Fiction Reviews

The engaging but limited perspective of 13-year-old Caroline, “the hillbilly girl that lived in the park,” reveals a highly circumscribed world. When first met, Caroline and Father are scavenging for materials to make a shelter in the “forest park” outside of Portland, Ore., where they seem to be hiding out. They make cautious trips into the city to the supermarket and the library, but a lapse by Caroline brings police attention, and they are taken into custody. Jean Bauer, whose profession is unclear, helps Father secure employment and brings pots and pans and school clothes for Caroline. Who are these two? Caroline walks “past posters with my face on them, my old name, and no one sees me.” Father says: “If I weren't your father... how could I have walked right into your backyard and walked away with you and no one said a word?” This is a tale of survival, of love and attachment, of mystery and alienation. It is an utterly entrancing book, a bow to Thoreau and a nod to the detective story. Every step of this narrative, despite providing more questions than answers, rings true. (Mar.)

In his bleakly beautiful seventh novel, Scottish author Burnside (The Devil's Footprint) delivers a cautionary tale illustrating that greed and an indifference to suffering are the real horrors of modern life. In recent years, five teenage boys have disappeared from the coastal village of Innertown, where an abandoned chemical plant deep in the forest is slowly poisoning its rapidly declining population. The official line is that the missing boys are seeking a better life away from the town whose “sole business is slow decay.” A 15-year-old lad, who's found solace in books and foreign films that he can barely understand, is determined to find out what happened to his friends and why the town's lone cop spends so much time in those tarnished woods. Burnside expertly details an apocalyptic landscape where the “expectation of failure” is rampant. While the ending feels hurried, Burnside's flawless prose explores how defeat is only a state of mind. (Mar.)

Calvo's first novel to appear in English is a frenetic and magnificent mashup of family drama, mob revenge story and surreal mystery featuring a gigantic enforcer obsessed with comic books, a 12-year-old girl fixated on Stephen King, a “namby-pamby” antiques dealer on a mad quest and a crime lord with a penchant for women's coats. Thirty years ago, Barcelona antiques dealer Lorenzo Girault was imprisoned for shady dealings. Now, his son, Lucas, insinuates himself into the seedy underworld to discover who was responsible for his father's ruin. While conspiring with Mr. Bocanegra, the crooked proprietor of a strip club, and Iris Gonzalvo, a failed actress, Lucas simultaneously combats his mother's efforts to usurp his share in the family business and watches after his disturbed young neighbor and only friend, Valentina Parini. Lucas's adventure is overlaid with a portentous “filial dream” and portions of a fictitious Stephen King novel that may hold clues to his father's fate, creating a rich and complex structure. The expansive cast can sometimes be difficult to sort out, but its quirks allow Calvo to set up a fast-moving narrative overflowing with hilarious situations. (Mar.)

After examining the lives of privileged 20-somethings in The Fundamentals of Play, Macy sets her sights a decade older, and her new short story collection prominently features the concerns of women of leisure and the tension between classes. In “Eden's Gate,” an up-and-coming starlet and her old-money boyfriend share a tense dinner; in “Annabel's Mother,” Gramercy Park keyholders gossip. The title story follows adolescent Leigh as she muddles through a horseback riding competition and butts heads with her overbearing riding instructor. The two sisters in “Bait and Switch” find themselves in an awkward situation while spending a week together in an Italian beach house. While the stories are individually rewarding and Macy is especially adept at slyly pointing out the absurdities inherent in a social set where renting a summerhouse is a source of shame, the similarities between her characters and the preponderance of fish-out-of-water situations make the collection seem repetitive and narrow. (Mar.)

Adams follows up 2006's The Godmother with a perceptive chick noir, once again debunking the notion that everything's smooth sailing once you've found the love of your life. Tessa King (heroine of Adams's first novel) has finally nabbed hers: James, an older man with three charming daughters from a previous marriage. These daughters—including daddy's girl extraordinaire, 14-year-old Amber—don't seem so lovely once stepmother-in-waiting Tessa has to deal with their dirty school uniforms and petty jealousies. Nor did Tessa sign up for the emotional baggage of James's ex-wife, Bea, who broke James's heart. With all the angst, how's a girl supposed to plan the perfect white wedding? Meanwhile, Bea—who shares narration duty—still has a torch burning for James and has buried years of regret and guilt under binge eating and, soon, compulsive drinking. Family dramas and crises bring Bea and Tessa together with surprising results. Particularly refreshing are Tessa's and Bea's co-starring roles, which allows Adams to explore in sometimes painful detail how the real work begins once you've got the diamond ring. Fans of Marian Keyes and Emily Giffin will enjoy Adams's engrossing second outing. (Mar.)

This retelling of Cinderella follows the oft ignored character of the fairy godmother, who may or may not be a mentally ill New Yorker. Lil, as this godmother is known, is now living in New York City, broke and employed at a bookstore, years after being exiled from the kingdom of fairies for betraying her charge. Condemned to live as an old woman, her wings bound to her back as penance, Lil is overcome by longing for what she has lost, slipping in her recollections of her idyllic past into the harsh present. When she meets Veronica, a young woman perpetually dogged with man problems, Lil sees an opportunity to redeem herself. But as the narrative progresses, cracks in Lil's story (and psyche) emerge. Needless to say, readers expecting magical carriages and glass slippers will be surprised by the novel's morose tone, and though the surprise conclusion doesn't quite work, Turgeon's takes on nostalgia and regret are surprisingly clear-eyed given her narrator's unbalance. (Mar.)

