Fiction Book Reviews: 6/22/2009

The Carmine-Casey prep school girls flutter through Gaylord’s debut, but they’re not alone; their teachers are insecure flirts and cheats amid divorces and trysts. One such teacher is Leo Binhammer, whose wife, Sarah Lewis, had a brief affair two years ago with Carmine-Casey’s newest teacher, the charismatic Ted Hughes. When Binhammer realizes the connection, he keeps it to himself, and before long, Ted, a reckless romantic, charms Binhammer into an unusual friendship. Meanwhile, student Dixie Doyle and her peers lounge outside the school in their pleated skirts, emanating Lolita-like “accidental sexuality.” Binhammer, who is unapologetic about his attraction to the students, tries to connect with Liz Warren, the playwright in his class, before Ted charms her. Similarly competitive, Liz and Dixie vie for attention from the few adult men around the school, and the complicated web of loyalties, attraction, competition and camaraderie provides much tension as things play out—but not in an expected way. While the narration takes some getting used to—there are many personalities and points-of-view at play—Gaylord’s tale of overeducated men and the teenage students who exhibit the finesse and understanding their teachers lack hits all the right notes. (Oct.)

Welsh returns to the world of drug-ingesting, lager-swigging and “fitba”-loving Scotsmen in this hilarious collection from his Trainspotting years. The material may be old, but the slang still sings in these stories of scrappers attempting to become lords of whatever tiny domain they can conquer. There’s Trainspotting’s volatile Begbie, at his mom’s house for Christmas and trying to endure his sister’s new beau in “Elpseth’s Boyfriend.” In “A Fault on the Line,” Malky doesn’t want to let anything—not even a horrific accident—stop him from missing the kickoff of a footie match. These stories of blustering, emotionally befuddled men and the luckless women who love them also includes less traditional (for Welsh) fare, like “The Rosewell Incident,” in which an alien race learns about Earth culture from a Scottish hood, and “I Am Miami,” about a retired Scottish school teacher who runs into a pair of disgruntled former pupils in Miami. Welsh shines most brilliantly when portraying his solipsistic Scots head-butting the rock-hard ceiling in hopes of escaping, be it through booze, drugs, soccer or sex, from a violent world that offers little peace but plenty of humor. (Sept.)

Bestseller Goodkind (Confessor) ventures into thriller territory with results sure to please fans of his fantasy fiction. In the opening pages, Alex Rahl, the book’s unwitting hero, saves the beautiful Jax from being run down on the street in Orden, Neb., by a plumbing truck flying a pirate flag. Jax, who turns out to be from an alternate reality where evildoers are attempting to seize control of her civilization, has traveled to Nebraska to seek Alex’s help in saving her people. In Jax’s world, magic takes the place of technology, but on earth she’s stripped of her powers and forced to fight armed with only her trusty dagger. The author takes his time setting all this up, but once the story gets rolling, it’s a gripping ride as the bad guys whoosh in between their world, which remains unseen, and ours. Fantasy and thriller readers alike will find themselves swept along to the final confrontation and looking forward to the next installment. (Sept.)

Vonnegut’s debut meets the gold standard for financial thrillers as it puts the frenzied, cutthroat world of Wall Street’s best stockbrokers (aka the “top producers”) on brilliant display. Ripples from the bizarre murder of Charlie Kelemen, wealthy hedge fund operator, quickly reach his best friend, Grove O’Rourke. A top producer at the boutique investment bank Sachs, Kidder and Carnegie, O’Rourke tries to help Kelemen’s widow sort out some financial questions. This process leads him deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of deceit. As fallout from Charlie’s death and dealings start to taint O’Rourke, the sharks, inside and outside his own firm, smell blood and begin to circle. O’Rourke won’t go down without a fight, and not all the blood in the water will be his. Vonnegut, himself a veteran fund manager, handles the arcane terminology and slang of Wall Street with aplomb, never letting it get in the way of the story. 100,000 first printing. (Sept.)

Four missing documents from WWII provide the fuel for Fesperman’s fine stand-alone thriller. The FBI hires Nat Turnbull, a Nazi expert at a second-tier New England university, to find the documents, but Nat soon discovers that the agency has reasons other than historical integrity for wanting them found: to keep a lid on certain war-era sins committed by a German industrialist whose enormous company has been a major weapons supplier to the West. As Turnbull shuttles between Europe and the U.S., he manages to stay a step ahead of a mysterious killer who’s knocking off anyone who may know something about the missing files. Fesperman (The Prisoner of Guantánamo) convincingly evokes the fraying Reich in 1944, a time of shifting allegiances when many Germans focused on positioning themselves for a Hitler-less future, though the who and why of all the recent killings remain somewhat murky. Still, readers who like a bit of history with their thrills will be thoroughly satisfied. (Aug.)

Set in Philadelphia in 1986, this blistering first in a new urban noir series from bestseller Woods (True to the Game) introduces 22-year-old Daisy Fothergill, a naïve African-American stripper. Daisy accepts $2,000 from an organized crime rep to provide an alibi for Bernard “Nard” Guess after he shoots two thieves to death as well as a buddy by accident in a North Philly drug house. An innocent witness to the bloodbath identifies Nard to the police, but pays a fatal price. When Daisy arrives home to tell her mother, Abigail, of her windfall and finds Abigail dead of natural causes, she discovers the $2,000 barely covers funeral costs. Her life takes an even nastier turn once Daisy starts dating Reggie Carter, a fast-talker who soon deserts her. Later, a pregnant Daisy flees to Murfreesboro, Tenn., to seek refuge with her aunt, but eventually she must return to Philly for a day of reckoning. This wickedly satisfying page-turner will leave readers eager for the next installment. (Aug.)

