look what lay there: unreadings/ and misgivings.” The colossal long poem that concludes the book describes “The Devil You Don't,” who “was more often the tempted/ than the tempter.” Those who will feel themselves spoken for by these poems have been hungrily awaiting this book. (Sept.)

Readers familiar with the unapologetically spiritual lyricism Revell has been distilling throughout his career won't be surprised by his 10th collection's sweetly poetical lexicon (rainbows, flowers, celestial bodies, trees and birds abound) and hymnlike sentiments: “When God prays, the sky turns blue.” New readers might better appreciate the book's radical strangeness and daring. Revell's voice has become ecstatic, but it has also remained clear, so his intensely personal, even visionary accounts and meditations are rendered with lucidity and ease: “Once Christ, like a girl,/ Held a buttercup under my chin.” Stunning imagery (“I am toys/ lost on polar ice”) and brilliant turns of thought (“What makes actual human happiness/ Nearly unbearable is its reality”) add interest to what might have been too pious, too simple: “This has nothing to do with Jesus/ Though he is right here beside me.” What makes this book truly exceptional is its determination to come to terms with death (one's own, others' and the mere fact of it) with faith, dignity and even wit. “My death and I are a magical hermit,” Revell writes, and in another context, the sentence might be thought simply clever. Here, it is also poignant—also, a revelation. (Sept.)

Celebrated poet Revell (The Bitter Withy) received the 2007 PEN USA Translation Award for his ravishing take on Rimbaud's A Season in Hell. Rendered into English with utmost sympathy and flare, this bilingual edition of Rimbaud's prose masterpiece is sure to receive comparable acclaim. Considered by many to be the infamous French wunderkind's highest achievement, the book's (mostly) prose poems present the still teenage poet's acrobatic efforts to resist the stranglehold of habit, logic and bourgeois respectability: “I've strung ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I'm dancing.” Revell's version is no more or less accessible than previous translations, and dips into the contemporary idiom are thankfully infrequent and unobtrusive. What distinguishes Revell's work is its exquisite, carefully modulated musicality. His phrasing is rich and fluid (“The soft perfume of the stars and of the sky and of everything drifts down from the hilltop”) or crisp and strident (“Unsought air and unsought world. Life./ —Was that it, then?/ —And the dream grows cold”), in perfect keeping with the protean, inestimably influential original, making this among the finest of its English translations yet produced. (Sept.)

Webb at his best is genuinely funny and genuinely reliable in his reactions to the dilemmas of middle-aged American men: “My head's a planet with failing gravity,” he writes in “Losing My Hair”; “One by one its people fall into the sky.” This selection from five earlier books should confirm the esteem in which other poets hold his comic talents. The baby boom can seem inescapable: “Comebacks,” one of 14 new poems, considers “The Eagles” and “Robert Plant in '69”: “Don't all of our bands break up, our shows shut down,/ agents stop returning our calls?” Webb's humor sometimes suggests David Kirby or even Billy Collins, as in pieces called “Prayer to Tear the Sperm-Dam Down,” “Teachers' Names” (“ 'May I Have a Hall Pass, Mrs. Titsworth, Please?' ”) and even “I Have Much Better Poems than This.” When Webb shifts to seriousness, his advice becomes reliable but predictable, too (“Love freely. Treat ex-partners as kindly/ as you can”). Such lack of ambition may send away some readers: others, though, will deeply enjoy this affable writer's many brisk, sparkling lines. (Sept.)

Svoboda's fifth collection of poems walks the borders where the personal and the political meet, and where ironic humor and foreboding overlap. Her contemporary America is both “finger-licking digital,” and a place where there are “soldiers in mother's hair.” In this book's first section, war is everywhere, from a lab in Tokyo where AIDS-infected blood was used for transfusions to “the cavities of your body.” Section two takes up notions of mistranslations, misunderstandings and missed opportunities: in one poem, “a man walks into a bra”; in another a son asks of a missing father, “Is he back or forth?” The final section takes up more personal subjects, as in a poem titled “To My Brother, on the Occasion of His Second Breakdown.” Throughout, Svoboda's poems are as haunting as they are funny, as pleasurable as they are powerful. (Sept.)

