Fiction Reviews: Week of 6/9/2008

This fictionalized tale of Depression-era bootlegging from Bondurant (The Third Translation) enlists the help of Winesburg, Ohio author Sherwood Anderson to investigate Bondurant family lore. In 1928, a pair of thieves accost Bondurant’s real life great-uncle Forrest at his Franklin County, Va., restaurant. They’re after a large cache of bootlegging money and end up cutting Forrest’s throat. The story of his survival and his trek to a hospital 12 miles away has taken on mythical proportions by the time Sherwood Anderson arrives in Franklin County in 1934 to research a magazine piece on the area’s prolific moonshiners. Soon after Anderson’s arrival, two anonymous men appear at the same hospital, one with legs “meticulously shattered” from ankle to hip, the other one castrated, with the by-products of the deed deposited in a jar of moonshine. The arc of the story lies between the attack on Forrest and that on the two men. Bondurant endows his gritty story with all the puzzle-solving satisfactions of a mystery. It’s a gripping, relentless tale, delivered in no-nonsense prose. (Oct.)

Menger-Anderson’s vivid and original collection follows several generations of New York doctors and charts the social and political forces that shaped New York City from the 17th century to today. Dr. Olaf van Schuler emigrates from Holland to New Amsterdam in 1664 and continues his study of animal brains. After he has a child by Adalind Steenwycks, each subsequent generation spins out in its own story, concluding with Dr. Elizabeth Steenwycks, the medical researcher daughter of Dr. Stuart Steenwycks, a plastic surgeon dying of a rare and fatal brain malady. Each generation applies the then current medical wisdom to tasks as varied as explaining a death by spontaneous combustion, resuscitating a boy’s corpse and using phrenology to predict human behavior. In the early 1970s, Americans’ obsession with their body image arises in the woeful tale of Sheila Talbot, 21, whose leaky breast implants hark back to the less-than-helpful medicine practiced in previous generations. The reader can follow how far medicine has advanced, but, surprisingly, note how human suffering and misery hasn’t come such a long way. (Oct.)

In Wisler’s likable debut, a young woman is offered a chance to find romance and make peace with her past. After her missionary mother dies under mysterious circumstances in Japan, young Nicole Michelin returns to North Carolina to live with her depressed father and loving grandmother. Now 31, and a middle school English teacher, Nicole bears the scars of a time she can’t remember. She sleeps with her cloth kimono doll and nurses phobias ranging from anxiety about flying to a fear of commitment. But when she “meets” an intriguing man through a Web site column, her yearning for love encourages her to risk getting to know him even though he lives in Japan. Wisler’s cast of Southern women is lightly sketched but no less charming for this, and her development of the relationship between Nicole and her three-year-old autistic cousin strikes poignant notes throughout. Faith fiction fans will appreciate the strong faith of Nicole’s influential grandmother, Ducee Dubois, who helps Nicole face her fears. (Oct.)

From the indefatigable Buckley comes a flabby satire about a television judge who ends up on the Supreme Court. Unpopular president Donald P. Vanderdamp nominates Pepper Cartwright after Sen. Dexter “Hang ’em High” Mitchell torpedoes his first two contenders. Once Pepper is confirmed and leaves her show, her producer (and soon-to-be ex-husband), Buddy Bixby, persuades Mitchell to leave the Senate and try his hand at acting as the star of the political drama POTUS. Vanderdamp, meanwhile, mounts a re-election bid to protest Congress’s approval of an absurd term limits amendment. He faces off against Mitchell, who ditches his role as television president to run for real president, and before you can say “Whizzer White,” it is left up to newbie Pepper and the rest of the Supremes to decide the fate of the election. Unfortunately for the reader, Pepper’s story gets lost between the jokes and the overstuffed plot (including a romance with the Chief Justice, the investigation of a leak inside the Supreme Court and a nuclear threat from China), and the satire is oddly detached from the zeitgeist. (Sept.)

Country music legend Nelson and novelist Blakely (Come Sundown) collaborate for this predictable western. When a rustler’s body turns up on the open range outside Luck, Tex., with “ghost” arrows embedded in his chest, local rancher and retired Texas Ranger Hank Tomlinson’s past returns to haunt him. Years earlier, three Rangers were killed by similar arrows, and many suspected Tomlinson at the time. News of the rustler’s murder brings the son of one of the late Rangers, now a state police investigator, to Luck with an eye to avenging his father’s death. Staying one step ahead of the law, Tomlinson races to solve the mystery and cheat the hangman. There’s a wagonload of subplots (an Indian war, a prized mare’s disappearance, an orphan searching out his parents, a barmaid’s love story), and while rookie novelist Nelson and veteran Blakely write convincingly of the Old West, the plotting is cumbersome, the characters familiar and the dialogue strained. Nelson’s legions of fans probably won’t mind, though. (Sept.)