McMurtry ends the west Texas saga of Duane Moore, begun in 1966 with The Last Picture Show, with a top-shelf blend of wit and insight, sharply defined characters and to-the-point prose. Duane, now in his late 60s, is a prosperous and retired widower, lonely in his hometown of Thalia, Tex. Then billionaire heiress K.K. Slater moves in and opens the Rhino Ranch, a sanctuary intended to rescue the nearly extinct African black rhinoceros. Slater is a strong-willed, independent woman whose mere presence upsets parochial Thalia, and Duane can’t quite figure her out. His two best buddies, Boyd Cotton and Bobby Lee Baxter, both work for Slater, and the three friends schmooze with the rich, talk about geezer sex, rat out local meth heads and try to keep track of a herd of rhinos. Mixed in with the humor and snappy dialogue are tender and poignant scenes as the women in Duane’s life die or drift away, and Duane befriends a rhino and realizes that his life has lost its purpose. Nobody depicts the complexities of smalltown Texas life and the frailties of human relationships better than McMurtry. (Aug.)

Moriarty exposes the underbelly of family strife in this coming-of-age college drama set near Lawrence, Kans. One day, Veronica Von Holten is happy, med-school bound, in love with her boyfriend and not far from her supportive family. Then her father finds another man in the bed he shares with his wife of 26 years. As a messy divorce ensues, Veronica struggles to keep her own life in check while her mother’s unravels, and a car accident, a house-sitting gig gone bad and an illicit kiss turn Veronica’s personal life upside down. Things come to a head when her mother shows up on Veronica’s dorm doorstep with the elderly family dog, Bowzer. Veronica is faced with the difficult task of navigating personal strife on top of her family’s struggle to define itself anew. Moriarty (The Rest of Her Life) delves into this realistic but narrow world with an inviting honesty and creates a cast of vivid and flawed characters that will hold readers rapt with a queasy sense of unease. (Aug.)

A dystopian novel of the American South set in 2044, Braziel’s latest recounts family dramas against a Mad Max–style backdrop. A tear in the ozone layer has turned the Southeast into an inhospitable desert where pregnant protagonist Jennifer is quarantined, though she’s determined to escape from Alabama and join her mother in Chicago. Along the way, Jennifer endures a horrific bus crash, the sudden transformation of Birmingham into a wasteland and placement as an indentured servant at an Illinois brothel. She also becomes the reluctant guardian of Mazy, a young girl whose mother has abandoned her. Braziel paints a dark picture of a world where corpses are left unburied and slavery (based on class, not race) is a part of life, and while the novel is filled with creepy imagery—a household with encroaching desert sand finding its way indoors; the handling of poisonous snakes during a church service—it also suffers from a too-deliberate lyricism that obfuscates the narrative or devolves into hoary Southern colloquialism. There’s no shortage of postapocalyptos this summer; this one unapologetically sits on the far dark end of the spectrum. (Aug.)

TV personality and bestseller Grace (Objection! with Diane Clehane) makes her fiction debut with a less than compelling thriller starring a heroine much like herself, Hailey Dean, a highly successful Atlanta assistant DA who loses her fiancé to violence. After a final courtroom triumph, the conviction of chef Clint Burrell Cruise for the murder of 11 prostitutes, Dean resigns her prosecutor post and moves to Manhattan, where within two years she has a new career as a therapist. When someone starts to murder her patients with an m.o. similar to Cruise’s, Dean becomes a suspect. Rather implausibly, neither the NYPD nor Dean is aware that Cruise has been released from prison after the reversal of his conviction on appeal. Little inconsistencies, like calling Cruise “the most prolific serial killer ever to stalk the city of Atlanta,” even though many would award that dubious honor to real-life child-killer Wayne Williams (referred to in the text), don’t help. (Aug.)

This superlative romantic thriller from bestseller Brown (Smoke Screen) features a particularly memorable villain, sociopath Creighton Wheeler, who’s obsessed with re-enacting scenes from films like Strangers on a Train and Frenzy. When Creighton’s wealthy uncle, Paul Wheeler, is shot dead in an apparent robbery at an Atlanta hotel, Paul’s close friend, gallery owner Julie Rutledge, attempts to persuade the police that Creighton ordered the hit. Creighton’s father asks Derek Mitchell, a criminal lawyer, to represent the accused Creighton, but Derek declines because he had a plane tryst en route to Paris with Julie after Paul’s murder. Angered by Derek’s refusal, Creighton stalks Julie; targets Derek’s dog, Maggie; and plots to kill the ex-girlfriend of his henchman, Billy Duke, after Billy has second thoughts about helping Creighton. Brown skillfully charts Julie and Derek’s quest to catch the slippery fiend. Multiple smash cuts (abrupt scene shifts) lead to a wonderfully frenzied finish. (Aug.)

Canadian writer Trofimuk’s uneven novel begins with an inspired premise: a man claiming to be Christopher Columbus shows up at an insane asylum in contemporary Spain. Under the care of a nurse named Consuela, he begins to tell stories of Columbus’s adventures, remembering some and reliving others. It is interesting enough at first, but the blending of then and now gets tiresome and hokey (as when, after strenuous intercourse, Columbus watches TV). Also, Columbus is a voracious lover who speaks in purple prose about how much he loves women. The women, real and imagined, likewise find him irresistible. (Indeed, even Consuela falls hard for Columbus.) Meanwhile, Interpol declares the mystery man “officially suspicious” and dispatches an agent specializing in cold trails to track him down. Trofimuk never quite pulls together a cohesive narrative; the imaginings of a mentally unwell man hold some promise, but too many developments are murky and inexplicable. (Aug.)

