Fiction Book Reviews: 11/23/2009

Woodruff (Someone Else's Child) leaves not a dry eye in the house in this gripping ode to theater and the love it can command—and crush. Former actress turned restless suburban New Jersey mom-of-three Georgie and her journalist husband, Peter, transplant to London for Peter's new job. There, Georgie finds her way back to the theater and lands a role in a small one-woman production of “Shakespeare's Woman,” playing famous 18th-century British stage actress Dora Jordan. It's a part that consumes Georgie from the start, notes Peter, who achingly chronicles his wife's affair with her part and, eventually, with playwright Piers. Georgie's tour de force as Dora comes from her total recognition of the character—“Two hundred years later and it's exactly the same thing,” Georgie tells Piers—and her life as Dora and as Piers's lover begin to take precedence over her husband and children. Peter's excruciating autopsy of his crumbling marriage is unsparing and relentlessly punishing, but the kicker at the novel's end makes the adultery feel like a cozy little tea party. It's brutal and lovely. (Apr.)

Canadian writer Endicott's second novel (and stateside debut) is an enjoyable and affirming meditation on altruism, goodness, and loneliness. The quiet, circumscribed world of divorcée Clara Purdy gets shaken up when she gets in a car accident with the Gage family, who are homeless and have been living in their car. In the aftermath, the mother, Lorraine Gage, is diagnosed with cancer, and Clara takes the family into her home while Lorraine undergoes treatment. The father absconds almost immediately, and Lorraine's mother, Mrs. Pell, proves to be deeply unpleasant. Clara, however, continues to visit Lorraine in the hospital, tend to the three children, and eventually takes in Lorraine's alcoholic brother as well. Her willingness to go to such lengths for strangers is a perpetual curiosity to those around her, and just as the Gage family solidifies around her and she begins a new relationship, Lorraine's health takes a surprising turn and Clara must decide again, what is the “right” thing to do. Endicott's rich writing struggles to find its groove at first, but the balance of prose, plot, and purpose soon evens out into a touching story. (Apr.)

Veteran television writer Stepakoff breathes new life into a familiar plot and setting in his debut novel. Lily Davis Woodward, once a headstrong, independent dreamer, acquiesced at age 17 to her wealthy parents' wishes and married Paul Woodward, the perfect high society Atlanta husband. Two weeks later, Paul ships out to serve on the European front, and Lily tends the home fires until the summer of 1945, when Lily, about to see her husband for the first time in three years, meets Jake Russo. The “pyrotechnics man,” who's planning the fireworks for the local July 4 celebration, spurs Lily to wonder whether her life is what she really wants. Sparks predictably fly, and after several passionate days, Lily is torn between what's expected of her and the chance to pursue an exciting and adventure-filled life. For sure, forbidden love's been done to death, but Stepakoff's spellbinding descriptions of Jake's unusual line of work and the lush countryside of northern Georgia, the unexpected plot twists, and a surprise ending give this story plenty of oomph. (Apr.)

Family members who act like strangers, and characters who eat dirt, undergo strange transformations, and find themselves drawn mysteriously to bodies of water form the heart of Watson's accomplished collection, but the latest from the author of The Heaven of Mercury is much more than the sum of its strange moments. In “Vacuum,” three boys who are afraid their mother will leave them begin playing with razor blades and jumping off the carport roof. In “Carl's Outside,” neglectful parents belatedly realize their son has disappeared. In one of the most eerie pieces, “Water Dog Good,” a man takes in his ethereal 16-year-old niece, who has been sexually assaulted by her father and brothers. In the title story, a teenager and his pregnant girlfriend's lives unspool after an encounter with a mysterious couple who may or may not be aliens. Watson is a master at hairpin plot turns, and his characters come alive on the page with minimal backstory; readers get deep into their heads and hearts, even when the weirdness surrounding them feels like something out of a David Lynch movie. (Mar.)

Malae's debut novel (after the collection Teach the Free Man) is a high energy rant narrated by a half-Samoan/half-white drifter trying to survive in a world bent on marginalizing seekers of truth and integrity. Malae's antihero, Paul Tusifale, an ex-con and poet, wanders the dark corners of Silicon Valley like a corrosive Midas, ruining everything he comes in contact with, whether it's a civil rights march or a wealthy patron's poetry fellowship. Paul's voice is filled with anger and intelligence, and though his rants can come off preachy byproducts of his moral superiority and self-imposed martyrdom, when he backs away from smart-ass comments, superior glares, and Shakespearean quotes, his toughness transforms into a heartbreaking shield against futility, and he becomes a man with an idea on how to save us all. The novel's at its strongest during these moments, bearing a message that in the face of the madness of the modern world, the most important thing is to know yourself and to hold onto that at whatever cost. It's got rough patches, but the voice is gold. (Mar.)

Smith slips effortlessly into the voices of her funny, smarter-than-they-look characters in her latest collection (after News of the Spirit), containing a handful of new works among some old favorites. In “Toastmaster,” a family's dinner outing is parsed from the point of view of a brainy 11-year-old who sees through the motivations of his flaky mother and demonstrates his powers of observation when a group of joking, drunken men enter the restaurant. Similarly, “Big Girl” allows an overweight wife who has sacrificed everything for her awful husband to tell her story while attaining the ultimate emancipation. Each tale is beautifully honed and captures in subtle detail and gentle irony the essential humanity of characters who might initially strike the reader as superficial or unsympathetic. “House Tour,” for instance, finds a cynical wife and mother contemplating her possible alcoholism when her house is overrun by an endearing group of similarly life-worn but irrepressible women who mistake her house for one on their home tour. Other tales about indomitable wives and mothers will be familiar to Smith's fans and round out this thoroughly enjoyable collection. (Mar.)

