Fiction Reviews

Contrivance and a multitude of sitcom mixups drive Ahern’s fifth novel. When Joyce Conway gets a blood transfusion after a tragic accident that caused her to miscarry, she strangely picks up the memories of her donor. Upon release from the hospital, she moves in with her father to try to cope with her impending divorce and the loss of her baby, but ends up instead on a wild goose chase after feeling a connection with a mysterious, smoldering stranger in a hair salon. Their relationship is obvious to the reader immediately, which makes the following several hundred pages a less than satisfying exercise in delaying the inevitable. Fans of Ahern’s earlier work won’t be disappointed with the fairy tale–like feeling, but readers not already in the fold might not stick around to the obvious conclusion. (Apr.)

Griffin’s fiction debut is a spellbinding tale of loss and hard-won redemption. When Tessa Gray’s four-year-old daughter, Abby, is killed by a hit and run driver, there are no witnesses. From first meeting, Tessa distrusts the detective assigned to the case and, with her journalism background and ties to newspapers in nearby Boston, she begins to dig for her own answers to the identity of Abby’s killer. Meanwhile, she vents her grief with Celia, a compassionate but reserved therapist. Celia’s story, with its tragic undertones, unfolds parallel to Tessa’s: Celia has a second marriage, a secretive teenage son and an ex-husband who makes her current family circle impossibly tense. At the office, Celia is practical and pulled together, but her home life buzzes with strife. Outside therapy, Celia’s and Tessa’s narratives remain separate until they shockingly intersect and lead the way to hard-won healing for both. Griffin’s carefully crafted characters ring heartbreakingly true and her finely wrought plot will snare readers from the first page. (Apr.)

Willett (Echoes of the Dance) gives us a domestic novel of quiet yearning, haunting memories and onerous guilt, oscillating between the present of 2004 and the late 1970s, when bighearted mom Julia welcomed her pregnant, widowed best friend Tiggy into her home to live. With lush descriptions of pastoral Cornwall as a backdrop, Willett explores the life of naval wives Julia and Julia’s Aunt Em, daughter-in-law Caroline and nemesis Angela, each of whom spend much time waiting for her husband to return. Julia and her daughter, Liv, grapple with echoes of their former lives: for Julia, it’s the specter of her husband’s infidelity, in the form of Angela; for Liv, it’s the one that got away, in the form of unhappily but intractably married co-worker Chris. And that’s hardly all; Willett piles on the conflicts and tragedies, overloading her suffering characters. The women are largely faultless and sweet—particularly the insouciant, lovely Liv—which undermines their well-earned gravitas. Still, Angela makes a delicious antagonist, and the friendships at the novel’s heart—especially the tender relationship between Julia and Tiggy—are believable and warming. (Apr.)

Collie Flanagan’s life is part Grey Gardens and part The Royal Tenenbaums in this beautifully written if unwieldy dramedy debut. Raised on Martha’s Vineyard, Collie is the dull link in his flamboyant family: his adulterous, alcoholic father and cruelly pugnacious mother maintain a miserable relationship that overshadows even the overblown personalities of his pigeon-racing uncle and his prep-school failure brother. As storms of irresponsibility rage, Collie lives in quiet, stable success until a one-two punch of family tragedy leaves him reeling. Collie’s relationship with his media magnate grandfather becomes contentious as Collie spins out of control and tries wildly different ways to make restitution and become a man. Kelly is a gifted writer (Collie’s mother attacks with a “verbal pitchfork. Before the night was over, just about everyone in the place had sprung leaks, blood and champagne spurting from all those glamorous human fountains”), but her chops as a novelist aren’t as refined: Collie is as pallid as the other characters are unbelievable, and though the crazed drama keeps the story moving, it’s often incredible. Though hampered by these weaknesses, Collie’s quest is worth reading for the elegant prose alone. (Mar.)

Backhaus’s debut novel explores love, loss and the tangled web of family in the matriarchal Oak Grove, Calif., Sikh community of 1976. Teenage narrator Jeeto is already caught between two worlds, the college-bound crowd of her American classmates and the traditional marriage, arranged by her mother, to an unknown young man from India. Through Jeeto’s conflict, Backhaus explores the tension between the traditional and the new in her sister, relatives and neighbors. Uncle Avtar, who fled India for a life of opportunity, loses his heart to an American waitress, but finds his loyalty to the Sikh community pulling him back into the fold. Jeeto’s sister, Neelam, in love with a young man of undesirable parentage, passively accepts her arranged marriage to a stranger, while Jeeto’s friend Surinder openly rebels against community mores. Intertwined, their stories of loss, connection and the search for identity create a rich, sensuous portrait of a culture in transition; unfortunately, her myriad cast is populated largely by stock characters, keeping Backhaus’s world from coming fully alive. (Mar.)

In the prologue to this exceptional supernatural thriller from Masello (Bestiary), two lovers—Lt. Sinclair Copley of the 17th Lancers and Eleanor Ames, a nurse from Florence Nightingale’s Harley Street hospital in London—fall into ice-strewn seas from a British sloop foundering near Antarctica in 1856. In the present, Seattle writer Michael Wilde, who’s recovering from a personal tragedy, can’t resist the opportunity to go to Antarctica to write a magazine article about the Point Adélie research station. Past and present stories alternate until Michael makes an amazing discovery in a submerged block of ice off the Antarctic coast—two frozen bodies, bound in chains. After Sinclair and Eleanor revive, Masello slowly and subtly reveals how they came to transcend death. The thrills and, most decidedly, the chills mount to a believable, sad and hopeful ending. Fans of John Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”—the basis for the movie The Thing—will find much to like. (Feb.)

