Fiction Book Reviews: 11/9/2009

The eminently talented Carey (Theft) has the gift of engaging ventriloquism, and having already channeled the voices of Dickens’s Jack Maggs and the Australian folk hero/master thief Ned Kelly, he now inhabits Olivier-Jean-Baptist de Clarel de Barfleur, a fictionalized version of Alexis de Tocqueville, whose noble parents are aghast at his involvement in the events surrounding Napoleon’s return and the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X. To remove him from danger, they send him to America, where priggish snob Olivier inspires Carey’s humor during his self-centered adventures in New York, New England, and Philadelphia. Olivier can’t shake his aristocratic disdain of raw-mannered, money-obsessed Americans—until he falls for a Connecticut beauty. More lovable is Parrot, aka John Larrit, who survives Australia’s penal colony only to be pressed into traveling with Olivier as servant and secret spy for Olivier’s mother. Though their relationship begins in mutual hatred, it evolves into affectionate comradeship as they experience the alien social and cultural milieus of the New World. Richly atmospheric, this wonderful novel is picaresque and Dickensian, with humor and insight injected into an accurately rendered period of French and American history. (Apr.)

In her light third novel, Center (Everyone Is Beautiful) tackles sisterhood, but falls just short of poignancy. Sarah Harper is on the New York fast track at a top advertising agency until she grows a conscience overnight and sends out a companywide e-mail debunking her popular bra campaign. Fired, she flies home to Houston, where she crashes with her older sister, Mackie, and Mackie’s husband, Clive. Turns out Mackie has problems of her own: after years of trying to have a baby, she announces she’s done. In an effort to do something good for a change, Sarah offers herself up as a surrogate. In the nine pregnant months that follow, Sarah juggles unexpected feelings for her brother-in-law and expected feelings for an ex-boyfriend, and instead of the pregnancy bringing her and Mackie closer, it drives them apart. Witty dialogue and likable characters keep the pages turning, but Center glosses over the depth of emotion inherent in carrying your sister’s baby to the point that you forget at times that Sarah is pregnant. It’s a fun, breezy book, but it doesn’t try to get to the heart of the matter. (Apr.)

A laborious translation doesn’t help to recommend this otherwise gripping story of dueling Dutch sisters who become separated by a monstrous meteorological anomaly. Lidy takes her sister Armanda’s place on a group trip that ends with a final stand against the legendary New Year’s storm of 1953 that swallowed a large chunk of Holland, killing nearly 2,000. Lidy’s efforts to stay alive span the better part of this saga, and that’s a good thing: de Moor is at her strongest describing the raging elements and Lidy’s traveling partners’ final hours in a farmhouse attic; the arresting details suck the reader into the maelstrom as inexorably as any of the protagonists. While it’s difficult to tell whether the prose’s lack of fluidness is simply de Moor’s style or an aspect of the translation (“Cathrien Padmos began to breathe heavily for the third time in her married life, or to put it more precisely, the cervix was in its last stages of dilation”), her methodical writing is well suited to the story’s technical aspects, of which there are many. Despite some rocky moments—events are set in motion by “a concatenation of different circumstances”—de Moor (The Kreutzer Sonata) pulls off an involving saga of death foretold. (Mar.)

Goodman (The Night Villa) delivers the goods her fans expect in this atmospheric and fast-moving gothic story: buried secrets, supernatural elements, and a creepy setting. Following the death of her husband, Meg Rosenthal accepts a job teaching at an upstate New York boarding school and moves there with her teenage daughter, Sally. The school, Arcadia Falls, also happens to be central to her thesis, which focuses on the two female coauthors of fairy tales: Vera Beecher, who founded the school, and her friend Lily Eberhardt, who died mysteriously in 1947. While the campus is bucolic, school life proves anything but—Meg thinks she sees ghosts and Arcadia’s brightest and most ambitious student, Isabel Cheney, is found dead in a ravine. Feeling Sally drifting further from her each day, Meg finds refuge in Lily’s preserved diary and begins to unravel the secrets behind Isabel’s death. Goodman doesn’t do anything new, but her storytelling is as solid as ever, and the book is reliably entertaining. (Mar.)

Gowda’s debut novel opens in a small Indian village with a young woman giving birth to a baby girl. The father intends to kill the baby (the fate of her sister born before her) but the mother, Kavita, has her spirited away to a Mumbai orphanage. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Somer, a doctor who can’t bear children, is persuaded by her Indian husband, Krishnan, to adopt a child from India. Somer reluctantly agrees and they go to India where they coincidentally adopt Kavita’s daughter, Asha. Somer is overwhelmed by the unfamiliar country and concerned that the child will only bond with her husband because “Asha and Krishnan will look alike, they will have their ancestry in common.” Kavita, still mourning her baby girl, gives birth to a son. Asha grows up in California, feeling isolated from her heritage until at college she finds a way to visit her birth country. Gowda’s subject matter is compelling, but the shifting points of view weaken the story. (Mar.)

Twelve years after graduating from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Jack Sheahan, the protagonist of McNally’s witty third novel, suffers from chronic self-doubt and a decade-long case of writer’s block. He keeps an unfinished novel in a box under his telephone books and earns his living as a media escort for literati invited to read in Iowa City, greeting authors at the airport, chauffeuring them around town, and occasionally running their errands—all the while seething with envy. With two clients in town at the same time—one a new mother with possible postpartum psychosis who disappears with her baby, the other an arrogant New Yorker of Jack’s age who has garnered the awards Jack once dreamed of winning—plus a snowstorm, a former fiancée, and a mysterious visit by a famous writer who’d disappeared from public view years earlier, the action spirals into frenzy. McNally (Ghosts of Chicago), an Iowa graduate and former media escort, clearly knows the world he admires yet takes down. His wacky literary archetypes, naked humor and sharp observations offer up an entertaining look at the writing life and the people who prop it up. (Mar.)

