Fiction Reviews

In her 14th series installment, Chiaverini picks up the threads from The Runaway Quilt to spin another tale of adventure, love, perseverance and, of course, quilting. When Sylvia Bergstrom Compson and her staff find a stash of old letters hidden in an antique desk in the manor's attic, the story whips back to 1859 to recount the travails of the formidable Joanna North, an escaped slave who spent a brief respite at Elm Creek Farm. Joanna is recaptured and sent back to the Virginia plantation she thought she had finally escaped, and is eventually dispatched to Charleston to work under her former master's demanding newlywed niece, Miss Evangeline. As the Civil War looms, Joanna learns that for a slave, nothing—love, family, loyalty—is sacred or certain, and she never ceases plotting her final escape in the patterns of her scrap quilting. This satisfying and redemptive narrative unfolds with cinematic clarity, and Joanna's journey is sure to have readers holding their breath for her until the last page. (Apr.)

Portia Nathan, the overly dedicated 38-year-old Princeton admissions officer, narrator of Korelitz's overthought fourth novel, finds purpose in her gatekeeper role. But her career and conscience are challenged after she visits a down-at-the-heels New England town on a scouting trip and meets Jeremiah, a talented but rough-around-the-edges 17-year-old who maybe doesn't measure up as Princeton material. The real rub is how making his acquaintance forces Portia to confront a painful secret from her past that ties into some domestic discord with her professor husband, David, and may lead her into a career-endangering fracas with the admissions board. The narrative is slow out of the gate, though it gets some pep once the Jeremiah-Portia angle comes into focus. And even if Portia tends to ruminate in an precious way, Korelitz makes good use of the sociological issues tied up in elite university admissions. (Apr.)

Lalami's unpolished first novel (after story collection Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits) follows Youssef El Mekki, a 19-year-old living in the slums of Casablanca who learns that his father—believed to be dead—is alive. The news precipitates Youssef's quest to find his father, who turns out to be the rich, well-connected businessman Nabil Amrani. The two meet just as a rift has developed between Nabil and his daughter, Amal, who is studying in America. Once Nabil invites Youssef back into his life, Youssef suddenly has all the luxuries he has ever dreamed about: a new apartment in the best neighborhood and a decent job. But just as quickly, it is all taken away, and when Youssef returns to his old neighborhood—now the headquarters of a fringe Islamist group—he finds himself embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy. Unfortunately, Lalami riddles the book with uninspired descriptions and observations; Youssef and Nabril are less than distinctive; and the climax lacks impact. It all seems perfunctory. (Apr.)

Binchy delivers another delightful Binchyesque amalgamation of intersecting lives, this time centering on Clara Casey, a cardiologist whose marriage and career have fallen apart. After she accepts an undesirable post at St. Brigid's Hospital, Clara throws herself into work to forget the humiliation of her husband's many affairs, but it's difficult to escape her home life with two adult daughters who still depend on her as if they were children. Though she stands at the center of the book, Clara cedes the stage to others, such as Declan Carroll, a young doctor at the clinic trying to make a life for himself, and Ania, Clara's assistant, whose affair with a married man forced her to leave her Polish hometown. Beautiful, hardworking and humble, Ania attracts the attention of Carl Walsh, the son of one of the clinic's patients. And so it goes in this novel of intersecting lives that keeps daily drama interesting even when it occasionally sacrifices suspense for realism. In spite of a few dull moments, the collective, charming effect of these story lines suggests that individuals are more connected than they might think. (Mar.)

Extreme grief permeates Fitzek's brilliant psychological thriller, a bestseller in his native Germany. When TV psychiatrist Viktor Larenz's 12-year-old daughter, Josy, who suffers from a number of unexplainable illnesses, vanishes without a trace from her doctor's office, Larenz's subsequent search for even the smallest clue to the girl's disappearance costs him his career and marriage. Four years later, Larenz has retreated to an isolated, storm-prone island, where he's visited by children's novelist Anna Glass, a schizophrenic who believes the characters she creates become real. One of those characters bears a striking resemblance to Josy and may have the answer to what happened to her. Unbalanced by his mourning, Larenz emerges as an unreliable but sympathetic character. Is he really losing his mind or is he being gaslighted? Undertones of gothic suspense imbue an unpredictable plot that will remind many of Shutter Island and A Beautiful Mind. (Mar.)

Eisler fans may miss the sleek, moody tone that distinguished his John Rain thrillers (Requiem for an Assassin, etc.) in this highly readable first in a new series introducing another assassin hero. Ben Treven, who's been assigned to Turkey in the war on terror by his secretive U.S. military unit, returns home to Silicon Valley when his younger brother, Alex, a patent lawyer in Palo Alto, gets caught in the deadly tug-of-war between the inventor of a new software encryption device and the forces of national security. The plot moves sluggishly as the author establishes character, backstory and the bitter relationships in the Treven family, but the larger problem is the novel's predictability. The brothers tangle, reconcile, romance the same woman, then the threat is neutralized—all on schedule. As a leading man, Ben Treven lacks John Rain's personal panache and professional aloofness. Still, Ben's warmer side gives him potential. 10-city author tour. (Mar.)

Belli's poetry and politics meld in this lyrical retelling of Adam and Eve. Here, the Serpent tempts Eve with freedom equal to that of Elokim, the God who created them, and history “would begin if she ate of the fruit.” But with the dawn of history comes the rudest of awakenings: confusion about worlds seen and unseen. Far from the simple characters of Bible class, the planet's first couple as drawn by Belli is layered with complexity and power. Eve may have been the first to bite the fruit, but she's also the creator of life and art; Adam wasn't just complicit in the original sin—he was the first philosopher (“Perhaps we simply weren't aware that we would die. Maybe that was Paradise”. The unfolding of knowledge and humanity is both primitive and breathtaking in Belli's view. And without abandoning the timeless biblical story, Belli manages to introduce a modern Darwinian element that's both stark and eloquent. Belli tackles Genesis with perception-rattling gravity. (Mar.)

In his naughtily erudite 10th novel, British author Jacobson (Kalooki Nights) explores the nature of the erotic with a wicked twist. Narrator Felix Quinn, a fusty antiquarian bookseller in contemporary London, wants to cuckold himself in order to “save his marriage” and give himself the freedom to be jealous. The unwitting but willing participant in Felix's scheme, Marius, is a libertine without scruples: he first appears in the tale some years previously, letching after two underage girls while attending the funeral of a man whose wife he had seduced. As for Felix's wife, Marisa, she embraces the infidelity foisted on her with gusto, relishing her thrice-weekly assignations and, after much persuasion, titillating her curious husband with details of their intimacies. Though Felix's narration is disconcertingly mannered, he's remarkably honest and blisteringly funny, while Jacobson's prose is sharp as ever, loaded with spiky dialogue and wonderfully arch observations. (Mar.)