Grace Lisa Vandenburg, the narrator of this pleasant neurotic-girl-meets-boy debut, is 35 years old and has been addicted to counting since she was eight. She lives alone in Melbourne, Australia, and is on sick leave from her teaching job, filling her weeks with counting—“steps and syllables and bites and things”—and sticking to her rigid routines, which include trips to the cafe and phone calls from her mother and self-absorbed younger sister. The only person in her life Grace relates to is her 10-year-old niece, Hilary, who is as quirky and charming as Grace is. Things are fine until Grace meets Seamus Joseph O’Reilly, an Irish transplant who works at the local movie theater. Grace has not been on a date in two years and six months and hasn’t been in love in forever, but as things progress with Seamus, she realizes what she has been missing. With some gentle encouragement, Grace agrees to test her boundaries and tries to find a happy medium between her obsession and living a full life. The novel does everything a sweet, agreeable romantic comedy should. (Feb.)

A violent incident on a Nigerian beach has tragic echoes in posh London in Cleave’s beautifully staged if haphazardly plotted debut novel. British couple Andrew O’Rourke and his wife, Sarah, are on vacation when they come across two sisters, Little Bee and Nkiruka, on the run from the killers who have massacred everyone else in their village—in the pay, it turns out, of an oil company seeking the land. Soon the killers arrive and propose a not-quite-credible deal: they will trade the girls if Andrew and Sarah each cut off a finger. Andrew can’t do it, but Sarah does, and the killers drag the girls away. So two years later, when Little Bee shows up at Sarah’s house on the day of the funeral for Andrew, who has killed himself, it seems almost miraculous. Later, however, it’s revealed that Little Bee has been hiding around the O’Rourke place, and that Andrew seeing her set off his suicide. Sarah nevertheless determines to help Little Bee get refugee status. Cleave has a sharp cinematic eye, but the plot is undermined by weak motivations and coincidences. (Feb.)

Willig spins another sultry spy tale in her fifth installment of the Pink Carnation series. When Robert, duke of Dovedale, returns after more than a decade abroad, Lady Charlotte Lansdowne hopes the romantic world of her novels will soon come to life in the form of a love story between her and Robert. But the duke has come back from India to track Arthur Wrothan, a spy who killed Robert’s mentor, and though his and Charlotte’s reunion culminates in a blaze of kisses, he abandons her to track down his nemesis. On the trail, Robert cavorts with the Hellfire Club, which holds opium-fueled orgies that provide cover for Wrothan. In the meantime, Charlotte’s efforts to help the king throw her again into Robert’s path. The story unfolds within the frame of a contemporary love affair between Eloise, a Harvard graduate student researching spies of the late 18th and early 19th century, and Colin Selwick, descendant of one of the spies who so pique Eloise’s interest. The author’s conflation of historical fact, quirky observations and nicely rendered romances results in an elegant and grandly entertaining book. (Feb.)

Garner (Monkey Grip) employs her signature realism in this stunted novel about the infuriating and eye-opening experience of caring for a terminally ill loved one. Helen prepares a room in her Melbourne home for Nicola, an old friend who travels from Sydney to begin a course of alternative treatment for bowel cancer. The central conflict of the story centers around these treatments: Helen fears they may be doing more harm than good, while Nicola has undying faith in the unorthodox practices of the Theodore Institute (these revolve around vitamin C injections), leading Helen to question her ability to care for someone so deep in denial. Garner paints Nicola’s unflinching optimism with a heavy hand, and her grand naïveté is unconvincing, a flaw that’s hard to overlook in a novel about a cancer patient. As it wears on, the narrative becomes clouded by litanies of worsening symptoms and platitudes about death, and Helen’s bickering about the treatment—while valid—become grating and tiresome. (Feb.)

Humphreys’s lethargic latest depicts the intertwining lives of two British women during the world wars. Harriet and Maeve meet on the streets of Coventry, England, in 1914. Both are of troubled mind: Harriet’s husband has just left for the battlegrounds of France, and Maeve can’t shake a deep sense of loneliness. The women share laughs on a bus ride, but afterwards their lives continue on different paths. Harriet’s husband, Owen, goes missing (and is presumed killed) in action, and Harriet spends the next two decades mourning his loss. Maeve becomes pregnant out of wedlock and works a string of odd jobs to raise her son, Jeremy. In the chaos of the German bombing of Coventry in 1940, Harriet befriends Jeremy, who, at 22, stirs intense memories of Owen. Together, they search the town for Jeremy’s mother and forge an intense bond. Humphreys’s characters are given to poetic tendencies that occasionally yield interesting insights on the nature of loss and change, though the cast tends toward the indistinct and the narrative feels too in service of the historical record. (Feb.)

In bestseller Bass’s average fourth forensic thriller to feature Dr. Bill Brockton (after The Devil’s Bones), a frozen corpse found in a lake near the Oak Ridge, Tenn., nuclear research facility turns out to be that of Dr. Leonard Novak, one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project, the secret government program to build the first atomic bomb during WWII. When the source of death, potent radioactive material the old man somehow ingested, poisons the local medical examiner, Brockton’s inquiry takes on added urgency. After meeting Novak’s ex-wife at his funeral, Brockton wonders if there might be a link between the present-day murder and long-forgotten events; with the aid of an attractive local librarian, he starts to dig into Oak Ridge’s past. Given the small pool of suspects, many readers will guess the killer’s identity before it’s revealed. Those looking for a more evocative portrait of the paranoid atmosphere surrounding the Manhattan Project should seek out Joseph Kanon’s Los Alamos. (Feb.)