A robbery goes awry for a young L.A. slacker on a get-rich-quick scheme in Greer’s cleverly fashioned, flimsy second novel (after Artificial Light). Protagonist Guy Forget wants his square MIT professor brother, Marcus, to lend him the $50,000 he needs to build the prototype for his invention, a sophisticated information-mining computer system called Pandemonium, which will transform Guy into “a man with clout.” But Marcus can’t stand his brother and is still in competition with him for the approval of their father. Then Dad suddenly dies, and leaves Guy the exact amount he needs, but it’s too late to stop “Plan Charlie,” Guy’s harebrained plot to rob a Korean check-cashing service along with his dog-walker friend, Billy. The other characters getting in Guy’s way are his manipulative femme fatale new girlfriend, Violet, and her scheming jealous pursuer, Sven Transvoort. Greer creates emotional distance by cutting up the sequence of events so that chapters are not chronological and inserting self-conscious comments by the “not entirely omniscient but very reliable narrator.” Running gags render this suspense parody cheeky, experimentally cool, and not terrifically memorable. (Mar.)

Lansens’s hopeful and gentle third novel (after The Girls), opens in the same fictitious Ontario county as its predecessors, but the heroine’s journey takes her to a vastly different landscape, both literally and spiritually. In Leaford, Mary Gooch’s life is strictly circumscribed—she’s even worn a rut in the carpet between the bed and the kitchen, so often has the 302-pound woman made the trip. So when Mary’s handsome husband disappears on the eve of their silver wedding anniversary, Mary wonders whether her size or her aversion to adventure chased him off. With few clues, Mary leaves her small town for one of the first times in her life, venturing first to Toronto and then to the suburbs of Los Angeles, where a series of encounters with strangers shakes her out of her lethargy. Mary’s journey may be too carefully mapped out, but she’s a wonderful character, and Lansens’s handling of her eventual transformation into someone capable of compassion and acceptance is handled with a light but assured touch. (Feb.)

Akinti’s raw and riveting debut novel begins with Ashvin, an angry teenage Somali refugee, and his best friend, James, on opposite rooftops in the slums of East London preparing to hang themselves in a suicide pact. Ashvin leaps, unable to bear the reality of his own life—his activist parents murdered in Somalia; his brutal rape at the hands of Ethiopian soldiers; the constant harassment by London police and his schoolmates; the endless battles he will face as a black man in England. He leaves behind Meina, the beloved older sister he had always tried to protect. James, a lonely, studious teen, the baby of the drug-dealing Morrison clan, whose brothers are dehumanized, violent criminals, desperately wants to escape the family business, but he can’t imagine a way out. When James jumps, but survives, Meina seeks James out, and they try to find shelter in one another. Akinti, himself a product of London’s council estates (public housing), captures in gracious and resonant prose the fear, anger, and sadness of life in the violent and poverty-stricken slums of London’s East End. (Feb.)

Jesse Bennett, the 13-year-old heroine of Beale’s charming debut, longs to escape the humdrum life of Britain’s East Yorkshire. Stuck in a small town with her unstable mother and ineffectual father, Jesse wants to see the world, but her hopes of breaking free are dashed when her mother attempts suicide and her father, reasoning that a “change of scene” will help his wife recover, moves the family farther into the country. But the people of rural Midham are less than welcoming to the strange new arrivals. Eventually, Jesse falls in with Tracey and Amanda, the toughest and most feared girls in town, though with this security comes increased scrutiny: Jesse must pretend to be just like her mates, and even though she cares nothing for clothes or boys and despises the meanness, she develops a crush on Amanda that threatens to end unfavorably. Beale’s lively narrative captures, with touching accuracy, the plights of adolescence; if the novel sometimes veers toward the saccharine and relies on less than surprising plot twists, Jesse’s affirming arc offers hope in a place where it’s in very short supply. (Feb.)

American heiress Penny Nichols is supposed to be planning her nuptials to dashing barrister Jeremy Laidley in this pleasant if underplotted installment to Belmond’s Rather series (A Rather Curious Engagement), but she keeps dithering. Complications quickly arise when Penny and Jeremy visit her aunt Leonora and uncle Phillipe, who offer them use of a family heirloom at the wedding—a valuable antique bridal tapestry—and their chateau for the ceremony. But while the happy couple is away trying to convince Jeremy’s overbearing British grandmother that the French wedding they are planning will meet her exacting standards, the tapestry is stolen, and Penny and Jeremy put on their detective caps. Family secrets involving Penny’s French and Jeremy’s English relatives are revealed, but the couple’s investigation into the missing tapestry isn’t handled very well, with obvious details overlooked until the plot requires the simpatico duo to piece things together. Series fans may find this outing agreeable if slow; the uninitiated will have a hard time sussing out the backstory and should read the earlier books first. (Feb.)