A charming love triangle in Nairobi, Kenya, forms the center of a novel that manages to be both sweet and gripping. Mr. Malik, a quiet widower guided by a naïve crush, spends his Tuesdays on bird walks led by Rose Mbikwa, the Scottish widow of a Kenyan politician, whom he secretly wishes to escort to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball. Enter Harry Khan, Mr. Malik’s playboy nemesis, who also takes a liking to Rose. Mr. Malik’s social club organizes a bet—whoever can spot the most bird species in one week earns the right to ask Rose to the ball. While Harry heads off on expensive safaris, Mr. Malik is beset by a plague of problems, including the theft of his car and bird-watching notebook, and an ambush by renegade Somalis. The competition takes on a surprising page-turning urgency, thanks largely to Mr. Malik’s delightful nature and his unexpected secrets. With captivating character sketches and glimpses into Kenyan life and politics, Drayson meets the inevitable comparisons to Alexander McCall Smith without breaking a sweat. (Sept.)

Hammond (Going to Bend) shares the story of “charismatic mega-vertebrate” Hannah, the elephant star of the failing Max L. Biedelman Zoo, in her sweet but slow third novel. Since the 1950s, Hannah; her loving caretaker, Sam; and the zoo have been languishing. Enter Harriet Saul, the zoo’s ambitious new director, and Neva Wilson, an expert elephant keeper; both want to change things, but in different ways. Harriet’s plan involves her dressing up as the eccentric zoo founder to give presentations and “commissioning original theme music” for a publicity campaign. Neva’s idea is to move the aging Hannah to an elephant sanctuary, a plan supported by nearly everyone, including the zoo’s milquetoast business manager. If the conflict sounds weak, it is; the friendship between Hannah and Sam and the gently informational lessons about elephant care are more memorable than the late-breaking battle. The narrative, with its sprawling cast (and attendant relationships and personal histories), often bogs down, but the moments of genuine emotion will charm readers in search of a happy ending. (Sept.)

In the absorbing latest from Yates (Leave Myself Behind), an Illinois piano teacher whose virtuoso career ended prematurely attempts to reconnect with her family after years of anguish and loss. Quirky, intimidating septuagenarian Hester Parker tells her story in retrospect. Early in her marriage, she derives pleasure from the music of her violinist husband, Arthur Donovan, and her two sons, Jeremy and Paul, both accomplished musicians. But despite an outstanding intellect, daughter Caitlin fails to inherit the family genius and suffers the plight of the outsider. A tragedy proves to have more consequences than meet the eye, and Hester’s marriage dissolves, leaving her alone in her imposing Victorian home. Cut to the present, when quiet college student Alex rents her upstairs apartment, the two develop an attachment that helps both come to terms with their plights, yet threatens what Hester holds most dear. Yates’s family melodrama brims with quiet intensity. (Sept.)

Set against the backdrop of the Nebraska prairie, Joern’s powerful second offering follows three generations as they navigate the greater part of the 20th century. In 1930, Gramp comes to collect five-year-old Billy after his mother dies. This stoic beginning sets the tone for the rest of the novel as characters endure poverty, illness and betrayal. Subsequent generations share storytelling duties; there’s Jake, Gramp’s son, now a hardworking farmer with “bottom teeth toppled together like gravestones in a country churchyard”; Alice, his young wife who stands by him through endless hardship; and their children Stevie, Frank and Molly, all of whom leave rural life behind. Evocative prose elevates Joern’s excellent portrayal of the family’s evolution and brings a warmth and richness to a stark landscape. (Sept.)

Bantwal (The Dowry Bride) shifts her focus from arranged marriages to the high stakes parents place on producing a male heir in contemporary India in her middling sophomore outing. Isha Tilak and her husband, Nikhil, are counting on their second child to be a son. But when an ultrasound reveals she’s carrying a girl, an illegal abortion is proposed, both by Nikhil’s wealthy parents and by Isha’s physician, Dr. Karnik. Nikhil staunchly refuses and soon turns up dead, and Isha can’t help wondering if he may have been killed for not going along with the abortion. Unfortunately, the dialogue is often flat and didactic ( “Did you know that a conservative estimate puts anywhere between eight and ten million girls as either aborted or killed in infancy in the last two decades?”), and the narrative shifts too late from ponderous exposition to almost page-turning suspense as Isha tries to determine who was involved in Nikhil’s murder. Less time on the soapbox and more time getting into the heads of the characters would have helped. (Sept.)

In the winning latest from Knitting Under the Influence author LaZebnik, sisters Ava and Lauren Nickerson look a lot alike, but hyperpractical attorney Ava, 29, wears dowdy clothes and holds men at arm’s length, while flashy, debt-ridden boutique owner Lauren, a few years younger, goes for the quick romantic fix. Drawn together in L.A. by their mother’s illness, they determine to straighten each other out. Soon Ava ropes Lauren onto a budget, while Lauren, having uncovered a playful contract in which their parents jokingly betrothed Ava at age eight to a neighbor’s young son, decides to find out if the grown-up two—who are strangers—might indeed make a match. The fact that fiancé-designate Russell Markowitz proves to be twice-divorced presents no obstacle to Lauren, especially after she learns that he works in the clothing industry and might be of assistance in making over Ava. Despite the lightweight premise, moments of real depth combine with witty dialogue as LaZebnik deftly spins each turn convincingly to avoid easy answers. (Sept.)