Shattuck’s seamless second (after The Hazards of Good Breeding) explores how one woman’s decision to shut the biological father of her child out of her life affects a group of old college pals. Harvard grad Neil Banks isn’t exactly thrilled at having sold out and taken a job that moved him from L.A. to Boston to design the video games he used to review. After his arrival, he happens across Laura, a mutual friend of his and his college sweetheart, Jenny, who got pregnant using Neil’s sperm after her blank-shooting husband couldn’t deliver. As Laura, now unhappily married and the mother of two, and Neil embark on an affair, Neil’s desire to connect with the son he’s never met (and signed away all rights to) grows ever more intense. His chance comes in the form of a sexually voracious rep from Jenny’s pharma company who is working on an antidepressant product-placement deal for a game Neil’s designing. Shattuck does a great job with her characters, and the bizarre situations they find themselves in—Neil particularly—come across as oddly believable. Light humor and breezy prose seal the deal. (Aug.)

Four years earlier, top Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter Cal took on the powerful Rivera, who won the fight by judges’ decision. Now, at 29, Cal’s out to stage a comeback, à la Rocky Balboa. Spare and beautifully written, this debut novel follows Cal and his loyal trainer, Riley, as they head to Tijuana for the rematch. Cal and Riley privately wonder if they’ve made a huge miscalculation; Rivera this time is after a knockout, and Cal doubts that his body can withstand Rivera’s pounding, and questions if the fire in him is passion or just an overwhelming fear of retirement. In the world Kitamura creates, only these three men exist; there is no family or friends. She reveals Cal’s heart and mind as he struggles to understand himself as a man and as a fighter and paints the portrait of Riley as a loving but gruff friend and mentor. Kitamura, a journalist who for years has followed MMA matches, brings a physicality to her story with descriptions of the action so vivid the reader feels the pain of every punch and kick. (Aug.)

One of Granta’s New Voices of 2008, debut novelist Wyld chronicles the stories of two Australian men and the shards of trauma that have made up both lives. Frank and Leon live parallel lives: the narratives begin with young Leon’s father heading to the Korean War, and, 40 years later, with an adult Frank holing up in a decrepit beachfront shack. Leon’s father returns from Korea badly damaged, having been in a prison camp, and soon runs away, with Leon’s mother giving chase. Later Leon is drafted and faces in Vietnam horrors similar to those that traumatized his father. Meanwhile, in the present day, Frank is starting over after his girlfriend leaves him. Making do in the family shack, he befriends his neighbors and threads together a passable existence in spite of remembered tragedies, anger at his shadowy father and a spate of local children gone missing. The two narrative threads stay separate until the final pages, and, refreshingly, their connection isn’t overplayed. At times startling, Wyld’s book is ruminative and dramatic, with deep reserves of empathy colored by masculine rage and repression. (Aug.)

O. Henry prize–winner Krieger follows in his compelling debut an American college student and Vietnam War dissenter who absconds to Sweden for asylum. Arriving in war-neutral Uppsala, Lenny Spiegel is welcomed into the American Resisters Movement, a group of spirited draft dodgers, AWOL soldiers and antiviolence protesters led by dynamic U.S. Army defector Aaronson, who looks so much like Spiegel that Spiegel was picked up in the states for a crime Aaronson committed. Now, reunited in northern Europe, Spiegel gets deeper into trouble after loaning Aaronson his passport to assist other defectors through Denmark. Stuck in Uppsala with no identification, Spiegel panics when he learns that Aaronson had other plans all along and is now in West Germany with no plans to return. Suspicions mount, friends emerge as duplicitous allies, and Spiegel yearns to return home to America while accusations of espionage and abdication surface against the exile leader. The plot is jumpy at the onset, but once Krieger kicks the narrative into high gear, a remarkable character study emerges of Spiegel and his quest for identity and deliverance. (Aug.)

Many breathtaking scenes of the beauty and majesty of humpback whales, including a vivid look at a whale giving birth, are lost amid Abrams’s heavy-handed focus on issues in his overblown second novel (after The Lost Diary of Don Juan), a preachy ecothriller. For Elizabeth McKay, a scientist who believes the humpbacks’ complex songs are key to understanding the animal world, her efforts to crack the creatures’ communication code take priority over her personal life, including her marriage and her friends. Opposing her work are businessmen wanting to increase whale hunting and make whale meat an international delicacy. As McKay tries to help a humpback that has swum up the Sacramento River, she begins to realize that the change in whales’ songs warn that pollution is causing an alarming rate of babies born with birth defects. Ecoterrorists, ecoactivists and the ubiquitous government link weigh down the action. Only the whales have real personalities. (Aug.)

British author Watkins brings her years of experience as a wine importer to her bracing thriller debut. When an American wine critic, Sam Somers, who gave a high rating to an Australian wine, a Macquarie Hawke Coonawarra Shiraz, asks Davis Hart, Hawke’s winemaker, about some inferior bottles of the shiraz, Hart doesn’t take kindly to having his integrity questioned. Later, at Atlanta’s Peachtree International Wine Festival, someone fatally stabs Somers. Shortly after Hart reports his wine’s falsified records to the Australian Wine Board, he dies in a suspicious airplane accident. Enter Sarah Bennett of Atlanta’s Cornerstone Wine Imports. What begins as a simple dispute regarding labels escalates into a terrifying game with Sarah as mouse and a gang of Hawke thugs as cat. U.S. importer Jake Malone, an old friend of Sarah’s, adds romantic heat in this heady mix of winery expertise and slick suspense. (Aug.)