A neurotic British hypochondriac is at the center of Millar’s frenetic, eccentric novel, first published in the U.K. in 1987. “[R]agged” paranoid Alby Starvation barely makes ends meet in his career dealing speed in Brixton, and he’s constantly suffering from intense stomach pain. When he determines the cause of his internal discomfort is a severe allergy to milk, he creates a media firestorm about how milk could be “potentially poisonous.” Dairy sales plummet and the Milk Marketing Board takes out a contract on Alby’s head. Enter lonesome hit woman June, who apparently isn’t the only person gunning for Alby: a cryptic Chinese man with a hidden agenda has it in for Alby, too. Calamity ensues as Alby becomes intimate with June and begins to fear he may have contracted AIDS. The dizzying array of characters and perspectives whips Millar’s madcap story into a potent blitz that runs at full throttle through the satisfying conclusion. Fans of Irvine Welsh will love Millar’s singularly entertaining tale of suspicious minds. (Feb.)

Fleishman, a war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize finalist, writes what he knows in this admirable but flawed Syriana-esque novel. Jay Morgan is a veteran journalist who has seen it all. Stationed in Kosovo—and breaking a “cardinal rule” by sleeping with his beautiful translator, Alijah—he is in hot pursuit of “the dateman,” an Osama bin Laden–like figure who has recently set up camp in the mountains. Meanwhile, Alijah, the survivor of violence, hopes to find her missing brother who she suspects has enlisted with the guerrillas. As Jay and Alijah inch closer to their goals, it becomes clear that the individuals they pursue are more entwined than they could have imagined. The specter of 9/11 hangs over Fleishman’s account of war, which is often filled with rich and provocative insights. Yet despite occasional moments of revelation and beauty, the book’s devastating conclusion doesn’t pay off quite the way it should, largely owing to Alijah, who remains a mystery to Jay and thus comes off as a romanticized ideal. While the narrative hits the right intellectual notes, it misses the human ones. (Feb.)

Dr. Eli Branch, a young surgeon, appears to have everything going for him when he joins Gates Memorial Hospital in Memphis in Pearson’s promising if cliché-laden debut. Branch’s wild ride starts after he gets the blame for a botched procedure headed by the chief of vascular surgery. Branch goes from fair-haired boy to pariah at Gates, from rising medical scientist to fugitive suspect as his enemies seek to prevent him from discovering facts that could destroy them. Pearson, himself an M.D., dramatically describes operating scenes and lucidly explains medical issues, from aortic device failures to stem cell therapy. Unfortunately, the plot contains just about every hoary B-movie concept, from corrupt hospital officials and a ruthless medical corporation to a beautiful temptress and secret underground passages. Still, Branch makes an appealing hero as he fights the steep odds against him. Hopefully, he’ll be back for a more realistic sequel. (Feb.)

Prolific, bestselling street-lit author Weber (Something on the Side) delivers a soap opera–style cautionary tale of promiscuity and lust that, though twisty and entertaining, has its share of problems. Things quickly go wrong for the Black family—divorced father James, his ex-wife Crystal, engaged-to-be-married son Darnel and 25-year-old daughter Jamie—when Darnel catches his fiancée, Keisha, cheating on him with his best friend, Omar. After getting arrested for beating Omar “until I got all my venom out,” Darnel’s pain and humiliation drive him to stalk and torment Keisha. Meanwhile, Jamie learns a dangerous secret about her boyfriend, Louis, and ladies’ man James falls under the spell of a woman with questionable motives. As James, Darnel and Jamie switch narrative duties, betrayals and odd plot twists become the norm with at times shocking results, but awkward dialogue and implausible motivation distract from the fun. Though some of the surprises fall flat, this trashy page-turner should give fans what they want. (Feb.)

British novelist Evaristo delivers an astonishing, uncomfortable and beautiful alternative history that goes back several centuries to flip the slave trade, with “Aphrikans” enslaving the people of “Europa” and exporting many of them to “Amarika.” The plot revolves around Doris, the daughter of a long line of proud cabbage farmers who live in serfdom. After she’s kidnapped by slavers, she experiences the horror and inhumanity of slave transport, is sold and works her way back to freedom. The narrative cuts back and forth through time, contrasting the journey to freedom with the journey toward slavery. In a less skilled writer’s hands, the premise easily could have worn itself out by the second chapter, but Evaristo’s intellectually rigorous narrative constantly surprises, and, for all the barbarism on display, it’s strikingly human. Evaristo’s novel is a powerful, thoughtful reminder that diabolical behavior can take place in any culture, “safety” is an illusion and freedom is something easily taken for granted. This difficult and provocative book is a conversation sparker. (Jan.)

Sophomore novelist Torday (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) meditates on the question of what money can and cannot buy in this subtle, sorrowful tale of a man who has mistaken his alcoholism for happy gluttony. Frances Wilberforce has pulled himself up from nothing; an orphan adopted by a family of middle-class means, he made a mint when he sold his software business. Drinking four bottles of wine a day, sometimes spending thousands of pounds on a single, exquisite bottle, Wilberforce doesn’t take long to drink his way through his new fortune. When friends confront him with his problem, he maintains that he does not have an addiction; rather, he has an interest in fine wine. It’s a fine distinction, and as the narrative tracks backwards to reveal the events that precipitated Wilberforce’s fall—the death of his wife, a series of new friendships with a set of dissolute, landed gentry—it sharpens its depiction of the cheerful face that money can put on an unhappy life. Torday is a talented writer and manages this sad story deftly, mixing in redeeming doses of humor and empathy. (Jan.)

