Fiction Reviews: 9/7/2009

Lonely and frustrated lives are explored in this new collection from the National Book Award–winning author of Dog Soldiers. Stone's evocative prose treads through the murky waters of dead dreams and waning hopes, bringing out the pathetic and nasty side of people warped by addiction, sex, violence and time. Characters are almost blind to redemption, like the alcoholic professor-artist of “The Archer” who lashes out at a world that wants to celebrate him, or the Silicon Valley executive in “From the Lowlands” who has built a mansion, only to discover that no matter how much of the world you conquer, there's always something hunting you. “High Wire,” a story about a Hollywood screenwriter's on again/off again affair and friendship with a bipolar actress, condenses the years between “the death of Elvis Presley and the rise of Bill Clinton” into a wrenching treatise on love, addiction, success and failure. Stone doesn't just let his wounded characters whimper in the corner. He turns them loose on a world hard enough to knock them down but indifferent enough to not care about them once they're gone. (Jan.)

The cold northern islands of St. Hauda's Land are home to strange creatures and intertwining human secrets in Shaw's earnest, magic-tinged debut. Ida Maclaird returns to the archipelago to find a cure for the condition her last visit brought her—she is slowly turning into glass. The landscape is at once beautiful and ominous, and its residents mistrustful, but she grows close to Midas Crook, a young man who, despite his intention to spend his life alone, falls in love with Ida and becomes desperate to save her. Their quest leads them to Henry Fuwa, a hermit biologist devoted to preserving the moth-winged bull, a species of insect-sized winged bovines; to Carl Mausen, a friend of Ida's family whose devotion to her mother makes him both ally and enemy; and finally to Emiliana Stallows, who claims to have once cured a girl with Ida's affliction. Each of these characters' histories intertwine, though their motivations surrounding Ida are muddled by their loyalties. Both love story and dirge, Shaw's novel flows gracefully and is wonderfully dreamlike, with the danger of the islands matched by the characters' dark pasts. (Jan.)

A psychiatrist turns out to be his own most difficult case in this slackly plotted first novel from Nayman (after the collection Awake in the Dark). In 1947, Dr. Henry Harrison, the director of the New York City–area insane asylum Shadowbrook, begins treating Bertram Reiner, a German-born biochemistry Ph.D. who fought for the U.S. during WWII and claims to have committed himself to hide from his brother, a former Nazi. Shortly after receiving a letter claiming to be from Bertram's brother's wife, Henry sees a trespasser on the Shadowbrook grounds and begins to think Bertram might be telling the truth. Henry is also struggling with his own ghosts: he's haunted by the memory of a young female patient whose tragic death caused Henry to start using opium; his marriage is failing; and he's increasingly attracted to a nurse. Nayman plumbs the murky ethics of the analyst-patient relationship and tackles moral questions of collaboration and guilt, but her story struggles beneath a mountain of metaphysical weight. Meanwhile, philosophical allusions pile up as increasingly implausible plot twists and awkwardly timed flashbacks prevent this novel from becoming the psychological thriller it aspires to be. (Jan.)

Bestselling author Godwin (Evensong; The Finishing School) brings readers back in time to the early 1950s in this endearing story of Catholic school girls and the nuns who oversee them. As Mother Suzanne Ravenel begins a memoir of her 60-plus years at Mount St. Gabriel's School in Mountain City, N.C., she's forced to re-examine the “toxic year” of 1951–1952, one of her worst at the school—beginning with the arrival of ninth-grade student Chloe Starnes, who's recently lost her mother, and Mother Malloy, a beautiful young nun assigned to the freshman class. Starnes and Malloy's arrivals presage a shift in the ranks of freshman Tildy Stratton's cruel clique, with significant consequences for all involved. Change, when it finally comes, stems from the girls' attempt to revive a play written years before by Ravenel. Godwin captures brilliantly the subtleties of friendships between teenage girls, their ambivalence toward religion and their momentous struggle to define people—especially themselves. Poignant and transporting, this faux memoir makes a convincing, satisfying novel. (Dec.)

Krol's bizarre second novel (after Callisto) sends a Nazi-sympathizer family into the wilds of the Amazon. Sixteen-year-old narrator Erich Linden is fleeing to Venezuela with his war widow mother, Helga, and effeminate younger brother, Zeppi, after the fall of the Reich. They've been sent for by Erich's uncle Klaus, who intends to marry Helga as part of a plan to change his identity to evade prosecution for war crimes. Once they arrive and are rebranded as the Brandt family, they head inland to their new home, but their plane crashes, leaving them stranded in the Amazon, where they are welcomed by members of the Yayomi tribe, who believe the Brandts are dolphins in human form, as prophesied by a tribesman's dreams. Gerhard Wentzler, a German anthropologist who has been living with the tribe, serves as a translator, helping the “dolphins” stay as long as possible, which isn't long. Though the dolphin conceit is a stretch and the climax is too chaotic to be fulfilling, Krol is adept at creating suspense while imbuing the story with an unexpected amount of compassion and tenderness. (Dec.)

Clark (Because She Can) moves the Pygmalion myth to Manhattan, adds a dash of Thelma and Louise and proves what goes around, comes around to those born to the manor or trailer park. Professor Higgins is recast as suave bachelor Wyatt Hayes IV, “the sleekest lion in the pride,” who picks down-on-her-luck fashion designer wannabe Lucy Jo Ellis to make over into the toast of the town. The deal is eventually struck—makeover and a shot at well-born fashion contacts for a gentleman's bet that masks a lucrative and career-saving book deal. Along the way, these perfectly matched antagonists battle mean-as-a-snake society snoots and their own misguided ambitions to find happiness and each other. (And, it should be said, the “Rain in Spain” remix is pretty great: “The snow in Gstaad puts Aspen's to shame!” the newly svelte and prepped Lucy proclaims.) Yes, of course the ending's no surprise, but the rollicking, smart-aleck fun along the way is worth the price of admission. (Dec.)