Screenwriter Lopez ventures into fiction with her abysmal chronicle of a depressed journalist who learns to cook while attempting to find herself in Paris. After calling off her engagement and after her cousin Luna's suicide, Canela begins losing it, but comes out of her funk once she decides to use her honeymoon tickets to Paris. Upon hearing that she can extend her stay by attending culinary school, Canela signs up, and soon she's in the sack with her class translator, as well as a handful of strangers and chefs. Canela also reflects on her childhood as an illegal immigrant and her status as a woman and once-again foreigner. Mixed in are a number of clunky digs against the Bush administration. Lopez has a hard time making the elements fuse, and her narrative is choppy and amateurish, with scenes swinging from frantic kitchen action through dreamy philosophizing to graphic sex and back. Often mentioned are the famous expat writers who made their names in Paris, but this work is far below theirs. (Mar.)

Nobel laureate Wiesel (Night) grapples with questions of madness, sadness and memory in this difficult but powerful novel. Doriel Waldman, a Polish Jew born in 1936, survived the occupation in hiding with his father while his mother made a reputation for herself in the Polish resistance. But he did not escape tragedy: his two siblings were murdered and his parents died in an accident shortly after the war. At the novel's opening, he is 60 years old, miserable, alone and on the verge of insanity. Most of the novel unfolds in the office of Doriel's shrink, Dr. Thérèse Goldschmidt, where he reveals himself to be an uncooperative patient, and his aggressive, obsessive rants on the origins of his troubles make for difficult reading. But Wiesel handles the situation expertly, and as Thérèse draws Doriel out, a multilayered narrative emerges: the journey through sadness and toward redemption; a meditation on the hand dealt to Holocaust survivors; and a valuable parable on the wages of human trauma. While the novel is not always easy sledding, there are ample rewards—intellectual and visceral—for the willing reader. (Feb.)

Screenwriter Smith offers a gritty tale of corruption and vengeance set in South Africa in his absorbing debut. On the verge of financial ruin, American Jack Burn, a security specialist, reluctantly joined a bank robbery plot that he hoped would save his family from disaster. The scheme ended badly, with most of his accomplices dead, along with a policeman, turning Burn, who made off with millions, into a wanted fugitive. Under a new identity, Burn has succeeded in making a new life with his wife and four-year-old son in Cape Town, South Africa. Their tenuous stability ends after two meth-heads invade the Burnses' home and threaten violence. While Jack manages to kill the intruders and dispose of the bodies, the incident draws the unwelcome attention of Insp. Rudi Barnard, a dirty cop who rules the area known as Cape Flats. The grim denouement may not satisfy all readers, but Smith's taut prose bodes well for future thrillers from his pen. Author tour. (Feb.)

The apparent intelligence snafus that led up to the Iraq War provide the backdrop for this intricately plotted thriller from bestselling British author Ryan (The One That Got Away). Sarah Scott, a Cambridge University graduate student conducting nuclear research, goes missing just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Her father, Nick Scott, a former SAS trooper who was captured in the first Gulf War and tortured in Saddam's dungeons, and Sarah's boyfriend, Jed Bradley, a current SAS member, join forces to find her. Naturally, Nick and Jed despise each other, but a lovely and extremely devious female intelligence agent makes sure they cooperate. Ryan, himself an SAS veteran of the first Gulf War, makes his two heroes' actions and motivations credible. The book offers an ingenious answer as to why Saddam was “really” overthrown, though those who know their armor may have a few nits to pick with how the author describes the way a Russian T-55 tank works. (Feb.)

Bestseller Simmons (The Terror) brilliantly imagines a terrifying sequence of events as the inspiration for Dickens's last, uncompleted novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in this unsettling and complex thriller. In the course of narrowly escaping death in an 1865 train wreck and trying to rescue fellow passengers, Dickens encounters a ghoulish figure named Drood, who had apparently been traveling in a coffin. Along with his real-life novelist friend Wilkie Collins, who narrates the tale, Dickens pursues the elusive Drood, an effort that leads the pair to a nightmarish world beneath London's streets. Collins begins to wonder whether the object of their quest, if indeed the man exists, is merely a cover for his colleague's own murderous inclinations. Despite the book's length, readers will race through the pages, drawn by the intricate plot and the proliferation of intriguing psychological puzzles, which will remind many of the work of Charles Palliser and Michael Cox. 4-city author tour. (Feb.)

In this disconnected debut from O'Brien (collaborative pseudonym for a media agent and a suspense novelist), driven London literary agent Tess Drake is an antihero so aggressive and egocentric that she repels friends (and perhaps readers). Steely Tess has the lonely top agent's spot at the Bartwright mega-agency, but pines for her own agency. When the head of Bartwright dies in a compromising position, the Miranda Priestly/Anna Wintour/Cruella DeVille–type who steps in is Cosima Tate, whose husband happens to be one of the men Tess is sleeping with. This spurs Tess's solo plans into action, but it's not long before her gravy train—a bestselling talking-panda children's book author—is derailed by plagiarism accusations. Tess's long shot is an underselling debut novel by 29-year-old Oliver Howard that may net a film deal with Tom Cruise (whose agent Tess has, of course, already burned). The whirlwind drama delves with vigor into reliably stimulating big-city pursuits—sex, power, scene-making, celebrity—but the sadly familiar media-world trappings and distant main character make caring about any of it a difficult proposal. (Feb.)

White's wonderful debut charts the clash of Southern tradition with present-day issues from the perspective of three white females over the years of 1998–2008: Louise Parker, a frustrated, pampered matron living in an affluent Atlanta neighborhood; Caroline, her rebellious teenage daughter; and Missy Meadows, the young daughter of Louise's impoverished housekeeper, Faye. While Missy yearns to reconnect with her father who abandoned the family to become a preacher and Christian TV soap star, Caroline embarks on a scandalous affair during her senior year with Frederick Staunton, her high school drama teacher, and they run off to San Francisco. The relationship fizzles, but Caroline chooses not to come home; back in Georgia, Missy and Charles, Louise's gay son, make a fateful journey to Durham, N.C., to surprise Missy's father. White's wit and graceful prose yield sharp insights about family, friendship and faith in the ever-changing South. (Feb.)