This novel by ground-breaking sleep researcher Jouvet (The Paradox of Sleep) is written as a series of “discovered” journal entries and letters by fictional 18th-century French scientist Hugues la Scève: wealthy, intensely curious and obsessed with tinkering. Painstakingly documenting seven years of his own dreams and applying novel methods of classification and analysis, la Scève attempts to pioneer “the science of dreaming.” He follows this work by collecting empirical evidence to support his theories, spending years observing sleeping rabbits, toads, Siamese twins and postcoital couples. He applies the emerging sciences of electrical engineering, chemistry and physics to his experiments. Long theoretical stretches are tough going, and there’s no real denouement. But the scientific techniques and instrumentation, described in minute detail, are particularly satisfying. When it works, the book brings to life a time when the yoke of irrational faith was being lifted, opening up seemingly endless opportunity for discovery. (Sept.)

South African poet Breytenbach (True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist) offers a dreamy take on the artistic impulse in these 27 short prose fictions. Many are slyly couched as fables; each has a facing page watercolor in Breytenbach’s own hand. The poet’s role—as the book’s consistent speaker notes in “This Unmemorable Memory Exists!”—is like that of a tree: to create a space, to consecrate absence, to be “a place where oblivion could be predicated and practiced endlessly.” In “Between the Legs,” the narrator finds “God is Word or Flesh or some such”; repeatedly uses the Holocaust codeword Sonderbehandlüng (it’s not translated, but it means “special handling”); and ends by noting “God 'is a Brazilian’.” Near book’s end, in “Bathed in Tears,” the speaker confronts an imposter brother—who may be a symbol of artistic fraudulence—with a knife and tries to skin his hands. Surreal and opaque, Breytenbach’s self-described “minor” squibs on where art comes from (written in the mid-1980s and seeing their first U.S. publication) are equal parts violence and whimsy. (Sept.)

In this dark chiller, Thrasher (Sky Blue; The Promise Remains) demonstrates a considerable talent for the horror genre. Like Stephen King, Thrasher pits flawed but likable characters against evil forces that at first seem escapable but gradually take on a terrifying ubiquity. The Miller family has recently returned to suburban Chicago after a harrowing experience on the mission field. Hoping to get away from the busyness of suburban living, they travel to the mountains of North Carolina for an extended stay in an enormous, remote lodge where husband and father Jim plans to write a book while trying to reconnect with his family. When a snowstorm isolates them further and spiritual attacks make them feel they are losing their minds, both Jim and his wife, Stephanie, begin to wonder if God can rescue them and their two young children. Aside from sharing too many plot points with The Shining, this novel hits very few false notes and should appeal to fans of Christian fiction, the horror genre and all who enjoy well-crafted and suspenseful stories. (Sept.)

Dr. Temperance Brennan’s quest to identify two corpses pits her against citizen vigilantes intent on a witch-hunt in bestseller Reichs’s exciting 11th thriller to feature the forensic anthropologist (after 2007’s Bones to Ashes). While working in Charlotte, N.C., Brennan investigates remains unearthed during a housing renovation and discovers disturbing clues possibly pointing to voodoo or Santeria. She must determine if the bones, including the skull of a teenage girl, are linked to an unidentified headless torso found in a nearby lake. Intent on using the deaths as the cornerstone of his crusade against immorality, fundamentalist preacher turned politician Boyce Lingo claims that the bodies bear the mark of devil worshippers. With the help of Det. Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, Brennan unearths a tangled web of dirty politics, religious persecution and male prostitution. Reichs, whose work inspired the hit TV series Bones, once again expertly blends science and complex character development. (Aug.)

Harvey’s superb second thriller to feature PI Michael Kelly (after 2007’s The Chicago Way) has the ex-Chicago cop taking on what he thinks is a simple domestic violence case. But when he tails Johnny Woods, a “fixer” for the city’s powerful mayor, to what turns out to be a grisly murder scene, Kelly realizes he’s stumbled onto a scandal that began with the great Chicago Fire of 1871. Digging deeper, Kelly unearths what was once considered an urban legend: two of Chicago’s most eminent families conspiring to eradicate Irish immigrants by burning down the city’s slums. As more bodies pile up and he becomes romantically involved with a judge with secrets of her own, Kelly vows to expose the conspiracy, even if that means putting himself on the wrong side of the city’s most powerful men. Harvey’s plot twists in all the right places, and his noir-inspired dialogue crackles without sounding showy. Marlowe and Spade would readily welcome Michael Kelly into their fold. 4-city author tour. (Aug.)

Strong, clear prose lifts Pfarrer’s intelligent if at times slow and uneventful novel, set in an unnamed Midwestern city. Steven McCord, an extremely able 42-year-old police lieutenant, is taking law classes as he considers a career change. He’s also tempted to betray his saintly wife, Nora, and begins to visit the apartment of a lovely nurse 10 years younger than he. Meanwhile, an elderly lawyer, Charles Carden, has been murdered, and his visiting daughter, Marie, has disappeared. Carden, who coincidentally was an acquaintance of Nora’s, kept a journal filled with philosophical musings over which McCord ponders. Once Marie’s brutalized body turns up, McCord is haunted by her image and grows increasingly, inexplicably, obsessed with finding her killers. Admirers of Pfarrer’s The Fearless Man and other earlier works will find much to like, but readers used to faster-paced crime fiction may grow impatient with the angst-filled McCord. (Aug.)