Erhart (Bully Creek) steers clear of the earnest obsessions that weighed heavily on her early books in her fifth outing, a quaint novel of the American West enlivened by a quirky mystery. En route from St. Louis to visit her in-laws in Flagstaff, Ariz., young Jane Merkle meets two women botanists on the train. Their paths cross again after Jane, having lost her luggage and traded her fancy dresses for dungarees and a butterfly net, becomes enthralled with her new surroundings and ranger Euell Wigglesworth. As it turns out, Elzada, one of the botanists, is in town to help investigate a 13-year-old murder, and as the mystery unfolds and dark secrets come to light, the canyon works its magic on Jane. Erhart, a river and hiking guide, teases her readers about the sweet silliness of human affairs in the face of the magnitude of nature, and the cleverly plotted mystery becomes a lark of a vehicle for Erhart's thoughtful prose. This novel is light and agreeable, touched with just the right amount of awe at the splendors of nature. (Dec.)

Set in post–Cultural Revolution China, Xiao's crushing debut follows the sad trajectory of Ja Feng, who has been broken by Mao's labor camps. After attempting to expose a murder committed by a prison officer, he is crammed into a minuscule prison cell in the harshest of solitary confinement. Now a walking skeleton prone to screaming fits, Ja Feng is eventually released and cast into the world as an outsider, barely able to function. Eventually he tries to reunite with Li Xiani, his remarried ex-wife, and the daughter he has never met. The book meanders through years and across continents in a life that is heroic in its resiliency. Xiao, who served seven years in a labor camp for “having accidentally torn a poster of Mao,” writes in dark, brooding prose and takes a dim view of Mao's China, though he manages to hold out hope for the transformative power of art and love. It's an excellent and moving novel, but don't come looking for a pick-me-up. (Dec.)

After tackling the Haitian slave rebellion in a three-book series, Bell uses a smaller stage to create a captivating portrait of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The novel plays effortlessly with time and structure, shuttling between 1845 and 1865 as Forrest marries Mary Ann Montgomery, becomes a guilt-stricken slave trader and, during the Civil War, is targeted for destruction by General Sherman. Despite his aggressive actions on the battlefield, Forrest struggles with the demands of a complicated family: tensions between Mary Ann and Forrest's black mistress take a personal toll, while the rivalry between his sons Willy and Matthew (the illegitimate child of a long-ago affair with a slave) creates distraction. Meanwhile, his addiction to gambling and his attraction to his mistress send Forrest into a contemplation of the forces that control him. Many of the war sequences are delivered via Henri, a Haitian wanderer who joins Forrest's troops and possesses the ability to communicate with the ghosts of those killed in battle. The unconventional structure and supernatural twist expand the narrative into an engaging examination of what it means to be free, a question that haunts Forrest through his life. (Nov.)

A veteran of exploring wealthy family dynamics, Steel now flirts with the thriller, introducing two familiar fixtures, the serial killer and the strong single female attorney determined to get him convicted. Unfortunately, her focus quickly shifts away from New York ADA Alexa Hamilton and her conflict with rapist-murderer Luke Quentin to Alexa's 17-year-old daughter, Savannah, and her relationship with her father, Tom Beaumont, who broke Alexa's heart when he divorced her to remarry his first wife. After Savannah begins receiving threatening letters sent from Luke or an associate, Alexa asks Tom to provide Savannah a haven, which he does over his wife's objections. The visit helps Savannah grow closer to her dad and stepfamily; it also gives Alexa, on weekend visits, an opportunity to heal in classic Steel style, but the resulting courtroom drama feels rushed and inexpert. Thriller fans will be disappointed with all the family bonding, though Steel's many readers will, of course, devour this. (Oct.)

Ackroyd's retelling of Chaucer's classic isn't exactly like the Ethan Hawke'd film version of Hamlet, but it's not altogether different, either. Noting in his introduction that the source material “is as close to a contemporary novel as Wells Cathedral is to an apartment block,” Ackroyd translates the original verse into clean and enjoyable prose that clears up the roadblocks readers could face in tackling the classic. “The Knight's Tale,” the first of 24 stories, sets the pace by removing distracting tics but keeping those that are characteristic, if occasionally cringe-inducing, like the narrator's insistence on lines like, “Well. Enough of this rambling.” The rest of the stories continue in kind, with shorter stories benefiting most from Ackroyd's treatment, though the longer entries tend to... ramble. The tales are a serious undertaking in any translation, and here, through no fault of Ackroyd's work, what is mostly apparent is the absence of the original text, making finishing this an accomplishment that seems diminished, even if the stories themselves prove more readable. (Nov.)

Edgar-finalist Guthrie (Savage Night) explores the tenuous division between truth and desperate fiction in the mind of a rookie prison guard in this gritty thriller. In 1992, having recently relocated to Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife, Lorna, and young daughter, Caitlin, Nick Glass manages to form an uneasy friendship with Mafia, a nearly blind inmate, whose crime was so horrific that no one will talk about it, at a prison for violent offenders nicknamed “the Hilton.” With abuse coming from his fellow officers and prisoners alike, Glass is soon coerced into a dangerous alliance with another inmate, Caesar, who threatens Glass's family unless he agrees to smuggle in heroin. So begins Glass's bloody descent into hell, as he tries to protect Lorna, Caitlin and himself from Caesar's henchman and a danger that might lurk much closer to home. Guthrie's visceral style is a perfect match for the grim setting. Fans who prefer their crime fiction ultra hard-boiled will be rewarded. (Nov.)

In bestseller Bear's intriguing near-future thriller, a powerful financier stands ready to seize control of America as the nation teeters on the brink of economic collapse. The Texas-based Talos Corp., helmed by CEO Axel Price, specializes in security technology software and the training of mercenaries. Standing between Price and the downfall of America are a few hardy FBI agents, notably Rebecca Rose, one of the stars of the previous book in the series, Quantico. Besides the nefarious Price, dangers include a supercomputer, Jones Zero, that may or may not be acting on the side of justice, and the fact that Rebecca and others have been used as guinea pigs for a powerful mind- and body-altering drug, Mariposa. Under less capable hands, the extraordinarily complicated plot, numbers of characters and the constant explanations of future technologies might lead to terminal turgidity, but SF veteran Bear keeps everything whizzing right along to the slam-bang conclusion. (Nov.)