In the 10 years since she arrived in London as a know-nothing college graduate with caterpillar eyebrows and her hair in a scrunchie, American Charlotte Merryweather has transformed herself into the stylish proprietress of the city's poshest public relations firm. Charlotte (along with her faithful assistant, Beatrice) is in pursuit of a hot new client and a home for herself and her boyfriend, when a sighting on the morning commute derails her: a curly-haired young woman in a beat-up orange VW Beetle who resembles the Charlotte of 10 years earlier. On a whim, Charlotte follows her home and discovers that, through some sort of inexplicable time-bending phenomenon, the girl is in fact Charlotte's younger self, called Lottie. Buddying up with her doppelgänger, Charlotte finds paradoxes taking a backseat to life lessons; thinking she's got a decade of hard-won wisdom to teach Lottie, Charlotte is surprised to find herself learning from her past persona about love, passion, and trusting herself. Though the plot mechanics grind noisily, Potter (Me and Mr. Darcy) rescues her high-concept romance with charming characters, sharp dialogue, and a satisfying conclusion. (Mar.)

Clay's promising if uneven debut scrutinizes the complicated relationship between two very different sisters. Knox Bolling has always resented her beautiful sister, Charlotte, and blames Charlotte for her situation. She's 34, living on her parents' Kentucky horse farm and unable to commit to her boyfriend's repeated marriage proposals. Charlotte, on the other hand, has moved to New York City, where she dabbles in acting and holds a series of dead-end jobs before meeting money manager Bruce Tavert, who, after a brief courtship, proposes. Their intention to start a family, however, proves deadly for Charlotte, who dies in childbirth, leaving Bruce with premature twin boys and providing Knox with an opportunity to explore life outside of Kentucky by coming to New York to help Bruce. Things quickly get creepy as Knox tries out life as Charlotte, and the narrative takes on a stark gothic eeriness. New York is more difficult than Kentucky for Clay to nail down, and some of Knox's late-book behavior verges on Fatal Attraction–type obsession before backtracking into something just short of prudent uplift. It's a strange mix—not altogether unappealing, but not a knockout, either. (Mar.)

Herron steps briskly into formula in her debut about knitting and a mismatched couple who hate to love each other. When knitting book author Abigail is bequeathed a cottage and a small piece of land on a ranch owned by her best friend and mentor, Eliza Carpenter, she decides to give it a go in sleepy Northern California. Instead of her idealized version of a quaint abode, she arrives to find a decrepit, junk-filled shack and an irascible rancher, Cade—nephew of Eliza—who, despite his anger at Abigail having anything to do with his ranch, allows her to stay in his house until she gets the cottage in order. The two gorgeous strangers quickly realize an attraction they swear to fend off, but, of course, they don't, though there's a lot of fussing along the way. Herron, a popular knitting blogger, weaves in her love of the art throughout the rote romance. It has sweet moments, but the uninspired plot gets tiresome. (Mar.)

This feverish novel from the author of Call Me by Your Name takes a microscope to a torrid romance–cum–battle of the sexes between two 20-something New Yorkers. Clara Brunschvicg and the unnamed narrator meet at a swank Christmas Eve party and immediately jockey for position. The ensuing grappling plays out over the course of the seven nights between that party and New Year's Eve. The motor that makes this dual character portrait hum is the narrator's uncertainty about sardonic beauty Clara's murky intentions. Aciman knows these types well, filling their romance with coffees, wealthy friends in Hudson County, and Rohmer film festivals, and he concocts ever more complex scenarios to dramatize the tension and uncertainty. This smart book is rich with the details of how skittish lovers interact. Aciman creates a private vernacular for the two while rarely failing to miss a telling smile or let so much as a line of dialogue go wasted. At times the narrator's wordiness drags—particularly when he intersperses the play-by-play of an intense moment with an extended analysis of the scene—but, mostly, the novel is taut and entirely authentic. (Feb.)

Mystery, witchcraft, and a precocious young narrator enliven Pietroni's debut. In 1933, Ruby Abel Tailor is 13 years old, growing up in the town of Cradle Cross, in the heart of England's coal-dusted Black Country. Ruby lives with her grandmother, works at a chip shop, and dreams of running away. One day, a mysterious stranger arrives: elegant, white-haired Isa Fly, who has come to town to fulfill her dying father's request that she find a long-lost half-sister. Eccentric Isa quickly draws the scorn of the townspeople, especially after she and Ruby befriend the owner of the town's main industry, Blick's Button Factory. As Blick's tips into a steep financial decline, prized possessions all over town go missing, and Ruby questions Isa's motives. Ruby is one of those bright narrators whose insights into the treacheries of the adult world are heartrending, but while the dialogue is inventive and gorgeously dialectical, the pacing is off, with the middle section slowing dramatically before ramping up for a final 50-page blitz. If savored for character and atmosphere, fans of Hardy, Dickens, and, more recently, Michael Faber and Sarah Waters will find much to enjoy. (Feb.)

Cybertheft, neo-Nazi thugs, Russian mafia, inconsiderate and incompetent doctors, and a bitter dispute among condo owners keep retired Boston cop Eddie Perlmutter busy in Forman's enjoyable, episodic second crime novel (after Boca Knights). Having been diagnosed years earlier with “compulsive explosive disorder,” the vigorous 60-year-old is now more intent on salvaging or redeeming miscreants than punishing them. Eddie's reputation and his new PI agency in Boca Raton, Fla., bring him lots of intriguing cases, which he solves or resolves in often ingenious ways. Eddie, who still fights to control his temper, is capable of busting a nose, but mostly he devises retribution that merits the phrase “poetic justice” if rehabilitation fails. While Forman's sense of humor can be childish (as in Boca Knights, Eddie talks to “Mr. Johnson,” his penis), he deals with such serious issues as anti-Semitism, gay rights, and health care with more insight and sense than most genre authors. (Feb.)

