Fiction Reviews

Mar 01, 2010

The Four Fingers of Death Rick Moody. Little, Brown, $25.99 (736p) ISBN 978-0-316-11891-0

No amount of familiarity with Moody's body of work will prepare a reader for this distressingly impertinent exercise in bafflement. The plot originates in 2024 with Montese Crandall, a blocked writer whose list of woes includes a wife in a coma and an unsavory passion for baseball cards featuring bionically enhanced players, and whose major success is winning the right to author the novelization of the remake of the 1963 horror flick The Crawling Hand. The novelization, then, basically is the book. First, we have the space diaries of Col. Jed Richards, whose mission to Mars goes awry amid machete-wielding colonists, homoerotic encounters with fellow astronauts, and an insidious bacteria. Next, we're back on Earth, swept up in NASA's efforts to curtail the murderous swath of the mission's sole survivor: Colonel Richards's severed arm. All the while, Crandall clears his chest of everything from primate sexuality and megachurches to Mexican wrestlers. The comedy of catharsis ought to be whacked-out good fun. Instead, it is desperately and exceedingly annoying. To accuse Moody's book of inanity is like calling a B-movie's production values thrifty; the inanity is the point. (July)

The Same River Twice Ted Mooney. Knopf, $27.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-307-27273-7

A promising plot involving Russian contraband propels this Parisian thriller, but Mooney (Traffic and Laughter) fails to create engaging characters, and his overworked prose doesn't help matters much. Max Colby, who judges himself to be quite possibly “the most inventive and daring filmmaker of his time,” struggles with creative challenges and with his adventurous wife, Odile, who is having an affair with Turner, an art dealer who has crossed a ruthless Russian mobster and is handling the sale of a small collection of smuggled Russian folk art. Lengthy descriptions of Max's cinematic travails and random filmic insights take up swaths of the book, either supplanting the action or bizarrely coexisting with implausible developments (a pivotal murder is especially hard to believe). Other glitches—wooden dialogue, a far-fetched denouement—interfere with an occasionally savory if predictable yarn. (July)

Three Delays Charlie Smith. Harper Perennial, $14.99 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-185945-8

Poet and novelist Smith's latest foray into fiction (after poetry collection Word Comix) is a moody love story (of sorts) in which a man and a woman seem destined never to find permanent happiness. Billy Brent, a former child preacher turned globe-trotting druggie, has been drawn to Alice Stephens since young Billy, acting as minister at Alice's Tom Thumb wedding, attacked the groom. They've been brutal together ever since. Whether he's traipsing around Europe with his friend Henry or working as a reporter in Miami, Billy can't get Alice off his mind, even though she's married to someone else. And though their troubled past does not bode well for a common future, they can't help themselves; amid trips on smugglers' boats, stints in jail, fistfights, and plenty of drugs, the occasionally violent lovers desperately try to figure out a way to be together without destroying one another. Smith's prose is the star: it's unruly, full of an agitated energy, darkly funny and generously dashed with lyricism. But the moments of enchantment diffuse into mystification, and the restlessness so apparent in the characters and prose infects the reader, leading to exhaustion rather than enlightenment. (June)

A Secret Affair Mary Balogh. Delacorte, $24 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-34330-5

Balogh's final entry in the Huxtable family saga focuses on enigmatic cousin Constantine, long the most maligned of the Huxtables. Hannah, widowed duchess of Dunbarton, has set her sights on Constantine as the ideal lover—a handsome man of experience that she can seduce and set aside once she is done with him. Constantine, meanwhile, is thrilled by Hannah's beauty, but scornful of her reputation, and though the intention is just to have a little fun, they fall in love. Balogh has saved the best for last; Constantine—dark, wicked, and cryptic—has a perfect foil in Hannah, and their encounters are steamy, their romance believable. Though series fans will be disappointed to see it come to a close, they couldn't ask for a better way to go out. (June)

Audition Ryu Murakami, trans. from the Japanese by Ralph McCarthy. Norton, $13.95 paper (208p) ISBN 978-0-393-33841-6