Grissom’s unsentimental debut twists the conventions of the antebellum novel just enough to give readers an involving new perspective on what would otherwise be fairly stock material. Lavinia, an orphaned seven-year-old white indentured servant, arrives in 1791 to work in the kitchen house at Tall Oaks, a Tidewater, Va., tobacco plantation owned by Capt. James Pyke. Belle, the captain’s illegitimate half-white daughter who runs the kitchen house, shares narration duties, and the two distinctly different voices chronicle a troublesome 20 years: Lavinia becomes close to the slaves working the kitchen house, but she can’t fully fit in because of her race. At 17, she marries Marshall, the captain’s brutish son turned inept plantation master, and as Lavinia ingratiates herself into the family and the big house, racial tensions boil over into lynching, rape, arson, and murder. The plantation’s social order’s emphasis on violence, love, power, and corruption provides a trove of tension and grit, while the many nefarious doings will keep readers hooked to the twisted, yet hopeful, conclusion. (Feb.)

After her magazine career craters, Isabelle Lee, the narrator of Mah’s super sharp debut, leaves New York to reconnect with her family roots in China. Her familiarity with the language and culture limited to “kitchen Chinese,” Isabelle lands a job at a magazine for the expatriate community in Beijing and finds a circle of friends. However, her relationship with her big-shot attorney sister, Claire, who’s lived in China for a while, gets off to a rocky start, with the two not knowing quite what to make of each other. Isabelle’s Beijing immersion, coupled with her chick lit arc, provides a refreshing and fun narrative, helped along by a fantastic heroine whose insights into modern China and the expatriate experience will intrigue readers. It’s a great start for a writer with much promise. (Feb.)

Moyer (Tumbling) offers an eloquent, stylish novel-in-stories, 16 tales narrated by Chester Patterson, an “Army brat,” who highlights his life from his sixth-grade crush in 1954 through the mid-1960s, when he’s “officially an adult,” and, finally, his father’s interment at Arlington National Cemetery. The lively Pattersons are a military family rounded out by Chester’s kid sister, Janet, a popular, pretty teenager, and his Rita Hayworth look-alike mom, Betty, who’s both a bombshell and borderline alcoholic. They move every few years, to places as varied as Okinawa and Georgia. Sex-obsessed young Chester (“there are whole days when I seem to walk around in a smoky haze of lust”) gets it on with his older, worldlier cousin Frenchie when he’s not reading Hemingway, Mailer, and Kerouac or bungling the beer runs made with his teenage pals. Later, on academic scholarship, Chester attends college in Chicago where he falls in love with arts major and violinist Callie Sinclair, in the most poignant of the short stories in this evocative coming-of-age cycle that, at their best, bring to mind the stories of Lorrie Moore. (Feb.)

This debut novel from Lombardo (The Logic of a Rose) follows ably in the cleat-prints of W.P. Kinsella and Bernard Malamud, chronicling the life of a talented Chicago pitcher. In their middle-class Chicago suburb of the mid-1980s, baseball nut Henry Granville and his wife, Lori, face marital discord regarding Henry’s immediate, insistent campaign to commit their baby son Danny to a life in baseball. When Henry discovers his son’s natural ambidexterity, visions of raising a superstar “switch pitcher” (an almost unheard-of athletic skill) kick his obsession into overdrive. One rocky boyhood later, Danny signs with the Cubs and finds instant fame (“Danny can throw like Tom Seaver with one arm and Sandy Koufax with the other”) as well as a bit of infamy; he’s a “freak” in the eyes of opponents. Meanwhile, Danny falls in love with an art instructor and nurtures another rare talent: clairvoyance. Fans of sports fiction should find this an enjoyable trip to the mound, with just enough old-fashioned Americana magic to keep them guessing. (Feb.)

Beutner’s debut tackles the Greek myth of Alcestis, who so loved her husband that she sacrificed herself to Hermes in his place. Beutner’s retelling, set in ancient Greece, involves a more complex character: her Alcestis is a misfit who has deeply mourned the loss of her sister Hippothoe since childhood. Through Alcestis’s eyes, Beutner provides a cagey look at men and gods, driving her narrative into the Underworld after Alcestis’s husband, Admetus, proves so afraid of facing his own death that he demands a replacement. Alcestis goes instead, not for romance or martyrdom, but to find her dead sister. While hunting the land of the dead, Alcestis sheds the “good girl” identity she’s begrudgingly worn her whole life and finds her fate tied to those of Persephone and Hades; eventually, she learns much about gods and men (especially from stubborn, simple Heracles). Beutner renders her multilayered heroine with beauty and delicacy, and concerns herself with no less than the intricacies of the soul; unfortunately, an abrupt ending sucks the wind out of Beutner’s sails. (Feb.)

Fans of bestseller Smith’s two mystery series set in Botswana and Edinburgh will find the same understanding, affectionate look at human frailties and foibles in this sunny series about the adventures and misadventures of a precocious six-year-old, Bertie Pollock, and a host of other folks in contemporary Edinburgh. In the superlative fifth entry (after The World According to Bertie), Bertie’s parents engage in a Wodehousian power struggle about how their young child should be raised, wondering whether his desire to become a scout is a good thing. The neatly interwoven story lines include the travails of a young, newly married couple and an artist who finds himself saddled with too many dogs. One character’s scheme to recover a Spode tea cup that her neighbor has permanently appropriated is particularly evocative of P.G. Wodehouse, though Smith’s characters are less broadly drawn and more multidimensional than, say, Jeeves and Wooster. (Jan.)