In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne hints that after Hester Prynne's husband and lover die, Hester and her daughter, Pearl, travel abroad. In her inventive if implausible debut, Reed takes this suggestion and runs wild with it, beginning with Pearl's inheritance of a small fortune. Eager to start anew, Hester uses the money to travel to England with Pearl and to find a suitable marital match. Upon arrival, Hester reunites with a childhood friend whose husband is an ally of Oliver Cromwell, and when Cromwell learns of Hester's magical ability to see other people's sins, he recruits her to help ferret out those plotting against him. She acquiesces, only to become deeply embroiled in political intrigue that threatens to destroy the new life she's created. A few romantic trysts spice up the story and result in some un-Puritan-like scenarios, though it's hard to imagine Hester using a word like “cock” or describing postcoital “shudders of pleasure.” Pearl has been similarly revised, though Reed frequently puts words into the precocious girl's mouth that are stilted and wise beyond her years. Nevertheless, in revisiting this classic, Reed has created an entertaining and unlikely sequel. (Feb.)

Jamison's beautifully written debut follows independent young New Yorker Stella and her estranged aunt Tilly as they form some version of a family. Stella is disenchanted with her life and job as a journalist's personal assistant; Tilly is a professional lost soul, a former prostitute, and an unsuccessful recovering alcoholic. To all appearances, Stella is the savior, finding Tilly, who's been shunned by the family, to rescue her; but through alternating first-person accounts, the reader grows to view the two women as equals. Their experiences with men especially mirror one another's; Tilly has merely had worse luck. Stella describes wanting a man, “any man, who could offer his face as a label for my loneliness”; later, recalling men she's been with, Tilly says, “most of them I didn't even like that much, but they seemed like the easiest way to change my own life.” The relationship between Stella and Tilly is compelling, as are their relationships with auxiliary characters, like Stella's brother and Tilly's son, but what truly drives the novel is Jamison's gorgeous prose. (Feb.)

The 1887 massacre of more than 30 Chinese gold miners in a remote area of the Idaho territory provides the real-life foundation for this engrossing look at racial prejudice and the settling of the West, the first novel from Hand (the pen name for William Howarth and Anne Matthews). After police judge Joe Vincent and his 10-year-old daughter, Nell, find a body while fishing, more brutally mutilated bodies turn up along the Snake River. The Sam Yup Company, a Chinese labor exchange, hires Vincent to find the culprits. Lee Loi, an ambitious investigator, and Grace Sundown, a Métis mountain guide who shares a past with Vincent, join the hunt. The three track a murderous crew through remote canyons and towns. The plot soon evolves into an insightful look at how Chinese immigrants and American Indians became the targets of rage and violence. The subsequent capture and trial of the killers illustrate that how the West was won was neither simple nor fair to minorities. (Feb.)

Guttentag, an Academy Award–winning film director (Twin Towers), offers a moving, loosely knit crime drama about life on the streets of Hollywood in his first novel. Casey, a 15-year-old castoff from her dysfunctional family in Oregon, makes her way to the boulevards of Tinseltown to join the teeming, ever-revolving crew of runaways who get by through begging, stealing, and prostitution. One night at the legendary Chateau Marmont hotel, Casey kills a high-powered, politically connected lawyer who has a sexual penchant for the young. Leading the murder investigation is LAPD detective Jimmy McCann, whose own drug-addled son also lives on the streets. Despite occasional slips into misty-eyed prose, Guttentag shows a deft touch with detail as he chronicles an existence marked by moments of sheer panic followed by hours of boredom and mundane routine. The action builds to a hopeful and satisfying conclusion. (Feb.)

Capt. Raphael Semmes of the Confederate navy continues his daring exploits at sea, covering vast tracts of the Atlantic between late 1861 and early 1863, in Peffer's engaging second book in his Seahawk trilogy (after Southern Seahawk). Seamanship and battles receive scant attention as the narrative dwells on a host of mostly land-bound historical characters, including President Abraham Lincoln; Gideon Welles, secretary of the navy; spymaster Allan Pinkerton; and Jefferson Davis's wife, Varina, as well as Semmes's fictional lover, Maude Galway. Peffer paints a convincing portrait of the destruction and desperation felt on both sides and of the many small, heroic actions (or inactions) that might turn the tide of war. Semmes emerges as a bloodied and battered warrior of epic stature in a losing cause, a Hector yet to meet his Achilles. (Feb.)

Novelist and screenwriter Karystiani (The Jasmine Isle) won the 2007 National Book Award for best Greek novel with this book, centered around a secretly blind sea captain “in his damned dotage,” Mitsos Avgoustis. Karystiani celebrates Mitsos's epic 58-year devotion to the merchant shipping industry and the ship he helms, the Athos III, but also exposes Mitsos's heartbreak: a bitter, neglected wife, Lola; three estranged children and one grandchild (in the habit of asking if she still has a grandfather); and a pining lover, Litsa, left “on ice” for 35 years. When ownership of the Athos III passes to a “useless scoundrel,” Mitsos finds his loyal crew driven away, his retirement imminent, and his replacement a cheaper, more tractable seaman. In the ensuing battle of wills, Mitsos continues sailing and soliciting cargoes, while resentful Lola conspires with her 22-year-old son, “wounded and enraged but harmless” Andonis, to bring the captain back to Pireas. An exciting and colorful ride populated with a host of memorable characters, Karystiani's latest is both sweeping and efficient, except for a distracting tendency to tackle too much in one sentence. (Feb.)