Seven years after his wife's death, Aoyama, the protagonist of popular Japanese author Murakami's dud chiller, is ready to get on with his life. Aoyama has a strong relationship with his son, Shinge, but the successful businessman needs more than a teenage son to keep him company. So he turns to his friend, Yoshikawa, and the two hatch a plan to hold auditions for a fake movie where the actresses will really be interviewing to date Aoyama. Enter Yamasaki Asami, a former ballet dancer who wants to star in the fake film. Aoyama's smitten, even after it becomes clear that Asami's at least a little crazy. Unfortunately, none of this adds up to a suspenseful story, and the big finale is more uncomfortable than frightening. Murakami's work has what could be a fascinating set of characters, but the uneven pacing and ineffective dialogue provide the only hint of horror the book has to offer. (June)

The Pregnant Widow Martin Amis. Knopf, $27.95 (400p) ISBN 978-1-4000-4452-8

Amis revisits themes from his early novels—sex, class resentment, lust, humiliation, obsession—with the grim perceptiveness of experience in this fascinating return to form. It's 1970, and 20-year-old Keith Nearing is spending the summer in Italy with a small group of friends, primary among them on-again/off-again girlfriend Lily and her gorgeous, unfortunately named friend, Scheherazade. The easiness between Keith and Lily begins to crumble as Lily picks up on Keith's perhaps requited attraction to Scheherazade. As Lily torments Keith—at first playfully, and later cruelly—and Keith inches closer to pulling off an all-consuming sexual coup, Amis milks a surprising amount of tension from a fairly wispy plot: will Keith get Scheherazade into the sack? The second half, with its unexpected turns and brutal developments (it is never a good thing to be named “Keith” in an Amis novel), could enjoy an easier conjunction with the first half, but the prose is as brilliant as ever, and the cast is amazingly well done. After the disappointment of Yellow Dog and the relative slimness of The House of Meetings, this smart, meaty novel is a revelation. (May)

61 Hours: A Reacher Novel Lee Child. Delacorte, $28 (400p) ISBN 978-0-385-34058-8

After a brief stop in New York City (Gone Tomorrow), Jack Reacher is back in his element—Smalltown, U.S.A.—in bestseller Child's fine 14th thriller to feature the roving ex-military cop. When a tour bus on which he bummed a ride skids off the road and crashes, Reacher finds himself in Bolton, S.Dak., a tiny burg with big problems. A highly sophisticated methamphetamine lab run by a vicious Mexican drug cartel has begun operating outside town at an abandoned military facility. After figuring out the snow-bound, marooned Reacher's smart, great with weapons, and capable of tapping military intelligence, the helpless local cops enlist his assistance, and, as always, he displays plenty of derring-do, mental acuity, and good old-fashioned decency. While the action is slower than usual, series fans will appreciate some new insights that Child provides into his hero's psyche and background as well as a cliffhanger ending. Author tour. (May)

This Body of Death: An Inspector Lynley Novel Elizabeth George. Harper, $27.99 (704p) ISBN 978-0-06-116088-2

Bestseller George's richly rewarding 16th novel to feature Det. Insp. Thomas Lynley (after Careless in Red) offers an intricate plot that will satisfy even jaded fans of psychological suspense. Aggressively career-minded Isabelle Ardery, the new acting superintendent of London's Metropolitan Police, boldly manages to lure Lynley, who's been grieving over his wife's murder, back from Cornwall to look into a murder case. The body of Jemima Hastings, a young woman recently relocated from Hampshire, has turned up in a London cemetery. With suspects in both locales and numerous leads to follow and interviews to conduct, Ardery succeeds in raising the hackles of Det. Sgt. Barbara Havers, Det. Insp. John Stewart, and other members of the investigating team. George tantalizes with glimpses of a horrific earlier murder case; showcases Lynley at his shrewdest, most diplomatic best; and confounds readers with a complex array of evidence, motives, and possible solutions. 6-city author tour. (May)

Hannah's List Debbie Macomber. Mira, $24.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2780-6