Chappell's newest culls from a lengthy, productive career; the result, a broad, richly textured anthology that exquisitely captures the author's contribution to Southern literature. The title story is classic Chappell: as a North Carolina couple is visited by laboratory-resurrected Civil War–veteran forefathers, elements of Southern culture are explored through fantastic plot twists. This supernatural streak runs throughout, illuminating subjects as diverse as family, astronomy, gender and deer hunting. Sometimes the extraordinary is rendered subtly, as in “Duet,” where a bereaved man learns to express himself musically following the death of a friend. Sometimes the magic comes intensely to the forefront, as in “Linnaeus Forgets,” where the “father of botany” is visited by tiny flying people. Sometimes, as with “The Three Boxes,” Chappell's writing becomes more thought experiment than fiction and his style succumbs to the weight of allegory. At its best, however, Chappell's careful, evocative prose surprises with the quiet power of its descriptions. (Nov.)

Alexander's 1979 novel, Time After Time, and the movie based on it offered an intriguing concept—Jack the Ripper steals a working model of H.G. Wells's time machine in the 1890s and uses it to travel to the late 20th century. In this pallid sequel, the Ripper has traveled from the year 2353 to 2010, and has in the process somehow transformed into a woman. Wells's beloved wife, Amy Catherine Robbins, who accompanied him from 1979 to 1893 at the end of the first book, has disappeared. Wells follows Amy's trail to 2010, ending up in Los Angeles at the same time as the Ripper, who resumes slaughtering and mutilating multiple victims. Subsequent events quickly vitiate the one shocking plot twist. Neither the Whitechapel murderer's gender change nor Wells's new role as a bohemian married man adds enough to make this a distinctive story in its own right. (Nov.)

The gut-wrenching ghost of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster hangs over Beres's depressing sequel to Chernobyl Murders. Former stripper Mariya Nemeth hires Chicago PI Lazlo Horvath after her husband of one month, Viktor Patolichev, dies in the torching of his adult video store. Did Victor set fire to the store for the insurance money, or was the arson related to Viktor's past involvement in human trafficking? Mariya also seeks help from Kiev PI Janos Nagy, Lazlo's protégé, with whom she develops a romantic relationship. Two masked men later brutalize Mariya, a not so subtle warning that the investigation must stop. Lazlo, Mariya and Janos eventually find answers in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. Readers should be prepared for some overheated prose (e.g., “the video store blazing.... The fire so hot when her father cut slabs of bacon to put on a stick and shove into the flames and drip blackened grease onto rye bread for aunts, uncles, and cousins”). (Nov.)

In this powerful novel of emotional betrayal from Irish author Casey, his first since Dreams of Revenge (1977), ex-journalist John Hughes, who leads an isolated life with his wife and their teenage daughter in a large house in County Wicklow, struggles to overcome writer's block. When English novelist William Cromer arrives in the area, accompanied by an attractive German set designer, Ingrid, Hughes sees a chance to get out of his rut. Hughes puts the moves on Ingrid at a dinner party at the house she shares with Cromer, and to his delight she reciprocates his ardor. Obsessed with the woman, Hughes gets into the habit of calling Cromer's house and hanging up if Cromer answers, feeding the other writer's fears that Irish nationalists antithetical to anything English have targeted him. A demand for an extortionate payoff adds to the tension, but the book is more an insightful character study of the consequences of infidelity than a thriller. (Nov.)

In his agreeable if unoriginal second novel, Foreman tells a tale of postwar optimism and determination steeped in the great American traditions of westward expansion and manifest destiny. In 1953, Jubal Pickett, a WWII navy vet, and his mute son, Gideon, leave their farm in Natchez, Miss., and head to Edom, Utah, hoping to strike it rich on uranium. During a stop in Port Arthur, Tex., they pick up Abilene Breedlove, a seductive social climber always on the lookout for a new man. Once in Edom, the intrepid party secures a title to prospect some land with the help of a couple of local power players. But with Jubal and Gideon searching for riches in the badlands and Abilene left to her own devices in town, trouble starts brewing. The linguistic and cultural details richly bring the era and region to life, but in the end, this feels like a coat of fresh paint over too familiar characters and a ready-made story line. (Nov.)

As this fine holiday collection shows, Mortimer (1923–2009) could tell lovely tales that end with a gentle punch. Each of the five stories highlights English barrister Horace Rumpole's quirky personality, his love of food and drink, and life with his formidable wife, Hilda (aka “She Who Must Be Obeyed”). But most of all, each illustrates Rumpole's sense of justice and commitment to the law as well as his dry wit. As usual, Rumpole overshadows plots that often focus on the barrister trying to ignore the holiday. “Rumpole and Father Christmas” suggests that even a career criminal can get the holiday spirit. A businessman's past is used to secure funds for a church in “Rumpole and the Old Familiar Faces.” The most timely is the twisty “Rumpole and the Christmas Break,” about a murdered professor and an Islamic student with a religious vendetta against her. This is a perfect stocking stuffer for Mortimer fans. (Nov.)

The novelty of Brokaw's debut, which links the Catholic Church and Atlantis, isn't enough to redeem this religious thriller. Evil forces associated with a Machiavellian cardinal, Stefano Murani, target hunky archeologist Thomas Lourds in the belief that he has stumbled on a valuable artifact in Alexandria, Egypt. Leslie Crane, the requisite good-girl love interest, interviews Lourds for a TV documentary. After Murani's minions butcher the show's producer, Lourds and Crane go on the run. Aided by the bad-girl love interest, police inspector Natashya Safarov, they travel to Moscow, Leipzig and Senegal. Two big revelations—that the artifact may be connected to Atlantis and that the legendary lost continent may be linked to a revisionist version of an Old Testament account—will get few readers' pulses racing, especially since Brokaw relies more on shoot-outs and narrow escapes than plausible archeological details to carry his story along. (Nov.)