In bestseller Parker's fluffy eighth Jesse Stone novel (after Stranger in Paradise), the Paradise, Mass., police chief almost effortlessly performs his laconic magic to restore order and right wrongs. When Betsy Ingersoll, the junior high school principal, decides to conduct a check of girls' undies before an eighth-grade dance, it may or may not have been a crime, but it certainly provokes a firestorm of protests. Then there's a Peeping Tom calling himself the Night Hawk, whose activities escalate from watching to home invasions. In addition, the legal activities of a group of adults calling themselves the Paradise Free Swingers are badly affecting two children. Jesse's ex-wife, Jenn, and his deputies, Molly Crane and “Suit” Simpson, lend support. With a few bold strokes, Parker sketches characters and plot, then uses long stretches of his trademark pithy dialogue to carry the story briskly forward. The result may not provide much of a meal, but it's certainly an enjoyable snack. (Feb.)

Bestseller Lashner's first stand-alone, a contemporary thriller, falls short of the standard set by his acclaimed Victor Carl series (A Killer's Kiss, etc.). The murder of Philadelphia attorney Laszlo Toth marks a turning point in the life of part-time bartender Kyle Byrne, whose late father was Toth's law partner for many years. The elder Byrne died more than a decade earlier under mysterious circumstances, and Kyle, his out-of-wedlock son, was bounced from his funeral—by Toth. Kyle's attendance at Toth's burial service attracts the attention of homicide detectives Henderson and Ramirez, the latter a good-looking woman who takes more than a professional interest in the suspect. Kyle is further rattled when he believes he sees his father watching him during a softball game. Since the reader learns the identity of Toth's killer early on, only the motive for the crime offers much mystery—and that turns out to be less than compelling. (Feb.)

Sewell's unwieldy second novel of psychological suspense may disappoint fans of her 2008 debut, Ice Trap. After Madeleine Frank's husband is killed during a hurricane at their Key West home, she moves to Bath, England, where she becomes a psychotherapist. When a new client, Rachel Locklear, describes her relationship with her ex-lover, pimp and father of her son, Madeleine at first assumes it's a case of domestic abuse. But as Rachel opens up further, Madeleine realizes that their lives may be intertwined in a bond that could have fatal consequences. The heroine's Cuban-born mother, who was once a powerful Santera but now suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and is institutionalized in the U.K., offers psychic predictions about Madeleine that don't enhance our understanding of her thinly drawn character. A couple of unnecessary subplots involve Madeleine's fascination with ants and her prison sessions with a murderer who's little more than a watered-down Hannibal Lecter. (Feb.)

When Michelle Gibson reports her father, Mick Prentice, missing at the start of McDermid's intricate but underwhelming stand-alone psychological thriller, Det. Insp. Karen Pirie, head of the Fife police Cold Case Review Team, isn't interested until Michelle reveals that Mick disappeared during the 1984 miners' strike. At the time, everyone believed Mick went “scabbing” in Nottingham. Later, Karen is summoned to the home of wealthy Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, whose daughter, Catriona, and baby grandson, Adam, were abducted in 1985. A botched ransom hand-off left Catriona dead and Adam nowhere to be found. New evidence linked to the kidnapping has surfaced, and now Karen has two missing people to locate. McDermid tries to pack too much story into one book, and the connection she draws between the cases feels forced. Fans of the Scottish author may be better off waiting for the next outing of McDermid's series to feature psychologist Tony Hill (The Mermaid Singing, etc.). Author tour. (Feb.)

Delaney's meandering novel follows an American priest as he travels along Ireland's Shannon River in search of his family roots, and while it's peace he seeks, trouble has a way of finding him. After witnessing the atrocities of WWI, Father Robert Shannon returns to the United States shell-shocked, and the church eventually sends him to Ireland to restore himself and seek out his origins along the famed Shannon River. Along the way, he gets by through the kindness of strangers and witnesses Ireland's descent into civil war. With leads to his family history few and far between, Robert finds comfort in the home of a nurse he knew while serving as a chaplain during the war in France. Meanwhile, there's a hired killer from the states hot on his tail, and an unknowing Robert could make for a very easy target. The narrative is slow and thoughtful, spiritual though not overbearing and rounded out with a nice vein of intrigue. Though the family roots/hired gun mix may sound bizarre, Delaney handles the disparate thematic elements with a sure hand. (Feb.)

The spy games seldom interfere with the love games of the assorted couples in bestseller Brockmann's 14th Troubleshooters Inc. romantic thriller (after Into the Fire). In San Diego, sassy Troubleshooters receptionist Tracy Shapiro, who's survived several romantic disasters, may have met her match in Lawrence “Deck” Decker, Troubleshooters' macho team leader. Deck's the former partner of Jimmy Nash, a “dead” TS Inc. operative, who's actually in hiding with Tess Bailey, his girlfriend and colleague. Also in jeopardy are Dave Malkoff and his fellow op, Sophia Ghaffari, whose heart now belongs to Dave, who'll do anything to protect Sophia and their unborn child. When Dave's kidnapped to smoke out Jimmy, the TS Inc. team and the FBI unite in a rescue plan. While the pillow talk at times overshadows the action, Brockmann fans will cheer as her global problem solvers work out their latest sticky dilemmas, both personal and professional. (Feb.)

In Kjaerstad's second installment to the Wergeland trilogy (after The Seducer), loosely connected vignettes about troubled Norwegian television director Jonas Wergeland's life reveal large and often unpleasant truths about him. The action stretches over Wergeland's more than 50-odd years, over many countries and through a wide swath of women and a murder. The novel is presented as the work of an academic turned popular author who has been commissioned to write a Wergeland biography. However, the professor has been stymied by a writer's block that is only lifted when a mysterious stranger with insight about Wergeland appears at his doorstep. Despite the collage of stories, the name-dropping of Norwegian artists and the complex system of symbolism that Kjaerstad creates, the narrative (thanks to Haveland's faultless translation) never feels head-scratchingly Norwegian, and Kjaerstad leaves overly obvious signposts to assure there is no ambiguity about his motifs and meanings. Kjaerstad's reminder that “the connections between the stories in a life are as important as the stories themselves” yields well-knit–together stories, so that a darkly humorous picture of Wergeland's life finally emerges. (Feb.)