On November 27, 1582, the Worcester archives show a grant for a marriage license for one Anne Whateley and her groom, Wm Shaxpere. Yet several days later, William Shakespeare married a pregnant Anne Hathaway. Harper's slack latest takes this mystery as its subject, imagining Anne Whateley as Shakespeare's only true love. Friends from childhood driven apart by their families' antipathy, Will and Anne rediscover each other as they come of age, and the young lovers plan to wed in spite of their families' disapproval. When Will is forced into marriage with Anne Hathaway, Anne Whateley flees to London and throws herself into her family's business, but the two reunite when Will arrives in London, and Anne becomes his tireless promoter. The novel's chief pleasures derive from the easy intersection of Shakespeare's work, the history of Elizabethan England and the life that the author imagines Shakespeare might have had. Though the Bard's language infuses the story with life, the emotions underlying the lovers' ruptures and reunions feel repetitive, and because there is never any question about how the romance plays out, the central narrative feels flat. (Feb.)

In his excellent third book, Haskell gets into the head of a lonely writer whose shot at a second chance hinges, strangely and brilliantly, on an impersonation of an impersonation of Steve Martin. The narrator, who could or could not be named Jack, leaves New York after a breakup and lands in Los Angeles to write about movies at the invitation of his editor friend, Alan. Soon, Alan introduces him to Jane, “an ex-dancer apparently, who wanted to learn about photography,” and assigns him a story about celebrity impersonators. When the narrator meets Scott, a Steve Martin impersonator, he begins channeling a version of the actor himself, and his impersonations mushroom into “continuous Steve.” Meanwhile, his relationship with Jane escalates (complicated by his Steveness), he tries his hand at acting and muses about famous movies and the ways in which Hollywooders reinvent themselves. Haskell's vision is frightening and exhilarating, and his prose can imbue a spiritual glow to, for instance, a discarded raisin on a Starbucks table. It's an odd world, and certainly one worth entering. (Feb.)

Irish poet and filmmaker Lynch's first novel is an engaging fictional account of the life of the little-remembered 18th-century English poet William Cowper. Told primarily in flashback, Lynch introduces Cowper as an old man, plagued by self-loathing, sickness and hallucinations. His formative years are marked by the death of his mother and early inclinations toward poetry, “contemplating the taste of words.” Along with the major figures in Cowper's life—the charismatic Rev. John Newton, real-life author of “Amazing Grace”; John Johnson, Cowper's young cousin; and Mary Unwin, the love of his life—Lynch also lends Dickensian detail to minor characters, using them skillfully to provide an orbiting view. Lynch takes a serial approach, managing to take readers by surprise in every short chapter, whether terrifying (as in the height of Cowper's hallucinations) or hilarious (“[p]oetry and puking were hardly ideal companions”). This curious novel captures the sad poet from all angles, reimagining his life in a gracefully sprawling epic. (Feb.)

Noa Weber is the complex narrator of Hareven's moving love story, the first of her works to be translated into English. In 1972, Noa is wrapping up her final exams and preparing to be drafted into the Israeli army when she meets a Russian student named Alek. They promptly sleep together, and Noa is transfixed by her paramour. She's helpless to resist her compulsive love and sexual addiction for Alek, and fantasizes about marrying him, even though she claims he doesn't love her. In fact, her love is so strong, it remains unwavering throughout various life changes and occupations—the birth of her daughter, Hagar; a stint in law school; and a career as an author of feminist thrillers—causing Noa to wonder if her love isn't part of some larger yearning. She's a likable character, and Hareven pulls off the difficult task of allowing the reader to evaluate Noa and Alek's relationship from both inside it and outside of it. This contemplative inquiry into the nature of love speaks across cultures and introduces a compelling new Israeli voice to English-speaking readers. (Feb.)

Baldy Li, the hero of Yu's epic third novel, comes into the world on the same day his father slips to a disgraceful demise while ogling women in a public toilet. The incident is big news in tiny Liu Town, China, and leaves the family tainted with shame. Yet even as Baldy Li and his mother, Li Lan, cower under the taunts of their neighbors, things begin to change for the better. The tall, handsome Song Fanping falls in love with Li Lan and marries her. Li Lan gains new happiness and Baldy Li gains an older stepbrother, Song Gang. Together, the two boys weather the changes of the Cultural Revolution, reform and globalization, and Yu's unflinching narrative, by turns tragic and hilarious, shows ordinary lives being broken down and built up again. Whether Baldy Li is peddling scraps or using Sun Tzu's war tactics to court the village beauty, Hua weaves the common thread of humanity through all his actions and desires. By the last page, the novel has imparted a whole world of histories and personalities that are difficult to forget. (Jan.)

A young woman with plenty of issues gets sucked into her landlord's domestic woes in Koomson's heartwarming second novel (after My Best Friend's Girl). When Kendra Tamale moves back to her native England after a stint in Australia, she rents an apartment and becomes enmeshed in the lives of her landlord, Kyle, and his six-year-old twins. His wife's recently left him, and his kids, not taking the separation too well, “run rings” around him. Despite the unconditional acceptance of her surrogate family, Kendra fears that her past hurts will be exposed, threatening her newfound security and catapulting her back into loneliness and misery. Koomson portrays in vivid and tear-jerking detail the effects of fear and isolation, but keeps readers captivated with measured disclosures and the promise of renewal. (Jan.)