Macomber (Summer on Blossom Street) delves into a Seattle widower's pursuit of love in her hopeful latest. Hannah Everett dies at 36 of ovarian cancer, leaving behind a letter for her pediatrician husband, Michael Everett, to be opened on the first-year anniversary of her death. In it, she suggests he consider one of three women as his next wife: her cousin, chef Winter Adams; Leanne Lancaster, Hannah's divorced oncology nurse; and Macy Roth, a ditzy, animal-loving artist. As Macomber reveals each woman and how they react to Michael's sometimes halfhearted pursuit, the strongest personality is Macy, so it shouldn't be surprising where things head. Macomber's tale of getting on with life is charming enough, though Hannah's cancer battle is glossed over, and the conceit of Michael considering marriage so soon is a little unrealistic. (May)

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici C.W. Gortner. Ballantine, $25 (400p) ISBN 978-0-345-50186-8

Catherine de Medici uses her natural and supernatural gifts to protect the French throne in Gortner's (The Last Queen) portrait of a queen willing to sacrifice happiness and reputation to fulfill her family's royal destiny. Orphan Catherine has her first vision at age 10, and three years later is betrothed to Henri d'Orleans, brother of the sickly heir to the French throne. She heads to France with a vial of poison hidden among her possessions, and after negotiating an uneasy truce with her husband's mistress, she matures into a powerful court presence, though power, she learns, comes at a price. Three of her sons become king in succession as the widow Catherine wields ever-increasing influence to keep the ambitious de Guise clan at bay and religious adversaries from murdering each other. Gortner's is not the first fictional reinterpretation of a historical villainess—Catherine's role in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, for instance, is recounted in a way sympathetic to her—but hers is remarkably thoughtful in its insight into an unapologetically ruthless queen. (May)

The Skorpian Directive David Stone. Putnam, $25.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-399-15632-8

Bestseller Stone's entertaining fourth thriller featuring Micah Dalton (after The Venetian Judgment) takes the CIA “cleaner” (an operative who cleans up the mess after an agency mission has gone awry) to Vienna, where Micah finds himself being followed by a team of agents of unknown origin. In short order, Micah captures one of his pursuers, Veronika Miklas; beds her; fights off an attack by two killers; and goes on the lam, with Veronika voluntarily joining him. Soon everyone wants Micah dead, including his own CIA handlers. An old buddy, Ray Fyke, who's “exactly what Micah Dalton needs” despite Ray's reputation as a crazed killer and a drunk, joins Micah and Veronika on a body-strewn rampage through Europe in an effort to learn why Micah has become a marked man. While the nearly nonstop action and the consistently interesting lead character will keep readers turning the pages, a limp ending disappoints. (May)

Anthropology of an American Girl Hilary Thayer Hamann. Random/Spiegel & Grau, $25 (640p) ISBN 978-0-385-52714-9

If publishers could figure out a way to turn crack into a book, it'd read a lot like this. Originally a self-published cult hit in 2003 (since reedited), Hamann's debut traces the sensual, passionate, and lonely interior of a young woman artist growing up in windswept East Hampton at the end of the 1970s. The book begins as a two-pronged tragedy befalls 17-year-old narrator Eveline: her best friend's mother (more maternal than her own) dies, and Eveline is raped by two high school students. Her brutalized interior, exquisitely rendered by Hamann, leads Eveline to a series of self-realizations that bears obvious comparison to that iconic nonconformist Holden Caulfield. The difference, though, is Eveline's femininity threatens to subsume her fragility. Over the course of the book, she falls deeply in love with a stormy figure who helps bring her to disturbing conclusions. Eveline—bent on self-destruction but capable of deep passion, stifled by circumstance but constantly blossoming—is a marvelously complex and tragic figure of disconnection, startlingly real and exposed at all times. (May)

Shoot to Thrill P.J. Tracy. Putnam, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-15520-8

In the enjoyable fifth Monkeewrench thriller (after Snow Blind) from Tracy, the mother-daughter writing team of Patricia J. and Traci Lambrecht, special agent John Smith of the FBI's cyber crimes unit seeks the help of cybersleuths Grace MacBride, Annie Belinsky, and their geeky associates—as well as Minneapolis, Minn., homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth—in solving a horrifying string of murders filmed for the Web. The Monkeewrench team must create a program that can separate staged death scenes from the real thing. The first death they scrutinize appears to be the drowning murder of a Minneapolis drag queen. “A stabbing, two shootings, and a strangulation” are among subsequent killings that occur in other cities across the country. They catch a break when the eighth victim, a Medford, Ore., waitress, survives a stabbing. Newcomers will have no trouble getting into the story, and everyone will appreciate the likable characters. Author tour.(May)