McCabe (Winterwood) delivers a claustrophobic indictment of failed peace and love, as seen through the eyes of a nut job Irish baby boomer. C.J. “Pops” McCool, the illegitimate son of a wealthy, married housewife, is raised by a surrogate mother in the “Nook,” a plot of land buried deep within his birth mother’s estate. However, when candy-striped blazers and the Kinks enter his world, McCool dives headlong into the swinging lifestyle, developing an unhealthy attachment to a Nigerian teenager and dating an older woman. As McCool’s cultural obsessions grow out of control, he acts on a taboo impulse and starts a chain of events that leads to his institutionalization. Nearly 40 years later, living with a doting wife, McCool attempts to reconcile his youth with his supposedly cured present state. At turns irate, mystified and nostalgic, McCool’s reminiscences stand as a haunting rejoinder to his youth’s groovy promise. McCabe’s dynamic and flawed antihero is a creepy delight, the perfect guide to some very dark material. (Jan.)

Noir master Huston (The Shotgun Rule) should win himself a whole new audience with this bizarre and utterly grotesque stand-alone, told mostly through dialogue that highlights the author’s uncanny ear for the spoken word. Former Los Angeles grade school teacher Web Goodhue, now a full-time slacker suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, falls into a job on a crime scene cleanup crew, scrubbing up the remains of the recently deceased. After the crew has finished cleaning up a messy suicide scene in Malibu, Web gets a phone call from the dead man’s daughter, Soledad. She and her thug half-brother have another big mess on their hands that needs cleaning, on the QT. Unable to resist the beautiful Soledad, Web soon finds himself in way over his head. Huston, one of his generation’s finest and hippest talents, shows in grisly detail what cleaning up after the dead entails. This one should appeal to Chuck Palahniuk fans as well as hard-boiled crime readers. (Jan.)

At the start of O’Connell’s atmospheric if overplotted stand-alone, former army CID warrant officer Oren Hobbs travels back to the small town of Coventry, Calif., where bones have begun to appear on the family property. Oren’s father, a retired judge, is convinced they belong to Josh, Oren’s 15-year-old brother, who vanished in the woods when Oren was 17. The town abounds in rumors as well as suspects, from a disfigured and reclusive ex-LAPD officer to a once beautiful hotel owner who may have had an affair with teenage Oren. When a grave is discovered in the woods, Oren is surprised that the broken bones belong not only to Josh but to an unknown woman. Determined to solve his brother’s murder, Oren must face his own past and the real possibility that the killer might strike again. O’Connell’s characters are complex as always, but she often suffocates them under unnecessary red herrings. Nevertheless, fans of her Kathleen Mallory series (Find Me, etc.) as well as new readers will be satisfied. Author tour. (Jan.)

In bestseller Griffin’s gung-ho fifth presidential agent novel (after The Shooters), the U.S. president assigns Lt. Col. Charley Castillo, a member of the Office of Organizational Analysis, a special task—to track down the terrorists who murdered an American diplomat in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When Castillo’s inquiries lead him to a pair of defecting Russian spies, they offer information about an Iranian-run bioweapons factory hidden in the Congo. Readers who want exciting accounts of desperate battles have come to the wrong place. Griffin excels in describing the planning and the bureaucratic tussles that have to occur before the first bomb goes off. He understands the psychology and motivations of military and clandestine service officers. While he paints an enticing, if overly idealized, portrait of loyal, capable people drawn to others of their kind, realism isn’t his strong suit. Still, Griffin’s many fans will be rewarded. (Jan.)

Elliott reimagines the story of Adam and Eve in a debut novel that richly evokes earliest biblical times. The story is told from the points of view of Eve and her daughters: Naava, the beautiful weaver; Aya, the quick-witted, club-footed cook; and Dara, the compassionate observant twin. Eve recounts the fall and how she and Adam wander until settling down to grow crops, raise livestock and start a garden of their own. Elliott offers readers vivid details about the first childbirth, the first intercourse, the first recriminations, the first environmental calamity and the first hunt, but the novel really comes alive when it departs from lushly imagined retelling and thrusts the family into unfamiliar territory when the brood encounters a city and city people. Elliott is at her imaginative and linguistic best describing city life, customs and architecture, building tension as Naava falls for a prince, fueling Cain’s wrath. Elliott makes biblical fiction her own with a female perspective that emphasizes emotional turmoil, sensual experience and an impressive range of imagery that brings to life daily life in the beginning. (Jan.)

Alien invaders threaten humanity in Sigler’s over-the-top thriller, the sequel to Infected. In the near future, U.S. president John Gutierrez goes straight from his inauguration to crisis management when his national security team informs him that he must focus his attention on Project Tangram, a secret government program to stave off an epidemic caused by alien parasites, which form itchy blue triangular patches on the skin. Victims eventually become paranoid and violent. As the infestation spreads, Gutierrez must decide whether the outbreak can be contained without the use of tactical nukes on American soil. Meanwhile, the creatures responsible for the parasites get a foothold in Michigan through a seven-year-old girl, who manifests possession by drawing blue triangles on her dolls. While lacking the psychological sophistication of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers or David Gerrold’s War Against the Chtorr series, this page-turner builds inexorably to an explosive ending. 5-city author tour. (Jan.)