Robinson's (Sweet Georgia Brown) new urban fiction is distinguished by its intractable protagonist, Olena Day, whose first love committed suicide at age 15, which just might give her the right to be the “bitch” her college dormmates refer to her as. Olena's roommate/cousin Candice tells Olena she won't find a boyfriend because “dark skinned men prefer light skinned women,” and when Olena does find a boyfriend, Andrew, and gets pregnant, he convinces her to abort what would have been twins. Then he leaves her, only to get engaged to another girl he's made pregnant. Fast forward 25 years: Olena is a successful businesswoman without love or friends. She takes a paid yearlong sabbatical intending to write a book and sort out her life, but soon falls for Matthew Harper, a finance executive at a luxury car dealership who's 18 years younger. Their relationship is passionate and complicated, and a stunning revelation at the end makes the age difference seem a minor point as Olena must face not only her future but her past. In a straightforward and entertaining tale, Robinson delivers what she promises. (Jan.)

Prolific pulp-fiction author Hubbard (1911–1986) offers a variation on a familiar romantic theme with this fast-paced if derivative thriller set in pre-WWII Europe. Blacky Lee, an American weapons dealer, just happens to be the spitting image of Archduke Philip of Aldoria, a coincidence that enables him to dodge Nazis and ensnare the heart of the attractive Countess Zita, plot elements familiar to readers of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau. Those 19th-century swashbucklers successfully blend action with emotion, while Hubbard's breezy romp is only an easily digested, quickly forgotten time-filler. (Jan.)

Five-time Spur Award–winner Henry has been dead since 1991, but his many western novels and stories live on in print and film. These three novellas were previously published in magazines in the 1950s and '60s, and show Henry's great skill in creating colorful racy westerns. In “The Fourth Horseman,” Frank Rachel, a redeemed outlaw, seeks sanctuary and a new life in Peaceful Basin in 1883. Instead, he finds heartache and a bloody range war that forces him to strap on his six-guns again. Mountain man Kirby Randolph, in “Santa Fe Passage,” goes to St. Louis in 1839 looking for a wife and meets “half-breed” Aurelie St. Vrain. Kirby signs on as a scout for the wagon train she's taking to Santa Fe, a journey filled with steamy sex, treachery and Indian attacks. “A Bullet for Billy the Kid” is an unvarnished portrait of the murderous youth, showing him to be a cowardly back-shooter who likes killing. A mysterious stranger named Asaph adds a supernatural element, befriending Billy and guiding him into the gun sights of Pat Garrett. These are excellent westerns, smartly written and loaded with gun smoke and clever plot twists. (Jan.)

Maxwell (Mademoiselle Boleyn) re-creates Renaissance Italy in splendid detail, but fails to deliver a convincing narrative in her tale of da Vinci's mother, Caterina, an apothecary's daughter who is schooled from an early age in the art of alchemy. At 14, Caterina falls in love with Piero da Vinci, an older man above her station. After he promises to marry her, they make love, and the seed of the great artist is planted. But their plans doesn't work out: Piero's family forbids him from marrying Caterina and later takes baby Leonardo from his unwed mother. Leonardo is not treated well by the da Vinci family, but in his occasional visits to the apothecary shop, precocious Leonardo thrives. Soon his skillful drawings compel Caterina to seek an artist's apprenticeship for Leonardo in Florence, where he matures into a highly accomplished artist. Caterina misses him so terribly that she plans a hard-to-imagine reunion that changes her life in unbelievable ways. While the setting and known events of the artist's life are meticulously rendered, the plot relies too much on suspension of disbelief. (Jan.)

Vanessa Cain returns in Perrin's over-the-top sequel to Single Mama Drama. With her fiancé dead and his wife hounding her for her condo, Vanessa is in desperate straits. Ex-boyfriend Lewis has proposed marriage and financial stability, but her heart belongs to Chaz, a motivational speaker who left her after she lied to him. Vanessa must also contend with Byron, her daughter's deadbeat father, who has been growing increasingly aggressive in his demands to see his child. The book doesn't lack for drama, but it is deficient in most other areas: the characters—including Vanessa—are unbelievable, and the writing is as pedestrian as the plotting is clumsy. (Jan.)

Dwight and Tracey Wilson have two children and a committed marriage, until Dwight is offered a major promotion that will take him from Florida to Maryland and Tracey is unwilling to move. Dwight takes up with co-worker. Alicia Dixon at his new job, and when she gets pregnant, he marries her, not knowing that his divorce was never finalized. Alicia's excitement (“I had snagged an endangered species: a successful black man who loved me”) is short-lived when Tracey arrives to reclaim Dwight. Wanting to do the right thing for both women and all his children, Dwight, Tracey and Alicia embark on an unconventional solution that forces them all together. Veteran authors Dow and Poole team up to tell this complicated story, but this tale of a weak man who can't or won't make a choice is less than compelling. Women will leave this book wondering how Dwight was able to land one of these women, let alone two, and will be mystified at what exactly the women are fighting so hard to keep. (Jan.)

Octavius Trotter, the antihero of Brewer's flawed novella, is a lonely, obese, flatulent masturbator who lives with his mother, chain-smoking grandmother and a constipated pug named Augustus in a deeply Baptist Stiltsville. Octavius's lonely existence is momentarily alleviated when he begins working at a library. But nervous about his first day of work, he ducks into a “Cheeses Christ” fast food restaurant and gorges on fried foods served to him by an albino named T-Lo who arouses feelings of love in Octavius. When he sees her later the same day studying in the library, Octavius accidentally horrifies her, ruining his chances at romance and employment. Returning home defeated, Octavius redeems himself by solving a few problems around the house. Unfortunately, the prose is overly stylized (imagine a less witty Ignatius J. Reilly aping The Sound and the Fury) and the scatological humor quickly becomes dull, while the Bible Belt lampooning relies almost exclusively on too easy jokes and lazy, absurd characterizations. (Jan.)