Bestseller Lescroart’s lackluster third Hunt Club thriller (after The Suspect) finds PI Wyatt Hunt near the end of his rope. Business has slowed to a trickle; Hunt’s relationship with his old high school friend, homicide detective Devin Juhle, is on the rocks; his receptionist, Tamara Dade, has walked out; and Tamara’s brother, Mickey, is his only remaining employee. When Mickey discovers the body of Dominic Como, San Francisco’s most prominent civic activist, he proposes a way for Hunt’s agency to get involved in the murder investigation and perhaps return to solvency. Como’s extensive charities, like the Sunset Youth Project and its subsidiaries, operated with a budget of about $50 million—a sum large enough to put all sorts of murder motives into play. And just how jealous was Como’s wife of her husband’s young and pretty female driver? A labored gathering of suspects, police, and Hunt Club operatives allows Hunt to produce the killer in melodramatic fashion. (Jan.)

Set in 1943, the tedious fifth entry in bestseller Griffin’s sprawling Honor Bound series, coauthored with son Butterworth, picks up where Death and Honor (2008) left off, with Don Cletus Frade, a U.S. Marine Corps major, still trying to expose two Nazi secret missions: Operation Phoenix, which concerns large sums of money being smuggled into Argentina to be used by high-ranking Nazis who plan to flee the Reich if Germany loses the war, and another program that ransoms rich Jews out of Germany. Most of the many characters continue to scheme against one another and endlessly discuss their plots, coups, and assassination attempts. Brief, violent altercations occasionally interrupt the talk. As usual, the plot abruptly stops, presumably scheduled to resume in the next installment. Newcomers are advised to start with the first of the series. Those who prefer action in their WWII fiction should go elsewhere. (Jan.)

Bestseller Davis (Alexandria) takes a break from her popular Roman historical mysteries with this sprawling epic of the English civil war. Alas, after the brief, moving prologue, which vividly depicts the final hours of Charles Stuart before his execution in 1649, the novel never again attains that narrative height. The action shifts to 1634, laying the groundwork for the conflict that culminated in the royal beheading and continues through the downfall of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate in 1657 before a pat ending. Much of the action is seen through the eyes of a resourceful survivor, Gideon Jukes, a printer who ends up becoming a musketeer in one of the London Trained Bands, fighting for the Parliament against the king’s men. Efforts to humanize the conflict by providing the bookish Jukes with a love interest don’t amount to much. Still, the author does a good job of showing the changing role of print in the political struggles. (Jan.)

Emerson’s second in her Tudor court series (following Secrets of the Tudor Court: The Pleasure Palace) begins with Jane Seymour’s death after giving birth to a son, Edward, and follows the fortunes of one of her maids of honor, Nan Bassett. Concerned about her position now that her queen is dead, Nan catches Henry VIII’s eye almost at once, a dangerous position for a young maid. When her family becomes embroiled in treason and scandal, it is all she can do to stay alive and must balance the desires of a king with the desires of her heart. As in her first Tudor novel, Emerson skillfully crafts a strong heroine who maintains careful command of her sexuality and her independence. Nan’s behavior is as brave as it is scandalous for the time, and Emerson makes readers appreciate the consequences of Nan’s choices. An in-depth view into the later years of Henry’s court with the charismatic king gone to seed, makes him a character, in Emerson’s capable hands, to be feared and in some ways pitied. (Jan.)

In this peculiar WWII novel, first published in 1947, the Flemish author gives his own first name, Louis, to the narrator, but also insists that the “I” of his first-person narration is also “you,” the reader. As someone whose generation “blossomed between the two wars,” Louis offers a heavy dose of overtly symbolic disillusionment and self-conscious sentimentality while writing very little about the war itself. Mostly, he’s at home contemplating the people in his neighborhood. An “anarchist, nihilist, and a dirty old man,” Louis can’t quite identify anything connected with the war, and this ambiguity is of course meant to question the nature of war itself. Instead, the reader gets lost in a strange, vague world where multiple characters are referred to as “What’s-his-name” and musings on misery are italicized or printed in capital letters. This cursory treatment of reality allows Boon more time to talk about himself, the decline of humanity (best illustrated by loose women), and the feigned hypersensitivity that accompanies all great nihilist authors, but that Boon can’t quite get right. (Jan.)

Crafting an elaborate fictional world for his second novel, complete with fabricated news reports and other source material (“verified” by the editor), Doyle (Revenge of the Teacher’s Pet) successfully evokes a moment that will make readers wonder: could this be real? Audrey Mapes is a beautiful Midwestern girl born with no feet and given to eating nonfood items like wood, metal, fabric, or plastic without any adverse effects. Doyle’s narrative follows Audrey and her family, including twin siblings Toby and McKenna, as they cope with Audrey’s bizarre affliction—her father by means of absence, her mother by pills, her grandmother by religion and her siblings by further eating disorders. Told from McKenna’s point of view, the often disturbing story pursues Audrey from unhappy childhood through adulthood success; she earns fame through a traveling freak show and, eventually, arrives in the Michigan city of Kalamazoo for a climactic eating event. While Doyle’s novel is relentlessly inventive, his characters are irredeemably unlikable, making it difficult to care about any of the bizarre goings-on. (Jan.)

Mary Higgins Clark fans who aren’t too finicky about legal detail will welcome this domestic suspense novel from MacDonald (Stolen in the Night). When Brooklyn grad student Morgan Adair, who’s agreed to be godmother to the infant son of her best friend, Claire Bolton, attends the baptism in West Briar, Long Island, it’s clear that the stresses of motherhood have overwhelmed Claire. A few days later, Claire phones Morgan at the airport, where Morgan’s about to depart for England to do research on feminist Harriet Martineau (and pursue romance with an English poet), to say she’s killed her son and husband. Despite this confession, which Claire also made to the police, the skeptical Morgan launches her own investigation. Less than realistic law references (e.g., an academic expert on involuntary admissions of guilt states, “Believe me, all investigating ceases when a suspect confesses. It’s generally agreed that the police don’t need anything more”) may give some readers pause. (Jan.)