At the start of Haas's less than compelling second thriller to feature the world-weary assassin who calls himself Columbus (after Silver Bear), William Ryan, who serves as Columbus's middleman, hires him to kill Jiri Dolezal, a Czech banker involved with prostitution and drug dealing. In the course of preparing to murder Dolezal, Columbus meets and falls in love with an attractive rare book dealer in Rome, Risina Lorenzana. Columbus considers renouncing violence, even as he keeps his true nature a secret from Risina. After a gunman takes out Ryan, Columbus realizes that it won't be so easy to retire, as he himself becomes a target. The amoral killer seeking a normal life is a familiar theme that often works, but Haas fails to imbue his hero with enough emotional depth to make readers care about the man. Even the one highly unusual aspect of Columbus's backstory—he killed his own father at his father's request—gets lost amid formulaic action scenes. (Nov.)

Set in China and the Mediterranean, this off-kilter novel from Toussaint (Camera) explores the incommunicable experiences that alienate lovers. An unnamed narrator leaves France to spend a few weeks in China, where his lover, Marie, has real estate investments of a possibly illicit nature. Arriving in Shanghai, he is greeted by a business associate of Marie who later takes him to an art gallery, where he meets Li Qi, a Chinese woman with whom he establishes an immediate erotic relationship. She invites him on a trip to Beijing, and their attempt at sex—in the train bathroom—is interrupted by a call on his cellphone from Marie; her father has suddenly died. Bewildering experiences—including a high-speed motorcycle escape—follow, concluding in Elba, where Marie's father's funeral is being held. The juxtaposition of locales creates an intriguing dissonance, with Toussaint structuring his unconventional plot around climactic moments. His obsessive description, while sometimes beautiful, grows tiresome, and he occasionally lapses into purple prose. But with all its flaws, this remains a thought-provoking attempt and deserves attention from readers interested in experimental fiction. (Nov.)

In her debut collection, Johnson maps the lives of several New Orleanians who orbit Delia Delahoussaye's Laundromat on Palmyra Street, where “saying hello and fighting can sound just alike.” The title story finds a stoned teenage Delia longing to kiss a girl named Chuck in the belly of an empty oil tank, a makeshift sense-deprivation chamber that Delia thinks “shakes you loose from yourself.” By the end of the second story, “Keeping Her Difficult Balance,” it's unclear whether Delia will ever escape her childhood identity. “If the Holy Spirit Comes for You” finds her brother, Dooley, nursing a pig his uncles want to slaughter, and the story's moral nuance and consequences echo through “Killer Heart,” where an older Dooley's good deeds lead to tragedy. In “Titty Baby,” a child called Pudge must protect his baby sister from an abusive father. Years later, in “St. Luis of Palmyra,” Pudge's child creates his own criminal code of conduct. Johnson has a deep well of empathy for her characters, and her book's big heart beats strongest when portraying Mid-City's most marginal characters. (Nov.)

Few novels confront human suffering on as massive a scale as this one. After his release into post-Stalinist Russia, Ivan Grigoryevich finds that the 30 years he spent in Stalin's forced labor camps have wreaked terrible changes in himself and in Soviet society. He goes first to his cousin's Moscow apartment, but he and his wife are preoccupied with petty successes secured by cooperation with a state-sanctioned campaign of anti-Semitism. Ivan then travels to Leningrad, where he finds work in a metal shop and rents a room from a widow who falls in love with him and shares stories from her past (most notably the forced collectivization of Ukrainian farms), providing a counterbalance to Ivan's experiences in Siberia. Suffering is everywhere, but Grossman finds no glory or redemption in it, and just when you think things can't get bleaker, he offers up a new vignette that sinks deeper into misery, though there is a glimmer of hope toward the end. The prose is rough in spots, but Grossman's individual by individual portrayal of anguish gives readers a heartrending glimpse of the incomprehensible. (Nov.)

Ten homoerotic stories by Killian (Spreadeagle) explore startling encounters between the straight and gay worlds. Several of the stories, set in the 1970s, appeared in Killian's previous collections, such as “Hot Lights,” in which a strapped-for-cash student gets hired for a hardcore porn shoot, and “Spurt,” set in a Long Island motel where a couple of commuters congregate to indulge in morbid sex. Others are elaborate romances, such as “Dietmar Lutz Mon Amour,” where an erotic encounter with a security guard in the basement of San Francisco's De Young museum provides a fulfilling intellectual kinship for the married narrator, and “Too Far,” in which a straight swimming pool salesman from Maryland clearly wants to experiment with a man at a party, though he may get more than he anticipates. Killian is best being self-consciously writerly, as in “Rochester,” in which a naïve writer arrives at the dilapidated home of the legendary writer “Kevin Killian,” only to discover a decrepit has-been who keeps a pet chimpanzee typing in the bedroom. Fans of Killian's work will be pleased to find fresh stimulation with shades of Dennis Cooper. (Nov.)

In this second tale of Jennifer Hunter, fidelity inspector, author Brody (The Fidelity Files) puts her heroine in a questionable romance of her own. While Jennifer, head of the Hawthorne Agency, directs her associates to sniff around on behalf of suspicious spouses, she's also having anxiety attacks over her impending marriage to Jamie, her boyfriend of a year. The child of a chronic philanderer, Jennifer is afraid to believe in her own happily ever after and isn't sure she could stop testing her beau's fidelity even if she wanted to. As an unexpected mistake blossoms into a thicket of lies, Jennifer must decide whether or not she can stick with the business she's worked so hard to build. With a complicated, sympathetic protagonist, worthy stakes and a clever twist on the standard chick lit narrative, Brody will pull readers in from the first page. (Nov.)