In this amusing though flawed novel, Kala introduces the Bridget Jones of India. Aisha Bathia is an independent 29-year-old single woman living in New Delhi working as a guest relations manager at the five-star Grand Orchid Hotel. The job seems fabulous, but in reality the hours are bad and so is the pay. And Bathia's life as a modern woman is small compensation: a 29-year-old woman in India is not supposed to be unmarried. With her two best friends, Misha and Anushka (recently divorced from her cheating husband), Bathia searches for love, trying everything from online dating to fasting during Karva Chauth, the traditional Hindu festival for married women. But Bathia has her eye on only one man, Karan Verma, the handsome investment banker from New York, even though as things move along she begins to question exactly what she is looking for. While the romance scenes are not very tense or romantic, Kala hits a bull's-eye with the situations Bathia and her cohorts finds themselves in. With a plethora of disappointing chick lit novels out there, Kala achieves what many cannot—she makes her readers laugh aloud. (Feb.)

Laura Castoro's newest explores blended family relationships. Thea Morgan had a brief fling with Xavier Thornton when she was 16 but then Xavier went on to athletic fame, Thea married a white man, had a blue-eyed daughter and became a young widow. When the story starts, that daughter, Jesse, is about to go to college, and Xavier, now a pastor, has found Thea again, and they are engaged to be married. However, when Xavier becomes the minister of a smalltown Arkansas church, hostile churchgoers, the demands on Thea's time and a profound unhappiness with smalltown life take their toll. Meanwhile, Jesse is having trouble fitting in at college. Thea and Jesse are well-drawn characters, strong independent women who readers will love. Xavier, however, is far too perfect to be interesting; it doesn't matter who he is, but merely what he represents—a good man and a relationship worth fighting for. While this African-American novel won't distinguish itself in the field, it is a satisfying read. (Feb.)

Aira, an unusual Argentinean author (How I Became a Nun), writes a compelling novel about a migrant Chilean family living in an apartment house under construction in Buenos Aires. New Year's Eve finds the hard-drinking Chilean night watchman, Raúl Vinas, hosting a party with his wife, Elisa, their four small children and Elisa's pensive 15-year-old daughter, Patri. Moreover, ghosts reside in the house: naked, dust-covered floating men, mostly unseen except by Elisa and Patri. The novel engineers a clever layering of metaphorical details about the building, but gradually focuses on Elisa's preparations for the party and her conversations with her daughter about finding a “real man” to marry. Prodded perhaps by her isolation within the family, Patri accepts the ghosts' invitation to a midnight feast, at her life's peril. Aira takes off on fanciful sociological analogies that seem absurd in the mouths of these simple folk, so that in the end the novel functions as an allegorical, albeit touching, comment on his characters' materialism and class. (Feb.)

The first in a new series by veteran romance author Shalvis hits the ground running. After Katie Kramer survives a devastating accident, she resolves to “live life balls out” and leaves L.A. for a job with Wilder Adventures in the Sierra Madre mountains. Hunky Cameron Wilder, a champion snowboarder whose career ended with his own devastating accident, appears, and the attraction is instant for both of them. But neither wants a relationship so it's up to the Wilder clan to make them realize that they were meant to be together. What elevates this beyond the standard of the genre is the Wilders, particularly the subplot around Cameron's surrogate mother, Annie, and her husband, Nick. Their relationship problems and love for each other are more authentic than what's found in most romance novels. The Wilder men make great romance heroes while Katie is a great heroine: fearless but vulnerable, bright, charismatic and a great match for Cameron, who is classically reserved and brooding. By focusing on the Wilder family as much as she focuses on the couple, Shalvis thoroughly engages readers as she finds the perfect women for the other Wilder men. (Feb.)

Before Rebecca Bennett's father dies, he makes her swear to do two things: find his lost gold mine and find her sister, Amy, who was kidnapped by Indians, and if Rebecca cannot rescue her, she must kill her. To aid her quest, Rebecca turns to Lucas Swallow, an Indian, who, as it turns out, her father had saved as a boy. Soon, they get word that Rebecca's sister is alive but insane; meanwhile, romance blossoms between Rebecca and Lucas. Meanwhile, mercenaries bent on snagging the Bennett gold are stalking the pair. When Lucas realizes that the only way for Rebecca to fulfill her promise is for her to feign being his captive, he knows that there is almost no chance that they will come out alive. Though both Rebecca and Lucas are deeply stereotypical and their romance is a yawner, Aalborg's depiction of various native cultures offers a nice departure from the standard cowboys and Indians fare. (Feb.)

A turbulent mother-daughter relationship concerns Espinosa's plodding new novel. Both women tell their side of the story: Eleanor, the mother, is a classically unfulfilled postwar wife, married to a self-important artist and working intermittently as a secretary in New York while living in Westbury, Long Island, and pumping out babies, beginning with Rosa. Eleanor has no real pursuit of her own and finds her expression in affairs, while her husband, Aaron, dallies with students. Rosa grows up, and she contributes her version to the narrative: as the daughter of a controlling mother and distracted father, Rosa takes an interest in dance and longs for her parents' acceptance. A breakdown propels her into a mental asylum and later into marriage with a ne'er-do-well who takes an interest in her mother. Unfortunately, the prose is dull and the psychology too heavy-handed. (Feb.)

Ford's newest is a Southern coming-of-age involving an estranged twin waking to sexuality and love. Eleven-year-old Blaze James lives in the shadow of her twin sister, Aerial, until a gas explosion leaves Aerial horribly scarred. While her sister recovers, Blaze spends a formative year in the care of a neighbor, Felicity Hardaway, an exotic (though closeted) lesbian in close-minded Shreveport, La. After years away at school, Blaze returns and begins a passionate affair with Hardaway. Despite the town's condemnation and Hardaway's insistence that she doesn't want to get serious, Blaze is determined to fight for the emotionally abusive relationship. When Hardaway disappears, Blaze turns to next-door neighbor Nate for solace—and, as it turns out, much more. Ford's Shreveport is an unforgiving place—swampy, seductive and judgmental—that's reflected in her blunt but intoxicating prose. Unfortunately, Ford's intriguing story begs for a better protagonist; Blaze is contrary, indecisive and not nearly as smart as she thinks she is, making decisions at whim. Hardaway, on the other hand, is charismatic and flawed, prideful and vulnerable; by the end, one can't help feeling they were following the wrong character. (Feb.)