Conoley's sixth collection—which takes its title from a plot-generating system devised in the 1930s by silent screenwriter Wycliffe A. Hill—is a book of many sources (ancient and contemporary, cerebral and tabloid) that all point toward cinema. Archie, Betty and Veronica appear in one poem, while another features the less likely trio of Walt Whitman, Paul Bunyan and Aristotle, all of them eerily imprisoned by an elaborately illusive studio system. There's an atmosphere of decay throughout, replete with “chambers dim with histories,” and “locusts/ without end.” At its best, the book reads like an exceptional film noir projected onto the mind's eye. “The world is a weird luminescence,” writes Conoley. “A greenish glow, unhinged,” Experimental poetry fans and cinephiles will find much that haunts and stimulates. (Sept.)

Readers of this third collection by Gallaher (The Little Book of Guesses) will recognize a few tricks learned from John Ashbery—a multiplicity of chatty voices echoing within the same poem, slightly grouchy associative leaping down the page—but Gallaher does not stop there. “I told as much of the truth as I could imagine,” opens one poem. The same poem ends, “And we all shared one thought./ One crowded thought.” Within that framework—a world as vast and or limited as an observer's imagination, and minds that every so often happen to understand each other—Gallaher's whimsical and empathic poems unfold. The subjects of these poems are stalked by their fantasies (“A film crew will follow you, they promise. And a little/ dog”) and face the inevitable with a bit of a grin (“All the old people left and then we were the old people”). Throughout, these lines are filled with pleasure and wisdom. (Aug.)

Havill's Posadas County, N.Mex., mysteries feature a strong ensemble cast that for nine volumes was headed by under-sheriff Bill Gastner, then by his successor, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, for the next six. The fine 16th entry, a chronological throwback that fits between Bag Limit (2001) and Scavengers (2002), finds Gastner retired from the law and working as a livestock inspector. But Posadas is small in people, large in area, and old habits die hard. When a ranch hand goes missing, Gastner helps with the search. When Reyes-Guzman thinks something is a bit suspicious about the death of George Payton, an “irascible old retired gun dealer,” Gastner is quick to lend a hand and an opinion. Havill's characters have a depth and a clarity that's refined with every new book in the series. It's a pleasure to see them operate not merely as lawmen or suspects or witnesses but as members of a community where flaws and quirks are understood and accepted. (Nov.)

When the body of an unknown old man turns up in a bistro in Agatha-winner Penny's excellent fifth mystery set in the Quebec village of Three Pines (after Jan. 2009's A Rule Against Murder), Chief Insp. Armand Gamache investigates. At a cabin in the woods apparently belonging to the dead man, Gamache and his team are shocked to discover the remote building is full of priceless antiquities, from first edition books to European treasures thought to have disappeared during WWII. When suspicion falls on one of Three Pines' most prominent citizens, it's up to Gamache to sift through the lies and uncover the truth. Though Gamache is undeniably the focus, Penny continues to develop her growing cast of supporting characters, including newcomers Marc and Dominique Gilbert, who are converting an old house—the site of two murders—into a spa. Readers keen for another glimpse into the life of Three Pines will be well rewarded. 100,000 first printing. (Oct.)

In Edgar-winner Rendell's 22nd Inspector Wexford novel (after 2007's Not in the Flesh), the British police detective confronts a man from his past, Eric Targo, who he suspects is guilty of multiple murders. Years earlier, Targo stalked and taunted Wexford, daring him to press charges. A squat, creepy bully with a purple birthmark disfiguring his neck, Targo has graduated from smalltime thug to prosperous businessman, ensconced in a nouveau-riche spread complete with private zoo and lion in Kingsmarkham. When Targo apparently commits a murder affecting Wexford's own family, the inspector must re-examine how Targo consistently outsmarts the law. The meeting and mating of Wexford and his wife, Dora, also figure in the backward-looking action. While the reminiscing dilutes some of the suspense, Rendell easily outdistances most mystery writers with her complex characters and her poetic yet astringent style. (Oct.)