A series of brief, anecdotal episodes featuring occasionally recurring characters marks this delectable debut from Gray. Numbered from 14 to 133, and appearing on facing pages marked AM and PM, these vignettes explore the love tangles of characters like Betty and Simon, listening through the window to a screaming argument by neighbors on the street and discussing whether they should react as Raymond Carver or Superman, or Martha and Emily as they test glass tabletops (and each other) while shopping for furniture. Muted, humorous epiphanies occur: Carla, a woman with two daughters, is moving out on Andrew and trying to pack up her glassware in newspaper (“softened by the humid air”) without waking him; later, she dates the Amazing Chet, who makes his living guessing people’s weight. Friends Missy and Chastity do yoga and debate the attributes of attractive men, while Hazel, on the facing page, ponders her universal “need to express something inside of her.” At moments screwy, prickly and pleasantly surprising, Gray’s short shorts deliver youthful snapshots about being nuts in love. (Aug.)

In Mosby’s powerful thriller, set in what might be Nottingham, England, the police are baffled by an unknown killer who’s been tying up young women and leaving them to die of starvation and thirst. The sadistic murderer uses his victims’ mobile phones to send text messages to the victims’ friends and relatives to suggest all is well while each woman is, in fact, slowly dying. In one case, the killer sends a message the day the body is found saying, “You let her die.” The official inquiry, headed by Det. Sam Currie, himself haunted by having discovered his son’s decaying corpse, centers on David Lewis, a part-time magician and writer for a magazine debunking psychics and UFOs, who was involved with two of the victims. Lewis, who has something to hide, launches his own search for the killer. Mosby (The 50/50 Killer) intercuts between characters’ perspectives brilliantly, setting up a reveal toward the end that’s both logical and unexpected. (Aug.)

Brazilian author Piñon (Caetana’s Sweet Song) returns with a new interpretation of Scheherazade’s One Thousand and One Nights, this time told from Scheherazade’s point of view. In ancient Baghdad, with the cuckolded caliph avenging his wife’s betrayal by marrying a new virgin daily and beheading her the following morning, the young high-born Scheherazade plans to end this violent cycle. After ceding to the caliph’s methodical advances on their wedding night, Scheherazade asks permission to tell him a story. With her sister Dinazarda and the slave girls Djauara and Jasmine complicit in the scheme, Scheherazade tells her magnificent tales, each cliffhanger buying her another day. Instead of narrating the tales themselves, Piñon’s elegantly translated prose focuses on her characters’ passions, desires and obsessions in a world where the veiled females are powerful and powerless, demure yet erotic. Emphasizing the paradoxical nature of this existence, Piñon’s treatment of sexuality is at once clinical and kinky, and her frequent inversion of sexual power structures serves as the psychoanalytic motivation for her divergent rendering of the legend’s conclusion. (Aug.)

Hurricane Katrina hangs like tendrils of Spanish moss over this uneven anthology of Southern fiction. The storm and its aftermath is most skillfully handled by Katherine Karlin in “Muscle Memory,” where Destiny, whose father drowned in the flood, tries to learn welding in the shipyard where her father worked. Her fight is far more moving than Stephanie Dickinson’s “Love City,” in which Katrina feels shoehorned into a story of poverty and anger. Best are George Singleton’s “Between Wrecks,” imbued with a strong sense of the everyday bizarre and dark Southern wit and peopled by a fake arrowhead dealer and grave robbers; and “Family Museum of the Ancient Postcards” by Stephanie Powell Watts, with its perceptive young narrator and the secrets she keeps for her aunt Ginny. There are some strong, original and revealing stories that offer a different and new way of viewing the South, but far too many are technically sound but bloodless. (Aug.)

Eight well-developed, engaging stories by French novelist Schmitt (My Life with Mozart) delineate the complex emotional lives of women and their nettlesome men. Two of the tales play into the delicious stereotype of married Frenchmen carrying on parallel lives with longstanding amours. In “The Forgery,” a man breaks up with his mistress of 25 years, leaving the now middle-aged secretary living in low-income housing with nothing but his gift of a Picasso that might or might not be real. In “Every Reason to be Happy,” a chronically anxious wife follows a suspicious-behaving manicurist and unearths the staggering double life her husband of 17 years has been leading with this other woman. “Odette Toulemonde” is an adoring working-class fan of a washed-up popular novelist who ends up turning to her to authenticate his feelings. The odd tale here is the title story, set in a Russian gulag among a group of women prisoners who, sharing a pencil, struggle to write to their daughters. Schmitt’s stories capture a quirky, clever, feminist, very French sensibility. (Aug.)

Gudenkauf’s tightly plotted debut packs a lot of unsavory doings into a few unfortunate summer days in Willow Creek, Iowa. Seven-year-old Calli Clark hasn’t spoken a word in the three years since a particularly nasty run-in with her violent, wife-beating father, Griff. During a bender, Griff suddenly decides to haul his mute daughter into the nearby forest, where they get lost. At the same time, Calli’s best friend Petra goes missing, and a manhunt is launched, led by deputy sheriff Loras Louis, who still carries a torch for Calli’s mother. Gudenkauf moves the story forward at a fast clip and is adept at building tension. There’s a particular darkness to her heartland, rife as it is with predators and the walking wounded, and her unsentimental take on the milieu manages to find some hope without being maudlin. (Aug.)

In this debut collection of eight esoteric stories—three of them prize winners—Peelle’s characters negotiate tumultuous relationships and buried memories. This nimbly crafted group of lonely souls range from a one-legged taxidermist, who happens to be the only person in town who does not believe a hungry panther is on the loose, to a winter-bound woman, tormented by her ex-husband but saved by the most unlikely of creatures. In “This Is Not a Love Story,” a mother comes across a box of old photographs, which remind her of a summer she spent trying to turn a hobby into a career and a lush into a husband. In “Sweethearts of the Rodeo,” the narrator reminisces about working at a stable with her best friend, tormenting their handsome boss and the rich women who board their horses there. Yet another, “The Still Point,” follows a man traveling with a carnival, trying to outrun the loss of his twin brother and family home. Peelle writes her meaty characters with vigor and packs each tale with descriptions so subtly vibrant that they warrant multiple visits. (Aug.)