Klassen's debut novel, Lady of Milkweed Manor, was a Christy Award finalist, and her new Regency promises the same thanks to fine storytelling and knowledge of the apothecary's art. Lillian Haswell yearns to leave her father's apothecary shop in their small town and happily accepts an invitation to live in London. She leaves behind a handicapped brother, friends, her lonely father and memories of her lost mother, but finds that London holds its own troubles. Will Roger Bromley propose? What about the timid physician Adam Graves? And the dastardly Roderick Marlow? Will her humble origins ruin her chances of a good match? Complications ensue as Lillian is called home when word comes of her father's ill health. She takes over the apothecary shop—illegal, because a woman could not dispense medicine—and begins again thanks to her father's former assistant Francis Baylor. Klassen blends her tale well; each ingredient—romance, friendship, healing arts, mystery—is measured to produce a lively, lengthy tale that will satisfy Regency aficionados and general readers, too. (Jan.)

Christy Award–winning husband-wife team Mel and Cheryl Hodde, who write as Heather Alexander, start a new series after the popular Hideaway series, with similar smalltown flavor and plenty of dialogue and suspense. Dr. Jama Keith has a secret she's kept from her ex-fiancé, Tyrell Mercer, and revealing it may either destroy their relationship or resurrect it. Returning from a long and mysterious absence from her hometown of River Dance, Mo., Jama starts her residency in a local hospital and fends off questions about why she left town. When Tyrell's niece, Doriann, is kidnapped, Jama risks her life for the little girl, whose point of view is one of several in the novel. Vineyard country setting, running dialogue and a few twists will keep romantic suspense fans coming back for more as the series continues. (Jan.)

At the start of bestseller Cornwell's plodding 16th thriller to feature Dr. Kay Scarpetta (after Book of the Dead), the forensic pathologist—who recently relocated to Belmont, Mass., with her forensic psychologist husband—is called to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital for reasons that don't become clear until she gets there. Oscar Bane, who voluntarily committed himself to Bellevue while denying he brutally murdered his girlfriend, refuses to speak to anyone except the high-profile Scarpetta. Bane, Scarpetta discovers, is obsessed with her. Meanwhile, someone masquerading as Scarpetta is lurking in cyberspace and supplying an online gossip site with dirty secrets about the doctor. For help on the murder case, Scarpetta turns to her computer whiz niece and a macho former colleague whose shocking actions in Book of the Dead severely damaged his relationship with Scarpetta. With a plot full of holes and frustrating red herrings, this entry falls short of the high standard set by earlier volumes in this iconic series. (Dec.)

Golf fans will probably best appreciate Dahler's debut, narrated by pro golfer Huck Doyle, a nonpracticing attorney who works as a PI in Los Angeles. When someone bludgeons aspiring actress Holly Ann Cramer with a cappuccino machine, then stabs her in the heart six times, Holly's boyfriend, Joniel Baker, a star African-American baseball player, becomes the prime suspect. Huck, a friend of Joniel's, undertakes to exonerate the accused, even after a second body surfaces that bears traces of the athlete's DNA. Huck enlists the help of a motley group of allies, ranging from an attractive female medical examiner to his father, a former LAPD cop. Some infelicitous prose (“His voice was low, like a shift in the tectonic plates”) and a familiar planted-evidence plot device ensure that no one will mistake this caper for a Dick Francis outing. Still, many will enjoy the company of the garrulous Huck with his passion for golf and eye for the telling social or cultural detail. (Mar.)

In March 1543, while London buzzes about Henry VIII's campaign to win newly widowed Lady Catherine Parr for his sixth wife, hunchbacked barrister Matthew Shardlake has grimmer matters on his mind in Sansom's gripping fourth Tudor historical (after 2007's Sovereign). Not only has his close friend and colleague Roger Elliard been savagely murdered but Shardlake finds himself assigned the incendiary case of a young religious fanatic committed to Bedlam. Learning of a link between Elliard's death and a previous slaying, one touching Lady Catherine's household, he reluctantly agrees to join the top-secret probe by his mentor, Archbishop Cranmer—instantly plunging both himself and his intrepid assistant, Jack Barak, into a maelstrom of political intrigue, spiritual strife and personal peril. With its wealth of period detail, compelling characters and bold, fast-moving plot, this may be the most rousing Shardlake adventure so far. (Feb.)

The hunt for a valuable brooch propels Edgar-winner Rozan's ninth Lydia Chin and Bill Smith nail-biter (after 2002's Winter and Night). In 1938, Rosalie Gilder, an 18-year-old Jewish refugee, left Nazi-annexed Austria for Japanese-occupied Shanghai, where she married the aristocratic Chen Kai-Rong. Chen had a jeweler create the Shanghai Moon, a brooch combining Rosalie's mother's diamonds with his ancestors' rare jade. Its disappearance during WWII interests treasure hunters in the present day. When Wong Pan, a corrupt Chinese official, steals Rosalie's jewelry box, recently unearthed in Shanghai, a Swiss asset-recovery specialist hires Joel Pilarsky, Lydia's friend and associate, to recover it in New York City, where Wong has fled in hopes of selling Rosalie's jewels on the black market. After Joel's murdered, Lydia and Bill follow a trail to Manhattan's Chinatown, where they encounter Rosalie's son and other relatives eager to recover the brooch. More surprises abound before Lydia and Bill can put the curse of the luminous Shanghai Moon to rest in Rozan's rich blend of historical mystery and contemporary suspense. Author tour. (Feb.)