Evangelical Christian novelist Wingate introduced readers to the delightfully homespun what-you-see-is-what-you-get town of Daily, Tex., in Talk of the Town. In this sequel about the city's happenings and residents, Wingate expands upon the story line and offers readers more lovingly presented Texas talk, charm and romance. Wounded by the death of her husband, Lauren Eldridge is summoned back to Daily by her daddy, who's gotten himself into a financial pickle. Trying to pay an old debt by risking the ranch, Lauren's father asks his daughter to come home and tame a wild horse before the movie he's invested in starts shooting in Daily. Lauren's first instinct is to run anywhere but home. Still, she braves the emotional journey to help her father, remembering how he supported her after the accident that killed her spouse. What Lauren discovers back home amid familiar faces and places is forgiveness, love and a big, Texas-sized romance. Wingate's text is funny, to be sure, but a predictable story line detracts from what could have been a more poignant tale. (Feb.)

Poppen's latest historical romance, first in a new series, features Gannon Maddox, a handsome, broke English nobleman, who needs to marry an American heiress to save the family's ancestral estates. The lavish excesses of late-19th-century Newport, R.I., where every doting mama is looking for a title for her daughter, is the perfect hunting ground, but Gannon is repelled by the scene and escapes to the seashore, where he meets Audrey St. Clair, also an unwilling player in the marriage mart. Defying society's dictates and her dragon of a mother, Audrey's dream is to study music in Vienna. She devises a risky plan in which Gannon will pretend to court her for the summer and she will show him how to invest his money. At summer's end, Gannon can return to England wealthy enough to save Camberly and Audrey can freely leave for Vienna. But love intervenes and Audrey must choose between her dream and her man. While the prose can be overblown, the fun is in the caste system of Newport's summer social season, while the engaging characters fufill the expectations of the genre. (Feb.)

In the exemplary title story of Brady's third collection of closely observed San Fran-centric stories (following Curled in the Bed of Love), a relationship both playful and tense is revealed subtly by everyday stresses to be a charged power struggle between privileged equestrian college dropout Annie and Clay, the stable manager. Whether carried away by their horses or their hearts, Brady's characters fixate on the unpredictable, “teetering between knowing what was ahead and refusing to know.” Buffeted by outside forces (illnesses, busted pipes, financial straits and death), Brady's characters often waver and fall: in “The Dazzling World,” a woman who lost her last boyfriend to suicide can't make sense of her current relationship; “Slender Little Thing” follows a teenage mom, who struggles by day with the rich children she nannies and by night with her own daughter; a businessman leaves his family to work in a church-run homeless shelter in “Those Who Walk During the Day.” Excepting the self-involved protagonist of “Wicked Stepmother,” Brady's leads are likable and idiosyncratic, and her insight into their unstable lives will keep readers swaying between a sense of comfort and loss. (Feb.)

The literature of widowhood is compelling—Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking had an impact well beyond her usual readership. Novelist Stark, a retired English teacher who's not afraid to invoke the great classic poets, makes a lovely debut in this story of Audrey Eaton, a widow whose road trip is also a healing journey. That plot device is not new, but Eaton's writing is fresh and delicate, successfully expressing nuance in a narrative that is mostly about emotions, not events. Her dialogue is witty and easy; an interlude at a homeless shelter is nice comic relief. The Christian elements required for the evangelical audience are natural for the plot—lots of bereaved people derive comfort from renewed faith. But they're slightly overdone; God's work can be apparent in a story of transformation even without explicit labeling, especially with a narrator given to dignified understatement. If Stark's next book does more showing and less telling with the elements of faith, she could gain the larger audience she deserves. (Feb.)

Christy Award–winner Heitzmann leaves the vineyard landscapes of the Secrets series and goes subterranean for a gutsy departure from romance mystery to explore the depths of human depravity. When a medical resident's career and life caves, she falls prey to ruthless men following savage “rules of contact” that brutalize her and others in the dark place where she lands. Claire Boudreaux must learn to trust her captor, Rafe, in order to save her life, and she must teach him a new set of rules that could save the lives of others. Though Claire and her former boyfriend, McKee Gallagher, had drifted apart, their desire to right the horror of the underground world they uncover brings their dreams back together. Heitzmann takes readers through a raw and surreal labyrinth of sexuality, rape, brutality and murder to show that these actions rise out of the heart of a darkness so vile that only coming face to face with it and dying for others can overcome it. This postmodern suspense novel where everything is not as it seems and plot twists keep coming till the very end is provocative and shockative. (Feb.)

In recent years, Armantrout's reputation has soared—she began in the '70s as an obscure, early practitioner of language poetry, and now her poems regularly appear in the New Yorker. Her new book comprises two sequences—“Versed” and “Dark Matter”—of loosely interlinked poems dealing with the prolific poet's usual subjects (the body, contemporary society, violence) as well as more personal explorations of illness and mortality, all relayed in Armantrout's concentrated, crystalline voice, with a predilection for skipping some steps along the way to sense. The first sequence, peppered with pop culture references and quoted speech, features silly yet surprisingly serious poems on topics like “'[b]reaking/ Anna Nicole news// as she buries/ her son.' ” In the playful “Scumble,” the poet speculates as to “What if I were turned on by seemingly innocent words/ such as... 'extrapolate?' ” The second section, “Dark Matter,” is evasively intimate and occasionally, albeit characteristically, bleak, as Armantrout (Next Life) contemplates her own struggle with cancer “with a shocked smile,/ while an undiscovered tumor/squats on her kidney.” In what may be moments of intense, sardonic honesty—”Chuck and I are pleased/ to have found a spot/where my ashes can be scattered”—the poet poses metaphysical questions with open endings: jarring moments in which the stakes are suddenly, impossibly high. (Feb.)

“I play on my america xylophone/ and the kids drop peach hat by aching peach hat,” says Gambito midway through one of the giddy, fragment-filled, enthusiastic, sometimes flirtatious odes and self-portraits of this second collection, attendant simultaneously to Gambito's Filipino-American heritage and the outlook of 21st-century youth. “I am the new bathing suit that I am,” she declares in “Immigration,” one of a few poems by that name: this one takes an epigraph from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and an interlinear exclamation from the Filipino language Tagalog. Gambito (Matadora) evokes a carnival of multiethnic references, intuitive leaps and fiery existential queries: “I like God alright but I don't understand anything he's talking about.” She might be likened to such other cosmopolitan poets as Matthea Harvey or Mark Bibbins: Gambito also excels in one-line stanzas, in long knockout titles (“A Borderless Ethos Would Please Everyone”) and in dreamy one-paragraph prose poems. Yet if such forms make her seem solitary or disconnected, her topics make her memories, and her loyalties, multiply clear: “You were born here. I was born there.” (Jan.)