Somer's second Turkish Delight mystery to be made available in the U.S. (after 2008's The Kiss Murder) explores Istanbul's gay life and an alternative culture with sharp humor that avoids any hint of campiness. The series' normally feisty heroine, a nameless transvestite nightclub owner who dresses like Audrey Hepburn but also wears men's clothes for her day job, has become too depressed to even bathe as she nurses a broken heart. Dragged to a nightclub by Ponpon, a close friend and drag queen, she falls in lust with Haluk Perkedem, a handsome but married lawyer. When Haluk's brother-in-law is arrested for a well-known gigolo's murder, she and Ponpon plunge into their own investigation, becoming the Holmes and Watson of the transvestite set. A complex web of family honor, the nouveau riche and sexual politics is tailor-made for an amateur sleuth whose double life is anything but simple. (Oct.)

Bestseller Muller's harrowing 27th mystery to feature San Francisco PI Sharon McCone (after 2008's Burn Out) opens with a bang: returning to her office late one night, McCone is shot while interrupting a burglary. When she wakes up in the hospital, McCone is fully conscious but “locked in.” Paralyzed, she can communicate only by blinking her eyes. Muller articulates this chilling conceit with painful realism, even citing the popular French memoir about the locked-in syndrome, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Narrative duty falls on McCone's motley crew of co-workers and other series regulars like her husband, Hy Ripinsky. Each chapter, told from a different perspective, provides another clue in a convoluted case that includes multiple murders, a sex scandal in city government and the inevitable coverup. While this approach can be hard to follow at times, it provides Muller ample opportunity to showcase her strength at characterization. (Oct.)

Near the start of bestseller Beaton's splendid 20th Agatha Raisin mystery (after 2008's A Spoonful of Poison), the lovelorn middle-aged detective reluctantly attends the wedding of her ex-husband, James Lacey, in the market town of Hewes. But before James can tie the knot with the lovely, much younger Felicity Bross-Tilkington, the bride is shot to death. Felicity's mother hires Agatha and her young detecting associate, Toni Gilmour, to find the monster responsible, despite the disapproval of Felicity's real estate whiz father, George. As other corpses connected to George begin turning up, his visiting friend, the debonair Sylvan Dubois, flirts shamelessly with Agatha. Sylvan's deadly charm puts Agatha in harm's way after she figures out the Frenchman and George are involved in illegal activities. Some Beaton fans may wish her heroine will find lasting romance and happiness, but a closing twist or two suggests Agatha is unlikely to settle down with one man anytime soon. (Oct.)

For the most part, this volume of short Sherlock Holmes pastiches—a mix of straightforward imitations and parodies—delivers on its goal of presenting the best of such work from the last 30 years. All but one of the 28 entries is a reprint, largely from such recent anthologies as Gaslight Grimoire and Shadows Over Baker Street, and many introduce the supernatural into the rational sleuth's world. Stephen King does a solid job of giving Dr. Watson a chance to show his own detective skills in “The Good Doctor.” Barbara Roden's “The Things That Shall Come Upon Them” riffs cleverly on M.R. James's “Casting the Runes.” Perhaps the highlight is Peter Tremayne's “The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey,” which offers a plausible explanation for a classic untold tale in which a man disappears from the face of the earth after returning home to fetch an umbrella. Holmes authority Christopher Roden provides an introduction. (Oct.)

Isolated by demographic changes, St. Hilary's of Fox River, Ill., struggles for its very survival in McInerny's timely 28th novel to feature Father Dowling (after 2008's Ash Wednesday). When the archdiocese decides to close half a dozen parishes, including Father Dowling's, the congregation of St. Hilary's joins the priest in a campaign to prevent the action. Meanwhile, the discovery of a nude female body hanging from the cross strut of a garage door points to a ritual killing. More murders follow. The police, local reporters and Father Dowling get on a trail that comes dangerously close to the Devere family, longtime church benefactors who donated the magnificent Menotti stained-glass windows to St. Hilary's. The outcome will surprise even the most astute reader. Series fans will enjoy catching up with old friends, while everyone will find much to savor in the fresh and challenging plot. (Oct.)

Raffel blends computer world wheeling and dealing with the academic world's lust for glory and fame in his compelling second mystery to feature Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ian Michaels (after 2006's Dot Dead). When Ian's mother asks him to find justice for his late great-aunt, Isobel Marter, a brilliant Stanford physicist whose theory of quarks was stolen by three colleagues who later shared a Nobel prize for her groundbreaking discoveries, he starts an informal investigation. Isobel, struck down in a hit-and-run accident at 38, left behind valuable documents with shocking proof of her colleagues' duplicity. As Ian struggles with the woes of his company, Accelenet, his connecting with the three Nobel winners leads to some scary repercussions. In a scintillating subplot, Ian's deputy DA wife tries her first major case and runs smack dab into danger as she prepares for the Napa Valley marathon. (Oct.)