While Millar’s second gritty crime novel featuring Belfast PI Karl Kane (after Bloodstorm) doesn’t have the same punch as its predecessor, readers with an appetite for gore will be engrossed. Soon after Kane agrees to look into the case of an alleged runaway, Martina Ferris, a friendly pathologist tips off Kane that he’s examining two corpses whose profiles match Martina’s and whose liver and kidneys have been removed. If that barbarity isn’t enough, the victims’ bodies carried too much weight for their skeletons, suggesting that they were force fed. Once a chief suspect emerges—Bobby Hannah, son of a renowned surgeon, who shot his mother to death, allegedly by accident—Kane and Hannah engage in a cat-and-mouse game that strikes increasingly close to home for the detective. While it’s hard to come up with much new in a serial killer plot, Millar distinguishes himself from many of his contemporaries in the genre with taut writing and a memorable lead character. (Jan.)

Dekker and Healy follow their collaboration in Kiss with another odyssey into the paranormal that transports readers into another dimension and returns them head spinning, never to see their own world in quite the same way. Two young friends are propelled out of their Gypsy clan when shady characters burn their kumpania (community). The girls lose family and friends in the fire and grow up separated from each other and the boy they both loved. One is faced with an impossible choice that haunts her until the girls meet 15 years later, where a reality-bender twist is revealed. Readers who enjoy allegorical stories that are rooted in the Bible will find dozens of connections, some force-fed (“He was the Jesus to Janeal’s Judas”) and others unorthodox but mind-zinging (“ 'Who can imagine what God and Satan discuss? Certainly Job had no idea God was gambling with his life.’ ”) Christian fiction lovers who enjoy romantic interest, frantic chases by sinister figures of biblical proportions, suspense, and the old-fashioned joy of suspending disbelief will find this new dynamic writing duo, once a writer-editor combo, fiery hot. (Jan.)

The 10 all-original tales in Edgar-finalist Kurland’s lively third Sherlock Holmes anthology (after 2004’s Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years) chronicle the exploits of the fledgling sleuth in America, before he settled in Baker Street. Richard A. Lupoff gets the volume off to a strong start with “Inga Sigerson Weds,” in which the adolescent Sherlock’s cash-strapped parents send him and his jealous sister across the Atlantic to a distant cousin’s New York City wedding. In Darryl Brock’s witty “My Silk Umbrella,” Holmes encounters Mark Twain at a Hartford “base ball match.” The detective meets another Connecticut luminary, P.T. Barnum, in Michael Mallory’s droll “The Sacred White Elephant of Mandalay.” Dr. Watson appears once, in a postscript to Gary Lovisi’s improbable “The American Adventure,” in which the normally emotionless Holmes falls hard for a beautiful stage actress. Other contributors include Steve Hockensmith, Peter Tremayne, and Rhys Bowen. (Feb.)

Set in 1840, Pepper’s outstanding third hard-boiled historical finds the series’ unusual antihero, known simply as Pyke, still recovering from the loss of his wife, who perished five years earlier, in 2008’s The Revenge of Captain Paine. Self-destructive acts have landed the former Bow Street Runner in debtors’ prison, leaving him even more of a stranger to his 10-year-old son, Felix. When one of Pyke’s few friends in a position of power secures his early release on condition he look into the savage murder of an unidentified young woman found in a seedy London neighborhood, Pyke welcomes the chance to redeem himself in Felix’s eyes. No one is particularly interested in giving the mixed-race victim a name or bringing her killer to justice, but Pyke throws himself into the inquiry and follows the evidence all the way to Jamaica. As in the previous two books, there’s plenty of violence, but it’s never gratuitous and indeed helps make the protagonist more complex. (Jan.)

In bestseller Beaton’s enjoyable 25th Hamish Macbeth mystery (after 2008’s Death of a Witch), a Valentine’s Day parcel explodes in the face of the Scottish Highlands’ Lammas festival queen, Annie Fleming, as soon as she tries to open it, killing her instantly. Hamish Macbeth, newly promoted to sergeant, would rather investigate with only his trusty pets in tow, but is instead forced to tote along his new constable, the less than professional Josie McSween. Considered “prim and proper and a right innocent,” Annie turns out to have been leading a less than virtuous double life, with no shortage of suspects in her murder. A much sought after bachelor, Hamish desperately tries to break the case, while Josie, with dreams in her eyes, strives to crack Hamish’s heart. Will Josie succeed in getting Hamish to say “I do” at the altar? For all the book’s farcical moments, Beaton takes care as usual to provide a satisfying police procedural. (Jan.)

Hess’s amusing 16th update on tiny Maggody, Ark., and its crazy cornpone citizens (after 2006’s Malpractice in Maggody) might have been more aptly titled Murder’s a Hole-in-One in Maggody. On the opening day of the first Maggody Charity Golf Tournament, poor braggart Tommy Ridner—who was so excited to win the hole-in-one prize, a $40,000 bass boat—turns up dead in the prize boat, his head bashed in by a golf club. Tommy’s murder creates a flapdoodle for Maggody’s newbie golfers, who hardly knew what a golf tee was before the big tournament. The town’s fearless (and pregnant) police chief, Arly Hanks, is confronted with more shockers after a friend of Tommy’s is also beaten to death with a golf club, and a rising LPGA star reports an assault. What if golf columnist Dan Jenkins wrote a cozy? Perhaps it would turn out something like this slaphappy cozy, raunchy but wise. (Jan.)