This collection vividly depicts life on the pre- and post-Katrina Gulf Coast. In “The Journeyman,” Clayton, reluctantly preparing to head out for a three-month stint of work in South America, meets a young girl, Kenyatta, who warns him that God and Jesus are going to punish the people of New Orleans and destroy the city. Amused by her earnest warning, Clayton chuckles and thanks her for the heads up. In “The Redfish,” Luther, recently released from prison after a wrongful murder conviction (he has committed murder, just not the one he was convicted of), gets tangled up with a no-good woman and ends up bound and gagged with his now-ex-girlfriend’s mother in her trailer as Katrina approaches. In “Junebelle,” June, a reclusive widow unhappily stuck in a Baton Rouge retirement home after her well-meaning daughter installed her there, avoids interaction with the other residents and spends much time in fond remembrances. Throughout, water is a force, at times standing in for death, at others for peace and beauty. Horack takes in a wide swath of varied characters and finds the common humanity in their struggles. (Aug.)

It’s tough to do a guy-meets-Jesus book and not be too pious for some and/or too heretical for others. Landis (Longing), a former editor-in-chief at William Morrow, walks a line somewhere between in this ambitious and lyrical story of a young veteran returning to his New Hampshire home from the Iraq War. Army sniper Warren Pease (think of a famous novel by Tolstoy) meets a blue-jeans clad Jesus (“Call me Ray,” Jesus says) on the beach, and Jesus accompanies Pease through a day of returning to important relationships—his father, his girlfriend, his toddler daughter—while reflecting on his dead mother and other past events. There’s lots of gentle humor—Jesus likes burgers and of course he knows everything, including miscellaneous facts about the natural world. Much grimmer, and darker, are episodes set in Iraq of intense violence; they also seem somewhat stagier next to the relative naturalism of the New Hampshire setting, Ray’s supernaturalism notwithstanding. Being about Christ doesn’t automatically make it an edifying Christian novel, and it won’t sit well with some conservative religious readers. But it’s worth a dozen Shacks. (Sept.)

Carter (Swim to Me) mines her family history in this underwhelming novel that examines the lives and loves of Jewish immigrants in early 20th-century New York. Nine-year-old Simon Phelps is sent by his mother from Lithuania to America, where he grows up poor but ambitious on the Lower East Side. He meets German-born Flora Grossman, and their marriage and ascent into American success forms the linchpin for the familiar tales of immigrants vacillating between the New World and the Old. The interwoven stories of Flora and her sisters—Seema, the kept mistress of a WASP banker, and the somber Margot, who endures an austere life in post-WWI Germany—highlight the different paths for German-Jewish women. Meanwhile, Simon’s booming career in the advertising world is tempered by the grief he feels as he searches for his lost family, though his success enables him to plan a bold mission of salvation. Unfortunately, the narrative, while admirable in scope, feels too beholden to its source material, with the remote, speculative tone making this often feel more like a historian’s work than a novelist’s. (Aug.)

Lois Barker, a successful big-city journalist, never imagined ending up in the tiny town of Green, La. She never guessed that within months she would unexpectedly inherit a smalltown newspaper. She never believed she would leave her rising-star career impulsively after a quiet, inner prompting urged, “Go... I’ll help you.” Yet that improbable route to upheaval is precisely where Christie (Goodbye, Murphy’s Law) engagingly guides both readers and the charming yet flummoxed Barker. As the editor and owner of the Green News-Item, the ever uncertain Barker transforms from an overwhelmed and overly self-reliant Jane Doe into a considerable power for reform and revitalization in her depressed Louisiana borough. Refreshingly realistic religious fiction, this novel is unafraid to address the injustices of sexism, racism and corruption as well as the spiritual devastation that often accompanies the loss of loved ones. Yet these darker narrative tones beautifully highlight the novel’s message of friendship, community and God’s reassuring and transformative love. (Aug.)

A twisting, turning plot drives Benn’s gripping fourth WWII mystery to feature Lt. Billy Boyle (after 2008’s Blood Alone). Billy, a former Boston cop and a nephew by marriage to General Eisenhower, on whose staff he serves, receives orders in late 1943 to look into a raid on a U.S. Army depot in Northern Ireland. The thieves took 50 new Browning automatic rifles plus 200,000 rounds of ammunition. A few miles from the depot, the body of a known IRA man was found shot in the back of the head with a pound note in his hand—the mark of an informer. Billy’s military superiors suspect the Germans are supporting an IRA uprising. As an Irish-American whose family is sympathetic to the Republican cause, Billy struggles to remain impartial as he investigates the various factions on both sides of the Catholic-Protestant divide. Benn offers no easy answers in this rich mix of Irish history and wartime intrigue. Author tour. (Sept.)

Edgar-finalist Koryta spins a dark tale of broken dreams and second chances in his stunning fourth mystery to feature Cleveland, Ohio, PI Lincoln Perry (after 2008’s A Welcome Grave). When Perry starts receiving letters from convicted murder Parker Harrison, he ignores them until the man shows up in his office. Twelve years earlier, the then recently paroled Harrison worked for Alexandra and Joshua Cantrell, a couple who ran a rehabilitation program for violent offenders. Then they disappeared, and Harrison wants Perry’s help in tracking down Alexandra. Suspicious why Harrison waited so long, Perry discovers that Joshua’s bones were recently unearthed in Pennsylvania. Ken Merriman, a Pittsburgh PI, soon arrives in Cleveland, asking Perry for help finding out who killed Joshua. That Alexandria’s brother heads one of Cleveland’s most notorious mob families complicates matters. Perry has to reconsider everything he thought he knew about right, wrong and everything in between. (Aug.)