Japanese horror master Kikuchi (Vampire Hunter D) creates a dark, visceral horror fantasy of a demon-infested Tokyo, where a covert force of powerful humans struggle to prevent worldwide chaos. Renzaburo Taki, a member of the titular Guard who can restructure matter at the molecular level, is partnered with Makie, a beautiful demon who betrays her kind and fights for humanity in the ongoing secret war. Together, they're tasked with protecting the legendary sorcerer Giuseppe Mayart, who arrives in Tokyo to sign a peace treaty between man and demonkind. Mayart has plans of his own, sending Taki and Makie on a wild goose chase as the forces of darkness do everything possible to undermine the treaty. Readers looking for gory, erotic supernatural fun will enjoy Kikuchi's wild imagination and Jennyson Rosero's understated b&w illus. (Oct.)

Television writer Taylor pens a gritty, screenworthy supernatural noir set in 1980s New York. Out-of-control vampire Adam forces his lover, teen hooker Nina, to drink her five-month-old son's blood. In desperation, she revives the child as a vampire. Infant Christopher escapes Adam's clutches and winds up in the custody of some terrifyingly crazy drug addicts, threatening the precarious arrangement that has kept vampires secret for centuries. Determined to find Christopher and protect Adam, powerful vampire politician Perenelle, Adam's progenitor, teams up with her former lover, Rahman, an ancient vampire with his own agenda, while Nina's brother hunts for his nephew. Disparate, well-articulated motivations drive the various players in their race to save vampires and humans from one another. Truly enjoyable and imaginative, this thrilling, convoluted yarn is sure to delight any vampire fan. (Oct.)

Skillingstead's notable talent with short stories doesn't quite extend to this often disjointed debut. Disaffected teen Ellis Herrick has psychic visions of the future and a mystical bond with the girl he loves. After surviving a terrible accident, Ellis discovers superhuman healing abilities as well. An eccentric billionaire kidnaps the traumatized boy and requires him to serve as a one-man body parts factory for decades. Having lost everyone he cares about, Ellis allows the billionaire's great-grandson to continue using him in this obscene fashion until, finding a new love among colonists on a generation ship, he revolts with tragic consequences. At his best, Skillingstead gives off strong vibes of Philip K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut, but readers will struggle to gain any kind of emotional connection to his depressed immortal protagonist. (Oct.)

Vampires continue to feud in the flashback-laced sequel to 2008's Blood Memories. Eleisha Clevon, one of the few survivors of Julian Ashton's serial destruction of his fellow vampires, seeks to gather others like her so she can spread the knowledge of feeding without killing through psychic memory manipulation. Joining her are Philip, a once-feral vampire reluctantly converted to her cause, and telepathic human Wade. When they meet up with reclusive vampire Rose de Spenser and her ghostly cousin Seamus, Eleisha urges a move to a safe haven in Portland, Ore., as the paranoid Julian wants them all dead. Hendee smartly handles unusual concepts like the vampires' unique supernatural powers and Julian's drive to destroy his own race, but stilted language, uneven characterization and a choppy narrative style prevent this tale from standing out in its overcrowded field. (Oct.)

World Fantasy Award–winner Joyce (The Facts of Life) introduces psychic, alcoholic rare book fraudster William Heaney in a gripping, emotional and satisfying tale. William's ability to see demons is one of many things that haunts him: his wife has recently left him; a beautiful demon-possessed woman is stalking him; and his favorite charity will close unless his latest forgery finds a buyer. When his friend Seamus, a troubled Gulf War veteran, gives William a strange book and then blows himself up, William finds himself on the brink of literal and metaphorical hell. Joyce effortlessly sustains multiple plot lines in smooth prose, by turns comic, philosophical and deeply terrifying. The result, while at times a bit marred by tacked-on political pontification, is a profound meditation upon the evils of cruelty, self-absorption, cowardice and inaction. (Oct.)