There hasn’t been an anthology of such talented African-American literary figures since Marita Golden’s Gumbo, and the result is a masterful bouquet of literary flowers, some grand, some subtle, but none shrinking. Striking among the collection is “Cell One,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s (Half of a Yellow Sun) cautionary tale of what happens when success and ambition outpace discipline and firm-handedness in child-rearing in Nigeria. The son of a professor and his accommodating wife, Nnamabia is titillated by thug life, and it isn’t until he’s arrested and observes the blatant disrespect toward a sick elder that he remembers the good sense his parents instilled long ago. In “This Kind of Red,” Helen Lee (Water Marked) tells of a battered woman who copes by counting everything from crayons to the minutes she has to kill her abusive husband. Mat Johnson (Drop) offers an excerpt from The Great Negro Plot, his novel infused with the history of slavery and indentured servitude in colonial New York. With something for every reader’s taste, this is a collection not to be missed. (Jan.)

In Majors’s (Wonderdog) bloated, frenetic third novel, two young East Tennessee brothers born into extreme wealth struggle to keep their secrets under wraps. J.T. Cole, a fast-driving banker, wants to put Glennville, Tenn., on the map by having the city host a world expo, while his younger and more sophisticated banker brother, Roland, has his heart set on running for the coveted governorship. A successful fairground event nets the brothers some serious cash, much to the chagrin of investigators keeping a close eye on the bankers’ shady loan practices. For the duration of the novel, both men are consistently unlikable, cheating on their sassy, perceptive, fedup wives and pushing their weight around their respective territories. By the time J.T.’s wife, Corrine, rightfully throws him out, federal agents descend on the thieving bankers, and a plane disaster shakes everyone up, readers will be too exhausted to care. This sprawling effort is a jumble of excessive exposition and sentence fragments that could have been a lively, spirited tale of greed corrupting absolutely. (Jan.)

Fishburne’s zany and entertaining, if somewhat uneven, first novel tells the story of Slater Brown: Writer Extraordinaire (at least in his own mind), as he whimsically romps through San Francisco. Slater arrives in the city with little more than the clothes on his back and a 250-pound trunk of books. He soon finds himself employed at a down and out newspaper called the Morning Trumpet, where, with the aid of a mystic known as Answer Man and a corrupt-beyond-belief mayoral administration, Slater becomes the journalistic toast of the town. Add a beautiful chess champion as romantic interest and a genius inventor intent on manipulating the weather, and you have the recipe for a generous and whacky story in the tradition of Tom Robbins. At times Fishburne has trouble maintaining so many moving parts; the inventor story line can feel extraneous, and the love story takes a while to get going. But what saves the book is its sweetness and innocence, and the depiction of Slater in the big city is a pleasure. (Jan.)

Smith handily proves the truism that everyone has their own tale to tell in this bangup collection. From “The History of History,” where a young narrator focuses on the fashion-related aspects of the beheading of Mary, queen of Scots, to block out problems at home, to “Writ,” where a grown woman sits down for an involved chat with her 14-year-old self, the author takes readers on lyrical rides through the lives of everyday Britons. “The Child” begins with an ordinary situation—a trip to the grocery—and shoots into fantasy when an infant begins telling crass jokes. Others, such as “I Know Something You Don’t Know,” explore heartbreaking reality, in this case a desperate mother turning to phone-book healers and psychics to cure her son’s illness. And in the title story, the narrator weighs her fears of being in a relationship against her apprehension at being alone. At once quirky and compulsively readable, this collection puts a layered and enjoyable spin on the many forms of the short story. (Jan.)

In Lawrence’s overwrought if well-plotted third erotic thriller to feature Teresa Knight (after Beg Me), the part-time investigator and children’s book author goes undercover as a film director at London’s soft-core Silky Pictures, whose owner, Luis Antunes, is suspected of forcing women into prostitution and having sex on screen. After some intense X-rated scenes during filming at Silky Pictures, Teresa gets on the trail of a sex-slave business that takes her to Brazil. When someone tosses Antunes off the balcony of a posh hotel, Teresa becomes the top suspect in his murder and is accused of being a Muslim terrorist. Readers should be prepared for plenty of overheated sex that interrupts the narrative flow. (Jan.)

Christian fiction author Kingsbury is well loved by her fans, and this newest story, based loosely upon her own brother’s death, will further endear her to her faithful readers. Kingsbury tells the story of a strained relationship between picture-perfect Nate and Annie Warren, whose son, Josh, a tow truck driver, has been a disappointment to them. Even though Josh’s mistakes are now history, his current joblessness—owing to a drunk driver’s recklessness—serves to ratchet up his parental disapproval rating. Only a few people know the truth: Josh is a real-life hero and his one heart’s desire is to be united with a daughter he’s never met. When Josh’s life is struck again by tragedy, his immediate family must come to grips with the recognition that they never really cared enough to ultimately know their son. Kingsbury does a fine job communicating the emotional struggles of individuals, and readers will resonate with her characters’ sorrows and losses. Yet much of the story is formulaic, which detracts from its otherwise powerful message about acceptance. (Jan.)