The election of Don Albino Luciani to the papal throne in 1978 threatens the Vatican status quo in this routine thriller from Portuguese author Rocha, his first novel. John Paul I’s views on papal infallibility and such controversial subjects as birth control, not to mention his resolve to clean house of those men of God who sullied the Roman Catholic church by financial chicanery with mob links, lead to his murder soon after he becomes pope. In the present-day, London journalist Sarah Monteiro receives a letter implicating the pope’s killers. The same shadowy band turns out to be behind the attempt on the life of John Paul II as well as the assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. Sarah struggles to stay alive and keep the evidence out of the wrong hands amid predictable action sequences and hairbreadth escapes. An author interview at book’s end claiming that John Paul I was actually murdered is sure to please conspiracy buffs. (Aug.)

Reel life meets real life in Taylor’s fast and funny debut, the tale of Bobby Conlon, a dolly grip working on a disaster of a movie. Bobby, a lifelong movie lover, is growing disillusioned with Hollywood—a feeling that’s been growing since he found his wife, producer Natalie Miguel, having an affair with a colleague, Elias Simm. Bobby decides that perhaps directing is for him and sells Gerti, a grip truck worth $150,000, to a colleague, who manages to wreck it and screw Bobby on the deal. So with no funds to produce and direct his opus, Bobby goes back to being a grip. This leads to an affair with Katherine, one of Natalie’s archrivals, and a fight to keep his Xanax habit kicked. Things turn particularly bad after a series of incompetent directors come and go, forcing Natalie into the picture. Laugh-out-loud moments are in plentiful supply, and the twist at the end is nicely handled. Taylor, a former grip, creates a convincing backdrop for this biting take on the bleakness beneath the glamour. (Aug.)

Bestseller Coonts’s exciting third thriller to star reformed burglar turned CIA operative Tommy Carmellini (after The Traitor) raises a timely issue—the lack of well-to-do Americans on combat duty in the war against terrorism. When an Iraqi bomb kills Huntington Winchester’s only child, a Harvard med student who joined the navy out of patriotism, the grieving father decides he and his privileged friends aren’t doing enough to defend civilization against the jihadist threat. Winchester gets tacit approval from one of those friends, the unnamed U.S. president, for him and some other well-to-do types to finance their own private war. When al-Qaeda mastermind Abu Qasim discovers the identities of those in Winchester’s group and targets them, Carmellini and his CIA boss, Adm. Jake Grafton, determine to set a trap that involves Qasim’s possible daughter. Though the constant switching between various points-of-view distracts at times, the action moves swiftly to its Hollywood ending. Author tour. (Aug.)

McPartlin’s second novel (after Pack Up the Moon) follows the unlikely story of two tormented people who come together in a small Irish town. Mary has survived the deaths of her mother, her first love and her five-year-old son, earning her the nickname “Mary of the Sorrows” from the residents of Kenmare, Ireland. When Sam Sullivan, a music executive from New York, moves in next door, the town would like nothing more than for handsome Sam to bring her happiness. Mary, however, is happy to keep things as they are and tend to her best friend Penny, recently brokenhearted and turning to drink, and Ivan, her cousin who is lonesome after his wife left him. Sam isn’t looking for love either. Instead, he has traveled to his grandmother’s birthplace seeking refuge from his demons. Despite their best efforts, Mary and Sam grow close, and through their friendship they find the strength to build their lives again. McPartlin presents a realistic and complex story of love in its many forms without piling on the melodrama, and an unexpected conclusion helps elevate this sophomore outing. (Aug.)

Cason Statler, a Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist with a checkered past, returns to his small hometown of Camp Rapture, Tex., to work as a columnist for the local newspaper in this fine stand-alone from Lansdale (Lost Echoes). On the hunt for spicy material, Statler latches onto the story of a missing college student who disappeared under strange circumstances a year earlier. Almost immediately, Statler connects the case to a recent string of kinky, unsettling crimes throughout east Texas. What’s more, his brother, a college history professor, appears to be caught in the swirl of events as a victim or possibly even a suspect. As usual, Lansdale offers salty humor, brisk plotting and appealingly off-key characters who move through a world that’s at one moment folksy and the next macabre. This isn’t the author’s best effort—as a main character, Statler is too much a work-in-progress—but you can never go too far wrong with Lansdale, who’s won an Edgar and six Stokers, among many other awards. 4-city author tour. (Aug.)

Baker, the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan (U.K.), once again explores the fashion world’s dark side in her absorbing second crime novel (after Fashion Victim). When supermodel Scarlett Ulrich disappears in Toyko, where diminished fame has led her to work as a bar hostess, Scarlett’s half-sister, Luella “Lou” McCartney, turns for help to her friend Annie Anderson, fashion features editor for Handbag magazine who’s on assignment in New York City. Lou and Scarlett share a father in industrialist Rufus Ulrich, “a modelizer” (e.g., “a sad bastard who only shags models”). Complicating matters are Annie’s troubled love life, her editor’s demands and her fear that Scarlett may have been murdered by the Roppongi Ripper, who’s killed several Western blondes. Annie’s search for Scarlett in Tokyo uncovers some surprises, testing her allegiance to her fashion features over hard news and her friendship with Lou. Along the way, Baker illuminates the plight of “old” teen models working in a fickle, youth-obsessed industry. (Aug.)