Zawacki may be the younger poet most interested in continuing the poetic work begun by high modernist and postmodernist writers such as Zukofsky, Olson and Spicer, all of whom he cites in the notes to this third collection of poems. The sequence is Zawacki's primary unit of composition; this collection comprises three sequences of untitled, free verse lyrics, all of them cast in Zawacki's tirelessly serious, fragmentary, searching voice. The first sequence, “Georgia,” is an associative exploration of the state where Zawacki (Anabranch) lives and teaches. Pages of single-line stanzas sometimes directly address (“it wasn't funny Georgia”) and more often obliquely and lyrically characterize (“sans any essence or pretense of presence,” “shadow is early”) a place that becomes a mirror for the mind of one inhabitant. “Arrow's Shadow” consists of discrete, right-justified poems that artfully resist paraphrase while studying the qualities of words as objects (“the ana-/gram and gram/ -mar of mar-/ gins and mar-/ igolds”). The last sequence, “Storm, Lustral,” while also oblique and challenging, is the most intimate, presenting an easily identifiable “I”: “so far/ ahead of ourselves I/ no longer see us.” Zawacki's work is not for everyone—its density and opaqueness can frustrate. But he displays a rigor, earnestness and commitment to poetry as high art; seekers of those virtues will admire this book deeply. (Jan.)

A noirish current runs through Gibson's second collection, which finds fascination in dark, abandoned urban or suburban spaces and unsolvable everyday mysteries: “There's a street beneath this street, a city beneath this city,/ inhabited by empty tunnels/ built for trains that never arrived.” These mostly short, free verse poems hum with gloomy humor and the mood of pregnant anticipation one finds in a Paul Auster novel. Gibson (Polar) is no escapist, though, portraying an anxious America in the new millennium. A palpable sense of paranoia is figured as spies who crop up in several poems. The sense of alienation pervades not just the public but also the domestic sphere (“Soon I realized: they weren't actors,/ they were my family”). Gibson also tries the fable, where he finds a comfortable home for his brand of black humor: “There was once a roofer who lived/ a full life even though a stake/ had been driven through his forehead.” Gibson mixes the language of public discourse, science, TV and everyday conversation in a chatty if bleak voice that is both accessible and satisfyingly challenging. (Jan.)

The passionate, yet controlled, third volume from Paschen (Infidelities) pursues the likenesses between human beings and other sorts of beasts: Paschen watches domestic animals, visits zoos and backyards, and records the instincts that animate her, as lover, mother, daughter and citizen. Husband and wife “share a wedded habitat”; a mother breastfeeding her daughter “would like to buzz/ into the orchid of your ear,” while a manatee looks to the poet like “a mistaken mermaid,/ on the brink of vanishing from sight.” Paschen offers sonnets, villanelles and even a ghazal, in which butterflies in an exhibit “invent a sky beneath the dome.” Readers might remember not the moments of pure description, but the difficult emotions Paschen describes in her poems about marital love, motherhood and finally a daughter's grief. The urn with her father's ashes dominates one poem, and her late mother's career as a ballet dancer takes over another: “Mother, when I was young, I watched/ you from the wings and saw the sweat,” Paschen writes, saw “your gasp/ for breath. I thought it was your last.” If we are animals, Paschen suggests, we are the animals who look hard at one another, the animals who remember and who mourn. (Jan.)

Known since the 1990s for his harsh blend of gay eroticism and visionary fervor, Liu (Of Thee I Sing) continues to pursue his high ambitions, from Whitmanesque odes to American jeremiads. This seventh book begins in a scarred and threatening America: “two boys hustling// in Union Square” are “Clubbed to death/ by a sack of rocks”; the southwestern desert shows only “Topographies of tumbleweed snagged on rusted barbs.” Yet it soon veers into apparently autobiographical material, its language quieter and more reportorial, its landscapes much friendlier and mostly European—Athens, Rhodes, Edinburgh, Paris. (Most of the middle of the book describes an apparently fruitless search for a lover who disappeared in Greece.) Liu's philosophical dealings with his own intensely chronicled frustration, and his tense stanzas, recall Frank Bidart, but his vibrant scenes might just as well please admirers of Philip Levine. These lyrics chase and capture insatiable desire, adrift in a sad and hostile world, with “the heart's purloined/ hermeneutics locked inside a box.” A poem called simply “Bittersweet” begins: “Nothing made you disappear// faster than when I asked/ just what was going on// between us.” (Jan.)

One of the first American poets to celebrate radical feminism and lesbian desire without apology or disguise, the California-based Grahn has been known for that work ever since: The Common Woman Poems (1972) earned grassroots admiration and subcultural cachet for such portraits as “Carol, in the park, chewing on straws,” who “has taken a woman lover,” who “goes as far/ as women can go without protection/ from men.” Here are Grahn's famous poems again, both the direct Movement poetry of the 1970s and the 1980s verse derived from feminist rereadings of myth. Two sequences about Helen of Troy are, at their best, at once comic, demotic and sexy, not to mention sexually explicit. Grahn's prefaces (to the whole volume, then to each segment) strike oddly boastful notes: “I am conscientiously criss-crossing time and space barriers,” she says of her Helen poems. “So I have intended to shatter the myth.” Her poems can seem rough, raw, intentionally unfinished, meant less for the printed page than for the voice or for the stage. Young readers will have no trouble imagining how much of an inspiration these lines might have been. Just 21 pages hold work from the past 20 years. This is an energetic look at Grahn's eventful career. (Jan.)

Far more than a joke—and yet plenty of fun—this compilation of exciting poems (and some prose) from prolific Bay Area writer (and Jack Spicer executor) Killian trains most of its attention on the Australian diva Kylie Minogue, a cult icon for American gay men but a pop goddess for much of the rest of the world. Like Madonna, Kylie is known for her public self-reinvention. Killian's essay in the middle of this big book, explains the Minogue phenomenon; his array of energetic, romantic poems exploit it for purposes less ironic than ecstatic. “Discovery,” Killian says, “is a back/ formation of 'disco' plus the qualifier 'very' ”: his disco-fueled verse makes such declarations believable, even as his broad intellectual range takes him into the literary past. He pays special attention to gender rebels, sexual nonconformists and gay men, as in his fine 21st-century rewrite of Garcia Lorca's famous “Ode to Walt Whitman”: “With what little man are you dickering?/ He is not far, he is only on Craigslist.” Short sequences memorialize the slain transgender teen Gwen Araujo, and remember Killian's own gay youth. Aggressively contemporary and sexually explicit, disturbingly comic and seeking novelty, Killian's poems also take their place in the oldest of lyric traditions: “I want to have fallen,” he says. (Dec.)