A setup Agatha Christie fans would appreciate forms the framework for Rowe’s fine 10th mystery set in second-century Roman-occupied Britain (after 2007’s A Coin for the Ferryman). Series sleuth Libertus, a mosaic maker by trade, agrees to stand in at a wedding for his patron, Marcus Septimus, who has to travel to Rome, in the town of Glevum (modern Gloucester). When someone poisons Honorius Didius Fustis, a town councilor and the bride’s father, on the wedding day, the prospective bridegroom, Gracchus, who’s still eager to cash in on the dowry, hires Libertus to prove that the bride-to-be, Pompeia, isn’t responsible for parricide, despite her apparent confession. With his standing with the Roman authorities uncertain, the investigator doggedly pursues suspects both inside and outside the dead man’s family. Rowe does her usual excellent job of integrating the details of everyday life into the plot. (Feb.)

Set in Vienna in 1898, Jones’s absorbing whodunit succeeds both as a mystery and as a fascinating portrait of a traditional society in ferment. When artist Gustav Klimt becomes a suspect in a series of bizarre murders, he turns for help to his lawyer friend, Karl Werthen, who joins forces with real-life pioneering criminologist Hanns Gross. Werthen and Gross follow a trail that leads through all strata of Viennese society and threatens to put them at odds with not only a trained killer but powerful members of the ruling class. Jones skillfully incorporates into his narrative many of the notable figures who lived in Vienna at the time. Some, like Klimt and sexologist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, play important roles, while others, like Zionist founder Theodor Herzl and visiting American author Mark Twain, make brief but highly appropriate appearances. Jones (Time of the Wolf) delivers a meaty historical that bodes well for further adventures. (Jan.)

At the start of Gage’s intelligent and subtle second mystery to depict life in modern Brazil (after 2008’s Blood of the Wicked), Yoshiro Tanaka, a corrupt local policeman, uncovers a secret cemetery in a park near Brasilia that contains more than three dozen corpses, including those of 24 children. Mario Silva, of the Brazilian Federal Police, has an uphill battle persuading his politically sensitive boss, Nelson Sampaio, that the find warrants federal resources. When forensics indicate that the dead were each missing a body part, Sampaio fears rumors that a satanic cult is responsible will harm the country’s tourism industry. Tanaka, under pressure from his wife to bring in more money, dutifully tracks down clues identifying some of the dead people. When Tanaka’s attempts to extort money backfire, Silva must pick up the pieces of his investigation. Lovers of suspenseful and sophisticated crime novels will be rewarded. (Jan.)

Murder interrupts Chief Insp. Armand Gamache and his wife’s annual summer holiday at Quebec’s isolated, lake-front Manoir Bellechasse in Agatha-winner Penny’s intriguing, well-crafted fourth mystery (after 2008’s The Cruelest Month). Irene Finney, the matriarch of a large eccentric family having a reunion at the Manoir, marks the event by having installed in the lodge’s garden a statue of the long-dead father of her middle-aged children. When the massive statue falls and crushes one of the daughters, Gamache investigates and discovers no love lost among the surviving offspring. Also in the suspect pool are Bellechasse’s owner, chef and maître d’. Despite the scorn the snobbish Finneys heap on Gamache’s sleuthing efforts as well as his own infamous family tree, the inspector treats them all respectfully as he seeks to bring a killer to justice. Seamless, often lyrical prose artfully reveals the characters’ flaws, dreams and blessings. Author tour. (Jan.)

At the outset of Shaw’s uneven second cozy to feature nosy parker Cealie Gunther (after 2006’s Relative Danger), Cealie stumbles on a corpse in her cousin Stevie Midnight’s backyard; Stevie had asked Cealie to come to Gatlinburg, Tenn., after receiving a psychic hunch that she, Stevie, was in danger. The murder victim turns out to belong to the Quitters Group, Stevie’s support system for beating cigarette addiction. Despite her obvious dislike for her obese cousin, Cealie agrees to stay in Gatlinburg until she can solve the mystery, which grows more complicated after the death of another Quitters member. Some uninspired prose (“Disappointment tinted his tone”) and labored attempts at humor weigh down the narrative, while Cealie’s criticisms of Stevie soon get tiresome. Still, the cousins become more likable as they unite in their fight against smoking and flab. Recipes and life improvement tips round out the volume. (Jan.)

Set in 1357 in Cambridge, England, Gregory’s taut 14th chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (after 2008’s To Kill or Cure) finds the physician and independent thinker under suspicion when Father Thomas, a pious priest, dies under his care after an accidental blow to the head. The accusations raised against Bartholomew come amid a poisonous atmosphere fostered by a shadowy rabble-rouser known as the Sorcerer, whose true identity is the subject of rampant speculation. Several murders follow Thomas’s death. The doctor’s willingness to aid any patient in need, including the local witch, provides fodder for his adversaries. When corpses are desecrated, people fear that a satanic cult is at work. Bartholomew questions the true loyalties of some of his closest allies as well as his own ability to uncover the prime mover behind the crimes. As she often does, Gregory offers several plausible false endings, which should please traditional whodunit fans. (Jan.)

Correction: M.C. Beaton’s Death of a Witch (Reviews, Oct.27) will be published in February.

This monumental two-volume compendium gathers the correspondence between horror writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) and one of his most devoted disciples, August Derleth (1909–1971). Schultz and Joshi have scrupulously edited and annotated the hundreds of letters that survive, the bulk on Lovecraft’s side, from Derleth’s first epistle sent in care of Weird Tales magazine in July 1926 to Lovecraft’s final missive penned a month before his untimely death 11 years later. While philosophical disquisitions are few, Lovecraft’s letters present an appealing portrait of a man keen to share his interest in the literature of the weird with a fellow enthusiast. Reproductions of drawings Lovecraft used to illustrate his letters, an appendix that includes Derleth’s posthumous tributes to his friend, a list of both men’s contributions to Weird Tales and more enhance the scholarly package. (Jan.)