Despite the surprising killing off of a major character, this competent stand-alone police procedural from British veteran Turnbull (Turning Point) offers little suspense or excitement. The digging of a trench in a forest northeast of London turns up the corpse of Det. Constable James Coventry, who disappeared almost 30 years earlier at age 27. Det. Insp. Archibald Dew, who’s grappling with a mentally disturbed daughter, and Det. Sgt. Harry Vicary, a recovering alcoholic, take the usual steps to investigate. The pair discover from Coventry’s parents that their son was on a special assignment that frightened him. Early on, Turnbull lets the reader in on who’s behind the killings, leaving only the identity of one of the bent cops to be revealed at the end. In the absence of any real twists, the book must stand or fall on its characters, who are hard to distinguish from countless similar fictional figures. (Jan.)

At the start of Clement’s sprightly fifth Dixie Hemingway mystery (after 2009’s Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof), the Siesta Key, Fla., pet sitter and former cop takes an instant liking to Jaz, a mixed-race pubescent girl she first meets at the vet, where Jaz has brought an injured wild rabbit. A nervous man claiming to be Jaz’s stepfather (“he looked like a junior high school principal who had learned too late that he hated kids”) admits he accidentally hit the rabbit in his car. Later, three young thugs looking for Jaz confront Dixie at the home of one of Dixie’s clients. Dixie’s homicide detective love interest, Lt. Jean-Pierre Guidry, suspects the three are connected to the knifing murder of a local elderly man, and the chase is on to find the thugs before they get to Jaz. Smooth prose, a lush background, and engaging animals—in particular, Big Bubba, a talkative African gray parrot who loves to watch police shows on TV—make for a fine-feathered read. (Jan.)

Asst. Chief Constable Esther Davidson takes center stage in James’s thoughtful, somewhat dry 25th Harpur & Iles mystery (after 2009’s Pix). Frustrated by the failure of an extensive investigation into the affairs of a criminal gang disguised as the legal Cormax Turton Guild, Davidson decides that the only way to get the goods is to infiltrate the organization by a process known as “out-location.” Such complex details as choosing a police officer to go undercover, maintaining contact, and keeping a rescue team on standby alternate with scenes from a trial involving the murder of a policeman who went undercover at Cormax Turton. Asst. Chief Constable Desmond Iles, who had his own unfortunate experience with out-location in Halo Parade, serves as observer, supporter, commentator. The ethical, legal, and practical considerations of out-location get both theoretical and actual treatment with the life-or-death outcome riding on the slimmest of chances. (Jan.)

Harrod-Eagles’s 12th Bill Slider mystery (after 2008’s Game Over) offers a familiar plot. When the strangled corpse of nearly 17-year-old Zellah Wilding, a star student at St. Margaret’s, an excellent all-girls church school, is discovered in a London park near her home, Slider and his team investigate. The suspects, all stock characters, include Wilding’s overprotective and repressed father; Ronnie Oates (aka the Acton Strangler), who was just released from prison after a series of convictions for indecent assault; and Wilding’s secret boyfriend. Few will be shocked when it turns out the victim led a less than exemplary life. The punning or joking chapter titles (“Salmon-Chanted Evening,” “You Must Remember This; A Kiss Is Still a Coordinated Interpersonal Labial Spasm”) may appeal to some, but others will find the humor at odds with the grim reality of police homicide work. (Jan.)

Mahon’s sleepy third St. Rose Quilting Bee mystery to feature Maggie Browne (after 2006’s An Ominous Death) gets off to a promising start, but a dialogue-driven plot slows the momentum. When Kate Upland and her five-year-old twin daughters perish in an explosion at their Scottsdale, Ariz., house, the police are certain Kate’s missing husband, Kenny, an Iraq veteran who suffers from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), is responsible. Maggie receives a phone call from her elderly quilter friend, Clare Patterson, who, having seen a story about Kenny on TV’s Wanted Criminals, is sure she’s spotted him at a Big-Mart. Clare follows Kenny out of town in her car, but has an accident near his cabin hideaway. Kenny rescues Clare and convinces her of his innocence. Though intriguing in spots, this so-so cozy tells too much and shows too little. (Jan.)

Fenn sets her romance-heavy but passionless debut in a vast and ancient aerial city that inexplicably evokes very little sense of wonder. Nual is a sanctioned killer in Khesh City, where the very rich live Topside and the criminal classes lurk in the low-gravity Undertow. The reclusive and mysterious Nual is stalked by two reluctant hunters: Taro, a prostitute desperate for safety and forgiveness after he inadvertently aids in his aunt’s murder, and singer Elarn Reem, an unwilling cat’s paw for the mysterious Sidhe. Once the rulers of humanity, the Sidhe have a special and malevolent interest in Khesh City, whose founding was tied to their fall. The stronger parts of the story are undermined by a vague, clichéd setting and a false-ringing romance, giving the reader little reason to care about the characters or their woes. (Jan.)

Technically a short story collection, this slender volume is better understood as the DVD extras to Brett’s 2009 debut novel, The Warded Man. The universe’s conceit—demon corelings rise from the land each night, keeping the populace trapped indoors—is explained in the title story, a fully realized tale that challenges belief when the main character takes a foolish risk for no obvious reason, and “Arlen,” a scene deleted from the novel, which offers a charming snippet of childhood foreshadowing but no plot. While the setting is less relevant to “Brianne Beaten,” those who haven’t read The Warded Man may be perplexed by the tale of a healer’s solution to an ethical dilemma. A glossary and grimoire round out the offerings, which should help hold fans until The Desert Spear comes out in April. (Jan.)