Mansell's Brit chick lit invasion continues with this enjoyable romp that begins with Poppy Dunbar meeting a charismatic stranger at her bachelorette party. Next thing you know, she's abandoning her intended at the altar and heading to London, but not before she learns that her dad isn't her biological father. In London, she shares a flat with spoiled but desperately insecure Claudia and roguish artist Caspar French, and sets out to find her mystery man and her real father. Soon, though, Poppy learns that getting what you want isn't the same as getting what you need. While undoubtedly by-the-numbers, the story is elevated by strong characters; Poppy and Caspar in particular, and even Claudia, who could so easily be a cliché, earn the reader's sympathy. The end result is thoroughly enjoyable. (Nov.)

Gates (the Tammi Poag mysteries) delivers an undemanding novel of retirement-age uplift. Ginny McAllister takes a spill while preparing a surprise party to celebrate the retirement of her husband, Leland. While in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, Ginny befriends her roommate, and in trying to help her through some tough times, elicits a surprise confession from Leland. No matter, though, because soon Leland moves them to a retirement community in Florida, and it's not long before Leland leaves Ginny alone to ponder her new life and miss her friends while he's fishing and golfing. The marriage reaches a crisis point when she meets another man who supports her in ways Leland does not. This traditional yarn fits the mold and lightly taps all the inspirational buttons. (Nov.)

DuLong's debut reads like an unintentional parody of Southern hen lit. After 52-year-old Sydney Webster's husband dies in a car accident, she discovers he was a compulsive gambler, and his habits have left her penniless. She heads to Cedar Key, Fla., where best friend Alison takes her in. Sydney decides to open a knitting shop in Cedar Key and meets a gorgeous artist named Noah, who falls in love with her. Adding to the nonurgency is Sydney's decision to search for her biological birth mother; conveniently, Sydney looks a lot like 80-something local spinster Sybile Bowden. The narrative lacks tension and originality, and its banal predictability won't do it any favors in a crowded field. (Nov.)

The author of more than 40 bestselling fiction titles whose combined sales hover near 15 million, Kingsbury takes her loyal faith-based fans on an exploration of the emotional and spiritual effects of abortion. Interestingly, the author frames the story through a young adult male character, Brad Cutler, an up-and-coming ad agency executive; he revisits a former relationship in which he encouraged his pregnant girlfriend to have an abortion. Years later, Brad continues to feel guilty, and as he readies to marry his fiancée, a new ad campaign for baby clothes has immobilized him. Emma, the former girlfriend, also cannot move past what happened. As the pressure mounts, Brad travels home and reunites with Emma to find closure, but what he discovers in the encounter is far more different than he hoped or expected. Kingsbury tackles a touchy, difficult topic, yet in her characteristic style, her gentle approach wins the day. It will also overcome any reader resistance, no matter what position one takes on this volatile issue. (Nov.)

At the start of West's sophisticated second Emma Streat mystery (after 2007's Without Warning), Emma, a former diva who still mourns her late husband as well as the loss of her singing voice and her house on the Connecticut River (“now a pile of bombed out rubble”), flies from Boston to Venice to stop her opera star niece, Vanessa Metcalf, from running away with a millionaire playboy who races cars. In Vanessa's opulent hotel room after a recital, Emma discovers the body of Vanessa's accompanist, Mark Dykstra, hanging from a curtain rod, an apparent suicide. Lord Andrew Rodale, a British spy and Emma's secret lover, lends a hand in her search for answers. When Emma returns home to Boston, she becomes ill with a mysterious virus. While some readers might wish for more action and less armchair detecting at times, all will cheer the courageous and stylish Emma, who typically dons an Hermès scarf when slipping into sleuthing mode. (Dec.)

Coggins's outstanding fifth mystery to feature San Francisco PI August Riordan (after 2007's Runoff) successfully blends an over-the-top premise with an unrelentingly grim plot. Soon after flirting with an attractive young woman in a Laundromat, Riordan watches in horror as an apparently deranged cable car operator guns her and an older woman down at a cable car stop. Riordan pursues the killer and stops his bloody rampage. The Argentine family of the first victim, 23-year-old Araceli Rivero, hires him to investigate an unrelated matter, the location of Araceli's dead aunt, whose body was transferred from a Milan cemetery to somewhere in the Bay Area. After quickly getting a promising lead, Riordan learns that his clients have been less than straight with him—the missing corpse is actually that of Evita Perón. Coggins pulls no punches as the suspenseful action builds to a violent act of vigilantism. (Nov.)

One major crime dovetails violently into another in this accomplished page-turner set in exotic Cape Town, South Africa, though ex-cops-turned-PIs Jeffrey “Mullet” Mendes and Vincent Saldana hoped to concentrate strictly on the “no-gun stuff.” The two-man agency has been open only four months, with Vincent spending the time drunk and Mullet making ends meet by selling dope on the side. Suddenly, two cases come across the transom, a shadow job on a cheating husband and—score points for originality—high-ticket theft from local abalone farms. And related to those are urban hunting parties and the bodies of the street kids found ritualistically buried in the oceanside dunes. The novel features great villains in Jim Woo, trying to con his triad brothers, and Arno Loots, who laughs “as if someone had told him about laughter but he'd never actually heard it.” Cole—the pseudonym for Mike Nicol (The Ibis Tapestry) and Joanne Hitchens—keeps the prose clipped, the action fast. (Nov.)

In bestseller Harris's solid fourth Harper Connelly mystery (after 2007's An Ice Cold Grave), Harper, who can not only locate bodies but also deduce the cause of death, and her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, are summoned to Texas by members of the wealthy Joyce family, who are looking for answers behind the death of their patriarch, Rich. But when an act of violence threatens the pair, Harper realizes that the circumstances behind Rich's death may have ties to her own troubled childhood in nearby Texarkana. Further complicating matters, Tolliver and his drug addict father, who's recently been paroled, have an uneasy reunion that stirs up long-buried memories about the unsolved disappearance eight years earlier of Harper's older sister, Cameron. Harper and Tolliver's relationship, which blossomed into romance in Ice Cold, is the beating heart of the story and helps smooth over the somewhat rushed and questionably coincidental plot. (Nov.)