There is no shortage of writing by or about Nobel Prize–winning Irish poet Heaney. Yet this big book is a unique and useful addition to the Heaney canon: beginning in 2001, the Dublin-based poet, essayist and anthologist O'Driscoll entered into an extended correspondence with Heaney for the purpose of collaboratively constructing a kind of autobiography-in-interviews. The result is a collection of 16 discreet interviews, the first two of which discuss Heaney's childhood and poetic growth. Then there is one interview-chapter for each of Heaney's celebrated books (except the last two, which are grouped together), followed by a summing up. In conversation, Heaney comes across as extremely friendly, expansively intelligent and in possession of the groundedness in the details of his environment that readers of his poems will be familiar with. Here are boyhood recollections (“Our travelling grocery van... was run first by a man called McCarney, but 'the egg man' was our name for him”), memories of the famous Belfast Group and accounts of coming-of-age, and then coming to international prominence, against the backdrop of Ireland's troubled 20th-century politics. And, of course, Heaney traces the events—both political and personal—that led to many of his poems. For fans of Heaney, of 20th-century Irish literature or anyone eager to get deep into the mind of a major artist, this is an essential book. (Dec.)

In MWA Grand Master Pronzini's 34th Nameless Detective novel (after 2008's Fever), his series sleuth takes on a challenging locked-room puzzle. When Gregory Pollexfen, a wealthy bibliophile, reports the theft of eight rare first edition mysteries from his collection, which he keeps in a secured room in his San Francisco home, Nameless investigates on behalf of the insurance company involved. The subsequent shooting death of the victim's ne'er-do-well brother-in-law in the locked library complicates the original case, though Pollexfen's wife, who was also in the sealed room and whose prints are on the weapon, is the obvious suspect. Meanwhile, a subplot in which Nameless's colleague, Jake Runyon, attempts to track down a stalker targeting a Los Angeles couple is notable only for Runyon's slow emergence from the emotional shell he developed after his wife's death. Since the two story lines aren't obviously compatible, readers may wonder why Pronzini decided to combine them. (Apr.)

Two weeks after Princess Diana's death in Paris in 1997, an illegal Haitian immigrant named Mireille walks into Aimée Leduc's office, claiming that Aimée's late father was also her father. Before Aimée can learn more, Mireille disappears, leaving only a cryptic note with an address in the Latin Quarter, the setting for Black's twisty ninth Aimée Leduc investigation (after 2008's Murder in the Rue de Paradis). At the address, an old building housing a comparative anatomy research facility, Aimée finds the corpse of a well-dressed black man with his ear cut off. The complex plot, which involves Haitian politics, history and culture as well as world trade and geopolitical corruption (not to mention Aimée's quest to discover if Mireille is really her half-sister), at times threatens to overwhelm the book. Still, Black creates an indelible portrait of a Parisian neighborhood as she explores how the past continues to collide with the present, with unpredictable and far-reaching results. (Mar.)

Set in the Valley of an unnamed Western state, Quinn's winning debut introduces one smart canine detective and his partner, PI Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency, who's pretty quick on the uptake himself. Chet, a “lively mongrel” with one white ear and one black ear, serves as the book's narrator, communicating with Bert via doggy methods that verge on the telepathic (“I wagged my tail, that quick one-two wag meaning yes, not the over-the-top one that wags itself and can mean lots of things”). Wealthy divorcée Cynthia Chambliss hires Bernie, a former cop, to find her missing 15-year-old daughter, Madison, whose father is a real estate developer who smells suspiciously of cat. (Chet's keen sense of smell comes in handy.) When Madison reappears and disappears again, her dad says she's just a runaway, though Bernie thinks otherwise. Chet must use all his superdog tricks to extricate Bernie from a mighty tight fix in a climax that fans of classic mysteries are sure to appreciate. (Feb.)

Set in early 2001, Wood's solid second mystery to feature Yorkshire Det. Sgt. Keen Dunliffe (after 2005's Kingdom of Lies) opens with a bang. Kim Prescott, a veteran U.S. marshal on the verge of retirement, is escorting convicted felon Eunice Connor on a flight to the U.K., where Connor is facing charges stemming from her role in a violent activist group, Justice for Animals Defense Alliance. Soon after the plane lands at Heathrow (and just as the reader thinks the sympathetic Prescott is going to play a major role), an assailant on a motorcycle shoots both Prescott and Connor to death. The authorities suspect JADA's leadership may have wanted Connor silenced. Teamed with the requisite wet-behind-the-ears young partner, Dunliffe doggedly follows leads to get the goods on the group. A subplot centering on an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease raises the ante, though fans of contemporary British police procedurals won't find much to distinguish this one from the many others already out there. (Feb.)

No crime, whether a theft or murder, is an isolated event in Palestine; it's an intersection of religious, cultural and political issues, as shown in Rees's absorbing third Omar Yussef mystery (after 2008's A Grave in Gaza). Omar Yussef, a 57-year-old history teacher, becomes immersed in finding who killed Ishaq, a member of the tiny, ancient Samaritan community on the outskirts of Nablus. While his fellow Samaritans didn't respect Ishaq, he controlled millions of dollars of government money through his job at the Palestinian Authority—money that's now missing. Unless the funds can be found, the World Bank will cut off all financial aid to Palestine. If the quiet Yussef stretches believability as a sleuth, Rees excels in capturing the essence of Palestine, from the claustrophobic casbah with its myriad scents to the harsh beauty of the countryside. Rees vividly illustrates daily Palestinian life, where violence is a constant threat and religious attitudes permeate each decision. (Feb.)

In 1381, a series of inexplicable murderspits the impoverished peasants of Maldon, Essex, against the upper-class residents of Ravenscroft Castle in Doherty's diverting sixth Canterbury Tales mystery (after 2002's The Hangman's Hymn), told by the clerk of Oxford. Ralph Mortimer, a clerk at Ravenscroft, must figure out who's been slaying villagers and castle dwellers alike. With practically everyone in Maldon a suspect, bringing a killer to justice won't be easy, especially when friends aren't always who they claim to be, and evil spirits are at work within the castle walls. Meanwhile, Mortimer seeks Brythnoth's legendary golden cross from pagan times—and is distracted by grief after his fiancée,Beatrice Arrowner, falls to her death from the castle parapet. Evoking the medieval world through sparing use of period detail and language, veteran British author Doherty weaves an intricate and suspenseful tale sure to please both longtime fans and newcomers. (Feb.)