Bodily Harm Robert Dugoni. Touchstone, $25 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9296-9

Dugoni offers an awkward union of classic revenge tale and courtroom drama in his third legal thriller to feature Seattle attorney David Sloane (after Wrongful Death). When eccentric toy designer Kyle Horgan claims that he was responsible for a young child's death in a wrongful death case, not respected pediatrician Peter Douvalidis, against whom Sloane is about to win a massive judgment, Sloane has cause for serious concern. Already conflicted about elements of the case, Sloane becomes alarmed at the revelation of a second child's death eerily similar to the one blamed on Dr. Douvalidis and more so when Horgan vanishes. Sloane's link with Horgan and his reputation as “the lawyer who doesn't lose” make him and his family a target for an ex-CIA assassin, Anthony Stenopolis. Effective courtroom scenes compensate only in part for Sloane's covert search for Stenopolis, which is a fitfully competent assembly of familiar thriller clichés. 7-city author tour. (May)

Husband and Wife Leah Stewart. Harper, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-177450-8

Some confessions are better left unuttered, as Sarah Price learns in Stewart's (The Myth of You and Me) solid latest. When novelist Nathan Bennett confesses to his wife, Sarah, right before a friend's wedding that he slept with another woman (his novel is titled Infidelity), Sarah's concerns shift from whether the dress she plans to wear to the wedding makes her look fat to what she will do about her future and that of their two young children, Mattie and Binx. What follows is an unflinching look at what happens when one's identity is shattered, and “what-ifs” and past choices come back to haunt the present. Chief among these what-ifs: Rajiv, an old friend nursing a long-unrequited crush on Sarah, and Sarah's longing to be seen once again as a poet. Stewart's graceful prose and easy storytelling pull the reader into caring about what happens to the struggling heroine while exploring the many gray areas of life and marriage. The conclusion, while true to Sarah, is surprising but not unrealistic. (May)

Antwerp Roberto Bolaño, trans. from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer. New Directions, $15.95 (78p) ISBN 978-0-8112-1717-0

The dead and wildly fashionable Bolaño (2666) seems doomed to have all of his scribblings published. Hence this slapdash collation of 56 cinematic gestures set in 1980 Barcelona and featuring a nervous South American narrator named Roberto Bolaño, who is fascinated by facade versus reality, observes himself as if from the outside, and records random scenes (i.e., a hunchback eating sardines from a can in the woods). Alternately, elements of a detective plot are set up but hardly developed and involve a police sergeant searching for someone (perhaps the hunchback) and a nameless young woman (red-haired, a drug addict, a witness) sodomized by a cop—or is it the narrator? Bolaño derides conventional story lines (“rules about plot only apply to novels that are copies of other novels”) in favor of recording senseless, disjointed snippets of speech, errant impressions, and sensations. Collectively, these might be viewed as the paranoid, manic musings of a writer desperately searching for material. (May)

Strip Thomas Perry. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Penzler, $26 (352p) ISBN 978-0-15-101522-1

Half a dozen characters vie for primacy in this rambunctiously entertaining L.A. crime novel from Edgar-winner Perry (Runner). Aging strip-club owner Manco Kapak orders his boys to find the masked man who stole his cash receipts and take care of him. The boys settle on the wrong guy, L.A. newcomer Joe Carver, who decides to fight back. Jefferson Davis Falkins, the real thief, decides to continue to rob Kapak. LAPD Lt. Nick Slosser is mainly interested in keeping the peace—and keeping his two marriages a secret as well as figuring out how to pay for five kids at or nearing college age. Other meaty roles include Carrie Carr, who hooks up with Falkins and becomes a Bonnie Parker—like adrenaline junkie urging him to ever riskier deeds, and Spence, Kapak's trusted bodyguard and the only one smart enough to deal with Carver. Perry's exquisite timing and finesse provide near perfect endings to the multiple story lines and make this escapist reading at its best. (May)

