Fiction Reviews

Celebrated Israeli novelist Yehoshua (A Woman in Jerusalem) explores the power of grief and bitterness in a blunt drama studded with political, historical and religious significance. In Tel Aviv, 60-year-old Amotz Ya’ari is separated for a week from his wife Daniela when she flies to Tanzania to mourn her dead sister, Shuli, and visit with brother-in-law Yirmi. Soon after Daniela arrives in Tanzania, where Yirmi works for a team of archeologists at an excavation, it becomes apparent that another death—that of Yirmi and Shuli’s son, an Israeli soldier who was killed by friendly fire seven years before the novel begins—preoccupies the family. Back in Tel Aviv, Amotz, both professionally and personally, shows himself to be a compassionate and deeply moral man—a striking counterpoint to his self-centered wife. The scenes at Yirmi’s dig are lit with hope for Africa’s future, though the narration can be naïve about the continent’s present and tends to caricaturize Daniela. In contrast, Yehoshua’s descriptions of life in Israel are full and revelatory, and his despairing view of entrenched resentments becomes a stirring plea for empathy and rationality. (Nov.)

In this ambitious and challenging rediscovery, originally published in 1962, Adler (1910–1988) relates the tragic tale of the Lustig family—doctor Leopold; his wife, Caroline; their children, Zerlina and Paul; and Caroline’s sister, Ida—who are sent to the walled city of Ruhenthal after authorities label them “forbidden.” Taking place during an unspecified period of war and genocide, the story is based on Adler’s experiences at Theresienstadt, a labor camp where he was imprisoned for two and a half years during WWII. An unidentified narrator reports the Lustigs’ struggles in a stream-of-consciousness style, diverging frequently into the lives of others, among them Johann, a street sweeper, and Balthazar, a reporter. Attempting to reproduce authentically the characters’ nightmarish disorientation, Adler’s narrative style is aggressively abstract—constantly shifting subjects and setting in a convoluted sense of time and sequence. It’s a difficult, admirable undertaking, for fans of experimental fiction, but many readers will find its structure frustrating and inaccessible. (Nov.)

The latest from prolific Texan novelist Kelton (Hard Trail to Follow) is really two novels, both concerning the Texas revolution against Mexico as witnessed by two young brothers, Joshua and Thomas Buckalew. In the first book, “Massacre at Goliad,” the Buckalews’ dream of adventure and free land is dispelled by the harsh reality of the West: hard work, Indians, bandits and the simmering cultural, racial and political animosity between Americans and Mexicans. When violence finally breaks out, the boys miss the slaughter at the Alamo only to be caught up in the massacre of Texan prisoners at Goliad. Only one brother survives, going on to avenge Goliad at the Battle of San Jacinto. In “After the Bugles,” the surviving brother returns home to rebuild his ranch and his life, but must contend with cheating opportunists, murderous outlaws and deadly Comanche attacks, as well as growing Texan racism against his Mexican friends and neighbors. As with all of Kelton’s westerns, characters are colorful and well drawn, the action is fast and bloody, and the plotting carefully thought out, making this another supercharged yarn. (Nov.)

First published in France in 1999, Sebbar’s political novel is a significant, self-conscious attempt to shatter the official silence surrounding the October 17, 1961, Algerian demonstration in Paris that ended in bloodshed. Sebbar (Soldats) sets her novel in contemporary Paris among several Algerian-French families whose elders lived through the events of that fateful day, when violence broke out and demonstrators were beaten, thrown into the Seine, imprisoned (and in some cases deported) by the police. Amel, a young Nanterre University student, is the granddaughter of Algerian immigrants who spent a stretch in La Santé prison for subversive acts. When the curious teenager finally learns the truth about her grandparents, it’s in a documentary film made by her childhood friend, Louis, about La Santé’s role in the Algerian war for independence. Inspired, Amel and a new acquaintance, an Algerian newspaper correspondent, undertake a pilgrimage to various sites in Paris that played important parts in the fight for independence . While Sebbar’s method is sketchy and pointed, the cumulative effect of Amel’s quest to unearth the truth proves moving and cathartic. (Nov.)

Shreve’s novels (Body Surfing; The Weight of Water) benefit from propulsive plots, and her mixed latest, with its timely theme of debauchery among children of privilege, does not lack in this regard. The first paragraph foreshadows a tragedy in which three marriages are destroyed, the lives of three students at a private school in Vermont are ruined, and death claims an innocent victim. The precipitating event is a sex tape involving three members of the boys’ basketball team and a freshman girl. Beginning with an account of the debacle by the Avery School’s then headmaster, and segueing to the voices of the participants in the orgy, plus their parents and others touched by the scandal, the narrative explores the widening consequences of a single event. Shreve’s character delineation is astute, and the novel’s moral questions—ranging from the boys’ behavior to the headmaster’s breach of legal ethics to the guilt of those involved in the death—are salient if heavy-handed, while the female characters are “wicked” in the way women have always been stereotypically portrayed. The novel is clever, but the revolving cast of narrators often feels predictable and forced, keeping the novel on the near side of credible. (Oct.)