Lonely Jane Lawless never seems to catch a break in the love department, as shown by Hart's twisty 17th whodunit to feature the Minneapolis restaurateur and part-time PI (after 2008's Sweet Poison). Jane gives a temporary job to bartender Annie Andrews, who's come from Colorado in search of her stepfather, John Archer, whom Annie blames for her mother's death years before. Jane, who's attracted to the bisexual Annie, discovers that John has changed his name to Jack Bowman, who owns DreamScape Builders in the Twin Cities. The mystery deepens after Susan, Jack's second wife, is found murdered by a blow to the head by Susan's depressed son, Curt, who's also attracted to Annie. Jane and her best friend, Cordelia Thorne, begin investigating Annie's troubled past. As Annie's search for answers hurtles to a close, the tragic deceptions concocted by John/Jack explode in a grand finale with disturbing consequences. (Nov.)

At the outset of the Thurlos' exciting 15th Ella Clah novel (after 2008's Coyote's Wife), Special Investigator Ella of the Navajo Tribal Police discovers a pipe bomb in the classroom of her almost-lover, Ford Tome, a Christian minister and former FBI agent who's now helping to track down a cell of antinuke fanatics before they can sabotage the nuclear power plant that's just been built on the Shiprock, N.Mex., reservation. The bombing case is complicated by a radical professor sending coded e-mails, a violently abusive husband who blames Ford for the breakup of his marriage and a camp of well-armed survivalists. Meanwhile, a clever sniper is stalking Ford and Ella, who's torn between embracing Ford and his God or holding onto traditional beliefs. The authors smoothly blend personal and professional concerns, as the Navajo police sort through a tangle of lies and loyalties while respecting the values of traditionalists and adapting to modern intrusions. (Nov.)

Winner of the second Tony Hillerman Prize, Chaney's promising debut is set in sometimes glitzy, often tawdry Las Vegas far removed from Hillerman's New Mexico.Bodo Hagen is CIA, but his return to Las Vegas after 10 years is entirely personal. Bodo's brother, Ronnie, was shot to death at Hoover Dam just days after Ronnie came back to Vegas from a stint with the French Foreign Legion. As Bodo retraces his brother's steps, he gets reacquainted with a slew of rough characters from his past, including John McGrath, the cop investigating Ronnie's killing; Marty Ray, owner of a small casino called Diamond Jim's; and an old girlfriend, Maxine Peach. Bodo learns that Ronnie was trying to fence a rare artifact with a strange past that others are willing to buy or kill for. While the plot isn't terribly suspenseful, Chaney has a knack for deft characterization, and uses Ronnie's French Foreign Legion connection to great effect. The ambiguous ending suggests a sequel. (Nov.)

Skip Moore and James Lessor pursue a new career as spies in Bruns's wacky third novel to feature the bumbling South Florida sleuths (after 2008's Stuff Dreams Are Made Of). When Sarah Crumbly, an old high school friend, approaches Skip about updating the security for Synco Systems, a software company that designs protection systems for computer networks, Skip accepts because he's promised a big bonus if he also pretends to be Sarah's boyfriend until the installation is complete. Sarah, a high-rent call girl, happens to be the mistress of Synco's married CEO, Sandy Conroy, with whom she has plans to leave the country. Complications ensue after Synco's v-p, Ralph Walter, turns up dead in his office, an apparent suicide. Skip, James and Skip's girlfriend, Emily, become bargain-basement James Bonds as they acquire an assortment of nifty spy stuff to use in their investigation. Be prepared for some laugh-out-loud moments. (Nov.)

Five of Britain's most notable historical mystery authors team for the fifth time (after 2008's The Lost Prophecies) on a volume whose whole, in this case, is less than the sum of its parts. In 1191, the apparent discovery in Glastonbury of the skeletal remains of King Arthur isn't welcomed by some who fear proof of the legendary sovereign's death will weaken the morale of those who hoped for his messianic return. In the book's strongest section, written by Gregory, Meurig ap Rhys, the man who transported the bones to a small Welsh town for safekeeping five years earlier, must decide to whom he can trust the secret of their current location. Two years after Meurig's death, a series of murders places his sister in the role of detective. Gregory manages to integrate the linking device with a compelling, well-paced whodunit that doesn't come across as gimmicky. (Nov.)

Campbell Award–winner Kowal presents a broad spectrum of stories in her chapbook-slim first collection. The heartbreaking “Just Right,” in which a family struggles with a child's strange behavior, isn't speculative at all. “Death Comes but Twice” edges into dark fantasy, while blind perfumer Penn is stalked by an enormous predator in SF horror story “Scenting the Dark.” The deepest tale is “Some Other Day,” in which a young scientist struggles to undo the terrible consequences of her father's well-meant work, while “Jaiden's Weaver” is a sweet story about nurturing and caring for a creature others think deformed. Kowal's stories don't always plumb the depths of speculation or characters, but when they do the results are often stirring. This excellent introduction to her work is likely to make her new fans. (Nov.)

British university student Bell's impressive debut is a mature literary theological mystery with a satisfyingly twisty thriller conclusion. Waking up covered in blood and missing his memories, Gabriel Antaeus learns his name from the lease on his Budapest apartment and starts keeping a journal for fear of forgetting everything again. As he encounters photographs hidden in books and disturbingly supernatural dreams, Gabriel begins to doubt the trustworthiness of his only friend, fellow expatriate Zadkiel Stephomi. Gabriel soon finds his paternal instincts awakened by Casey, his pregnant teenage neighbor, and he begins to fear that much more than his life or hers may hang in the balance. Bell deftly weaves Judeo-Christian myth and Dante's Divine Comedy into a compelling genre mashup with glimmers of Gaiman, Blish and Ludlum, unfolding the mystery in teasingly intriguing bits that will keep pages turning. (Nov.)