The Stormchasers Jenna Blum. Dutton, $25.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-525-95155-1

Blum (Those Who Save Us) visits Tornado Alley in this vivid novel about a set of twins with a dark history. At home in Minnesota, Karena Jorge gets an unexpected call informing her that her twin brother, Charles Hallingdahl, whom she hasn't seen in the 20 years since something went very wrong during a storm chase, has been admitted to a Kansas mental hospital. Charles suffers from rapid cycling bipolar disorder, and all Karena knows is that he refuses medication, he can be a danger to himself and others, and he is still obsessed with storm chasing. When she rushes to the clinic and finds he has already left, Karena joins a professional storm-chasing tour company, hoping to find her brother in the caravan of watchers who follow major storms. In the course of the tour, Karena confronts the past and the way it has shaped her life. The unpredictable and dangerous storms provide a framework for an exploration of the bond between siblings (and its limitations), and Blum renders the stormy backdrop as richly as she does her nuanced characters. (May)

Delta Blues Edited by Carolyn Haines. Tyrus (Consortium dist), $27.95 (392p) ISBN 978-1-93556-207-8; $17.95 paper ISBN 978-1-93556-206-1

The blues are at home anywhere, but the epicenter is Clarksdale, Miss., the setting for at least a third of the 19 original stories in this virtuoso crime anthology. Despite the common theme, this diverse volume ranges from Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly's “What His Hands Had Been Waiting For,” a memorably redemptive story set during the 1927 flood of the Mississippi, to John Grisham's long, haunting “Fetching Raymond,” in which members of a dysfunctional family trek to notorious Parchman Farm, the state penitentiary. James Lee Burke's “Big Midnight Special” is a powerful story about a Parchman Farm inmate driven too far. Several tales play off the legendary crossroads meeting of the devil and Robert Johnson, including Michael Lister's “Death at the Crossroads,” Charlaine Harris's “Crossroads Bargain,” and Daniel Martine's “Kidd Diamond.” Other contributors include Les Standiford, Ace Atkins, Nathan Singer, Dean James, and Haines. (May)

Give + Take Stona Fitch. St. Martin's/Dunne, $22.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-312-59987-4

In Fitch's wickedly enjoyable latest, Ross Clifton is a traveling jazz pianist who moonlights as a thief, stealing diamonds from the wealthy women he seduces after his gigs. Clifton's well-ordered life begins to unravel when he is asked to spend some time looking after his counterfeiter brother's troublesome 16-year-old son, Cray, whose attitude quickly gets under the laconic piano man's skin. Cray soon catches his felonious uncle in the act and ups the ante—with potentially disastrous consequences—when Clifton goes to visit his dying estranged father. Complicating this situation is Clifton's attraction to Marianne London, a beautiful singer with her own shady sideline. The two performers partner up (both on- and offstage) and talk about going straight until Marianne's past comes back to threaten them. Fitch (Senseless) hits notes suspenseful, romantic, and hilarious, and successfully bundles elements of noir, road novels, and family dramas into one consistently entertaining package. (May)

Miss You Most of All Elizabeth Bass. Kensington, $20 (432p) ISBN 978-0-7582-3510-7

Bass's sparkling debut will inspire laughs and tears as the sisters of Sassy Spinster Farm experience one of the most memorable summers of their lives. Cancer survivor Rue Anderson; her sister, Laura Rafferty; and military veteran Webb Saunders run a successful Sweetgum, Tex., farm where boarders can learn “hands-on about planting, harvesting, canning, and storing.” Despite some problems—Rue's just out of chemo and sharing custody of her 11-year-old daughter with her now engaged to be married ex-husband—things have a way of running themselves until the unexpected arrival of Heidi Dawn Bogue, Rue and Laura's bratty little stepsister, who's all grown up, on the run from a Brooklyn “psycho embezzler mobster,” and seeking sanctuary even though she knows Laura despises her. With bountiful grace and a real feeling for her characters, Bass creates a three-hanky delight by finding the earthy, homespun humor the women learn to embrace even in the most difficult situations. (May)

House of Secrets Richard Hawke. Random, $25 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6608-7