Matarazzo's bold and unusual debut, a collection of interrelated short stories, revolves around characters who all experience heat. In the grotesque “Hotmouths,” a young girl without hands is saved from drowning by a buoy repairman whose mouth blisters her lips when they kiss. In “Fisty Pinions,” a girl who has “glass ashtrays for breasts” falls for a woman who has loved her from afar since high school. In the haunting “Freshet,” a teenage baby- sitter becomes pregnant, igniting a trend among her fellow babysitters. The town parents, now left babysitterless, set into motion a shocking and devastating scheme to regain their freedom. “Cataplasms” tells the story of siblings sent to live with their father after the young boy cuts open his neighbor and replaces his liver with a fish. Matarazzo has an admirable ability to surprise, and although at times she seems to be trying too hard to provoke (young lovers lips “pop and sputter and sting”; two children create an underwater sex rig), the stories ring true. Each scene is rendered so poetically, in a strange combination of tenderness and aggression, that it is difficult to turn away. (Feb.)

Bolaño's brief, wonderfully eccentric novel moves around two themes he developed at length in The Savage Detectives—poets and conspiracies. In 1938 Paris, semirecluse Pierre Pain, the 48-year-old mesmerist narrator, is in love with young widow Marcelle Reynaud, who calls him to request his service in treating a friend's husband. Eager to impress, Pain agrees to treat the man, Oscar Vallejo, a Peruvian poet, who is hiccupping himself to death. Pain's re-entry into normal life soon goes awry: two thuggish Spaniards bribe him to withdraw from the case, Pain experiences auditory hallucinations, Madame Reynaud disappears, and Pain runs into a fellow mesmerist, Plomeur-Boudou, working as a torturer for Franco, who tells Pain an obscure tale about the purported assassination of Pierre Curie. Is all this simply a bizarre swirl of coincidences befalling a lonely and slightly mad bachelor, or are these events links in a chain of murders? One of Bolaño's first novels, this already displays his brilliant, alchemical gift for transmuting the dead-ends of life into sinister mysteries. (Jan.)

This inventive fantasy from bestseller Fforde (The Eyre Affair) imagines a screwball future in which social castes and protocols are rigidly defined by acuteness of personal color perception. Centuries after the cryptically cataclysmic “Something That Happened,” a “Colortocracy,” founded on the inflexible absolutes of the chromatic scale, rules the world. Amiable Eddie Russett, a young Red, is looking forward to marrying a notch up on the palette and settling down to a complacent bourgeois life. But after meeting Jane G-23, a rebellious working-class Grey, and a discredited, “invisible” historian known as the Apocryphal man, Eddie finds himself questioning the hitherto sacred foundations of the status quo. En route to finding out what turned things topsy-turvy, Eddie navigates a vividly imagined landscape whose every facet is steeped in the author's remarkably detailed color scheme. Sometimes, though, it's hard to see the story for the chromotechnics. 10-city author tour. (Jan.)

Katherine Ashley is the daughter of a country squire with no hope of a future, until a chance meeting with Thomas Cromwell gets her sent to Henry VIII's court as a waiting gentlewoman to Queen Anne Boleyn and a spy for Cromwell. When Boleyn comes to an untimely end, Ashley becomes tutor and servant to her daughter, Elizabeth, and accompanies the girl throughout her trials and tribulations before she finally takes her father's throne and goes on to become England's greatest queen. Rarely does a work of historical fiction endeavor to cover so much territory—Ashley lives through the reigns of four Tudors—but Harper's diligent research, realistic portrayal, and insider/outsider heroine will hook those who can't get enough of England's turbulent history. Readers familiar with the period will feel at home and even manage some sympathy for men like Cromwell and Henry VIII. Still, bestseller Harper (Mistress Shakespeare) maintains her focus on the roles of women—both powerful and powerless—in Tudor England, resulting in another enjoyable proto-feminist historical romp. (Jan.)

Bestseller Suarez's sequel to Daemon (2009), in which the late, mad-genius game designer Matthew Sobol launched a cyber war on humanity, surpasses its smart, exciting predecessor. This concluding volume crackles with electrifying action scenes and bristles with intriguing ideas about a frightening, near-future world. Sobol's “bots” continue to roam the Internet, inciting mayhem and siphoning money from worldwide, interconnected megacorporations out to seize control of national governments and enslave the populace. FBI special agent Roy Merritt is dead, but still manages to make a dramatic comeback, while detective Pete Sebeck, thought to be executed in Daemon, rises from the supposed grave to lead the fight against the corporations. What the trademark letters affixed to the title signify is anyone's guess. Those who haven't read Daemon should read it first. The two books combined form the cyberthriller against which all others will be measured. (Jan.)

At the start of Chance's heady if at times overheated Victorian historical, Sabine Conrad, an ambitious opera singer wounded in a violent encounter whose significance doesn't become clear until later, flees New York City with her jewels. Months later, in February 1878, the by now penniless Sabine reaches Seattle, Washington Territory, where she gets a job as a scrubwoman at the Palace, a whore house that provides musical entertainment in the frontier city's red-light district. Sabine, who's adopted the name Margie Olson, helps the Palace's proprietor, Johnny Langford, realize his dream of turning the place into a legitimate theater. Chance (The Spiritualist) deftly explores the hardships the former prima donna endures overseeing Langford's entertainers, even as Sabine yearns to return to the stage herself. Melodramatic excerpts from Sabine's youthful journal chronicling her opera career provide counterpoint in an erotic thriller full of lively period detail. (Jan.)