Set in Farmer's imaginative Wold Newton universe (the setting for Tarzan Alive; Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life; and other novels), in which an 18th-century meteor impact led to a genetic mutation that produced numerous superheroic characters of mystery and science fiction, Farmer and Eckert's struggling collaboration neglects the fantastic in favor of the violently erotic. American Patricia Wildman, obsessed with her father's body and incest fantasies, is abducted and sexually abused by another woman while traveling. Wildman manages to turn the tables on her kidnappers and escape, only to end up in a nest of intrigue at Pride and Prejudice's Pemberley House. Numerous familiar fictional characters, from Elizabeth Bennet to a descendant of Professor Moriarty's chief of staff, only add to the clutter and sense of overkill. (Oct.)

The stark, dark and elegiac eighth installment of Farland's Runelords fantasy saga (after 2008's The Wyrmling Horde) centers on heroes Borenson and Myrrima, fresh from a gallant fight against unspeakably evil world dominators. Flameweaver Fallion, trying to unite the shattered One World, binds Borenson with Aaath Ulber, a giant horned berserker warrior. As their worlds and personalities merge, Borenson loses his human identity and family, but acquires a superhuman mission: to help Fallion bind all the worlds, uniting humans and defeating the wyrmlings forever. In this somber celebration of brutality, Farland ponders the fuzzy line between honor and obsession in a world where compassion comes with a high price. As the series grows in complexity, its appeal narrows, mostly drawing readers who like philosophy and complex machinations soaked in mud and blood. (Oct.)

In Brown's engrossing debut, the first installment of the Dark Gods saga, one of the mysterious Divines, godlike rulers capable of harvesting a person's life force, has vanished. Young Talen's relatively idyllic life is turned upside down when his family is accused of being “soul-eaters” who worship a twisted god. Pursued by fearful clansmen and a nightmarish earthen monstrosity known only as Hunger, Talen begins to investigate his latent world-changing abilities. Soon he learns of his family's extensive role in the enigmatic Order, whose mission is to “break the yoke of the Divines,” and the nature of the dark power that hunts them. Brown's narrative takes a few hundred pages to get up to speed, but the latter parts are breakneck-paced and action-packed. Patient readers will be rewarded with a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy adventure. (Oct.)

Those familiar with Keyes only from his extraordinary Flowers for Algernon will be dramatically disappointed by this mediocre post-9/11 political thriller. Sometime before the second U.S. incursion into Iraq, an unlikely coalition of Marxist militants—17N, a Greek group, and MEK, a majority-female Iranian gang—are conspiring to hit major targets, employing anthrax in one assault. The plans for the attack happen to be locked in the mind of Raven Slade, the mentally unstable daughter of a covert CIA agent who hypnotizes her to make sure she can reveal them to no one. As Slade is tortured by 17N members, Frank Dugan, a novice FBI intelligence analyst, is tapped to travel to Europe and thwart the doomsday plot. Hackneyed writing (“As Fatima stood, the crescent necklace slipped out from between bold breasts”) and improbable plot developments will push readers' credulity beyond the breaking point. (Oct.)

Andrews (Magic Bites) takes dysfunctional family stories to a new level in this engaging urban fantasy series opener. Rose Drayton and her two young brothers live in the woods between two worlds: the Broken (mundane smalltown Georgia) and the Weird (a world of strong magic and rigid social hierarchy). Those on the Edge between the two possess individual magical abilities. Rose has perfected her talent, a deadly white flash, and now the Weird's aristocrats envy her power. Is it a coincidence that vicious hounds invade to steal magic and destroy the Edgers just as Weird blueblood Declan Camarine demands that Rose become his bride? Though Rose rejects Declan's advances, the two must join forces to save her brothers and others on the Edge. Andrews has created a complex plot and convincing characters that will keep the pages turning. (Oct.)

Georgiana Neverall, a software engineer turned plumber, finds big trouble clogging a warehouse drain in Evans's cute cozy mystery debut. Georgie knows something bad has happened to Martha Tepper when she fishes the supposedly retired librarian's beloved brooch out of a pipe, but her boyfriend, City Councilmember Wade Montgomery, and the police dismiss her concerns. It's left to Georgie, her friend Sue and her boss's wife, Paula, to track down Martha's body with a little help from Georgie's Airedales, Daisy and Buddha. Suspects include Georgie's mother's boyfriend and Martha's accountant—who happens to be Wade. Evans garnishes the relatively straightforward mystery with plumbing tips and moments of wry humor from Georgie's interaction with her take-charge mother, her too-chatty friends and her adorable dogs. (Oct.)