In the rousing 13th novel (after 2007’s Firestorm) featuring the 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team (FIST), the interstellar marines have returned to their garrison on Thorsfinni’s World, where they catch up on R&R and get ready for the next round against the mysterious alien Skinks. The rest of the Confederation is now aware of the Skinks’ existence, but some Earth politicians deny that the aliens are dangerous. When the Skinks establish a beachhead on Haulover (tying into the StarFist: Force Recon series), the 34th must battle interservice rivalries and parochial interests as well as the alien threat. Former senior NCOs Sherman and Cragg display their encyclopedic knowledge of the sociology of a military unit and draw intriguing interstellar parallels to the Pacific campaigns of WWII. (Jan.)

Reynolds (The Prefect) is a master of fitting large-scale space opera into just a few pages, and this novella is no exception. The Mongols, led by Genghis Khan, conquered Earth a thousand years ago and now rule an interstellar civilization via a wormhole transportation system created by extinct aliens. Yellow Dog, a spy for the current khan, is sent on a mission to a distant part of the empire where phantom starships have been glimpsed during wormhole transit. Taken prisoner by the sadistic local Mongol commander, Yellow Dog discovers that the commander has collected artifacts from these phantoms, and she soon finds herself in charge of interpreting them as she investigates the appearance of several alien races with humanlike DNA. Technology, history and an unlikely friendship add dimension to the short but intriguing universe-spanning mystery. (Jan.)

In this intense and appealing sequel to 2007’s The Sorcerer’s Plague, clan rivalry continues apace. The plague-cursed baskets that Lici of the Mettai wove in revenge against the marauding Qirsi have traveled far, razing entire villages. The unsuspecting and unaffected Eandi peddlers who carried the baskets are now the focus of anger, fear and hatred. When news of the epidemic reaches the Forelands, Capt. Tirnya Onjaef decides to take advantage of the chaos and march south with a small Eandi army. Series hero Grinsa the Weaver, still a prisoner of the Fal’Borna, tries to find Lici and halt the plague, only to learn that he and his captors are susceptible to it. Coe steps up the tension and raises the stakes, leaving readers quivering in anticipation of book three. (Jan.)

Carefully orchestrated plot twists and engrossing characters combine in Ellison’s explosive third Lt. Taylor Jackson investigation (after 2008’s 14). Nashville homicide investigator Taylor is called to the scene of a disturbing murder: beautiful, pregnant Corrine Wolff, brutally beaten in front of her young daughter. Signs point to Corinne’s husband, Todd, but Taylor has her doubts. When she learns that the Wolffs were making and distributing amateur pornography, other investigators in her office turn up old X-rated footage of Taylor that could destroy her career and her engagement to FBI agent John Baldwin. Meanwhile, an old enemy of John’s has resurfaced and is intent on revenge. The story moves at breakneck speed, seamlessly flowing from Taylor’s world into John’s until they intersect for electrifying results. Flawed yet identifiable characters and genuinely terrifying villains populate this impressive and arresting thriller. (Jan.)

Bestseller Frank’s intensely emotional and sensual series debut expands the universe of her Nightwalkers series (Noah, etc.) to include the light-shunning Shadowdwellers. Trace, a Shadowdweller vizier, almost dies in a sword fight with an assassin in Shadowscape, a realm of uninhabited darkness between his world and the human-inhabited Realscape. Human healer Ashla Townsend, whose New York attitude is tempered by fear of persecution over her gifts, saves Trace by drawing his injuries into herself, leaving him wondering why she can enter the Shadowscape and see him. As their mutual attraction develops, Trace realizes they’re Sainted, destined to be mates for life, but cultural differences and the assassination plot threaten their burgeoning relationship. This romantic and strongly sexual story between complicated characters is made even richer by an intriguing secondary cast and efficient world-building that’s familiar without being lazy. (Jan.)

In this hilarious follow-up to 2008’s Hot, Harper teams up FBI Special Agent Dante Torelli with Zoey Addler, a sassy poet who calls him “Lips of Sin” and jumps in his car when she sees oddly endearing mob hit man Neil Janiowski kidnap her niece, Pete. Dante is assigned to guard Pete’s father, a federal witness, and he gladly gives chase. In an inspired twist, when Neil leaves Pete and his own infant son alone for a moment, Indian sisters-in-law Savita-di and Pratima Gupta hijack his car, the high-grade saffron he stole from them and—inadvertently—the children. Dante tries to stay serious and track Pete as well as an FBI mole who’s attempting to frame him for the kidnapping, but sassy, scattery Zoey, hapless Neil and bickering Savita-di and Pratima keep the laughs coming. (Jan.)

When a hurricane strikes Fort Lauderdale, it wreaks havoc on the Lanai Gardens apartment complex and launches self-appointed PI Gladdy Gold’s fifth mystery (after 2007’s Getting Old Is to Die For). Discovered beneath the debris of a building, a long-buried skeleton yields few clues beyond that the victim was murdered, but that doesn’t stop Gladdy and her delightful coterie of elderly crime busters from investigating. They’re also trying to nab the bank-robbing “Grandpa Bandit” and comforting a neighbor, concentration camp survivor Enya, who suffers repeated nightmares. Gladdy’s intermittent romance with retired cop Jack Langford veers close to consummation, but she never lets that distract her from the case. Lakin skillfully combines human comedy and a touch of Jewish humor with suspense while unveiling startling connections and plenty of twists. (Jan.)