“Nothing happens, much. Then something does. Then nothing again, or—rarely—something else. Then nothing, and so on and so on until it becomes hard to perceive any difference between nothing and something.” That's pretty much how this novel, the author's U.S. debut, proceeds. Walker, a pseudonym for British poet Charles Boyle, gives readers a nameless protagonist who wanders through five days of her life, pondering and committing infidelity and ruminating on her relationship with her au pair, stepson, husband, and, naturally, the very British sport of cricket. The latter bit crops up increasingly, but to diminishing returns with each overwrought parallel between infidelity and cricket. The plot, which revolves around the relationship between the narrator and her unnamed lover, never really moves, and readers are given no reason to care about the characters, of whom the stepson is the best fleshed out. Most disappointing, however, is how frighteningly dull everything is—even the sex. (Jan.)

Shamus-winner Hall's superlative 11th thriller to feature Thorn (after Hell's Bay) finds his iconoclastic Key Largo, Fla., PI with a newly acquired fortune. Thorn is excited when his girlfriend, Rusty Stabler, presents a deal to protect 300 square miles of Florida from development and also put Earl Hammond's Coquina Ranch game-hunting operation out of business. Then Hammond is shot to death, Thorn is kidnapped—but Hall is just getting warmed up. While Thorn tries to figure a way out of the literal hole he's in, Rusty and Thorn's longtime friend Sugarman try to track him. Warped contract killers Jonah and Moses Faust, who deal in serial killer memorabilia, and Hammond's very different sons, ex-football star Browning and Miami cop Frisco, play large roles. Hall steadily ratchets the suspense while seamlessly combining elements of Florida's natural history with elements of the state's early development and overdevelopment. (Jan.)

In her auspicious debut, Warner kicks off the Blood Rose trilogy by introducing the Wilkins brothers—Brady, Andrew “Jack” Jackson, and Patrick “Hank” Henry—of RosaRoja in 1869's New Mexico Territory. On a stagecoach ride destined for disaster, eldest brother Brady encounters prim, proper, and very pregnant Jessica Abigail Rebecca Thornton, a flame-haired authoress, milliner, and British heiress. On the run from her violent, controlling brother-in-law, John Crawford, and searching for her brother, George Adrian, Jessica is in danger of losing her Northumberland estate and determined to find a way to hold onto it. Brady offers refuge, and Warner develops their romance with well-paced finesse and great character work. Along with greedy, domineering John, vengeful ex-con Sancho Ramirez (whose father was RosaRoja's former owner) and his murderous half-brother also threaten the couple's happiness. While following her protagonists overcoming enemies within and without, Warner makes great use of the vivid Old West setting. (Jan.)

The newest entry to the growing ranks of “bonnet fiction” writers is Fisher, who has written Amish nonfiction (Amish Peace). This Lancaster County tale centers on Carrie Weaver, who marries an Amish man for convenience though her heart is committed to another. Carrie struggles to care for her hemophiliac younger brother as she lives with the consequences of her own choices. The outline is promising, but the execution flawed. An intriguing heroine shows the author's potential, but major problems compromise the book's overall merit. The plot creaks too loudly; a few too many characters die to complicate the action, and the character who poses the biggest threat is more a caricature than credible villain. Minor characters—an oversized lovable ex-con, a harpy stepmother—likewise mostly serve plot rather than populate a convincingly drawn world. The language can get adjective-laden and trite (“The air had grown thick and heavy”). Bonnet fiction devotees might be able to overlook some problems, but this is not a strong new offering in the subgenre. (Jan.)

Ancient Egyptian cultists use modern terrorist tactics in Doherty's melodramatic seventh historical to feature Amerotke, Chief Judge in the Hall of Two Truths (after 2008's The Poisoner of Ptah). Fanatical Nubian worshipers of the hyena goddess Nema will stop at nothing to topple female pharaoh Hatusu so that their land can break away from Egypt. Soon uncertainty and fear sweep the royal capital of Thebes, as the terrorists commit inexplicable locked-room murders as easily as they muster squads of assassins. Amerotke has to protect the people he loves while also unraveling different strands of greed and treason to track down the fanatics' mysterious leader. The richly detailed picture of life in Egypt during the 15th century B.C.E. at times threatens to smother the action. Still, series fans will cheer as Amerotke use the primitive forensic tools available to him along with clever rational analysis in his efforts to solve the crimes. (Feb.)

Few writers can combine history and mystery as well as Edgar-winner Pattison, as shown in the sequel to 2007's Bone Rattler, which introduced Duncan McCallum, a Scot who becomes an unlikely detective in 18th-century North America. In 1760, McCallum and his close friend, Conawago, a Jesuit-trained member of the Nipmuc tribe, stumble into a case with potentially far-reaching repercussions for a peace treaty between the Iroquois and the British. When the pair find a prominent Virginia militia commander, Winston Burke, nailed to a tree with a gear wheel stuck in his chest, Conawago becomes a suspect in the man's murder. Burke turns out to be but the latest victim of a killer who's targeted surveyors sent to map the Pennsylvania wilderness. While Burke's vengeful friends are eager for swift frontier justice, McCallum works frantically to uncover the truth. Evocative language, tight plotting, and memorable characters make this a standout. (Jan.)

In Sansom's satiric fourth mobile library mystery (after 2008's The Book Stops Here), Israel Armstrong, an English Jewish vegetarian mobile librarian and amateur sleuth, embarks on yet another bumblingly endearing case in Tumdrum, “on the northernmost coast of the north of the north of Northern Ireland.” The day after Israel allows 14-year-old Lyndsay Morris to borrow a “bad book” (i.e., Philip Roth's American Pastoral), Lyndsay, daughter of prominent Unionist candidate Maurice Morris, disappears. The coincidence is enough to make Israel suspect in the eyes of his boss, Linda Wei, a lesbian Chinese single mother, as well as the police and a nosy newspaper reporter. Never mind the thin plot and minimal detection. Sansom uses the naïve Israel to poke fun at politics, religion, prejudice, and pretensions of all sorts. Readers will particularly enjoy the passages devoted to the efforts to keep books like American Pastoral out of the hands of the young and impressionable. (Jan.)