Bestseller Dailey (Searching for Santa) pens a throwback western romance for her annual holiday offering. During a photo shoot on a Texas ranch, fashion model Diana Palmer is so entranced by sexy cowboy Lije Masters that within days she decides to give up her life and career to marry him. The whirlwind love affair is slowed by long cerebral conversations about their life histories, making supposedly cautious Diana's sudden decision seem ditzy and reducing the reader's sympathy for her difficult transition from career girl to rancher housewife. When Lije catches Diana with another man, Lije's stereotypical Native American sidekick, Jim Two Pony, brings words of wisdom that persuade the couple to reconcile. The predictable Christmastime conclusion is cute, but modern readers will find Dailey's very old-fashioned tinsel a little tarnished. (Oct.)

Set during the 1930s, when Kansas farmers tried to survive during a terrible drought, this graphic novel for younger readers shows a boy discovering that he can save his family by bringing back the rain. Jack Clark is a shy 11-year-old whose father thinks he's useless at practical chores. The boy is not used to having any responsibilities, so when he sees a dark figure lurking in an abandoned barn near their house, he doesn't want to do anything about it. He'd rather chalk it up to “dust dementia,” until he realizes that the brooding shape is the rain, which has withdrawn from the land so that people will yearn for it until they are willing to worship it as a god. What Jack does next won't surprise readers who've seen countless puny but plucky heroes in juvenile fiction. The big novelty here is the Dust Bowl setting, and Phelan's art emphasizes the swirling, billowing clouds of fine grit that obscure even nearby objects. Older readers might have appreciated more text to make up for the lack of visual clarity, but kids will identify with Jack and appreciate his success. (Sept.)

Questions of faith, trust and integrity are dealt with in this intense graphic novel. David Kahn was never Jewish, yet he lived for 40 years as a well-respected rabbi. On the day of his funeral, Roy Dobbs, his grifter brother, reveals himself and the truth to the surviving members of the Kahn family. Suddenly ostracized from their community, they are forced to come to terms with their father's lies. Rabbi Avi Kahn, the oldest son, suddenly finds his future in jeopardy and turns to his rebellious sister Lea's non-Jewish roommate for comfort—an act that will only further confuse him. As Lea rethinks the religion she's spent her life running from, youngest brother Eli discovers exactly how much he's like his late father. After coming apart at the seams, family members are forced to find a way to put their lives back together, a process painfully captured by Kleid. Cinquergrani is skilled at capturing a wide range of emotions, deftly capturing the characters' pain. The Big Kahn is not an easy book to read, especially given its underlying religious questions, but it is gripping. (Sept.)

Sala's charming new graphic novel recalls a revamp of the Nancy Drew mysteries—produced under the hypnotic gaze of Edward Gorey. Silver-haired orphan K. is a prodigious young thief who struggles with the legacy and implications of her larcenous talent. Her enrollment in a peculiar young women's academy promises respite from her troubled upbringing, but soon reveals a direct link to her own mysterious past as her skills are pressed into service for an unknown goal. Sala meets the publisher's smaller, digest-sized format with an economical visual style, fleshed out with gemlike watercolors, brilliantly reproduced. His disciplined images work to support efficient storytelling that is as crystal clear to the reader's eye as his sinister characters' motives are unclear to his headstrong, inquisitive heroine. Suitable for a YA audience, Cat Burglar Black is less gloriously eccentric than the author's previous adult works, but features the same sort of effortlessly eerie style. If the resolution is somewhat pat, its pattern of successive revelations implies further developments to come in a sequel. (Sept.)

Best known for his SF and fantasy (Fahrenheit 451; Something Wicked This Way Comes), Bradbury also wrote three surreal, noirish mystery novels narrated by a fictionalized alter ego. Those books, which genre devotees will find contain elements comparable to Cornell Woolrich and Joel Townsley Rogers, are reprinted in this omnibus volume, along with a taut, previously unpublished short story. In the first novel, 1985's Death Is a Lonely Business, which is the strongest, a shadowy killer culls out the lost souls of Venice, Calif., while leaving few traces of foul play. (Oct.)