Pérez-Reverte, a former war correspondent, continues his popular Captain Alatriste series with a fourth swashbuckling volume (following The Sun over Breda). Diego Alatriste, a wily veteran of many 17th-century military campaigns, and his sidekick, Inigo Balboa—who narrates—have returned to Seville after fighting in the siege of Breda. With funds short, Alatriste accepts a dangerous mission to intercept a load of smuggled gold and deposit it in the royal coffers. Trolling the criminal underworld of Seville, Alatriste recruits a band of ruffians, and disguised as pirates, they prepare to slip aboard the ship transporting the gold, surprise and subdue the crew and beach the vessel. What Alatriste doesn’t expect to find on board is his old adversary Gualterio Malatesta and a large contingent of mercenaries. Fans of the series have come to expect historical authenticity, crisp prose, complex characters, exotic settings and plenty of sanguinary action. They won’t be disappointed. (Aug.)

This fictionalized biography of 13-century Persian poet Djalal al-din Mohammad Balkhi, known as Rumi, lingers over the creative relationships that gave rise to his mystical writings and leaves the mystery that surrounds them in place. Rumi's student, scribe and early biographer Hesam, who narrates, begins his tale with the most infamous of these relationships: the friendship between the serene Rumi and Mohammed Malekdad, aka Shams of Tabriz. The first meeting of Rumi and Shams is explosive: the two immediately retire to a locked room for 40 days. Upon emerging, Rumi rejects bookish religion and initiates the sama, the spiritual dance that lends his sect their nickname of "whirling dervishes." More conventional Muslims are appalled: they drive Shams away from Konya, but the pining Rumi eventually tracks Shams down in Damascus and has him brought back. The anti-Shams faction conspires to murder him-or does he simply, miraculously, disappear? Rumi later transfers his spiritual affections to Hesam, and together they create Rumi's poetic magnum opus, the Masnavi-yi Ma'navi. An émigré from Tehran to Paris, Tajadod includes a plethora of parables, miracles, cryptic sayings and mystic poetry throughout. She sensitively illustrates Rumi's spiritualism and circles carefully around the male relationships at the core of Rumi's life. (Aug.) 

The Man Back There and Other Stories
David Crouse. Sarabande (Perseus, dist.), $15.95 paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-932511-63-5

Crouse follows his Flannery O’Connor award–winning Copy Cats with this moody dirge of nine deeply felt stories, the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize. In “The Forgotten Kingdom,” Denny, a technical-support operator for a video-game company that’s “lingering on the edge of death,” is unsure why he keeps showing up uninvited at his former girlfriend’s house—maybe to hurt her or make her feel the emptiness that plagues his own life, or maybe, he considers, “he was just a bad person.” Another borderline stalker, a lonely, unambitious animal-control officer, reappears at his ex-wife’s house in “The Castle on the Hill,” where she is now remarried and having a party. The title story finds a couple, Sharon and Sweets, stumbling shakily out of a bar after Sweets gets in a fight with Sharon’s insolent ex; although Sharon imagines he is defending her honor, Sweets has his own motivation. Crouse digs into dark places, and while readers may cringe, the author’s humane handling of his troubled, psychically scarred characters renders their pain authentic and universal, even when their actions are questionable. (Aug.)

In this tense, well-paced novel about belief, Kiernan explores what happens when faith and love test the limits of family fealty. In southwest Florida, college student Marshall Tobias is in search of something to believe in. He thinks he’s found God and the woman he’s always dreamed of when he falls in love with fundamentalist believer Ada Sparks. But Ada’s against medical intervention for illness, and tragedy results when she sets out to “help” Marshall’s 12-year-old sister, Meghan, overcome her life-threatening allergies. Switching points-of-view between Marshall and his mother, Chloe, Kiernan (Catching Genius) movingly portrays a 20-year-old marriage gone flat and torn apart by crisis, a troubled son, a daughter hovering between life and death, and the hard-to-discern boundaries between true faith and unhealthy fanaticism. She handles her difficult material respectfully. Most interesting is her portrayal of the well-meaning traps parents fall into when encouraging open-ended exploration of faith without context, or choosing to remain silent. The thoughtful themes, interesting characters and page-turning drama of this novel will likely make it a book club favorite. (Aug.)

Pinnock’s uneven debut centers on a sticky love triangle and the tight circle of friends who get to hear about it. Tamara Jones, a financial manager, is dating gorgeous Tyrone Livingston when she’s drawn into drama via an ex: Quincy “Q” Baker, arrested for attempted murder. Quincy’s mother, Miss Dee, who is Tami’s mother’s best friend, asks for Tami’s help. Tami initially balks but agrees, but doesn’t tell Ty. Seven sistah friends dish with Tami once a month, and peeks at their troubled lives yield some fireworks (i.e., loose glam model Jacklyn falls for a preacher, Shan gets pregnant by her gynecologist without remembering it, etc.). But the conflict around Q, Tami and Ty founders long before the clunker denouement. (Aug.)

Green’s third novel displays a charming, acerbic wit unfortunately employed in the service of an unlikable character. Raquel Rose finds her diagnosis with terminal stage IV breast cancer to be unfair: she put her artistic dreams on hold to raise two kids and now she’ll never become the sculptor she always wanted to be. Life after diagnosis isn’t all bad, though: knowing she has only months to live, Raquel agrees to go on Living with Lauren! her sister’s Bay Area talk show; her husband turns from couch potato to pink-ribbon activist; and her two sullen teenagers start confiding in her the way they never did before. But when a follow-up visit to the doctor reveals Raquel’s biopsy results were switched with another woman’s and she’s actually cancer-free, she can’t bring herself to fess up and lose all the local celebrity perks cancer has brought her. The lies snowball in sometimes funny fashion, but Green unfortunately doesn’t bring any gravity to Raquel’s quandary. Instead the gambit is played as ditsy and vapid. (Aug.)

Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Conrad Dunn has put his talents to work making his wife, Margot, the embodiment of physical perfection, but after her face is scarred in a boating accident, Margot takes her own life in this less than suspenseful thriller from bestseller Saul (The Devil’s Labyrinth). Remarrying within a year, Dunn persuades his new teenage stepdaughter, Alison Shaw, who’s struggling to adjust to life in the Dunn mansion and to a private school with a ridiculously affluent student body, to undergo breast-enhancement surgery. Meanwhile, the police are searching frantically for the Frankenstein Killer, a serial slayer who removes his female victims’ glands as well as more obvious body parts. The motive for the killings and the eventual outcome will surprise few readers. The basic premise has a plot hole big enough to fit a truck, but Saul fans may not notice or care if they do. (Aug.)

When someone assaults veterinarian Carla Beaumont and hijacks her truck in Clemens’s engaging fifth mystery to feature Pennsylvania dairy farmer Stella Crown (after 2007’s The Day Will Come), it appears the perp was after drugs. But Stella is quick to see a pattern after other females in male-dominated professions are subjected to various attacks, one of them fatal. Less to her credit, Stella tends to judge people too hastily, as she does Carla’s new boyfriend, whom she meets in the hospital where Carla is recuperating. Stella’s also quick to jump to conclusions about any number of suspects. As with previous books in the series, the chief attraction rests in Stella’s relationships with such people as her boyfriend, Nick, and her farmhand, Lucy, as well as in the daily trials, tribulations and pleasures of running a small dairy farm. Stella may not get high marks for her sleuthing, but she’s persistent, loyal and determined, qualities that should continue to attract new readers. (Sept.)

Agatha-winner Maron’s outstanding 14th novel to feature Judge Deborah Knott (after 2007’s Hard Row) charts the social changes in rural Colleton County, N.C., as housing developments and shopping malls squeeze out small farmers. The apparent suicide of a greedy county commissioner sets Knott’s husband, sheriff’s deputy Dwight Bryant, on a case that uncovers corruption and murder. Though busy settling small-claims disputes and participating in family gatherings, Knott herself gets involved in the case because of implications for her own future in local politics. She’s also worried about the activities of her father, who’s retired as a bootlegger but is still an unrepentant flim-flam man. Maron observes the levelheaded Knott, her large extended family, neighbors and the whole community with cool but genuine sympathy; even criminals remain believably human. Those looking for a mellow, down-home mystery will be well rewarded. (Aug.)

As in Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four, a crime committed in India has consequences in England years later in Finch’s less than successful second Victorian whodunit to feature amateur detective Charles Lenox (after 2007’s A Beautiful Blue Death). Since a prologue set in 1847 India makes clear that a double murder there is connected to a murder in London in 1866, there’s little mystery about the general nature of the motive behind the later crime. Lady Annabelle Payson consults the Peter Wimsey–like Lenox after the disappearance of her Oxford undergraduate son, George, who left behind in his college room a dead cat and a note referring to the September Society. When George turns up dead as well, Lenox vows to track down the killer, aided by his manservant, the Bunter-like Graham. While neither the prose nor the puzzle are at the level of A Beautiful Blue Death, that volume showed enough promise to suggest that the author is capable of better in the next installment. (Aug.)

Two locked-room murders, nearly 150 years apart, confound Sheriff Ike Schwartz of Picketsville, Va., in Ramsay’s suspenseful fourth regional mystery (after 2007’s Buffalo Mountain). Schwartz discovers that both crimes, with sinister undertones of Poe, occurred at the antebellum-era Lydell mansion. The estate’s owner, Jonathan Lydell IV, is distraught to find his renovated “stranger room” (a guest room with its own outside entrance) soiled by death and the intrusion of law enforcement. While Schwartz and acting deputy Karl Hedrick (on loan from the FBI) contend with Lydell’s condescension and racism, they’re soon distracted by a growing meth epidemic, vandalism and even another death in Picketsville. Ramsay skillfully weaves historical fact into his story, all the while blending brisk action with excellent characterization. Schwartz has matured throughout the series, and readers will eagerly await his next adventure. (Aug.)

At the start of Kaplan’s fun, breezy second mystery to feature ditzy L.A. interior designer Lacy Fields (after 2007’s Looks to Die For), Lacy’s latest chic client, Cassie Crawford, drops dead while inspecting the decor of the posh penthouse Cassie and her new husband, billionaire Roger Crawford, were planning to buy. Cassie, it turns out, made a fatal mistake by drinking a bottle of arsenic-laced Japanese tea from the penthouse’s Sub-Zero refrigerator. To Lacy’s dismay, the fingerprints of her casting agent pal, Molly Archer, who’s been schmoozing with Roger, are found on the fridge, making Molly a top suspect. But when Billy Mann, Cassie’s biker friend, is murdered after confiding in Lacy that Cassie feared for her life, LAPD Det. Brian Wilson decides Lacy makes a better suspect. While Lacy’s Dolce & Gabbana shoes and her linen Calvin Klein shirt suffer damage near story’s end in a tight fix Edgar Allan Poe might have devised, Lacy’s blithe, la-di-dah spirit remains unscathed. (Aug.)