In Graves's tepid 13th Home Repair Is Homicide mystery (after 2008's A Face at the Window), true-crime writer Carolyn Rathbone and her unhappy assistant, Chip Hahn, arrive in Eastport, Maine, to research Randy Dodd, a psycho who faked his own death six years earlier after Cordelia Lang Dodd, Randy's wealthy wife, took a fatal fall down the stairs. Now Randy has returned to Eastport after the stabbing murder of Anne Dodd, the wife of his brother, Roger, and Cordelia's sister. Did Randy kill Anne, as the blubbering Roger claims? Soon after kidnapping snoopy Carolyn, a cosmetically altered Randy nabs Sam, series heroine Jake Tiptree's recovering alcoholic son, who's an unlucky witness. Chip, who once befriended Sam, joins sleuthing forces with police chief Bob Arnold, a frantic Jake, and others in an installment marred by a lack of surprises and boring, over-the-top villains, though redeemed in part by an exciting resolution. (Jan.)

Bartulin introduces irrepressible Sydney, Australia, used-book dealer Jack Susko in this tight hard-boiled whodunit, the first of what one hopes will be a long series. Susko's business is slow until he gets an odd request from a well-to-do businessman, Hammond Kasprowicz, who offers him $50 for every copy he can locate of the works of an obscure poet, Edward Kass. Needing the cash, Susko suppresses his curiosity about the motive behind his client's request. As he begins to track down copies of Kass's books, Susko is unable to avoid getting emotionally entangled with Kasprowicz's daughter, Annabelle. After a few dead bodies crop up, the bibliophile becomes the object of unwelcome suspicion by a shady cop who knows about Susko's unsavory background. While the story twists won't shock genre fans, most readers will find the smart-aleck amateur detective a winning lead character. (Jan.)

At the start of Canadeo's delightful second Black Sheep knitting mystery (after 2009's While My Pretty One Knits), twice-widowed Gloria Sterling, an unofficial member of the local knitting circle, has returned from Florida to Plum Harbor, Mass., with a new husband, Jamie Barnett. A struggling artist, Jamie is much, much younger than his wealthy and glamorous bride. The five official members of the knitters group, led by Maggie Messina, owner of the Black Sheep Knitting Shop, at first suspect Jamie is after Gloria's fortune, but after seeing the pair together, they're reassured the couple are happy. When Gloria is found dead in her swimming pool, her fellow knitters, dissatisfied with a police verdict of accidental death, begin their own search for answers. Despite a predictable solution, the fast-paced plot will keep even nonknitters turning the pages. Web sites for knitting patterns and recipes are included. (Jan.)

A foreign rival challenges Cora Felton in Hall's amusing 11th mystery to feature the Puzzle Lady of Bakerhaven, Conn. (after 2009's Dead Man's Puzzle). Minami, the Sudoku Lady, arrives from Japan dressed in traditional garb, along with her resentful 16-year-old niece, determined to prove to Cora, whose book has displaced Minami's as the #1 bestselling sudoku title in Japan, that she can construct superior sudoku puzzles—and solve crimes, just like Cora. Conveniently, Minami meets Cora at the home of Ida Fielding, who the night before fell and hit her head on an andiron with fatal results. Minami is sure Ida's husband, Jason, killed her, even though Jason was in jail at the time, under arrest for being drunk and disorderly. That none of this is remotely plausible scarcely matters. New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz supplies four sudokus and two crosswords. (Jan.)

In Ellis's run-of-the-mill second procedural to feature North Yorkshire Det. Insp. Joe Plantaganet (after 2009's Seeking the Dead), Plantagenet, who carries with him the de rigueur tragic backstory (i.e., the loss of his wife in an accident, the murder of his partner), looks into a potentially explosive case—the strangulation of a young woman, eventually identified as Natalie Parkes, whose left big toe was severed postmortem. Beside her corpse was a porcelain doll, mutilated in the same fashion. Incredibly, the police only learn of similar murders in the 1950s committed by a killer nicknamed the Doll Strangler of Singmass Close, who was never apprehended, by reading a true-crime book. A subplot concerning a naïve would-be model who finds herself abducted and forced to care for an ailing elderly woman provides a clumsy link to the police investigation. The solution to Parkes's murder will strike many as coming out of left field. (Jan.)

Set in Memphis, Tenn., in a vague recent past (PCs are starting to replace typewriters), Griffey's saccharine sweet debut, the first in a series, teams young widow Maggie Murphy with cute cop Joe Driver. After her husband, Horace, dies in a motorcycle accident, Maggie gets a temp job at a local newspaper, filling in for missing columnist Fritz Wartz, that becomes permanent after Maggie discovers Wartz's corpse next to the paper's dumpster, with the Star of David carved into his forehead. Joe and his police colleague, Det. Alan Hill, welcome Maggie's amateur sleuthing into the hate crime; she in turn appreciates their assistance in proving Horace's death was no accident. Even diehard cozy fans may find Maggie's goody-goody persona too much, while Horace's ghostly spirit adds little to the predictable plot line. (Jan.)