Extramarital sex leads New York Sen. Andy Foster into major trouble near the start of this mildly suspenseful if overly familiar stand-alone thriller from the pseudonymous Hawke (aka Tim Cockey). Andy's tryst with political consultant Joy Resnick at her lonely beachfront cottage is interrupted by a madman, who crashes into the bedroom, kills Joy, and gives Andy a serious whack on the head. A low-level Russian mobster, Dimitri Bulakov, catches the entire scene on camera. Hawke then turns to stock characters and situations: politicians with evil agendas, a behind-the-scenes puppet master, and a child kidnapping cranked up to supply an infusion of action into the latter pages. Hawke (Cold Day in Hell) handles these themes well enough, but the ambiguous nature of his main character deflates much of the tension. Is Andy a good person who makes mistakes, or a bad person who gets away with too much? Readers will have to decide for themselves. (May)

Self-Portrait Abroad Jean-Philippe Toussaint, trans. from the French by John Lambert. Dalkey Archive, $12.95 paper (96p) ISBN 978-1-56478-586-2

Toussaint's (The Bathroom) slender, charming travelogue pursues the wistful impressions of a writer as he observes the random passing of time and events in foreign capitals. The narrator is a middle-aged French author, tall and “very Prince of Savoie,” as he wryly describes himself, touching down briefly in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Berlin, Prague, and Tunisia for meetings with friends and to attend literary functions. His wife, Madeleine, and two children appear fleetingly, but, mostly, we follow the narrator as he, among other things, holds on for dear life on a motorcycle driven by a tour guide through traffic-choked Hanoi; accompanies “a passionate Francophile and skillful go-between” to a Japanese strip bar; and befriends two stranded women archeologists in Tunisia, who hitch a ride with him to Sfaz, where he gives a reading of his “really rather wonderful books.” Toussaint is a love-him or hate-him kind of writer, and this book perfectly illustrates why: there's no plot, and the narrator can be seen as either funny, sharply observant, and perhaps ingeniously ironic, or a clueless, narcissistic windbag. (May)

The Whole World Emily Winslow. Delacorte, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-385-34288-9

A research project turns deadly in Winslow's uneven debut. Expatriate American students Polly and Liv, in conjunction with British student Nick, are assisting blind Cambridge University professor Gretchen Paul to recapture her family history, organizing photographs of her childhood with her novelist mother. But secrets in Polly's and Gretchen's pasts, as well as a rivalry between Polly and Liv over Nick, quickly snowball into Nick's disappearance and two deaths. As told by Polly, Nick, a detective named Morris, Gretchen, and Liv, the ambitious tale presents difficulties in sorting out reliable voices and events from a clutter of peripheral characters and impressionistic storytelling. In addition, the American author's lack of dexterity with British English lends an unconvincing air to the British narratives, and leads the reader to wish the novel had been related solely by the haunted Polly, the most poignant and winning protagonist. (May)

Till You Hear from Me Pearl Cleage. Ballantine/One World, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-345-50637-5

There's no mistaking the audience Cleage (Seen It All and Done the Rest) intends to reach with her grating new novel. After her work on the Obama campaign, 35-year-old Ida Dunbar expects a placement in the new administration, but it appears her hopes are dashed as a result of statements made by her outspoken father, civil rights legend Rev. Horace Dunbar. After his latest ill-considered remark, longtime family friend Miss Iona calls Ida and asks that she return home to Georgia to check on her father. Meanwhile, Wes Harper, the son of the Rev's closest confidante, returns, but for a different purpose: a Republican operative, he's been tasked with securing the Rev's voter database in order to purge the voting rolls. The author paints those associated with Ida and her father with a broad, loving, brush, while Wes and the Republicans are predictably and cartoonishly villainous. With the exception of remembrances of pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, the book is a tedious polemic, even for those inclined to agree with the narrative's political bent. (May)

The Shroud Codex Jerome T. Corsi. S&S/Threshold, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-1-4391-9041-0