Taylor's robust fourth Dreamer's Cycle novel (after 2008's Cry of Sorrow) mixes Arthurian and Celtic mythology with magic, romance, scheming and treachery. Previously dealt a hard blow when warleader Havgan captured the powerful druids and bards of Y Dawnus, Arthur ap Uthyr, high king of Kymru, must free them or lose all hope of reuniting his kingdom. Havgan and his witchfinders, the wyrce-jaga, are doing their best to eradicate all magic users—except Havgan's beloved mistress, the Kymric witch Arianrod. The expanding conflict will pit sons against fathers, sunder lovers and challenge loyalties as hidden secrets seethe beneath brutal schemes and spilled blood. Though a large cast of characters, complex backstory and intricate webs of relationships make this epic Arthurian fantasy a demanding read, Taylor wraps things up neatly, leaving just enough loose ends for the next volume. (Nov.)

With liberal inclusion of vomit, gore and turnips, Bullington's bizarre debut follows two monstrous siblings across 1364 Europe and the Middle East as they seek ever-richer graves to rob. The Crusades, the papal schism and the Black Death all make appearances, as do the obligatory witches, priests and knights. In addition to robbing, torturing and murdering innocent peasants, the brothers dispatch demons and imitation popes while debating theology and the nature of mercy, e.g., finishing a victim off rather than leaving him for the crows. The mix of grimmer-than-Grimm fairy tale tropes, spaghetti Western dialogue (“Yeah, can't suffer no traitorous churls to keep on bein traitorous”) and medieval history is striking and often funny, but it may not be compelling enough to keep readers slogging along with the brothers' endless travels and copious letting of bodily fluids. (Nov.)

In this tour de force, Doctorow (Little Brother) uses the contradictions of two overused SF themes—the decline and fall of America and the boundless optimism of open source/hacker culture—to draw one of the most brilliant reimaginings of the near future since cyberpunk wore out its mirror shades. Perry Gibbons and Lester Banks, typical brilliant geeks in a garage, are trash-hackers who find inspiration in the growing pile of technical junk. Attracting the attention of suits and smart reporter Suzanne Church, the duo soon get involved with cheap and easy 3D printing, a cure for obesity and crowd-sourced theme parks. The result is bitingly realistic and miraculously avoids cliché or predictability. While dates and details occasionally contradict one another, Doctorow's combination of business strategy, brilliant product ideas and laugh-out-loud moments of insight will keep readers powering through this quick-moving tale. (Nov.)

Hutchins's debut SF thriller, the first in a trilogy, has the unusual distinction of starting life as a popular podcast. The fast pace set from the beginning serves the story well in audio or print, especially considering that most of the characters are clones of the same man. They're sent to find their “Alpha” after he rigs a proxy assassination of the president of the United States through stolen government technology capable of unleashing chaos everywhere. Hutchins successfully fleshes out each clone as a separate personality, from happy everyman John Smith to the priest who fears that, as a clone, he has no soul. Though there's not a lot for the hard SF crowd, thriller readers seeking edge-of-your-seat action flavored with conspiracy and futuristic tech will love every page. (Nov.)

First published in 1996, this behemoth opening to the Night's Dawn trilogy takes humankind across the galaxy on a quest for profit that becomes a desperate battle for survival. Space scavenger Joshua Calvert begins shipping wood from the primitive planet Lalonde to the pastoral patrician planet Kulu despite a revolt among the prisoners who serve as Lalonde's forced labor. A greater threat lurks within Lalonde's intensely claustrophobic jungle: an energy virus that turns people into zombies and that even 27th-century biotechnology can't cure. Hamilton succinctly uses strong visual imagery to bring each culture and civilization to life. Only this relative economy of language allows so many plots, subplots and characters to be squeezed into over 900 pages. Elements of space opera, Straubesque horror and adrenaline-laced action make this a demanding, rewarding read. (Nov.)

Shipp (Sheep and Wolves) offers readers a tightly written story of suspense and occult horror. Nicholas believes that he has been cursed, and he is not alone; his eccentric love interest, Cicely, is convinced that the fate of the world depends on her possession of a tennis ball. As their loved ones express skepticism, Nicholas and Cicely seek out other curse victims, including accident-prone Abby and reluctant mentor Kin. Though at first the curses seem mere delusions, it soon becomes clear that a malevolent entity called Pete is amusing itself by tormenting them. Abby's fatalism, Nick's self-hatred and Pete's power and ruthlessness hamper their efforts to find curse-free lives. Using Nicholas's idiosyncratic voice and fondness for lists, Shipp effectively conveys the claustrophobic world of people caught up in events beyond their control. (Nov.)

Fleeing a massive explosion at the galactic core, a human colony and their allies, the alien Puppeteers, discover they are not the only ones desperate to outrace destruction in the third prequel to Niven's Ringworld saga (after 2008's Juggler of Worlds). Thssthfok, a ruthless Pak, will do anything to safeguard his clan after Pakhome is destroyed. Paranoid human agent Sigmund Ausfaller and Puppeteer Baedeker are sent to investigate a distress call from the Gw'oth, who have detected a suspicious ship headed toward the Fleet. Sigmund agrees to work with the Gw'oth, but he's concerned that their insatiable drive for scientific development may make them an even bigger threat than the Pak. With the authors working hard to knit together backstory, this one is primarily for fans of Niven's Known Space setting who will enjoy seeing past puzzles made clear. (Nov.)

Medallion owner/ president/ executive editor Rosburg (The Dream Thief) wraps appealing characters in a tissue-thin faux-historical romance plot. Harmony Simmons, 18 and newly orphaned, arrives in Victorian London fresh from an American cattle ranch. Her sour older sister, Agatha, is none too pleased to have a beautiful, spirited redhead to chaperone. A laughing-eyed highwayman who holds them up is curiously appreciative of Harmony's defiance. He promptly follows them and kidnaps her, and the interlude that follows has some of the novel's most fully imagined and tender writing. When the highwayman releases Harmony and then shows up in a coach and four, calling himself “Lord Farmington,” Agatha's simmering envy becomes vengefulness, and the plot froths with preposterous twists. The meager historical detail and unraveling story don't stand up to scrutiny, but Rosburg's talent for character-building keeps the silliness fun. (Nov.)