In her first novel since 2003's Peyton Amberg, Janowitz imagines a surreal and dysfunctional world where toxic waste is everywhere, the rich are very rich and everyone else is very poor, drugs are prevalent and jobs are scarce, cockroaches have become pets while birds have disappeared completely, and literacy has all but vanished. Most people have become so complacent about the many horrors around them that they no longer notice new ones when they appear. Focusing on one family and their circle of friends and acquaintances, Janowitz predicts an apathy-drenched way of living that slowly becomes all too plausible. This edgy, uncomfortable novel is not an enjoyable read by any measure, but those who pick it up will find themselves simultaneously horrified and transfixed, compelled to persist until the grim conclusion. (Jan.)

The gripping, suspenseful, and wry 10th tale in the Nightside supernatural detective series proves every bit the equal of Jim Butcher's better-known Harry Dresden books. The action picks up not long after 2009's Just Another Judgement Day as Lord Screech, an elf claiming to be a peace emissary who has just negotiated a treaty between powerful elvish rivals, enlists PI John Taylor's help in getting safe passage to a portal to another realm. Despite his misgivings about Screech's honesty, Taylor and Ms. Fate, a transvestite crime fighter who “might have heard of taste, but only as something other people had,” battle werewolves and Neanderthals to deliver Screech to his destination and tackle several other challenges. Longtime fans and first timers alike will applaud Green's blend of fantasy, mystery, and humor. (Jan.)

This classic sword and sorcery novel from 1967 finds a shattered future Europe recovering from the “Tragic Millennium” spent under the control of the overtly evil Dark Empire of Granbretan. The reclusive Count Brass, lord of the former French region Kamarg, enrages the empire when he spurns an offer of alliance. Imperial envoy Baron Meliadus sends defeated rebel Dorian Hawkmoon to kidnap Brass's daughter, Yisselda, but Hawkmoon's inherent morality, his own infatuation with Yisselda, and Brass's kindness lead Hawkmoon to ally with Brass though he knows it spells his own doom. This novel is quite short by modern standards, giving the story a compressed and distilled effect. There is little space for nuanced politics or any depth of characterization, but the action is extremely fast-paced, and Moorcock fits more plot into 224 pages than other authors manage in a dozen volumes. (Jan.)

Coughlin's first novel since 2002's The Cupcake Queen is an engaging paranormal romance. When Eve Lockhart outbids Gabriel Hazard for an antique pendant, he declares that owning the object is a matter of life and death for him. Two men with strange powers attack, and Eve is shocked when she and Gabriel magically fight them off, after which he suddenly disappears with some Matrix-like moves. Her grandmother, a witch, might have some answers, but Eve has denied magic since a family tragedy struck 20 years earlier. She delves into her legacy, Gabriel studies her history and professed magical naïveté, and soon passion flares as they are menaced by an evil power connected to the pendant. The romance and plot are well constructed; the only unsatisfying aspect is Eve's backstory, which manages to be both cursory and too detailed. (Jan.)

The fourth Victor Decimus vampire tale picks up four years after 2005's Vampire Transgression. In post-Katrina New Orleans, troubled new priest Charles Boisvert tries to purge his homosexual feelings with the help of therapist Dr. Beauchamp. The appearance of distressed yet beguiling young stranger Kyle at Charles's church jeopardizes the success of the treatment. Charles's family and even his immortal soul are endangered when vampire Victor begins a tug of war for Kyle's attentions while the Dark Kingdom, a sort of vampire government, tries to keep Victor from becoming a rogue vampire maker. Scenes of mostly tame gay sex have less of a chance of offending than the intimations that Jesus, called Joshu, was once Victor's lover. Vampire fans will enjoy familiar tropes with a few tweaks, and flashbacks make the episode so accessible to newcomers that returning readers may get a little bored. (Jan.)

This anthology of 16 speculative stories celebrates the 30th birthday of Delaware independent bookstore Between Books. Though theoretically unthemed, the tales tend to be on the darker side. Superb selections include Jonathan Maberry's “Dr. Nine,” which delves into the depraved side of human nature; the birth of a new legend in Lawrence M. Schoen's “The Fisherman and the Wrestler”; Catherynne M. Valente's philosophical “Proverbs of Hell”; and Gregory Frost's “Swift Decline,” a tale of ritual and madness. Lawrence C. Connolly's “Beneath Between” and Mike McPhail's “Beyond Imagine” even use the bookstore as a setting. Other stories of lesser quality by relative unknowns are placed alongside these standouts, giving the whole work an uneven feel and leaving readers to sift through sand for the gems. (Jan.)

Maverick (Crimson Rogue) fills the eighth Crimson City paranormal action-romance with a multilayered tale of love and intrigue. Marius Dumont, leader of the Vampire Assembly, is devoted to bridging differences among the different species of Crimson City. To this end, he has decided to marry a werewolf princess even though his heart has long belonged to human rogue Jillian Cooper. When Jill and Marius discover a dead vampire turned nearly human by a virus, the two launch into an investigation that leads them to the diaries of Charlotte Paxton, a draper in Victorian London whose relationship with science enthusiast Edward Vaughan underlies all of the modern intrigue in Crimson City. Flowing easily between the 1850s and a strange, futuristic Los Angeles, the tale of action, treachery, and tragedy unfolds at a rapid pace, keeping the tensions, both political and sexual, highly charged. (Jan.)

Crandall (Seeing Red) delivers a rather pedestrian piece of romantic suspense. Smalltown Southerner Abby Whitman's childhood sleepwalking led to a fire that killed her sister and destroyed the old family home. When a mysterious car accident kills a senator's son, Abby worries that she ran him over in her sleep. Rather than seeking help, Abby makes the ridiculous decision to stay awake for as long as she can. Handsome psychiatrist Jason Coble tries to help her while battling problems of his own, including an alcoholic ex-wife and a teenage stepson who conveniently dislikes Abby and wants Jason to come home. As Jason and Abby get closer to the truth of the accident, affection supposedly grows between them, but flat characters and purple prose (“What would it be like to orbit around him, she a moon to his planet?”) do away with any shreds of passion or tension. (Jan.)