Past and present collide with fatal results in British author Rickman’s unsettling 10th mystery to feature parish priest Merrily Watkins (after 2008’s The Fabric of Sin). A few days before Christmas, a body with a mutilated face turns up in a ruined monastery in the Herefordshire village of Ledwardine near the Welsh border. Also casting a pall over the holiday season are the threat of a flood and a contentious debate at a town meeting about whether to build a highway through a beloved meadow. Meanwhile, the unearthing of the ancient Dinedor Serpent, a prehistoric monument, leads Merrily’s aspiring archeologist daughter, Jane, into dangerous territory. A newcomer to the village, an outspoken atheist despised by fundamentalists, adds fuel to a volatile mix. Amid the mayhem, Rickman skillfully weaves together the assorted subplots. Credible characters—some down-to-earth, others lunatic—and absorbing archeological lore are a plus. (Aug.)

Waddell’s sequel to 2008’s The Blood Detective, which introduced Nigel Barnes, a genealogist employed by Scotland Yard, offers an overly similar plot. Once again, the police suspect a serial killer is at work, this time targeting members of a family with possible connections to the Mormon church whose ancestors may have some sins to atone for. Det. Chief Insp. Grant Foster and his team look into the murder of Katie Drake, a 37-year-old actress and single mother who lived in Queen’s Park, a middle-class London neighborhood, as well as the disappearance of Drake’s daughter on her 14th birthday. The police discover that a distant female relative of the Drakes also vanished just before turning 14. Barnes’s skill at tracking obscure records to identify suspects and potential victims proves vital to the investigation. Unfortunately, too many coincidences and a far-fetched motive for the crimes make this a less successful effort than its predecessor. (Aug.)

After Laura Magee loses her Boston Museum of Fine Arts job, she lands a position at the Ravensford Chronicle, a smalltown New England newspaper, in this nostalgic cozy from Ebisch (Grave Justice). Laura takes over the “Ask Auntie Mabel” advice column, since the original Auntie Mabel, Ann Rickdorf, has choked to death “at the Big Bun on their all-you-can-eat shrimp and lobster night.” When hunky Keith Campbell, the chief of security at Ravensford College, complains to Laura that Auntie Mabel’s advice inspired his girlfriend, Heidi Lipton, an art teacher, to dump him, Laura agrees to accompany Keith to a party at the college to make Heidi jealous. At the party, Laura literally falls over the dead body of the art department chairman, Jack Proctor, who had been harassing Heidi, making Heidi the prime suspect in Jack’s murder. Laura discovers investigative journalism can be dangerous in this old-fashioned blend of romance and detection. (Aug.)

Set in 1956, Atkinson’s rollicking, if at times improbable debut neatly captures the personality and uproarious lifestyle of an American literary icon. When Key West fisherman Peter Cuthbert, a friend of Ernest “Papa” Hemingway, gets harpooned to death and the local police don’t seem to care, Hemingway, who’s suffering from writer’s block and feeling like “a big, fake water buffalo con artist,” decides to find Cuthbert’s killer. The Nobel Prize winner’s daring quest takes him to Batista’s impoverished Cuba, where he meets such luminaries as high-living mobster Meyer Lansky and even Fidel Castro in the revolutionary’s mountain hideaway. From Che Guevara he learns Cuthbert was anything but an ordinary fisherman. Back in Key West, Hemingway finds himself caught in a spat between the FBI and the CIA, who are both funding Batista’s corrupt government. Atkinson, a former film critic, deftly mixes fact and fiction with graphic sex and violence in a mystery sure to please Hemingway aficionados. (Aug.)

Gordon-Smith’s intricate third 1920s mystery to feature writer-sleuth Jack Haldean (after 2008’s Mad About the Boy) opens with an intriguing setup: George Lassiter, a down-on-his-luck South African, breaks into what he thinks is an unoccupied London house, only to overhear what he’s sure is a woman’s murder. When the police collar him for burglary, he relates what happened, but the authorities find no evidence of foul play at the house. Fortunately, Haldean, who flew with Lassiter during WWI, learns of his situation and goes to his rescue. When Lassiter tells Haldean he’s been cheated out of a bequest by an imposter, Haldean discovers that the people whose house Lassiter burglarized were his relatives, who may be tied not only to the scam that deprived Lassiter of the bequest but to a series of murders reminiscent of the Ripper killings. While the answers to the various puzzles may not satisfy every reader, Gordon-Smith does a solid job presenting fair-play clues. (Aug.)

Political backstabbing and interplanetary intrigue continue to thwart star-crossed lovers Sissy and Jake in this unwieldy sequel to 2008’s space fantasy Harmony. On ramshackle space station Labyrinthe VII, ambassadors from the Confederated Star Systems are trying to get their hands on former colony planet Harmony’s stash of Badger Metal, necessary for starship hulls and ship-to-ship communication. With civil war looming, Harmony has no intention of handing it over cheaply. Traumatized by an assassination attempt, fragile high priestess Sissy is trying to restore the covenant of the goddess also called Harmony, while “special liaison and military chief of staff” Jake must protect his love, push the diplomatic agenda along and deal with a possible serial killer, a deranged CSS spymaster and some mysterious aliens. Somewhat surprisingly, Bentley manages to tie up the soap opera’s biggest loose ends by the book’s close. (Aug.)