At the start of Delany's engaging second mystery to feature Constable Molly Smith (after 2007's In the Shadow of the Glacier), Molly's mother is leaving work one evening at the Trafalgar Women's Support Center in British Columbia when a baby's cry draws her to the nearby woods, where she finds a baby boy, wrapped in a blanket—and the body of a young woman. The victim, presumably the boy's mother, appears to have died from a heroin overdose, but restraint marks on her wrists point to foul play. Molly and her mentor, Sgt. John Winters, comb Trafalgar in an effort to identify the woman. After discovering that her first name was Ashley, the police officers learn that the developer of a controversial new resort being built outside of town had a heated argument with Ashley shortly before she died. Delaney explores the social dynamics of a small mountain community as well as deftly handling the plot's twists and turns as it builds to a pulse-pounding conclusion. (Feb.)

In Conant-Park and Conant's cute fourth Gourmet Girl mystery to feature Chloe Carter (after 2008's Turn Up the Heat), Josh Driscoll, Chloe's chef boyfriend, unwittingly serves up some poisoned lamb on a Boston cable reality TV show, Chefly Yours. Both Josh and Chloe fall ill, but it's Francie, a randomly chosen shopper at the gourmet store Natural High, who eats too much of the digitalis-laced dish and doesn't recover. Was Francie the intended victim or just unlucky? Suspects range from Josh's fellow contestants competing for a new eight-part cooking show to some pranksters who may have taken a joke too far. Preparations for the wedding of Chloe's very pregnant best friend distract “social work's answer to Nancy Drew” from her sleuthing, but not for long. Recipes, some by pro chefs, round out this delectable chick lit cozy, which ends on an emotional cliffhanger for Chloe. (Feb.)

Fox captures the foggy mysteries of feudal China in exquisite style with this rich fantasy series opener. Pirate captain Li Ton needs a new ship's boy, having worn out the old one, so he captures apprentice scribe Han, who becomes infected with magic in a duel. When Li Ton kills the monks who forge links to the chain binding an ancient undersea dragon, he and Han are caught up in a multilayered tale of supernatural creatures, a deposed emperor on the run and jade that grants extraordinary powers. Fox's concisely elegant style mirrors the light brush strokes and deep colors of ancient Chinese paintings, finely balancing detail, emotion and action. Where many Western authors try and fail to capture the nuances of Chinese culture and mythology, this melodious tale quietly succeeds. (Feb.)

Di Filippo's 13th collection shows off his knack for intelligently developing imaginative concepts. The previously unpublished “A Game of Go,” which shares the universe of his Nebula-nominated “Kid Charlemagne,” offers a nice variation on a traditional hard-boiled detective theme as ex-cop Leon Deatherage helps a woman whose troubled personal situation may have global political implications. More overtly genred, the space opera “Shipbreaker” introduces a host of intriguing alien races. Social satire manifests in short punchy entries such as “Leakage,” in which classic 1950s television shows are affected by contemporary crudity and violence, and “Everywhere Is Now,” in which worldwide refugee crises come to Everytown, U.S.A. Readers who have missed Di Filippo's previous collections (most recently 2006's Plumage from Pegasus) will find this an excellent introduction to his work. (Feb.)

Cullen continues his fantasy quest trilogy (begun with 2008's Seekers of the Chalice) with this predictable central installment. Bricriu Poisontongue has stolen the magical Chalice of Fire, and six Seekers—humans, elves, wizard and Sidhe—must undergo trials by combat as they chase him down. The colorful settings and well-choreographed martial encounters stoke a bit of interest in an otherwise derivative tale mostly based on Celtic lore and eclectically punctuated with motifs from classical mythology, the Iliad, Dante's Inferno and the Bible. Cullen even tosses in a bit of poetry to keep things interesting, but grisly action wins out over character development, producing a tempting banquet of vicarious derring-do that never quite achieves lasting satisfaction. (Feb.)

Prolific author Rand (Pax Dakota) fails to merge magical realism with conventional mystery in this disjointed novel. Speech-impaired man-child millionaire Mark Trane has dubbed his new Las Vegas hotel “Hell,” and after the building nearly collapses and a homeless man is found dead in the walk-in freezer, the name seems prescient. The plot is overshadowed by a wealth of quirky characters, but they're not nearly interesting enough to keep things moving, and when the chaotic climax hits, there's no reason to be invested in their fate. Rand's writing has potential, but this muddled story never finds its stride. (Feb.)

Singer and spy Celestine de Joyeuse must finally come to terms with her father's legacy in this complex sequel to 2008's Tracing the Shadow. While serving Francia's King Enguerrand, Celestine longs to destroy the Magus Linnaius, whom she believes betrayed her father to the Inquisition. Celestine is aided by Faie, a spirit bound by her father to protect her, but Faie was responsible for keeping the balance between the mortal world and the realm of the dead, and now lost souls haunt the living. The story ties up minor plot threads from Ash's Tears of Atramon trilogy, but its dependence on backstory will challenge new readers, while fans of Tracing the Shadow will wonder why previously major characters have been relegated to token roles. (Feb.)

Briggs makes a well-deserved move into hardcover with the rousing fourth adventure for kick-ass were-coyote auto mechanic Mercedes Thompson. Healing in body and spirit after the events of 2008's Iron Kissed, Mercy is preparing to marry alpha werewolf Adam Hauptman when an old friend asks her to help fend off a nasty ghost. It's a good time for Mercy to leave Portland, Ore.: vampire queen Marsilia is after her and her vampire friend Stefan for successfully hunting down a monster that should have killed them. Mercy leaves Adam to negotiate peace with Marsilia and heads to Spokane, Wash., to investigate the ghost, an unexpectedly complicated task. Though action supersedes characterization, the preternatural culture of vampire seethes and wolf pack politics is deeply intriguing. Briggs provides plenty of detail about Mercy's complex world without boring info-dumps, satisfying both new and longtime readers. (Feb.)

In Jordan's heart-pounding third Randall Shane venture (after 2007's Trapped), the FBI agent turned lost child locator is called upon to do the impossible. After an explosion at the elementary school in tiny Humble, N.Y., 10-year-old Noah Corbin's remains—a few bits of tissue and blood—have been identified. Stubbornly refusing to admit that her son is dead, and having worn out the patience of local authorities, Haley Corbin contacts Shane. Before long, between his own investigative skills and a little help from FBI buddies, Shane starts to peel away the layers of what appears to be an abduction plot by a cultlike group with personal ties to Noah and his deceased father. The ensuing chase and rescue in a remote Colorado mountain aerie stretch credulity at times but provide a satisfying romp. (Feb.)