This tense and compelling narrative introduces an extraordinary new mystery protagonist. Escaping a failed relationship, Det. Insp. Geraldine Steel moves to a smaller town, which she hopes will have smaller problems. Instead she's put in charge of investigating a young woman's brutal murder. Her co-workers are alternately supportive and cynical, skeptical of her quick rise to the top, but Geraldine doesn't have time to worry about that when two more young women are found dead in the same manner and location and the prime suspect is eliminated. Geraldine's hunt for the severely disturbed killer soon makes her a target. A wide variety of characters come seamlessly together to advance the fast-paced, twisty narrative. Russell paints a careful and intriguing portrait of a small British community while developing a compassionate and complex heroine who's sure to win fans. (Jan.)

Bestseller Johnson follows Gorgeous as Sin with another sizzling 1890s romance. Osmond, Baron Lennox, freely takes on new lovers right and left. When he stumbles into Isolde Perceval's hotel room instead of the one where a paramour waits for him, the libidinous countess invites him to stay the night, knowing the scandal will dissuade the odious man who wants to marry her for her fortune. Osmond gallantly offers to wed Isolde instead, declaring, “It's strictly a business arrangement,” while privately expecting her to remain his lover for “at least a month”; Isolde is entirely complacent about the arrangement and his inevitable infidelity before the agreed-upon divorce, making the happy-and-monogamous-ever-after ending ring a bit false. Yet the clever, sexy characters' refreshing honesty about their lust results in a sensual and satisfying story. (Jan.)

There seems to be a serial killer at work in New York, hacking up young men in elaborately grotesque ways, and a drunken ex-cop claims that it is the work of some sort of druidic witch, eating souls for immortality. But there's never any mystery or suspense, just one chase from something to something else, with a lot of yelling and killing going on. Starr is known for his novels, including Panic Attack, but his first graphic novel misses the mark. The ugly and nasty script claims it is neo-noir, but it's actually splatterpunk, with a lot of plot holes. Why are the FBI such interfering jerks? No reason, except to frustrate the heroes' attempts. Meanwhile, the borderline racist caricatures of the Irish and Irish druids are practically embarrassing. Bertilorenzi's art is a cut-rate mishmash of Hellboy and Dylan Dog. Often the book feels as if it was a script for the old Night Stalker TV show rewritten as a Cinemax soft-porn movie. (Jan.)

Columbia's legend over the last two decades has as much to do with the work he's destroyed or never finished as with the few spectacular, horrifying pieces that actually have seen publication. This, his first book, makes a point of being unfinished and unfinishable. These aren't actually stories about Pim and Francie, a pair of little-kid characters (drawn in a vintage animation style) who are perpetually stumbling into ghastly, wrenchingly violent scenarios: they're mangled fragments of stories, closeups of incomplete comics pages and animation storyboards, stained and crumpled sketches and notes. The book's spine calls its contents “artifacts and bone fragments,” as if they're what's left for a forensic scientist to identify after a brutal murderer has had his way with them; Columbia obsessively returns to images of “bloody bloody killers.” (His cartoon shorthand for destruction is a human tornado with lots of bent arms holding knives at daffy angles.) Many of the pieces are just one or two drawings, as if they've been reduced to the moment when an idyllic piece of entertainment goes hideously awry. But they're also showcases for Columbia's self-frustrating mastery: his absolute command of the idiom of lush, old-fashioned cartooning, and the unshakable eeriness of his visions of horror. (Nov.)

Matsumoto's nearly European art paired with Japanese manga pacing have made him a fan favorite for years, and he won an Eisner for Tekkonkincreet. In GoGo Monster, he effectively blurs the line between reality, imagination, and madness. Yuki is an outcast elementary school student who “feels” the presence of invisible monsters at his school. Are Yuki's monsters real or imaginary? The old school groundskeeper has reasons to believe Yuki's monsters do exist, and they seem to influence the level of disciplinary problems at school. While we never see Yuki's monsters outside of the depictions scribbled on his desk, readers share Yuki's other hallucinations. In one troubling scene, his teacher's and classmates' heads are replaced with flowers. Matsumoto brings out the surreal moments in everyday life, such as when Yuki stares into raindrops clinging to his umbrella at the distorted image of his face, replicated a hundred times. The high-contrast contour drawings are heavily influenced by French artists Moebius and Enki Bilal, with occasional nods to the psychedelic works of Milton Glaser and Peter Max. Despite occasionally experimental storytelling, the story is very accessible: Viz has faithfully reproduced the beautiful Japanese edition of the book, complete with red-trimmed pages of exceptional quality and a colorful cardboard sleeve. (Nov.)

Kull's unskilled with the refined manners of royalty; as a barbarian who usurped the throne, he lets his sword do the talking. In this reimagining of another barbarian hero from the creator of Conan, a shadowy cult of snake-men slithers out to kill Kull and put their own puppet imposter in place, as they have done with past kings. Kull's plan to defeat them mostly involves beating them up. Alas, except when creating chuckles over lines like “her virgin knot is untouched,” the story is lackluster. Silly and awkward dialogue and explanatory segments regarding the origins and motives of the snake-men leading up to repetitive fight scenes render the book a bit plodding. Although the art adds rich settings and is skillfully executed, it feels stiff at times. However, Kull is an endearing character as he struggles to prove himself a respectable king despite his ignoble background, throughout the more ridiculous trials of fighting snake-men. In the end, he learns to exercise his brain a bit along with his brawn, and proves he is a king to be reckoned with, even if he can't pronounce “jurisdiction” correctly. (Nov.)