Ad man Craven's first novel introduces an extremely likable detective, Donald Tremaine, a former champion surfer, now a Malibu PI living in a trailer by the beach. Tremaine's willingness to go with the flow and trust his intuition in a crisis proves useful in the cold-case murder of a genius advertising executive he investigates. There appear to be no unexplored leads left until he dives in with his unorthodox tactics. Sometimes Tremaine squeezes more out of witnesses than the police could, sometimes he squeezes policemen, and a lot of the time he simply lays out the available facts and lets his subconscious play with different arrangements until a new pattern appears. Readers may be as baffled as Tremaine at the novel's unexpected plot twists; however, the mystery's solution is neatly set up and emotionally satisfying. Rather than solemn detectives like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, Tremaine resembles Jim Rockford, a sometimes clumsy, usually canny, always cool dude. (Feb.)

In Myers's 17th Pennsylvania Dutch mystery (after 2008's As the World Churns), Magdalena Yoder, who's eight and a half months pregnant, must try to solve the murder of gluttonous Minerva J. Jay, who drops dead after wolfing down “twenty-six pancakes at the Beechy Grove Mennonite Brotherhood all-you-can-eat fund-raising breakfast.” Meanwhile, Magdalena gives birth to “Little Jacob” squatting on the floor of the local market, contends with her bizarre sister and overbearing Jewish mother-in-law, and comments not always wittily on Jewish, Mennonite and other religious practices. Late in the story, the focus returns to who poisoned Minerva's pancakes. A contrived climax and a surfeit of smart-ass humor make this strictly for series fans. (Feb.)

In Levenson's lighthearted if somewhat thin debut, Miami lawyer Mary Magruder Katz agrees to defend Lillian Yarmouth, accused of stabbing her philandering husband to death in their ritzy Coconut Grove home. Meanwhile, Mary's personal life gets complicated after real estate developer Carlos Martin rear ends her car. In a wildly improbable twist, instead of just exchanging insurance information, Carlos asks her to close a $6-million property deal after discovering she's a lawyer. She accepts, though technically Carlos is selling property he doesn't actually own yet. After the deal's done, they make love in her firm's office to celebrate, but Mary's fiancé, who happens to be her boss, catches them in the act and fires Mary. Happily, Carlos helps her set up her own office, and she finds solace in defending Lillian. The surprises regarding the cosmic scales of justice that surface after the Yarmouth murder trial lend extra punch, though some foreshadowing would have made for a more satisfying resolution. (Feb.)

The murder of James England, the owner of the radio station in Ketchikan, Alaska, presents a challenge for FBI agent Bill Norton, who's been assigned to break up a heroin ring in that small town in this Hubbard novella from the golden age of pulp fiction. Norton and his green partner, Chick Starr, who arrived in the area after the disappearance of Norton's former boss, must struggle to achieve a measure of justice without the cooperation of the locals. A stock figure—the attractive woman whose loyalties and intentions are ambiguous—lends a dash of romance, but contemporary readers are less likely to be swept up by this ordinary action yarn than the original 1930s audience. (Jan.)

Phoenix trips the dark fantastic in this wild, bloody sequel to 2008's A Rush of Wings. Gifted musician and magic-user Dante Prejean was an experimental patient in a project to create and control murderous sociopaths for the government's covert Shadow Branch. He's also a born vampire and the child of a fallen angel. Shadow Branch agent Caterina Cortini wants to contain him; the formerly angelic Fallen want him to connect Earth and Gehenna; and Portland detective Alex Lyons wants him to cure Alex's schizophrenic twin sister. Arrayed against them are Dante's Nightkind friends; his FBI agent girlfriend, Heather Wallace; and his Fallen father, Lucien de Noir. Although Phoenix's fusion of fantasy and thriller sometimes falters, with the Earth action rather sharper than the Gehenna segments, she keeps the plot thick and the tension high. (Jan.)

Rich turns out new wrinkles on common genre themes in this eloquent debut collection. There's some entertaining satire—such as “The Real Thing,” where “cash” is a dirty word and clones are sent out as dating surrogates—but more impressive are the ruminations on human-alien connection. In the particularly notable “Forever Down the Ringing Grooves,” astronaut and diplomat Jack Lackstrum rushes jealously back to Earth after the alien Transtellars ignore his welcome signals and begin communicating directly with anyone they meet, but he finds first contact is nothing like he imagined. This diverse collection also includes “Smoking Gun,” a well-constructed and clever SF mystery, and plausible political struggles over the future of humanity's space ventures in “Impossible Alone” and “The Never-Winner.” Readers who enjoy old-fashioned SF will appreciate these short, straightforward tales. (Jan.)

In this barely disguised Viking pastiche, the dragonships have real dragons and the gods fight side by side with their heroes. Named Chief of Chiefs of the sea-raiding Vindrasi, Skylan Ivorson discovers that his victory over the last chief came through another's treachery, his betrothed is in love with his best friend and his gods may be dead. Impetuously, he plunges ahead on a quest to recover the sacred Vektan Torque, but betrayal leaves the voyagers in chains. Despite some clumsy alterations to Norse myth and history, Weis and Hickman (Dragons of the Highlord Skies) have created a believably human story out of their mix of saga and sorcery, and the problems of ruling after the glee of seizing the crown make Skylan a more honest and sympathetic hero than the typical, overly successful fantasy protagonist. (Jan.)