Bestselling suspense author Jackson (Left to Die) pairs with mystery author Bush (Ultra Violet) to pen a chilling tale. Jessie Brentwood was a student at St. Elizabeth's School in Oregon when she vanished 20 years ago. Still haunted by her disappearance, Det. “Mac” McNally reopens the case when bones believed to be Jessie's are discovered at the old school. Mac refocuses his investigation on Jessie's friends, especially Hudson Walker, Jessie's former boyfriend. The suspense escalates as Jessie's friends seem haunted by her presence, especially Becca Sutcliff, a woman hoping to rekindle her former romance with Hudson. Becca's frequent and terrifying visions are amplified as, one by one, Jessie's friends become victims of a vicious stalker. Swift pacing and an intriguing plot make this a first-rate supernatural thriller. (Feb.)

Bestseller Hunter (Secrets of Surrender) weaves a delightful 1800s romance with plenty of steamy passion and opium intrigue. Visiting London for the first time from her home in the Far East, Leona Montgomery is on a mission to secure funding for her brother's trading house and investigate the opium conspiracy that her father believed destroyed much of his business. Leona's lack of connections delays her success until she encounters Christian, marquess of Easterbrook, who was disguised as a commoner when she first met him several years before. He promises to both help her in her quest and sate her most intimate desires, but they both have secrets, and love and passion are fraught with secrecy and suspicion. Hunter has concocted a satisfying tale of desire, deception and privilege. (Feb.)

Browne (Kiss Her Goodbye) shows tremendous promise in this sophomore effort, a taut psychological thriller with hints of the supernatural and an ending that will leave readers speechless. A young woman found naked and covered in someone else's blood tries to attack Special Victims Det. Frank Blackburn. He links her to a nearby murder done in the style of the “Vincent Van Gogh” serial killer. The Van Gogh killer's most recent victim was Abby Tolan, wife of renowned psychiatrist Dr. Michael Tolan. As Tolan, who works with Blackburn, tries to help the young woman recover her memory, she reveals things only Abby would know and begins a startling physical transformation into his dead wife. The deeply satisfying story moves at a furious pace, packed with unexpected and original clues and plot twists. (Feb.)

Dini and Nguyen's Batman stories from Detective Comics collected here are largely brief, self-contained mysteries, focusing on the colorful, bizarre characters of Batman's world. They're something of a throwback in tone to the superhero comics of the '60s and '70s: in one episode, the wicked Tweedledee and Tweedledum steal the Mad Hatter's mind-control technology to assemble “the Wonderland Gang,” which Batman busts up by the end of the issue. It's breezy stuff as contemporary Batman comics go, even making room for a little romance (a subplot concerns the Dark Knight's flirtations with the magician Zatanna and the sultry burglar Catwoman). Still, Dini gets a lot of juice out of the way his characters interact and comes up with clever ways to whisk each story toward its conclusion—“The Riddle Unanswered,” for instance, pivots around Batman hanging out in an online chat room of amateur detectives (and a few superheroes) to trade ideas about a case. Nguyen and Fridolfs's artwork complements these stories' mood with a loose, flowing style, built around jagged chunks of black, which owes something to contemporary animation. (Dec.)

Danny Duncan, the hero, a meek young man fresh out of a short stay in a mental institution and working a job he hates, discovers abilities he doesn't understand. And powerful, secretive men seek to control him for their own purposes. It's familiar, which isn't inherently bad, but there's not enough to make this particular work stand above the rest of the crowd. What sets Danny apart from other superheroes is his vulnerability. His powers cause emotions like fear and anger in others rather than making him strong, meaning he gets hurt in any real fight. And he's unable to help people that matter to him, including his father, who suffers from Alzheimer's, and a new friend who's dying of a brain tumor. But with the genre-required fight scenes there's not enough time in four issues to delve into what makes Danny unique on anything but a superficial level. There's also a disconnect between David's words, which set a darker tone to the story, and the art of Sears and Elliott, which sets a tone of cartoonish villains, impossibly beautiful women and a scrawny yet heroic protagonist. (Dec.)

Given that Taniguchi is the creator of and artist for many accomplished works of nouvelle manga such as The Walking Man and Ice Wanderer, this mystery manga falls short. The rather uninventive story line finds mountaineer Shiga traveling to Tokyo to find his friend's 15-year-old daughter, who has gone missing. Taniguchi, whose usual work reflects a fascination and great respect for nature and the overwhelming feelings that it can conjure, feels out of step with this book. The project excels in the mountain scenes and flashbacks, but flattens out in the flashy lights of Tokyo. Like Shiga, Taniguchi seems to feel out of place with the big city, outside of and uncomfortable with its rhythms. Very much a product of its time (Quest was first published in Japan in 1999), Taniguchi treats “compensated dating” (a practice of older men giving younger women gifts in exchange for companionship or sex, common in Japan in the 1990s) with a heavy hand. He also implements larger-than-life scenarios that, while staples in manga, feel clumsy in his hand. Taniguchi's art is ever beautiful, but like the storytelling here, it simply doesn't grip the reader the way his other works do. (Dec.)

The single-volume Gaba Kawa manga had a complete run in Shojo Beat magazine earlier this year. “Gaba Kawa” is “a made-up word that means someone is cute because they don't give up.” Although not giving up on your crush is tantamount to stalking by American cultural standards, in the world of shojo manga it's considered cute. “It's cute you're so persistent,” handsome love-interest Retsu says of Rara, a demon sent to the human world to commit evil acts. Rara has trouble telling the difference between mischief and evil, and quickly loses her powers as she breaks the only rule she's been given: “Never use magic on behalf of a human.” A lighthearted but disposable comedy follows, drawn in the distinct, attractive style typical of Takada's other works. (Dec.)

In 1992, when writer/artist Liefeld launched his original Youngblood series, hypertrophied superheroes with enormous guns and costumes covered in leather pouches were all the rage, and Liefeld was the master of the style—the first issue of the series reportedly sold around a million copies. The story made no sense at all, but who cared about that when you could look at a really dynamic drawing of a dude with a totally rad hairstyle and biceps three times the size of his head? For this “re-mastered” edition of the first five issues, Liefeld apparently decided to go back and fix his mistakes. He didn't correct errors of visual storytelling or basic anatomy—that would've required redrawing the whole thing—but writer Casey has resequenced the original pages and rewritten virtually all the dialogue in an attempt to give the chaotic assemblage a comprehensible plot, a touch of characterization and even some hints of a theme (about the culture of celebrity and the effect of constant attention on public figures). There are only so many things even a gifted writer can turn a sow's ear into, and the story's still a violent mess. Liefeld's relentless, this-one-goes-to-11 artwork is amusing as a nostalgia trip. (Dec.)