Nineteen-year-old Annabelle Worthington, the only daughter of a wealthy New York banker, weathers a life of unexpected catastrophe with superhuman patience in Steel’s solid latest. After her father and brother die in the sinking of the Titanic, Annabelle and her mother go into mourning, and Annabelle marries the kindly older banker Josiah Millbank. After two years of unconsummated marriage, he reveals that he’s contracted syphilis and wants a divorce so he can join his male lover. When Annabelle refuses to divorce him, Josiah files for it on the basis of adultery, forcing Annabelle, now the victim of vicious rumors, to flee New York. Alone in Paris, she draws on her experience volunteering at Ellis Island to pursue a career as a doctor as WWI looms. Steel toys with the premise of a modern woman, though the characterization of Annabelle as a “good woman” who has been dragged through the mud somewhat mitigates her strength and elemental stubbornness. Steel’s fans will eat this up—Annabelle is one of the better protagonists Steel’s conjured recently. (Oct.)

Usually adept at fusing well-developed characters with edge-of-your-seat action and adventure, bestseller Johansen (Pandora’s Daughter) stumbles in this novel of romantic suspense revolving around a tumultuous relationship. Veterinarian Devon Brady and enigmatic former navy SEAL Jude Marrok meet on a small Caribbean island recently devastated by an earthquake. When a sniper shoots Marrok’s rescue dog, Ned, while searching for survivors in the rubble of a village, Marrok orders Brady to treat the black Lab, then promptly disappears. In a note he leaves for Brady, he promises to pick up Ned from her later. Soon after returning to her home on the outskirts of Denver with Ned, Brady finds herself a target in a deadly conflict involving international intelligence agents, ruthless billionaire entrepreneurs and Native American shamanism. An unnecessarily convoluted and at times unbelievable plot builds to a predictable conclusion. 650,000 first printing. (Oct.)

A history of terrible violence including rape and murder followed by 27 years of incarceration in a prison with its own codified violence have helped shape Socrates Fortlow, previously featured in two short story collections, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (1997) and Walkin’ the Dog (1999). The hardened ex-con living in South Central L.A. has been chiseled by his experiences into a hulking essence of wise humanity. An initial gathering of diverse characters (a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, a gambler, a singer, a lawyer, two killers, etc.) brought together by Socrates becomes an agent of change. The weekly “Thinkers’ Meetings” grow despite internal dissension and attempts at suppression and subversion by authorities. The talks forge bonds, lead to actions, spread beyond L.A. and take on a life of their own. In the face of gangs, drugs, poverty and racism, Mosley poses the deceptively simple question—“What can I do?”—and provides a powerful and moving answer. (Oct.)

At the outset of Sharp’s gripping third Charlie Fox thriller (after Second Shot), the British soldier-turned-bodyguard, now settled in New York City and working for an exclusive close-protection agency, is shocked to see an interview with her father on the morning TV news. A prominent U.K. orthopedic surgeon, he is under investigation after the death of one of his patients. Despite a large rift between Charlie and her parents, she decides that she can’t stand by and allow her father to become a scapegoat for what she learns is a coverup involving a shadowy government agency and the testing of a controversial new medical treatment. Joined by fellow bodyguard and boyfriend Sean Meyer, she encounters some of the most ruthless criminals of her career as she seeks to exonerate her father. Sharp expertly captures the frenetic energy of New York without sacrificing her trademark British wit. Charlie is as tough as she is damaged, and readers will kill for the next installment. (Oct.)

Prep school English teacher Lucy Parker is having a rough day in Gaskell’s disappointing latest: she’s fired after a student lodges a bogus sexual harassment complaint against her, then goes home to find her live-in boyfriend in bed with another woman. Gaskell tweaks this tired setup with the day’s third lightning bolt: Lucy wins $87 million in the lottery. Soon, the press is banging down her door to try to get an interview with the “Lottery Seductress,” and her family and friends see her as a brand-new piggy bank. Overwhelmed, she runs off with an old friend to Palm Beach, where she becomes one of the indolent rich. Sadly, this frothy wish-fulfillment fantasy is undercut by Lucy’s haplessness; she seems all but incapable of making good decisions, and certain characters’ deviousness is so obvious it’s tough to imagine Lucy not realizing she’s being taken advantage of. The ending is, naturally, happy for Lucy, and those who wronged her feel sufficiently bad about it, but her vindication is just as much dumb luck as the lottery win was. (Oct.)

Joaquin, the host of Ghost Radio, a call-in show based in Joaquin’s native Mexico, builds a devoted audience with his combination of talk therapy and sharing of urban legends and spooky stories in Gout’s first novel, a twisty if less than original supernatural thriller. When Joaquin’s growing prominence lands him a Newsweek interview, he decides to relate on the air a near-death experience decades earlier, which claimed the life of a close friend. Joaquin’s personal problems mount as he begins to be drawn into his callers’ stories and the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred. The prose can be awkward at times (“he wondered how he got himself into this situation: a mysterious phone call, and less than an hour later, he’s wrestling with a reverend of Toltec Christianity”), and Gout adds little that’s either new or remarkable to the ghostly radio waves premise used more effectively elsewhere, notably William Sloane’s The Edge of Running Water (1939). (Oct.)

In this pleasant addition to the growing microgenre of Austen knockoffs, Odiwe pays nice homage to Austen’s stylings and endears the reader to the formerly secondary character, spoiled and impulsive Lydia Bennet. Odiwe begins partway through the original tale, with Lydia heading to Brighton. Shifting between a third-person narrative and Lydia’s first-person journal entries, Odiwe grants readers unfettered access to Lydia as she flirts with her many beaus and falls hard for George Wickham, with whom she elopes. After the pair is married and settled in Newcastle, Lydia has a hard time keeping her jealousy in check as George, a notorious flirt, does not change his ways. Her marital discontent leads to frequent visits to her sisters, and it’s during one of these visits that a massive scandal befalls the Wickham household. In a pleasantly foreshadowed if too abrupt conclusion, a slightly matured Lydia finds true happiness in the most unlikely of places. It won’t convert anybody who doesn’t already worship at the church of Jane, but devotees will enjoy. (Oct.)