Kenyon’s saga of ambitious power grabs, black-hearted betrayals, and star-crossed romance draws to a generally satisfying conclusion in this challenging novel (after 2009’s City Without End). Earth man Titus Quinn unhappily rules the universe known as the Entire, parallel to Earth’s universe, the Rose. Quinn had promised to turn over the throne to his estranged daughter, Sen Ni, but her alliance with powerful psychic Geng De has Quinn determined to hold out as long as necessary to guarantee the safety of Earth and the Rose. First he must safely remove the Tariq, the high-tech lords who nearly destroyed Earth once before, and broker an alliance with the Jinda ceb, an advanced race whose technology could save Earth. New readers will struggle with the complexities, but the broad themes, exotic setting, and advanced technology are charmingly reminiscent of golden age SF. (Jan.)

A misbehaving goddess must tear herself away from her passion for shopping to appease Zeus by serving as a fairy godmother in this amusing sequel to 2008’s Venus Envy. In the Oregon town of Bender, Venus finds new godchild Haydee Miller, owner of the appropriately named Mount Olympus Books. Haydee’s true love turns out to be her loathed ex-boyfriend Derek Reed, a globe-trotting photographer back in town 10 years after abandoning her, but she’s snared a mild-mannered veterinarian in the meantime and is dead set on tying the knot by her next birthday. Meanwhile, men keep falling for the exasperated love goddess. McKelden writes in breezy chick lit style, and while Venus is far more interesting than bland Haydee and her chemistryless interactions with Derek, that will just encourage readers to stick around for future volumes. (Jan.)

Sherman and Cragg (Starfist: Wings of Hell) develop their real-life military experience into the realistic undertones of the accessible 14th Starfist novel. Following previous adventures, the Marines of the 34th FIST are now “the most active, most highly decorated unit in the entire Confederate Marine Corps.” With enlistments extended “for the duration” and the promise of more combat soon, morale is at an all-time low. When word comes of what might be a Skink attack on planet Ishtar, the 34th is promptly deployed, only to be drawn into battle with the indigenous Fuzzies and an illegal human mining operation. The verisimilitude of quiet moments and combat scenes alike makes for quality military SF. With such a large cast, very few characters get significant screen time or development, and the emotional beats will undoubtedly hold more resonance for longtime fans. (Jan.)

In this superbly realized leadoff to Berg’s quasi-Renaissance fantasy trilogy, natural science, backed by Sabria’s King Philippe, is gaining popularity, leading some magicians to attempt his assassination. Failed mage and self-doubting librarian Portier de Savin-Duplais is chosen by Philippe, his distant cousin, to secretly probe a treacherous plot that involves his beloved queen. With fellow “agents confides” Ilario, an inane chevalier, and Dante, a ferocious renegade sorcerer, Portier embarks on an intricate quest to save king and kingdom. As in her widely praised Breath and Bone, Berg shapes the well-worn elements of epic fantasy into a lush, absorbing narrative. Even her minor characters, caught up in fiendish plots and deathly secrets, ring regally true, and Portier oscillates between rueful, reluctant, ethics-bending service and painful but necessary revelations while his old world collapses and a new one struggles to be born. (Jan.)

Readers who persevere past the uninspiring beginning of this romantic fantasy will be rewarded with an above-average tale that includes some interesting questions about destiny and free will. The isolated island of Futhark is elevated high above the sea, guarded by magic-using Keepers and their armed Marshals. Cage Stone, an elven half-breed bastard, travels to the king’s city of Sulbreth to compete in a tournament to secure his adopted family’s future. Highly skilled, Cage soon becomes a Marshal in the service of Keeper Sabelline and accompanies her on a journey to reseal the kingdom’s magical gate against a plague of monsters. The tight focus on the main characters glosses over the common folks’ perception of the events, but there’s plenty of action and philosophy to keep the pages turning. (Jan.)

Waggoner (Cross County) introduces zombie PI Matthew Richter and his hometown of Nekropolis, the city of the dead, in this imaginative, morbidly witty, and frightening series launch. Devona Kanti, a beautiful human-vampire hybrid, wants Richter to track down a stolen item belonging to her father, a prominent political figure. Richter’s undead body is starting to fall apart, so he takes the case, hoping it will pay for magical repairs. Vivid description and characterization, as well as a complex, intricately crafted setting reminiscent of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter universe, keep the pages turning at a rapid rate as Richter embarks on an enthralling tour of the dead city, from the vampire-filled streets of Gothtown to the bustling clubs and seedy dives of the Manhattanlike Sprawl. Both horror and mystery readers will be delighted by this horror-noir adventure. (Jan.)

This gleeful, clever sequel to 2006’s Disappearing Nightly teams up actress and singing waitress Esther Diamond with the magic-savvy but utterly unworldly Max the Magician and his slobbering canine familiar, Nelli, to discover how and why New York’s mobsters are being magically duplicated. Complicating matters is Esther’s suspicious would-be boyfriend, handsome Irish-Cuban police detective Connor Lopez, who would prefer a straightforward investigation involving neither Esther nor magic. Resnick introduces a colorful cast of gangsters and their associates, including a thrice-bereaved mob widow and an attractive young priest, as she spins a witty, fast-paced mystery around her convincingly self-absorbed chorus-girl heroine. Sexy interludes raise the tension between Lopez and Esther as she juggles magical assailants, her perennially distracted agent, her meddling mother, and wiseguys both friendly and threatening in a well-crafted, rollicking mystery. (Jan.)