In Barnes’s utterly compelling 12th mystery to feature Boston PI Carlotta Carlyle (after 2006’s Heart of the World), Carlyle is still engaged to her mob-associated fiancé, Sam Gianelli, though she’s waiting for Sam to explain why he’s disappeared in the wake of rumors linking him to a dead girl. Then a woman calling herself Jessica Franklin visits Carlyle armed with a photograph of Sam and a doubt about his fidelity. After Franklin becomes the victim of a hit-and-run, Carlyle is the most likely suspect. When the police discover that “Jessica Franklin” is an alias, Carlyle, in more trouble than ever, turns to her old friend and former boss at the Boston PD, Joseph Mooney. Together, they delve into a small community on Cape Cod, where a local Native American tribe is lobbying for land—perhaps to use for a casino. The story moves unhesitatingly from point to point, and each character encountered holds his or her space on the page with confidence and distinctiveness. The reader can just sit back and enjoy the ride. (Aug.)

The pseudonymous Dunnett’s enjoyable second Scottish-themed mystery (after 2007’s Kilt Dead) finds ex-dancer Liss MacCrimmon, co-owner of a Scottish gift shop in her hometown of Moosetookalook, Maine, eagerly awaiting a visit from her old dancing company, which she had to leave following a knee injury. The reunion goes smoothly until Victor Owens, the company’s manager, dies after eating a scone, and his demise is ruled a murder. Determined to uncover who wanted Victor dead, Liss digs deeper into the dance troupe she thought she knew so well, much to the annoyance of her local boyfriend, Dan Ruskin. Vivid descriptions of Maine during mud season and a quirky cast of characters lift this cozy from Dunnett, best known for her historicals featuring Lady Appleton (Face Down o’er the Border, etc.) written under her real name, Kathy Lynn Emerson. (Aug.)

Jardine’s hard-hitting 18th Bob Skinner mystery picks up the major plot strands of the 17th entry, Death’s Door (2007), in which the Scottish deputy chief constable and his loyal team identified Daniel Ballester as responsible for four murders. Tragically, they lost one of their own, Steve Steele, when the room Ballester hanged himself in was rigged with explosives by Drazen Boras, the brother of one of the victims. Now the discovery near a golf course of a young woman’s body bearing the hallmarks of Ballester’s MO suggests that Skinner’s team got it wrong. When another young woman is shot dead in Spain, where Skinner and his new lady friend, Scotland’s first minister, are on holiday, Skinner himself falls under suspicion. Meanwhile, Steele’s widow searches for Boras. Keeping track of the personal relationships among Skinner’s crew may be a challenge for newcomers, who may also be impatient with scenes more in keeping with a soap opera than a police procedural. (Aug.)

This exquisitely rendered debut collection of 11 reprints and three originals ranges into the past and future to explore identity and belief in a dazzling variety of settings. “At the Huts of Ajala,” a folktale concerning a girl wrestling with a trickster god before her birth, is full of urgent and delightful imagery, while “Wallamelon” is an elegaic, sophisticated exploration of the Blue Lady myth. Of the several science fiction stories included, the strongest are “Good Boy,” an engrossing experiment in computer psychology, African gods and postcolonial anxiety, and “Shiomah’s Land,” a cross-genre bildungsroman involving a girl who becomes the wife of a goddess. The concluding tale, “The Beads of Ku,” is an utterly arresting, authoritatively delivered tale concerning the diplomacy of marriage and the economy of the land of the dead. The threads of folklore, religious magic, family and the search for a cohesive self are woven with power and lucidity throughout this panorama of race, magic and the body. (Aug.)

This fast-paced virtuoso exercise in world-building is the third novel (after 2007’s Queen of Candesce) set in Virga, a 5,000-mile wide balloon with a central artificial “sun” and many nations clustered around their own smaller suns. Admiral Chaison Fanning, imprisoned for a daring raid that foiled an attack on his home nation of Slipstream, is rescued by his wife, Venera, but finds he’s now regarded as a traitor. Fighting alongside Antaea Argyre, a mysterious woman from the dark far edges of Virga, Fanning learns more about the universe outside and the powers of Candesce, the central sun. Virga is wonderfully imagined, with itinerant gravity sellers, floating farms in nets of dirt, and battles in which one town invades another as buildings smash together and people gather at windows with homemade weapons. The intrigue surrounding a brewing revolution and the threat of invading forces carry readers quickly through this adventure and on to the next installment. (Aug.)

In Rhodes’s superb sequel to 2006’s Voodoo Season, a wazimamoto, or African vampire, stalks Dr. Marie Laveau, a 21st-century doctor, modern voodoo practitioner and descendant of the legendary Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Haunted by the unquiet spirits of people killed by the wazimamoto, the young doctor vows to stop it with the help of new boyfriend NOPD Det. Daniel Parks; her Creole boss, Dr. Louis DuLac; and others devoted to Marie and her young adopted daughter, Marie-Claire. As the blood of the victims nourishes the vampire so it can completely assume human form, Marie must summon all her powers to vanquish it. Rhodes includes an informative author’s note about the evolution of the African vampire as a “response and a warning about racist brutality” and “cultural vampirism,” giving some cultural weight to this hypnotic thriller. (Aug.)