It’s a great shame that Fraser (1957–2008) didn’t live to see the publication of this impressive dark fantasy debut, which introduces a stirring classic vampire. Baron Gideon Redoak is the gay son of a Puritan living in 1641 Shrewsbury, England. At age 19, he’s seduced, “turned” and abused by Etienne Corbeau, a sadistic vampire who eventually buries him alive (or undead). Evan Jones, a Welshman with superhuman abilities, digs Gideon up at the behest of Le Societé des Gardiens, vampires who don’t believe in killing. Over the next several centuries, Gideon learns much of love and grief as he and Evan join a group of druids in battling the evil vampires. Fraser keeps the pages turning with brisk pacing and a thoughtful, sensitive portrayal of Gideon’s struggles with Corbeau and his inner puritanical demons. (Aug.)

Prolific British author Warrington (the Jewelfire Trilogy), mostly unknown in the U.S., puts a distinctive spin on human/nonhuman relations in this sensuous, relationship-driven story, the first of the Books of the Silver Wheel. The feylike Vaethyr regularly travel between the Spiral and our world until the gates are summarily and permanently closed by Lawrence Wilder, the Gatekeeper. He warns of danger, but the Vaethyr on Earth need to return to the Spiral to survive. Much of the book is devoted to describing the turbulent life of Rosie, daughter of Vaethyr king Auberon, and her love triangle with Sam and Jon, Wilder’s troubled sons, as long years without reconnecting to their aetherial selves slowly drive the Vaethyr mad. Solid wordplay, great pacing and a thrilling conclusion will definitely earn Warrington some new American fans. (Aug.)

The first solo collection from Fantasy Magazine co-editor Rambo is a two-sided coin. Her stand-alone stories are crisp and compelling, but the longer ones set in imaginary seaport Tabat are filled with predictable genre tropes that fall flat. On the good side, “Heart in a Box” follows three present-day tourists in Thailand who encounter a real-life mermaid, while “Eagle-haunted Lake Sammamish” finds an ancient dryad threatened by human progress. Less satisfying, “Narrative of a Beast’s Life” tells the long-winded story of a centaur without a trace of tension or intrigue, and “A Key Decides Its Destiny” brings nothing new to the tired wizard yarn. Diehard fans of traditional fantasy will at least find plenty of familiar arcs and archetypes, if not so much narrative tension. (Aug.)

Strong revisits her postapocalyptic version of Oakland, a city torn between a supernatural-fearing church and powerful vice lords, in this intensely erotic sequel to 2009’s Ghostland. Arana, a thief who can change the threads of people’s lives, is shocked to find that Tir, a shackled immortal, is immune to her magic. Tir is just as surprised that a human woman can inflame his passion. Together they struggle to understand her gifts and learn how to unlock his collar and his memories. Arana’s acceptance of Tir’s dominance in bed jars with her otherwise preternatural competence, and the rich setting and evocative writing fail to carry along the convoluted plot or unsurprising protagonists. Those who like urban fantasy may find the sex out of place, especially given the extremely strong language, and those who like erotica may find too much else going on. (Aug.)

Set immediately after Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah (1969), this satisfying tale from Herbert’s son and Anderson (Paul of Dune) follows Jessica, the mother of galactic emperor Paul Atreides, as she returns to the desert planet Dune for her son’s funeral. Paul’s suicide after his mistress’s childbed death leaves his sister, the insane and brutal Alia, as regent for his twin children. Alia releases Princess Irulan, Paul’s wife and biographer, from house arrest on the condition that she present Paul as a god, even as Bronso of Ix circulates contrasting writings focusing on Paul’s humanity. Alia, Jessica, Bronso and Irulan can describe aspects of Paul, but no single narrative can capture him. Fans of the original Dune series will love seeing familiar characters, and the narrative voice smoothly evokes the elder Herbert’s style. (Aug.)

Psychic psychologist Megan Chase continues with her sometimes amusing, sometimes terrifying attempts to step into the leadership role thrust upon her in 2008’s Personal Demons. Megan’s empathy for her clients and callers to her radio show leaves her fighting an uphill battle to persuade shoulder-riding personal demons to be less vicious. Now three demons under her charge have mysteriously exploded; other groups have suffered similar losses, but some of her demons think deserting her for a stronger leader will keep them safe. With the help of fire demon Greyson Dante, witch Tara Green and an assortment of demon underworld figures, Megan hunts down the beings trying to undermine her authority. Readers who haven’t read the first book will struggle to keep track of the minor characters and demon hierarchy, but fans will enjoy the developing complexities. (Aug.)

Dodd (Into the Flame) kicks off a new paranormal romantic suspense series with this gripping story. Jacqueline Vargha desperately denies the gift that rates her a place among the Chosen Ones, a group of seven extrasensoried young people who will battle the devil’s minions, the Others. Under the influence of her adoptive mother, powerful psychic and tabloid queen Zusane, Jacqueline joins the other six Chosen just before an explosion kills their would-be mentors. Alone but for Caleb, Zusane’s bodyguard and Jacqueline’s former lover, and two elderly, ungifted assistants, the new Chosen seek out the saboteur. Caleb and Jacqueline’s on-again-off-again romance is a little thin, but the taut, suspenseful plot, intriguing characters and a smooth, natural style show that Dodd has earned her place on the bestseller list. (Aug.)

Dare’s sparkling Regency romance debut introduces a cunning and instantly likable tomboy heroine. Lucy Waltham has been besotted with her brother’s friend Toby since she was 11. Now 19 and determined to get Toby away from ladylike, well-dowried Sophia, Lucy decides to practice seduction techniques on another family friend, Jeremy Trescott, earl of Kendall and 10 years her senior. Their innocent trysts become a sizzling affair that leads abruptly to the altar, after which Lucy must use all her considerable wit and intelligence to transform herself into a countess without ever losing the wild spirit that Jeremy finds both daunting and delightful. Dare seems to have fit all the best of romance into one novel, from sensuous interludes and crafty humor to endearing multidimensional characters. Readers will eagerly anticipate the two sequels due in the fall. (Aug.)