H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of alien Elder Gods and their looming threat have entered the lexicon of horror and been adapted, referenced or ripped off countless times in the more than 80 years since they first saw print, often to diminishing returns. Fortunately this collection has its head and heart in the right place, understanding what makes Lovecraft’s oeuvre work and maintaining its creepiness. The quality of the art varies wildly, but all of the writers are strong, including work by Mark Waid, William Messner-Loebs and Steve Niles. Some of the stories actually manage to infuse humor into the mix, and the results are engaging, especially “How to Get Ahead in the Occult” by scripter Christine Boylan and “The Cruise of Cthulhu” by Todd Lepre, both featuring art by Cheethat’s reminiscent of classic Swamp Thing work by Steve Bissette and John Totleben. Though it doesn’t achieve those lofty heights, the material found here is quite good and should leave the reader craving more. (Dec.)

This eccentric but illuminating historical drama draws on the peculiar realities of the end of the golden age of maritime piracy (and its intersection with the slave trade), and spins them into a compelling, engrossing story of people considering whether their cause is worth more to them than their lives. On an island near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, the pirate captain Buzzard has been captured, and the escaped slaves and pardoned pirates who populate the hills are sparring over the risks of trying to free him. Meanwhile, a handful of Europeans, including a plantation owner’s daughter whose head is filled with fantasies of being kidnapped by Maroons, are drawn into the old order’s collision with colonialism. Trondheim’s loose, doodly visual style takes a bit of getting used to, especially his habit of drawing all his characters as anthropomorphic animals—in a book where several major characters are ornithologists, it’s peculiar to see one of them as a duck—but his storytelling instincts are unerring. This is a small gem of a book, and its characters are memorable on their own, even as they symbolize the historical forces of their time. (Nov.)

During a year abroad in Tokyo, German comic artist Schwieger issued a dare to fans on his blog to send him “assignments” to complete and document. In this collection of entries, Schwieger successfully blends travelogue and graphic novel as he chronicles his time among the Japanese. The assignments range from the expected (eat sushi with plenty of wasabi and try the deadly fugu) to the bizarre (ride a rooftop roller coaster; go to a para para trance dance). The most endearing entries are often those where the assignment is vague: when asked about his most awkward social interaction, Schwieger depicts his battle with complicated Japanese toilets. In addition to his own assignments, Schwieger sent messages to comics artists around the globe, tasking them with finding and drawing their interaction with a Japanese person. Among the participants are James Kochalka (American Elf) and Ryan North, a Toronto artist who uses the same illustrations with different captions for his daily Dinosaur Comics. Schwieger’s black-and-white ink drawings beautifully evoke the wide range of Japanese culture, from the serene to the absurd. (Nov.)

In an act that should qualify him for the “brilliant editors” hall of fame, Dan Walsh discovered that if all traces of Jim Davis’s lazy, lasagna-scarfing cat were expunged from his own comic strip, Garfield became a funnier, much darker series, about a desperately lonely, self-loathing man’s existential despair. Walsh started posting his altered strips at garfieldminusgarfield.net. And in an act that definitely qualifies him for the “good sport” hall of fame, Davis not only didn’t sue him but approved of the project. This collection of the best de-Garfielded strips prints Walsh’s altered cartoons next to Davis’s originals; Davis even throws in a couple dozen Garfield-minus-Garfield strips he’s done himself. Interestingly, Davis’s stabs at the concept are mostly just gags about Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle. The gist of Walsh’s approach, on the other hand, is to completely alter Davis’s jokes—a strip in which Garfield displays a single hair, announces “this is all I’ll be shedding today” and marches off before Jon delivers a punch line, after Walsh gets through with it, becomes two panels of Jon silently glancing around before haplessly declaring, “I dread tomorrow.” If Samuel Beckett had been a strip cartoonist, he might’ve produced something like this. (Nov.)

This hefty debut from the late Gordon (1944–2005) and his son-in-law Scott launches a sprawling fantasy trilogy with touches of effective horror. After a lengthy setup, timid bank manager Steven Taylor, athletic history teacher Mark Jenkins and law student Hannah Sorenson fall through a magical tapestry into a politically complex world under the dominion of body-hopping demonic sorcerer Nerak. Several independent subplots and an unwieldy supporting cast slowly draw together as Steven discovers his budding magical powers, Mark finds romance with a fierce resistance fighter and Hannah seeks a way home. Though somewhat unfocused in their plotting and often rehashing standard fantasy elements, Scott and Gordon keep the story moving entertainingly to the end, less a conclusion than a pause before the simultaneously released sequel. (Jan.)

Scott continues the fantasy trilogy, created from the notes he and his late father-in-law Gordon wrote when they plotted the series. In this grand-scale installment, bank manager Steven Taylor races across the United States to retrieve the magical Lessek’s Key and help his friend Mark Jenkins, who is trapped in the fantasy world Eldarn. Nerak, demonic sorcerer-prince of Eldarn, leaves a trail of horror across modern-day Colorado as Mark and his companions travel to the home of the murdered Larion Senate and the magical table opened by the key, while Steven’s girlfriend, Hannah Sorenson, struggles through a forest of ghosts and mysterious visions and attempts to infiltrate Nerak’s palace. The story moves along briskly, though Mark’s sudden racial sensitivity and expert archer Garec’s crisis of conscience are jarring diversions. Much is left dangling to await the concluding volume, due out in March. (Jan.)