Bestseller Marcinko and DeFelice (Rogue Warrior: Holy Terror) deliver another rousing adventure, the 12th to star former navy SEAL Marcinko’s fictional alter ego. Dick Marcinko (aka the Rogue Warrior; aka Demo Dick) shows few signs of advancing age as he tangles with the world’s sleaziest dictator, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il. Kim, a Marcinko admirer who’s read all the Rogue books, knows that Dick’s the man to locate his missing illegitimate son, Yon Shin Jong. Dick turns down the offer with its $64 million reward until the CIA tells him that it would be a good idea to take the job. Meanwhile, longtime team member Trace Dahlgren finds that her lover, Polish helicopter pilot Ike Polorski, is in reality a Russian mobster involved in a plot to abduct Kim’s kid and trade him for a nuke. Dick is as funny and dangerous as ever, making this one of the better entries in this techno-thriller series. (Oct.)

Set in 1860, Kilworth’s solid eighth military adventure novel (after Rogue Officer) takes series hero Capt. “Fancy Jack” Crossman to New Zealand, a recently acquired British colony whose natives, the Maori, are in revolt. Tasked with setting up a spy network among the Maori, Jack must also deal with an unscrupulous land agent, Abe Wynter, whose younger brother happens to be a private under Jack’s command. A gold rush complicates Jack’s mission, and he soon finds himself doing his best to maintain his standards of honor and humanity in the heat of a battle that includes the lethal “rapid-firing steam gun.” Patrick O’Brian fans will notice similarities between Crossman and Capt. Jack Aubrey (each has a wife waiting back home in England, and each is tempted to stray), but those who prefer straightforward action in the vein of Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe series will be most satisfied. (Oct.)

Canadian author Barclay’s previous novel, No Time for Goodbye (2007), a Thriller Award–finalist, showed that he knows how to put ordinary people into extraordinarily dangerous circumstances. Barclay works some of that same magic in his second stand-alone thriller, which opens with the shooting deaths of Albert and Donna Langley and their teenage son, Adam, in their Promise Falls, N.Y., home one hot summer night. Bill Cutter, a neighbor who works as a gardener and was once the driver and “glorified gofer without an ounce of self-respect” for the town’s nasty mayor, and Bill’s wife, Ellen, soon find themselves wondering who would want to kill the Langleys and what part their sullen 17-year-old son and Adam’s friend, Derek, may have played in the tragedy. While this one isn’t quite up to the standard of No Time for Goodbye—its convoluted plot creaks occasionally—readers will zip through it with delight. (Oct.)

Zeltserman’s breakthrough third crime novel deserves comparison with the best of James Ellroy. Joe Denton, a corrupt cop, has just been paroled from the county jail in Bradley, Mass., after serving seven years for his drug-fueled assault on D.A. Phil Coakley, whose face was horribly disfigured in the attack. Denton’s parents, with whom he’s staying temporarily, are uncomfortable having him back in their lives. Likewise, Denton’s former colleagues on the force are uneasy. Gang boss Manny Vassey, who’s ill with terminal cancer, threatens to cut a deal with Coakley that would expose the tangled webs of graft and violence that have governed Bradley. When the local sheriff demands that Denton take out either Vassey or Coakley to preserve the town’s dirty secrets, Denton’s hopes for a return to some version of normality are dashed. Zeltserman (Fast Lane) pulls no punches, even as he makes Denton’s manipulations, evasions and self-deceptions comprehensible. (Oct.)

At the start of Stone’s fine third thriller to feature PI Ray Sharp (after Grave Imports), Ray has just arrived in Jakarta from Hong Kong, his current home, to check the legitimacy of a deal between an oil and gas company, Motex, and an Australian mining outfit, Lucky Break, that’s claiming a major gold discovery in Sumatra. Then Ray’s estranged wife, Sylvia, turns up and offers him a deal: if he’ll find her missing boyfriend, she’ll give him a trouble-free divorce. Loyal, tough, funny and catnip to the ladies, Ray ping-pongs between his Russian prostitute lover, Irina, and a number of Indonesian lovelies, most of whom are bar girls, smalltime thieves or working some sort of con in an attempt to rise above the grinding local poverty, as he searches for answers. Inspired by the real-life Bre-X gold fraud of 1997, this entry is particularly notable for its steamy Indonesian setting. (Oct.)

Set during the turbulent British 1600s, author Dickason vividly captures James I’s reign and Guy Fawkes’s plot to blow up London’s Parliament in a novel of romance and intrigue. After the discovery of a young fisherman’s body, whose death somehow ties in to a plot against the king, young explosives expert Francis Quoynt accepts a dangerous mission from the Earl of Salisbury: he must turn traitor to England in order to infiltrate the band of men plotting the king’s assassination. Also in London is Francis’s former lover Kate Peach, whose family was killed by the plague and whose Catholicism endangers her life. Taking up her father’s glove-making trade, albeit illegally, Kate hopes to save up enough money to flee London and her cruel “protector and some-time lover,” Hugh Traylor. When she and Francis reunite, passion sparks but mistrust runs high. Though the leads are strong, especially the believably conflicted Kate, Dickason keeps adding new players throughout, some real and some fictional (a helpful character list makes the distinction); keeping track of their relationships is a challenge, complicated by a narrative that bounces among the principals. That said, Dickason’s tale is fascinating, offering an unexpected level of complexity and a shocker of an ending. (Oct.)