What’s a girl to do when she gets the short end of the stick? Seek revenge!

Keyshia Simmons, abandoned and brutalized by nearly every person who was supposed to care for her, turns to drugs and sex in Blue’s tawdry new novel. Unlikely help comes from Clyde Barker, a stickup man who inadvertently rescues her from the clutches of a violent drug-dealer. A romance blossoms, and when the dead dealer’s associates demand restitution, Keyshia and Clyde go on a crime spree to raise the cash, all the while confronting the demons of their past and wishing they could go on the straight-and-narrow. Clyde gets collared for a crime he didn’t commit, and it takes Keyshia a few years (she earns a law degree) to prove his innocence and help him get justice for his wronged parents. By the close of this predictable tale, the good guys win and the bad guys get what’s coming to them. (Aug.)

The women of Desperate Housewives and The Real Housewives of New York City have nothing on the shameless ladies of Atlanta’s Bentley Manor. This follow-up to Desperate Hoodwives finds Miz Cleo and Miz Osceola still reigning over an enclave haunted by poverty and crime, and there’s plenty to talk about. Miz Cleo’s crack-addicted granddaughter, Takiah Ray, and her baby, Tanana, return to Bentley to get away from Takiah’s husband, who has begun pimping her out. Jamillah “Princess” Unger, long abused by her mother and a string of deadbeat men, may be able to use her musical talent to finally break free. Keisha Williamson, an aspiring beautician, cares for four children while her husband, Smokey, struggles with drug addiction, and Keisha seeks dangerous solace in his brother’s arms. Woo Woo Moore moves to the burbs after marrying a dentist, but an affair with a drug dealer from the hood may destroy her new life. Mink and Diamond tell it like it is with breathless passion. (Aug.)

Two novellas from Clark and Swinson prove to be inaccessible to anyone not already familiar with street lit and will likely disappoint fans of the genre. In Clark’s “Enemy in My Bed,” Memphis weed dealer Kreesha is in love with Reign, even though he’s locked up and married to someone else. When he gets out of prison, she sets him up with a dealing business. When he gets busted, he turns on Kreesha and her crew, but Kreesha doesn’t plan on going down easy. Swinson’s “Keeping My Enemies Close” follows Larissa Taylor, who smuggles drugs into prison for her boyfriend, Sean “Supreme” Miller. She gets caught, and a pregnant Larissa eventually gives custody of her son to her friend Tenisha. Turns out, though, that Tenisha set her up, and now Tenisha has Larissa’s son and man. When Larissa gets out of prison, there’s a bloody payback. Unfortunately, the dialect is heavy, the language coarse and the characters little more than vehicles for playing out revenge fantasies. (Aug.)

Lessing’s fiction-memoir mix up is her first book since winning the Nobel, but it’s likely to disappoint

The 2007 Nobel Prize in literature was a “bloody disaster” for Lessing, she recently told the BBC. This curious work—half fiction, half memoir, hampered by slapdash prose and an unfocused organization—may be the result of that unsettling time, when she said she didn’t have the energy to write a full novel. The opening novella (the longer of the two pieces) is what might have become of her parents, Alfred Tayler and Emily McVeagh, if they had never married. The sluggish account of their parallel lives is notable mainly for Lessing’s commentary on the changing economic, social and cultural mores in England before and after WWI. The second section is a rambling series of recollections that describe the family’s failed farm in Southern Rhodesia. Lessing describes her mother’s dominating personality, attributing her mother’s smothering attention to her frustration at having given up a successful wartime nursing career and a vital social life to raise a family. Lessing’s longtime readers will find little new in her autobiographical disclosures, and new readers will look in vain for the talent that won the Nobel. 11 b&w photos. (Aug.)

A far-seeing fantasy author takes advantage of present-day trends to resurrect his supernatural detective story from 1987 as a 2008 trade paperback reprint with a brand-new hardcover sequel.

This enchanting blend of fantasy and hard-boiled detection, back in print after two decades, heralds a new series from prolific multiple-award–winner Resnick, best-known for his Birthright Universe series. On a gloomy New Year’s Eve, recently bereft of wife and partner, down-and-out New York City PI John Justin Mallory is hired by Mürgenstürm, a little green elf who wants Mallory to track down a stolen unicorn. After gradually accepting that his client is not an alcohol-fueled hallucination, Mallory deftly takes on a shadow city of demons, leprechauns and gnomes even as he learns that his own future hinges on the unicorn’s recovery. The crisp dialogue and imaginative setting will have many fantasy readers wanting to revisit Manhattan’s magical side. (Aug.)

Resnick’s often hilarious sequel to Stalking The Unicorn continues the offbeat investigations of PI John Justin Mallory, now a permanent resident of an alternate Manhattan. Mallory suspects that his new partner, eccentric Col. Winnifred Carruthers, has been victimized by a vampire, and that the guilty party is her nephew, Rupert Newton, recently arrived from Europe. Before the night gets much older, Newton himself turns up dead, and Mallory assembles his motley crew of allies to track down the killer. This time, his team includes Scaly Jim Chandler, a dragon with hopes of making it as a pulp author, and a vampire who prefers tomato juice to blood. Readers with a taste for supernatural whimsy will find much to enjoy. (Aug.)