Murder, mayhem and multiple identities merge in this electric series opener. In an alternate present where fey and human entities coexist more or less peacefully, Janice Crawford, a druid working for Washington, D.C., SWAT, is nearly killed in a mission gone awry. Mariel Tate, a high-ranking agent within a global security firm, InterSec, investigates, finding ties to a fey history exhibit at the National Archives curated by Laura Blackstone, the PR director for the Fey Guild. The catch is that Janice, Mariel and Laura are all one woman who keeps her personas separate by magic and sheer willpower. Readers will sometimes stumble back and forth to remember who is interacting with whom, but Del Franco (Unquiet Dreams) does a commendable job of blending each of Laura’s different personas into the addictively fast-paced narrative and fully believable setting. (Aug.)

An ambitious full-color exploration of the life and ideas of philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, the book meticulously interconnects Russell’s life, the timelessness of his ideas and the process of creating the book. While a comic about the “quest for the foundations of mathematics” may seem arduous, it is engrossing on many levels; the story moves, despite heavy philosophical and technical information, as the images, dialogue and narration play off each other. Russell’s story is framed within a speech he gave on the brink of America’s entry into WWII, in which he expounds his life and philosophical journey. Russell’s story is also framed by the creators working in Greece, as they discuss and mold his life into a narrative structure. One of the most prominent themes is the conflict and symbiosis between “madness and logic.” The fear of madness haunts Russell because of childhood trauma, as he neurotically pushes himself toward what he conceives of as its opposite, a system for certainty. Inventive, with both subtle and overt narrative techniques, the comic form organizes the complex ideas into a simpler system, combining to form a smart and engaging journey through the ambiguity of truth. (Sept.)

Taniguchi employs a familiar plot device to begin an amiable story. One morning, 48-year-old business traveler Hiroshi Nakahara boards the wrong train—a recently built express to his old hometown. Upon arriving, he visits his mother’s grave, where he is mysteriously transported back in time. Hiroshi finds himself 14 years old, with full adult foreknowledge of all that is to come. The book proceeds to hit plot points typically associated with this genre at an easygoing clip, as the lead character visits long-gone people and places. As this volume progresses, Hiroshi slowly embraces his ability to relive his youth differently and prepares to address the great mystery of his childhood: the disappearance of his father. Just as Hiroshi is struck by the minutiae of a family dinner, Taniguchi exercises his own characteristic attention to ruminative detail. His artwork crisply delineates the details of place and time central to the story, while his writing dwells on the mental adjustments and minor pleasures of Hiroshi’s fantastic situation. Taniguchi’s execution charms, creating more anticipation for the forthcoming sequel than do the particular mechanics of this book’s otherwise familiar narrative arc. (June)

Like most graphic novels produced with educational intent, the art takes a far second to the didactic text in this graphic biography of the South African icon. It’s tough to criticize a book created to contribute to the ongoing canonization of the still-living Mandela. The intent is clear from the lack of individual creator credits, since who actually wrote these words and drew these pictures isn’t important to the Mandela Foundation; what matters is that this is an authorized, approved biography created in a format to attract the attention of younger people, those who might not have been alive during the decade when “Free Nelson Mandela” was a politically important chant. The likenesses are adequate in standard poses, but wildly varying when the artists are called upon to deviate from reference, with faces appearing deformed. Much of the art consists of boring talking heads. Mandela was born in 1918, and the book will be released on his 91st birthday. That’s an achievement to be congratulated, but this dull history comic should be far down the gift list. (July)

This reader-friendly second collection of Wood’s series, illustrated by Kelly, tells an engaging tale of cultures clashing. A self-contained story, it relates to the previous volume only as an overall portrayal of the impact of the Vikings in Europe in a way that doesn’t reduce them to the familiar blustery stereotype of ocean-faring, land-pillaging warriors. This volume is set against the backdrop of Viking colonies in Ireland in the early 11th century, a land portrayed with a harsh beauty by Kelly’s artwork. Magnus, an Irishman, blames the conquerors in his lands for robbing and killing his people, and so begins to kill Viking settlers near Dublin. Lord Ragnar Ragnarsson is sent to investigate these crimes. While Magnus hides in the countryside with his young daughter, Brigid, Ragnar and his band of men follow the trail of dead bodies Magnus leaves in his wake. The resulting bloodbath is also an effective psychological portrait of the two main characters in a highly enjoyable book that is as smart as it is action packed. (July)

The longest American book to date (and first hardcover) from Norwegian comics master Jason, Low Moon is actually a collection of five marvelously deadpan short stories. The expressionless anthropomorphic animals who populate his comics milk understatement for all the laughs it’s worth; they manage to look bored and detached even when they’re brandishing swords or exploring alien planets. (Within the context of one of these stories, “Yeah, sure. Why not?” is a punch line.) The core of Jason’s breed of humor is his protracted silences—the uproariously uncomfortable moments when his characters are standing around waiting for disaster to strike. A couple of these stories are one-joke twist-ending pieces about the intersection of lust and murder, but the other three are keepers. “Low Moon” itself, initially serialized in the New York Times Magazine, gnarls every convention of the western into knots—the sunrise showdown is a chess match, for one thing, and a bar fight breaks out over an inferior cup of espresso. “&” presents parallel tales about two people who do terrible things to get what they think they want. And “You Are Here” is another genre-bender, a decades-spanning micro-epic about a damaged family alternating between domestic drama and impossibly low-key space opera. (June)