Predictability, contrivance and flat dialogue abound in this historical romance by acclaimed author Small. In 1461 war-torn England, Alix Givet is forced to marry a baron’s cruel son in order to find refuge for her dying father. When her husband commits suicide, Alix’s relief soon turns to horror as her father-in-law announces that he intends to marry her. On foot, Alix runs across the border to Scotland, where she’s rescued from a wintry storm by Malcolm Scott, a gruff laird who vowed never to marry again after his first wife betrayed him. A few graphic sex scenes later, the two have fallen in love and married; the rest of the novel they spend dealing with the English baron–cum–raving madman who is convinced that Alix is rightfully his. Two-dimensional characters—either without flaw or completely unredeemable—and hastily dispatched political/historical background sink the story, but Small’s included enough steamy scenes that fans should find what they’re looking for. (Oct.)

Lakhous’s prize-winning second novel is a social satire and murder mystery concerning an immigrant-filled apartment complex in Rome. After a murder in the building elevator, each occupant of the Piazza Vittorio—among these, Parviz Mansoor Samadi, an Iranian chef who detests pizza; Benedetta Esposito, an aging concierge from Naples; Iqbal Amir Allah, a Bangladeshi shopkeeper—gets a chapter to relate the truth as he or she knows it (or wants it known), apparently to the police. The odd man out, and the main suspect, is Amedo, a man believed by his neighbors to be a native Italian. The tenants are by turns outraged, disillusioned, defensive and afraid, and their frequently wild testimony teases out intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot, exposing the power of fear, racial prejudice and cultural misconception to rob a neighborhood of its humanity. (Oct.)

The linguistically playful third novel from Odhiambo follows the picaresque adventures of an African grad student in Pennsylvania imperiling his inheritance—and sanity—with lustful exploits. Jonah Ayot, a minister’s son from the African country of Liwani, attends Dingham University and lives with the kindly, upstanding Reverend Tusker, who holds the power of attorney in Jonah’s inheritance. Although Reverend Tusker hopes Jonah will marry Clementine Pinkston, a saintly young woman from the church choir, Jonah takes up with an exotic dancer/prostitute, Babycakes, and hopes to help straighten out her life. Jonah’s internal struggle to do what’s right is undermined by the other characters’ mercenary manipulation of the young man. Everyone has an angle and a plan, it seems, for Jonah’s money. The novel is framed as a “true account” of poor sin-ridden Jonah’s exploits and is a mishmash of experimental writing, camp, coming-of-age and social commentary. It can be both frustrating and invigorating on the same page; readers into edgier, out-there work will want to take a look. (Oct.)

At the start of this powerful first of a new crime series from Irish author Millar (Dark Souls), wild dogs finish off a battered gang-rape victim, left for dead in a unused quarry outside Belfast one summer day in 1978. Decades later, someone is picking off the men responsible for this outrage. At the behest of a shadowy employer, PI Karl Kane investigates the death of one of the rapists, whose body turns up in the city’s Botanic Gardens. Flashbacks to the 1960s, when a young boy witnessed his mother’s murder and narrowly escaped death at her killer’s hands, help build suspense as their relevance to the present-day murders slowly and chillingly comes into focus. Millar adds police corruption to the mix to make Kane’s search for the truth even more troublesome. While some minor plot elements may strike readers as contrived (e.g., the escape of some wild pigs leads to significant evidence), the consistently tough prose should help gain Millar fans in the U.S. with a taste for the hard-boiled. (Oct.)

Coleman explores in her underwhelming second novel (after The Accidental Mother) the long-term repercussions of rash, romantic and destructive decisions made in mercurial youth. Growing up, outgoing, attractive Alison James and introverted beauty-who-doesn’t-know-it Catherine Ashley were inseparable in the way that only teenage girls can be. That is, until 17-year-old Alison, in a moment of youthful passion, runs off with Catherine’s boyfriend, Marc, leaving an emotionally scarred Catherine and a bad reputation in her wake. Sixteen years later, Alison and Marc–now married—move back to the girls’ hometown, forcing Alison and Catherine to finally confront their pasts and one other. The book’s concept is promising, but clunky dialogue detracts, and the many passages of introspection grow tiresome, repetitive and melodramatic. It’s like listening to a romantically inept friend recount the latest relationship woes: it’s amusing enough, but after a while you’d like to change the subject. (Oct.)

The narrators of Porter’s Flannery O’Connor Award–winning collection tend to be young and clear-eyed beyond their years as they give voice to the secrets—family, their own—that haunt them. In the opening story, “Hole,” the narrator ruminates on the loss of a childhood friend and the slippery nature of guilt, memory and truth. In “Storms,” a young man considers his relationship with a troubled sister, who abandoned her fiancé in Spain without a passport or money. The narrator of “River Dog” wonders if he should or could hate his brother for the things he did to other people, and for what they did to his brother. In the title story, a young woman ponders the nature of a May/December romance. If the events and secrets of these characters’ pasts have not overtaken their lives, then their reverberations still threaten to corrupt the years yet to come. Throughout, Porter shows how love and pain often come hand in hand. (Oct.)