Hodges (More than He Can Handle) gambles that hot sex scenes will make up for a predictable story, but her bet doesn't pay off. After being unceremoniously dumped and bilked out of thousands by her slimy restaurateur fiancé, Jade Christian takes an uncharacteristically reckless trip to Las Vegas. James George thinks women just want to use him to get to his NFL star brother, so when he bumps into Jade in a hotel, neither is prepared for their instant and genuine attraction. Though the sex sizzles, he's put off by her lust for revenge against her ex, and their friends and families are skeptical. Too obvious coincidences make the main conflict predictable and uninteresting, and side characters border on stereotypical. Hodges does score, however, on illustrating that taking a chance on love is not always a bad thing. (Nov.)

The first in prolific author Lovelace's Samantha Spade mystery series draws on the author's former career as a U.S.A.F. colonel. Samantha, a smart-mouthed air force lieutenant, tests gadgets for the military at a Texas desert facility. On an early morning hike, Samantha finds two badly decomposed bodies, soon identified as a weapons dealer and a smuggler of illegal aliens. After an arsonist burns her test lab, Samantha ratchets up her involvement in the investigation, with handsome border patrol agent Jeff “Mitch” Mitchell keeping her heart racing as they search for the killer. Well paced, this chatty first-person narrative develops the character of the not-so-military-type heroine who doesn't deal well with authority figures but does the best she can because she knows her job's important. Crime fans will look forward to Lt. Spade's next adventure. (Nov.)

In Piccirilli's brooding, character-driven chiller, former New York City cop Finn, recently blinded, wallows in his new role as an English teacher at a posh girls' boarding school. A storm looms as Finn and a skeleton staff remain to supervise a handful of girls staying at the school during winter break. Piccirilli (The Fever Kill) harps on his theme of isolation with palpable glee as Finn, surrounded by self-absorbed adolescents and mysterious, brutally violent attackers roaming the campus, grapples with blindness amid a sonar-dulling snowstorm in a remote area with no cellphone service. Terrified of solitude and driven by his cop instincts, Finn embarks on a wrenching journey that exposes the raw emotion of a man nearly destroyed by disability and circumstance. (Nov.)

Gauche is a young mailman, a “letter bee”; accompanied by his dingo Roda, he make deliveries through a land of darkness with little travel between outposts. His first package is, unexpectedly, a young orphan boy who must be taken on a 10-day journey across wasteland inhabited by metallic insects. Together, they learn more about each other's motivation: Gauche works far from his sick sister to make money to heal her, while the boy, Lag, is trying to find out what happened to his mother. Gauche takes his missions seriously, knowing that his “letters” (whatever their form) are connections between people. They carry “heart,” the key motivator of the series. In the second story, five years later, Lag is following in Gauche's footsteps with a delivery that echoes his past, a girl with mysterious abilities. This adventure includes both exciting action and touching emotion. The simple premise is easy to grasp, but has potential for almost any kind of story as the series continues. The art has a detailed sense of world-building with distinctive character appearances. (Sept.)

Meet red-headed Julian, glasses-wearing science geek. Starting at a new junior high school, Julian is determined to hide his intelligence and his interests in order to be more like a normal kid and in hopes of not getting bullied and teased. Two unlikely figures emerge from the crowd: Greta, a tough girl known to be a “dangerous maniac,” who wears a bike helmet at all times, and Ben, talented athlete and supposed “dumb jock.” Julian is surprised to find that these two share his love of science, and the three form the titular alliance, inventing pranks and contraptions, and stopping a crime. Everything about this very original story works. The ebullient characters are well-defined and well-designed; dramatic tension rises and falls at just the right pace; dialogue is snappy, funny and real; and the art is stunning. Davis uses Rube Goldberg/Chris Ware techniques to create splashy and bright pages filled with curious machines, maps, diagrams and closeup details of secret laboratories. The story is sprinkled with inventions (including the “Distract-a-Dad,” “Stinkometer,” and “Secret Science Submarine”) and facts about science, all designed to enthrall young readers with its sense of discovery. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)

Powerful and gorgeous, this graphic novel looks at catastrophic floods and the stories we tell about them. In the framing story, the Sumerian king, Ziusudra, guides his people through a massive flood. As the water rises and his wife lies in a coma, he has visions of other floods and flood victims in other lands, such as the biblical Noah a modern ecologist trapped in a Katrina-like hurricane and flood myths from around the world. mpMann's simple, expressive character art and endless swirling waters are a perfect fit for the hallucinatory, dreamlike quality of the story. His work on the Chinese creator goddess Nuwa, guarding her clay children from the flooded world, is particularly beautiful and evocative. Lewis is a Ph.D. student in religious and theological studies, and it shows—for good and for ill. He blends myth with myth and his own work with an intuitive assurance, and from this, the book draws much of its momentum and raw emotional power, but a bibliography at the end explaining where to find more information or even a simple list of the myths' countries and cultures of origin would have been invaluable to the curious reader. (Aug.)

Medieval swordplay and adventure have never been as glorious as in Foster's Sunday-only comic strip. Although much reprinted (including an earlier version from the same publisher), this edition has been reproduced from pristine printer's proofs to give the gorgeous artwork its crispest version ever. The story takes young Prince Valiant, exiled heir to the conquered kingdom of Thule, from a witch's evil prophecy to adventure at the court of King Arthur, with stops for heroic rescues, conniving foes, beautiful maidens, Viking invasions and even a broken heart or two. Narrated in captions rather than told in speech balloons, Foster's script is literate and full of vivid characterizations, like the headstrong but cunning Val and carefree Sir Gawain. But nothing surpasses his artwork—rich with details of armor, weapons and dress, the story comes to life with a palpable sense of magic and danger. Each drawing is a flawless illustration, perfectly composed; even a battle of 20 men comes alive in a tiny panel, with every action clearly delineated. Prince Valliant is one of the best-drawn comics ever, and this new edition does ample justice to its achievement. Bonus material includes an interview with Foster and an afterword by editor Kim Thompson for context. (Aug.)