In Gilman's alternately fascinating and frustrating sequel to 2007's Thunderer, the time-walking musician Arjun has gone mad after trying to climb the mysterious mountain at the center of the city of Ararat. The city itself—easily the novel's most fascinating character—has entered a dark age. Gods no longer wander among the people, men go to work in dreary factories and secret policemen called Know-Nothings patrol the streets. As a wounded Arjun flees the mysterious Hollow Servants, he encounters a variety of odd characters who join his quest to explore the mountain. Gilman's world-building is intricate, but his plotting often falters and the denouement is a mess. The multiple viewpoints bog down the storytelling, and though there's still much to enjoy in exploring the city, it's not enough to save the book as a whole. (Jan.)

The best of the stories in this thoughtful debut collection make full use of African and African-American characters, such as when young slave Israel Jones meets a man he's convinced is the guitar-wielding Devil in “The Safety of Thorns,” or when white tourist Jed encounters Olokun, the patron spirit of enslaved Africans carried across the sea, in the title story. Some of Gidney's experiments with style hit the mark, as in a tale of Arthur Rimbaud riding a French train without a ticket in “Strange Alphabets,” but homoerotic encounters don't always mix well with folklore-like storytelling, and rich details sometimes pull readers in and sometimes leave the stories feeling saturated and drawn out. Those who don't mind a little digging should find several gems. (Jan.)

This well-crafted and timely thriller uncovers a terrorist plot stretching from the Middle East to the American West. When recently widowed Mountie Dan Graham pulls a dying girl from a river, her tremulous last words lead Dan to track down the girl's father, a washed-up conspiracy theorist reporter who has finally stumbled upon a genuine conspiracy. California bookseller Maggie Conlin searches for her husband, traumatized Iraq war contractor Jake, who has kidnapped their young son, Logan, and fled to Montana. Samara Ingram, an Iraqi-British nurse whose husband and son were brutally murdered in Baghdad by renegade Western troops, takes slow steps toward retribution. Mofina (Every Fear) shifts smoothly and deftly among their stories until all three are drawn together in the final, suspense-packed rush to prevent a devastating moment of destruction and revenge. (Jan.)

Nothing in painter Maggie Donovan's ordinary Southern California life prepares her to find a demon devouring her ex-boyfriend. In the ensuing struggle, the smart-mouthed heroine accidentally gets sprinkled with magic dust from a broken pendant and develops mysterious powers. Levitation may be handy for painting tall store windows, but her new status comes with a lot of baggage, including hunky Fae warrior Culhane and ugly pixie Bezel. They want to train Maggie for an upcoming battle against the evil Faery queen, Mab, who has imprisoned all the males of the Otherworld. Unimpressed, Maggie clings to her “destiny-free zone” until her growing magical abilities and feelings for Culhane push her to take on the queen. Child (A Fiend in Need) throws in enough zest and humor to make up for a rather anticlimactic final showdown. (Jan.)

The only flaw in Dale's haunting debut is its reliance on the old chestnut that small town life is superior to the big-city crush. Adele Martin flees her mistakes in New York for the Pennsylvania cabin inherited from her long-estranged mother, Marge, who died six years earlier. Beatrice and Al Lopresti, Marge's friends and neighbors, befriend Adele, though Beatrice refuses to divulge Marge's secrets. Taught that love means indebtedness, Adele is confused by the attentions of woodworker Jay Westvelt. He prefers the simple life, wants stability and a family and doesn't identify as an artist despite his talent. Dale strongly communicates Adele's fears about the future and anger over the past through her relationships with vivid secondary characters such as the Loprestis' troubled teenage granddaughter, Kayleigh, as she puts the reader through a well-paced emotional wringer. (Jan.)

Medieval romance specialist Maguire (The Bride Hunt) detours to the 19th-century English countryside with a derivative but passionate tale. The mysterious Kuabwa Mgeni is supposedly the long-lost Anthony Maddox, heir to the earl of Sutton but raised in the jungles of Africa. His aristocratic grandmother, Lady Sophia Sutton, asks prim spinster Grace Hawthorne to teach Anthony the manners appropriate to an English lord. As the forces of upper-class England gather to challenge Anthony's right to the earldom, he tempts Grace into compromising situations, forcing her to choose between the devastatingly attractive earl and a sudden wealth of more respectable suitors. Anthony's evolution from semisavage to English lord is not overly compelling and Maguire's setting is thin in period detail, but the sensual sparks between Grace and Anthony make for a satisfying if not superlative read. (Jan.)

Splatterpunk legend Skipp (Long Last Call) and up-and-comer Goodfellow (Ravenous Dusk) produce an outrageous gore fest about a preacher's reckless vow to be resurrected. Cable TV cult leader Jacob Connaway is mid-coitus with a congregant when her boyfriend stabs the preacher to death. As his unhappy widow, Esther, attempts to convince his lovers to testify to Jake's philandering and prevent the Church of Eternal Life from inheriting what Esther thinks should be hers, Jake lurches back to life and goes on a killing rampage, accompanied by demons. To Jake, the chance to take revenge on his backstabbing friends and to conclusively demonstrate that Christianity is a lie feels “an awful lot like heaven”; the ensuing bloodbath will terrify those who expect false prophets to be locked away in hell. (Jan.)

This satisfying one-volume story feels complete, but a little short. Jun, a junior high overachiever and working-class girl, begins attending Ellsmere, an extremely elite boarding school. She befriends her weird roommate, Cassie, who is obsessed with the woods behind the school and convinced a strange creature dwells within them. The two girls are targeted by Emily, the class bully whose goal is not only to stigmatize the freaks but also to destroy Jun's future. Although it's carefully written and likely to be a sure-fire hit with middle-school girls, the book falls flat at times. The strength of this story rests with villain Emily, but she's poorly characterized. The pace and storytelling are heavily manga-influenced, in a good way, though the artwork is similar to Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series. The strongest part is the exciting, well-paced action sequence at the end. Hicks (Zombies Calling) is at her best when the book sticks with authenticity. (Dec.)