In his complex, mystical debut novel, Frank Durham concocts a post-Edenic yarn set in a small laid-back town in central Louisiana. Lindy Caton, 42, divorces her itinerant preacher husband who slept with men and gets herself involved with three ”half-crazy” old ladies in Acheron—Seelah, Adhah and Uhwa— raising a truck garden. The old ladies tell vivid Bible stories, while Lindy mulls over the fate of her mother, “Sunshine” Caton, who took off with a neighbor years before. Turns out the eldest old woman, Uhwa, is actually the biblical Eve who arrived with her sisters after an epic flood to live in modern Acheron. The sisters were rescued from the deluge by Cain, who has wandered the earth yearning to make peace with his mother over slaying his brother, Abel. Durham draws parallels between Sunshine’s reckless flight to Wyoming and Cain’s roving that help to inform Lindy’s quest to understand the past. Cain’s sections, however (particularly his overwrought quest for his mother’s pardon), are told in a stilted prose that slows the story’s pace and compromises its accessibility in an otherwise inventive first novel. (Oct.)

After a 30-year absence from publishing due to a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed, Rhodes is back with a novel featuring July Montgomery, the hero of his 1975 novel, Rock Island Line, which movingly involves him with the fates of several characters who live in the small town of Words, Wis. Through July, we meet Olivia Brasso, an invalid who loses her family’s savings at a casino; parolee Wade Armbuster, who befriends Olivia after she is mugged; Winifred Smith, Olivia’s new pastor; Jacob Helm, a widower who finds himself falling in love with Winnie; Gail Shotwell, a local musician who has an unusual reaction when her idol offers to record one of her songs; and Gail’s brother, Grahm, and his wife, Cora, who blow the whistle on the milk cooperative that has been cheating them and other farmers. It takes a while for all these stories to kick in, but once they do, Rhodes shows he still knows how to keep readers riveted. Add a blizzard, a marauding cougar and some rabble-rousing militiamen, and the result is a novel that is as affecting as it is pleasantly overstuffed. (Oct.)

Vaz’s collection of beautifully written short stories are steeped in tragedy and religious mysticism. In the title story, Isabel Serpa and her aunt Connie need a miracle to combat their landlord’s rent increase; the solution might be a virgin sighting among the artichokes in the yard, but 17-year-old Isabel is skeptical of her aunt’s plan: “all prayers were requests for immediate action, and no one was willing to sit inside any mystery.” In another, a mother’s 17 years of grief become a compulsive, ever-expanding art exhibit in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: “I take up half a wall with space reserved for many years more... it’s impossible for me to stop.” Another finds a gambler using ill-gotten funds to purchase his daughter a spectacular cape for the Portuguese Holy Ghost Festival, hoping to attract a Hollywood talent scout but also to relieve her of the all-consuming grief she holds for her deceased grandfather. Vaz is a soulful writer who understands her protagonists’ complex lives, as well as the way religious beliefs can assert themselves most powerfully after leaving native soil. (Oct.)

Prolific screenwriter, playwright and novelist Kureishi has a gift for smart, sparkling prose and expertly crafted characters, and it is on full display in his latest, the funny and heartbreaking story of Jamal Khan, a successful middle-aged London psychoanalyst dogged by a crushing secret and a long-burning torch for his first love. Jamal’s son, Rafi, and ex-wife, Josephine, are still very much involved in Jamal’s life, but nobody knows that Jamal is still profoundly in love with his high school girlfriend, Ajita, or that his connection to her is soiled by his complicity in a long-ago violent crime. As an analyst, he knows just how haunting the past can be (“Secrets are my currency,” he informs the reader), and he makes a convincing and often comedic case that madness is an ordinary, unsurprising part of contemporary life. The father-son relationship is especially brilliant, and Kureishi is adept as ever in balancing humor and his piercing insight into the human condition. (Sept.)

Berger is a Booker prize winner, art critic, journalist, essayist and the acclaimed author of Ways of Seeing. His latest is an epistolary novel that concerns two characters: Xavier, the alleged founder of a terrorist cell, and A’ida, his lover. The letters are A’ida’s, written to Xavier over the course of his years of imprisonment and squirreled away in a corner of Xavier’s small cell. They are adorned by Xavier’s margin notes (ranging from political exclamations to quotations about love and longing) and A’ida’s sketches. Through A’ida’s letters, the reader gets a taste of daily life in the provincial village of Suse, where she works in a pharmacy. Though she puts on a happy face for Xavier, tanks and helicopters haunt the margins, and she drops coded hints that she may still be involved in the resistance. The letters are organized idiosyncratically, but by virtue of their disorder, Berger tanks the standard-issue long-distance love plot and instead provides a rich narrative that winds together the toll on a town besieged and of isolation on a romance; it’s a paean to protest, both political and romantic. (Sept.)

Asim Zahid, the unassuming 19-year-old protagonist of Zebrun’s refreshing 9/11 novel (after Someone You Know), is gay, runs a theater in Lackawanna, N.Y., and has a brother who has disappeared to Afghanistan to prepare for jihad. The book begins the week before 9/11 with Asim receiving an ominous delivery: a package from his brother, Tarik, containing the skull of a Jewish boy. As Tarik’s motivations become clear, Asim finds something like comfort in a friendship with his dead father’s ex-lover, Sonia. Both Asim and Sonia are steeped in isolation and depend on films to find context for their lives, comparing people to actors and real-life events to famous film scenes. Lackawanna, meanwhile, gets some big city problems—a priest is stabbed, a small business owner is murdered and a homemade bomb makes an appearance. Though some developments are a bit outlandish, Zebrun moves the story along easily and never predictably as the fateful event draws near and life-changing decisions are made. With his memorable cast and nicely underplayed big themes, Zebrun delivers a new and worthy perspective on the 9/11 experience. (Sept.)