In Holzner’s fast-paced urban fantasy debut, shape-shifter Victory Vaughn fights demons in an alternate present-day Boston, where a few thousand people have been mysteriously zombified and are now confined to the neighborhood of Deadtown along with vampires, werewolves, and other “Paranormal Americans.” Vicky’s sometime boyfriend, Kane, a werewolf, lawyer, and PA rights advocate, gets some competition from human detective Daniel; teen zombie sidekick Tina occasionally wreaks unintentional havoc; and Vicky’s sister, Gwen, an inactive shape-shifter and suburban wife and mother, argues with Vicky over their life choices and attitudes toward shape-shifting in the most fully realized and emotionally compelling parts of the book. By comparison, the reveal of the big villain comes off as both predictable and a little cardboardy. This fun and facile tale would be a great beach read if it weren’t coming out in the middle of the winter. (Jan.)

The appeal of Fables has always been the reimagining of fairy tale characters as if they were as messy and screwed up as real people; the characters are divorcées, drunks, womanizers, and overall flawed beings. In this crossover of all the Fables characters from various spinoff books, Kevin Thorn, the creator of the world and its stories, is angry such liberties were taken with his characters and is determined to destroy the Fablesverse and start over. The regular Fables cast, Snow White, Bigby Wolf, and Jack (the one with the beanstalk)—with a few additions such as gun-toting embodiments of the library sciences and Thorn’s son, Mister Revise—try to stop Thorn before he writes them and the rest of the world out of existence. Unfortunately, most of what could be good ideas becomes burdensome, with zigzagging plot twists that bog down the pace. There are a lot of “meanwhiles,” and interesting side points and characters, but the overall plot is lacking. (Feb.)

As a study aide, if you can get past—or roll with—the often-precious humor presented by humorist/Ph.D. Bauman, this book is well organized and direct, using its overviews to deflate some of the pomposity that surrounds economic theory. While pro–free trade, the book regards the theories it presents with a slight grain of salt, giving the reader an even broader view of economic history, with the trends that worked short- and long-term. Often, though, this is almost as tedious as an economics textbook—only those who are assigned a class in microeconomics might find some enjoyment in this book, a potential respite from their dry assignments. Also on the negative side, the drawings seem to be flat blobs. For those required to study the subject or already familiar with it, this has some value as a colorful brush up, but the merely curious may struggle. (Jan.)

In the afterword to this shaggy-haired collection of 15 years’ worth of artful zines and comics, Sally notes that he had always assumed all his favorites artists had never dealt with moments “of paralytic, debilitating doubt and fear.” Those insecurities and worries are deeply threaded throughout this book, which reads at times like a history of psychological warfare. Sally (more known for his work with the droning lo-fi Minnesota rock band Low) tends toward richly dark, semiautobiographical, and tightly etched tales of tension and self-recrimination. Creepy dreams and images of anatomical self-analysis are recurring themes, along with the general sense of transience that marked Sally’s life while relentlessly touring with Low (he quit the band in 2005 and now operates his own publishing house). At times the book—which collects his self-published zines Recidivist 1 and 2, plus sundry other material—breaks out of that shell to address topics that are usually no lighter in tone though, as with of his excellent retelling of Dostoyevski’s imprisonment, they benefit from the change in perspective. The art is equally claustrophobic when not downright disturbing. Revealing and witty, even when mired in darkness. (Nov.)

The second installment in this Eisner-winning series, Dallas is even more surreal and darkly quirky than its predecessor. The Umbrella Academy is a group of superheroes who were mysteriously born at the same time, adopted and raised together as a family and a team. Now adults, their heroic and family dynamics are traumatized and dysfunctional, despite their love for one another. In this volume, the bizarrely childlike time-traveling team member Number Five recruits his siblings to right a wrong—to save President Kennedy before he is assassinated, possibly saving the world in the bargain. But in the tradition of dysfunctional families, they overshoot the mark by three years and end up in Vietnam in the middle of the war and opposed by a Machiavellian super-intelligent goldfish. Way’s nuanced, complex writing and Bá’s magnetic, lush art continue to click together like a finely tuned machine. Dallas hits a sweet spot, appealing to mainstream audiences and hardcore comics fans alike, not to mention a legion of teenagers drawn by Way’s other role as lead singer of the popular band My Chemical Romance. (Oct.)

Bohjalian (Law of Similars) has built a reputation on his rich characters and immersing readers in diverse subjects—homeopathy, animal rights activism, midwifery—and his latest surely won’t disappoint. The morning after her baptism into the Rev. Stephen Drew’s Vermont Baptist church, Alice Hayward and her abusive husband are found dead in their home, an apparent murder-suicide. Stephen, the novel’s first narrator, is so racked with guilt over his failure to save Alice that he leaves town. Soon, he meets Heather Laurent, the author of a book about angels whose own parents’ marriage also ended in tragedy. Stephen’s deeply sympathetic narration is challenged by the next two narrators: deputy state attorney Catherine Benincasa, whose suspicions are aroused initially by Stephen’s abrupt departure (and then by questions about his relationship with Alice), and Heather, who distances herself from Stephen for similar reasons and risks the trip into her dark past by seeking out Katie, the Haywards’ now-orphaned 15-year-old daughter who puts into play the final pieces of the puzzle, setting things up for a touching twist. Fans of Bohjalian’s more exotic works will miss learning something new, but this is a masterfully human and compassionate tale. (Feb.)