This raucous comedy of divine intervention tells the story of two sisters, Susan and Libby La Muse, two 20-somethings whose parents are noncorporeal aliens from whom Susan—a hard-living, polyamorous, chain-smoking political activist—has inherited powers that grant her near-omnipotence. She keeps her abilities hidden, but when an attempted suicide bombing leaves her with no choice but to act and be outed, she rises to the occasion, saves the day and immediately sets about fixing all of the world's problems in ways only a goddess would. With this benevolent goddess acting as a global panacea, it's only a matter of time before political and corporate entities seek to stop her by any means necessary. But how do you assassinate a goddess? This tale is a pleasure from start to finish, and even though it kind of works in the same territory as Garth Ennis and Phil Winslade's Goddess (1995), it's still very much its own entity, refreshingly free of clichéd city-smashing superhero throwdowns. (Dec.)

Roxy is a club kid and aspiring DJ in New York City. Loud, opinionated and a little scattered, she's the kind of girl who keeps her life—including calendar—on her iPod. When Robie, a “semi-legend” who now runs a used-record store, offers to take her under his wing, she gets the chance to play the big clubs and maybe even to cut a record. But to make her dreams of DJ stardom come true, she must choose between the records and her girlfriend Hannah. The “Portrait of the Artist as a Club Kid” plot is standard issue, but Sizer (Moped Army; Little White Mouse) adds distinctive, nicely observed details. He ramps up the art as well: bold ink lines, day-glo background colors, even neon-bordered speech balloons add to the impression that the reader is raving right along with the characters. A soundtrack—referencing songs by Talking Heads, They Might Be Giants and Everything but the Girl—runs at the bottom of each page, bringing the reader as close as possible to a multimedia experience. Call it a mashup, call it a remix, call it a day-glo pop love letter to a misspent youth: B.P.M. is brain candy in the best sense of the word. (Nov.)

Almost 25 years after he first haunted the streets of the dystopian metropolis known as Radiant City, the mysterious Mister X returns in this beautifully restored collection, showcasing the comic's entire run. The brainchild of Toronto-based graphic designer Motter, the first issue of Mister X appeared in 1984 and introduced readers to the shadowy title character who had returned to Radiant City after a long absence. Purporting to be one of the city's original architects, Mister X is determined to repair the broken metropolis, which has gone mad as a result of his own invention of “psychetecture,” wherein buildings can alter a person's mood or neuroses. In order to accomplish his task, Mister X must forgo sleep entirely, with the help of a drug known as “insomnalin,” as well as battle a revolving group of thugs. The landmark series, with its nods to German expressionism and Bauhaus, introduced readers to the early work of several artists who would become influential in alternative comics, including the Hernandez brothers (Love and Rockets) and Seth (Palooka-ville). A treat for longtime fans and new readers alike, this journey through one man's waking nightmare is still an eyeball-popping visit to a stunning retro future. (Nov.)

This latest collection of the French heroic fantasy spoof finds the cast dealing with Terra Amata, the landscape where the series takes place, exploding into a myriad of floating islands that resemble a cartoon version of a Roger Dean Yes album cover. In “The Great Map,” Marvin the Red, a fanged rabbit hero in a suit of armor, must find the map of the just-exploded realm, while in “The Dark Lord,” the Grand Khan, a powerful dark lord who also happens to be a duck, renounces his baleful powers, an act that causes the sundering of the world. There's a lot going on in both stories, all of it quite entertaining and very well illustrated. The guest artists acquit themselves nicely—Andreas's work brings to mind Sergio Aragones or Stan Sakai, while Stephane Blanquet's highly appealing style looks like a fusion of Charles Burns and Gabor Czupo. Great fun, although the curious are advised to pick up the previous volumes. (Nov.)

Two thrillers with the same title—one a contemporary Norwegian crime novel, the other a historical featuring legendary lawman Eliot Ness—are due in the new year.

When a bank teller is shot during a holdup at the start of Norwegian bestseller Nesbø's beautifully executed heist drama, Oslo Insp. Harry Hole investigates, along with Beate Lønn, a young detective with the ability to remember every face she's ever seen. Meanwhile, Harry receives a call from Anna Bethsen, a woman he hasn't seen in years. After he meets Anna, recovering alcoholic Harry awakens the next morning with a hangover and the news that Anna is dead, apparently by her own hand. While Harry quietly looks into Anna's death, he and Beate uncover ties in their bank robbery case to one of Norway's most notorious bank robbers, who's currently in prison. The deeper Harry digs, the clearer it becomes that Anna's death is linked to the robbery. Expertly weaving plot lines from Hole's last outing to feature the inspector, The Redbreast (2007), Nesbø delivers a lush crime saga that will leave U.S. readers clamoring for the next installment. (Jan.)

Framed by an older Eliot Ness reminiscing with a biographer in 1957, this uneven imagining of the later career of the famed lawman by Bernhardt (Capitol Conspiracy) takes place mostly in mid-1930s Cleveland. Hired as the city's new safety director, Ness focuses his efforts on cleaning up a town mired in gambling, racketeering and juvenile crime. When dismembered corpses start turning up around Kingsbury Run, a notorious slum, public pressure forces Ness to put his anticorruption plans on hold and turn his attention to catching the Torso Murderer. As more bodies appear, Ness takes drastic steps to smoke out the killer, a gamble that could cost him his career and his life. While Bernhardt's research into Ness's last major case and one of the country's first serial killers is commendable, his heavy-handed prose style turns what should have been a crackling procedural into a plodding melodrama. (Jan.)