Charlie Howard, a crime writer who’s also an international burglar, once again makes a funny, fast-talking narrator in Ewan’s delightful second mystery (after 2007’s The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam). Tipsy after a Parisian book signing, Charlie agrees to show a new acquaintance the basics of the trade by breaking into the man’s own apartment. Trouble ensues when the apartment actually belongs to someone else. Charlie’s fence commissions him the next day to break into the same apartment to steal an apparently worthless painting, and the apartment’s real owner turns up dead in Charlie’s apartment. Hiding in a Montmartre hotel, Charlie tries to save his skin while also placating his attractive agent, Victoria, who’s arrived unannounced only to discover that the client she’s grown so close to by phone looks nothing like the author photo he provided. That Charlie pens a memoir titled The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam adds a nice postmodern touch to a classic caper. (Nov.)

In Charles’s ninth Det. Insp. Christy Kennedy mystery, one of the strongest in an impressive series (Sweetwater, etc.), Kennedy of the Camden Town CID faces a particularly challenging puzzle—the murder of a former colleague, retired Supt. David Peters, who dies in a Guy Fawkes bonfire atop London’s Primrose Hill. The investigators discover no shortage of suspects, ranging from the victim’s ungrieving widow, who wastes little time in taking up with someone new, to the many criminals Peters sent to prison. More than one ex-con claims that the superintendent, who often put ends over means, crossed the line into outright corruption. A decent man with a passion for his work, Kennedy makes an appealing sleuth, even though series regulars on the lookout for a surprise solution may put the pieces together before he does. Veterans and newcomers alike will appreciate the smart writing and ingenious planting of clues. (Oct.)

After two dozen adventures (One-Way Ticket, etc.), Tapply’s Brady Coyne, a refreshingly decent lawyer, remains a pleasure to see at work. After a seven-year absence from Brady’s life, Alexandria Shaw, a former lover, walks into his Boston office and asks him to handle her brother’s divorce case. Gus Shaw, an independent photojournalist who lost his right hand in Iraq and is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, promises to be a difficult client, but soon after Brady and Gus talk, Gus is found dead, an apparent suicide. Though no evidence suggests murder, Alexandria is convinced her brother didn’t kill himself; Brady agrees to probe, with predictable results. While Brady tends to telegraph important aspects of the case, his investigation reveals a lot of the hidden collateral damage of the Iraq war: bereaved families, physically or psychologically wounded vets and the people who try to help those who have suffered. (Oct.)

In Langley-Hawthorne’s absorbing second historical to feature heiress Ursula Marlow (after Consequences of Sin), Ursula is struggling to maintain control of her late father’s textile empire. A business trip to Egypt is complicated by the strange death of a new friend, the mysterious wife of a wealthy Russian. Next comes word of a fire in one of her factories and the discovery of the body of a young woman killed before the fire started. Struggling to make sense of these two deaths, Ursula also faces possible financial ruin because someone appears determined to put her out of business. Meanwhile, her romance with Lord Oliver Wrotham, a lawyer, is stalled because of her unwillingness to accept the subservient role of wife that Edwardian society demands. Showing an admirable grasp of social and political history, Langley-Hawthorne closes her tightly knit tale with an unexpected twist that will leave readers impatient for the next book. (Oct.)

At the outset of Curzon’s entertaining 21st Mike Yeadings mystery (after 2007’s The Edge), a biker deliberately runs down Warren Laing, Sandy Craddock’s estranged half-brother, outside the auction house where Sandy works as an auctioneer’s porter. Sandy, who assumes he was the biker’s intended victim, decides to pose as the flashy Warren after learning that Warren, who’s in a coma in the hospital, has been mistakenly identified as himself. Just as he enters the charade, Sandy runs into the headstrong Fiona Morgan, who has an investigative interest in the real Warren. Looking to hide out, Sandy accepts Fiona’s invitation to join her at a Berkshire castle, where, among other surprises, a dying woman knocks on Sandy’s bedroom door one night. The intricately woven plot takes off in disparate directions, but Curzon methodically brings all the threads together as the members of Yeadings’s Thames Valley CID team strive to figure out whodunit. (Oct.)

The pseudonymous Coyle (a husband-wife team) makes the jump to hardcover with this enjoyable coffeehouse mystery, the seventh in the series to star Clare Cosi, the crime-solving barista of Village Blend (French Pressed, etc.). Breanne Summour, the “disdainer-in-chief” of Manhattan fashion magazine Trend, is engaged to be married to Matteo Allegro, Clare’s ex-husband. Sharing a grown daughter, Clare and Matt remain friends and business partners. When a 22-year-old dancer who looks like Breanne is shot after performing at Matt’s bachelor party, a frantic Matt believes Breanne was the intended target. Clare agrees to protect Breanne until the posh wedding at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but after the murder of Breanne’s former assistant, Clare’s life is in jeopardy, too. This mellow-paced cozy includes some surprises for both bride and groom, who must deal with the bitter fruits of their past actions. Recipes and coffee tips are a bonus. (Oct.)

Milwaukee lawyer Rep Pennyworth and his English professor wife, Melissa, latter-day incarnations of Nick and Nora Charles, deal with an assortment of unrelated concerns in Bowen’s engaging fourth mystery (after 2006’s Putting Lipstick on a Pig). Some of these are legal, such as a would-be rapist’s trial for piracy; some ethical, such as a brooding young Catholic co-ed who may be concealing evidence in another case; and some as apparently frivolous as excessive political correctness in the classroom or the marketing of topical thriller novels. The murder of a greedy professor who dabbled in borderline extortion, however, forces the couple to take a more serious look at the cast of obsessive, eccentric characters inside and outside the academy who are bound and determined to get what they want no matter who else gets hurt. Bowen’s characters are amusing even when exasperating, and his leads are especially pleasant people to spend time with. (Oct.)

Set on the Suffolk coast, Hill’s droll debut introduces accidental sleuth Alexandra “Lexy” Lomax. After discovering that her flaky husband, Gerard Warwick-Holmes, the star of TV’s Heirlooms in Your Attic, is a crook, Lexy flees London—along with her pet Chihuahua and half a million quid of Gerard’s stolen loot—and takes refuge at Otter’s End, a log cabin in Clopwolde-on-Sea. Lexy soon realizes that Mrs. Glenda Doyle, the cabin’s deceased previous occupant, had been a PI with an ad for “discreet services” still running in the local paper. How hard can it be, wonders Lexy, who’s in need of ready cash (she doesn’t dare touch the stolen money for the moment), to trail a possibly philandering wife or locate a missing cat? It turns out to be very hard, indeed, after the wife is murdered and the cat proves more valuable than the average feline. Crisp prose and a plot laced with animal tomfoolery will keep readers amused and eager for a sequel. (Oct.)

Set in mid-1960s Britain, Hampson’s overly complicated follow-up to Trust Nobody begins with an anonymous woman’s cold-blooded murder after sex. In the main story line, Daisy Lane has returned to her hometown of Gosport, still reeling from the violent deaths in Trust Nobody of her husband, Kenny, murdered by a fellow con in prison, and her lover, Eddie, Kenny’s older brother. Daisy, who’s recently given birth to Eddie’s son, is determined to bring down Eddie’s killer, Roy Kemp, a notorious London thug who runs with the Kray twins, real-life criminals who terrorized the East End in the 1950s and ’60s. Hampson muddies the narrative with confusing side plots, one of which involves the dead woman in the opening. Those interested in the gritty underside of London during this period might look instead to The Lost and other crime novels by Roberta Kray, the wife of one of the Kray twins. (Oct.)

More than a quarter century’s worth of short fiction is gathered in this comprehensive collection of stories from Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award–winner Swanwick. The tales run the gamut from strict space adventures like “The Very Pulse of the Machine” to deceptively complex ghost stories like “Radio Waves.” In “The Feast of Saint Janis,” Janis Joplin is worshiped as an ancient goddess made flesh, with all the power and pitfalls that accompany the role. The more surreal pieces—such as “Mother Grasshopper,” wherein wizards chase one another across an insect the size of a planet—nonetheless have a method to their madness, and though it would be easy for alien monster shorts like “A Midwinter’s Tale” to dissolve into self-conscious silliness, even the weaker setups conclude with a bang. Swanwick’s blend of savvy science fiction, Freudian fantasy and top-notch storytelling both chills and charms. (Oct.)

Flint and Freer’s latest collaboration (after 2007’s Pyramid Power) doesn’t bring anything original to space opera, but its fast pace and pulpy premise make for an engaging if shallow adventure. When a vast relic made up of massive bubbles approaches a star system inhabited by sentient space-faring aliens, a team of researchers is sent to investigate. Soon after the inquisitive aliens enter one of the bubbles, they’re attacked by its murderously insane human inhabitants. Alien xenobiologist Kretz barely escapes into another bubble, and in order to get safely back to his ship, he must somehow traverse numerous virtually inaccessible environments, all populated by divergently evolving human societies. Flint and Freer’s action-packed, often humorous story ultimately lacks substance but makes it up in fun. (Oct.)

Anderson raises the stakes for Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker in this dramatic sequel to 2008’s Into the Storm. The sailors and marines become further enmeshed in the politics of the parallel Earth into which their WW2 destroyer has mysteriously been transported. As they deal out rough justice to miscreants in the ranks and prepare their pacifist Lemurian allies to fight the Grand Swarm of the reptilian Grik, they in turn must face their own worst nightmare: the appearance of a Japanese battle cruiser. Anderson throws in tense land battles against overwhelming odds, a massive typhoon and a phenomenal aerial duel, but despite the pyrotechnics, at heart this novel is about how honor and ideals can bend or break under the stressful, life-and-death conditions of total war. (Oct.)

Kaye’s anthology of four new ghost novellas is a mixed bag at best. Brian Lumley builds suspense in the first half of “A Place of No Ending,” but in the end, a garrulous ghost nearly talks the protagonist to death. Orson Scott Card, in “Hamlet’s Father,” recasts Shakespeare’s tragedy as a gothic ghost thriller, but hobbles it with an anachronistic and absurd revisionist ending. Kaye (The Fair Folk) represents himself with “The Haunted Single Malt,” a story that perhaps unwisely references ghost story master M.R. James while never rising to James’s level. Only Tanith Lee, in “Strindberg’s Ghost,” strikes the balance of atmosphere and romance crucial for the effective telling of her tale of betrayal and sacrifice. Though each story has its merits, readers will find them mostly dispiriting. (Oct.)

This charming Victorian fantasy, fifth in the Western Lights series (following 2007’s Bertram of Butter Cross), surrounds a mystery with cozy world-building. Eugene Stanley, visiting Salthead University to help his uncle complete a long-delayed book, first discovers that a mysterious lamp’s light shows strange spirits and then inadvertently enters the spirit world while seeking missing Professor Haygarth. Though more narrator than hero, Stanley’s determination to find the professor raises him above a mere Watson, and his final decision adds a welcome note of quiet surprise. It’s not explained why mastodons and “saber-cats” roam this alternate England, or what occasioned and resulted from the catastrophe called the sundering, but while these mysteries may lead newcomers to the rest of the series, neither is necessary to appreciate this installment on its own. (Oct.)

Rich with historical detail and intrigue, Yarbro’s 21st Count Saint-Germain novel (after 2007’s Borne in Blood) unfolds in 18th-century Russia at the height of Peter the Great’s effort to wrest St. Petersburg from the swamps and spearhead the modernizing of his nation. Benevolent vampire Saint-Germain plays both sides, contributing engineering suggestions to the czar’s efforts and intelligence reports to the Polish monarchy. As usual, several difficulties threaten to expose his secret identity, and he battles ignorant and superstitious opposition to his enlightened teaching and doctoring skills. Though sluggishly paced in spots and minimally supernatural, this meticulously researched entry deftly displays Yarbro’s ambitions to use her vampire hero as a lens to focus on the best and worst of human behavior throughout history. (Oct.)

Hugo-winner Egan (Schild’s Ladder), champion of ultra-hard SF, devotes most of this slim novel to the efforts of the Arkmakers, who live in a neutron star’s accretion disk at the center of the galaxy, to develop orbital physics from first principles and save the artificial world created by their more sophisticated ancestors. Meanwhile, Rakesh, a more or less human member of a distant posthuman society, sets off on an unrelated quest to find the Arkmakers and is soon trying to save them from their current danger. Whole chapters are devoted to physics problems and include a variety of diagrams and cited sources. Egan’s briefly sketched characters and cultures are interesting, but this one is all about the science and won’t have much interest for those without at least some understanding of celestial mechanics. (Oct.)

The battle for control of Antarctica’s ice quickly turns into a fight for survival in this uneven debut thriller. Idealistic and controversial (but corporate) environmentalist Ben Maki wants to bring fresh water to millions by melting the Antarctic icebergs. As Maki’s trial run progresses, a group of scientists studying the icebergs begin falling prey to a deadly illness and to packs of vicious Antarctic rats. Maki and his colleagues must abandon their efforts, hoping only to get out of Antarctica alive. While the scientific and ethical themes are fascinating and timely and the remoteness of the Antarctic makes an ideal thriller setting, readers will find it difficult to suspend their disbelief long enough to find the rats scary rather than silly. Dionne would have done better to stick to the human capacity for monstrosity—something she touches on, but never fully explores—and the surprisingly complex and overlapping motivations of the characters. (Oct.)

Real-life soap actress Eileen Davidson brings a bland realism to her simplistic mystery series debut. When soap star Alexis Peterson discovers the body of a hated head writer, all suspicion is focused on her. Knowing her own innocence, she sets about trying to discover whodunit while avoiding harassment by the police, until the killer decides to come after her. Davidson throws in enough red herrings to keep readers guessing, but Peterson is a dry, self-centered protagonist with unclear motives and relationships. Her ostensible love triangle suggests uncertainty more on the author’s part than the heroine’s. The police are too nice to Peterson and she has no real conflict, especially with the mandatory gay best friend to give her perfect advice. Davidson’s familiar name on the cover is the only thing that makes this mystery anything other than run-of-the-mill. (Oct.)

Miller’s third Stone Creek novel (after 2008’s A Wanted Man) gets as hot as the noontime desert. In early 20th-century Arizona territory, Wyatt Yarbro leaves behind his life as an outlaw as he temporarily replaces his brother as the deputy marshal of Stone Creek and sets out to woo Sarah Tamlin, the intelligent and beautiful daughter of a local banker. The somewhat predictable plot line is enhanced as Sarah’s secrets are carefully revealed, and the relationship between Sarah and Wyatt sizzles in a series of very sensual love scenes. Miller’s portrayal of Sarah as a strong, independent woman sets this novel apart from customary tales of the damsel in distress and the rescuing hero. Instead, Miller focuses on Sarah and Wyatt’s shared and separate vulnerabilities and how they find it easier to face the difficulties of everyday life when they’re together. Well-developed, personable characters and a handful of loose ends will leave readers anticipating future installments. (Oct.)

Martin’s uneven seventh New York Blades romance (after 2008’s Just a Taste) mixes professional hockey with the high-pressure, high-drama world of daytime soap opera. Soap actress Monica Geary’s lofty position is threatened by a reputation as a recluse and a slutty new co-star, and new Blades player Eric Mitchell (brother of Chasing Stanley’s protagonist Jason) wants to win over fans and teammates. They strike a deal: pretend to be a couple for increased mutual publicity. When they start to develop a real attraction, Mitchell panics and breaks it off, but then realizes he’ll do anything to get Geary back. Martin’s attention to detail enlivens her portrayals of actors, writers, players and fans, but Mitchell’s fumbling courtship and Geary’s harsh mockery are a little too realistic; the stars’ glamour and chemistry may not be enough to keep readers engaged through the bouts of petty sniping and selfishness. (Oct.)