Bestseller Corsi (The Obama Nation) makes his fiction debut with this tedious work of religious speculation. After his mother's death, brilliant physicist Paul Bartholomew decides to devote his life to finding God and becomes a Catholic priest. A decade later, Paul dies in a car crash on a New York highway, but he has a vision of God, who offers him a choice: he can either stay in heaven and enjoy eternal happiness, or return to earth and convey to humanity the message Jesus embedded in the Shroud of Turin. Choosing the latter option, Paul soon becomes an international sensation after displaying stigmata while preaching in his Manhattan church. The Vatican hires psychiatrist and professional unbeliever Stephen Castle to help assess whether the manifestations of Christ's wounds are genuine. Stephen's inquiry, which ends up focusing on whether the legendary shroud is a fake, occupies much of the book. That Bartholomew may in fact represent the Second Coming gets short shrift. (Apr.)

Mystery

Death Watch Jim Kelly. Minotaur, $25.99 (464p) ISBN 978-0-312-64490-1

British author Kelly's winning second police procedural pairing West Norfolk Det. Insp. Peter Shaw with Det. Sgt. George Valentine, Shaw's late father's former partner (after 2009's Death Wore White), neatly balances several intricate story lines. Exactly 18 years to the day after 15-year-old Norma Jean Judd vanished in 1992, her twin brother Bryan's corpse turns up in a hospital incinerator. The case is assigned to Shaw, who's unaware that his father, Det. Chief Insp. Jack Shaw, handled Norma Jean's disappearance. After breaking the devastating news to the surviving Judds, Shaw manages to save a man from a nearby burning building and ends up with another puzzle: who's “the Organ Grinder” the near-victim was so frightened of that he initially resisted rescue? On top of those mysteries, Kelly tosses in new developments in the case that ended the elder Shaw's career and led to Valentine's demotion. This clever series will appeal to fans of Peter Lovesey and Reginald Hill. (June)

A Question of Belief Donna Leon. Atlantic Monthly, $24 (288p) ISBN 978-0-8021-1942-1

Set during an oppressive Venetian August, Leon's masterful 19th Commisario Guido Brunetti mystery (after 2009's About Face) presents Brunetti with two puzzles that impinge on his most intimate beliefs. Close associate Ispettore Vianello, who's worried about his elderly aunt's involvement with an astrologer, nudges Brunetti toward ruminations on the differences in male and female evidences of affection. Meanwhile, Toni Brusca, head of employment records at the Commune, who's perplexed by a female judge's erratic court case postponements, surprises Brunetti by implying that a woman could be more criminal than a man. Brunetti patiently untangles a sordid skein of desires warped, trusts abused, and loves distorted into depravity. As one good man who still believes in the rule of law despite his disgust at Italy's mounting corruption, Brunetti allows readers to share his belief that decency and honesty can, for a little while, stave off the angst of the modern world. (May)

The Big Bang Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Penzler, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-15-101448-4

Drawing on an unpublished partial Spillane manuscript dating from the '60s, Collins resurrects Spillane's randy, two-fisted New York City PI, Mike Hammer, in a mystery likely to appeal only to Hammer fans. When Hammer intervenes to save a bike messenger from a mugging, two of the assailants wind up dead and a third in critical condition at Bellevue. After following up with the victim, the detective suspects the motive for the attack is more complicated than the police believe. The trail leads him to a recent player in the city's narcotics trade nicknamed the Snowbird. Along the way, Hammer becomes a target, possibly of a local mob boss, and falls into bed with one of the many attractive women he meets. Whatever his share in this stock crime tale, Shamus-winner Collins displays none of the gifts for character, setting, and narrative that distinguish his Nate Heller series (Chicago Confidential, etc.). (May)

Dead Sleeping Shaman: An Emily Kincaid Mystery Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli. Midnight Ink (www.midnightinkbooks.com), $14.95 paper (360p) ISBN 978-0-7387-1877-4

At the start of Buzzelli's well-crafted third Emily Kincaid cozy (after 2009's Dead Floating Lovers), the intrepid reporter discovers a dead woman under a pine tree near an abandoned logging town 15 days before the world's supposed to end on October 27, at least according to the End Timer cult that's causing a stir in Leetsville, Mich. Strangled by a rope similar to those worn by cult members, Marjory Otis was a shaman who'd come to Leetsville to tend to the crowd if the world didn't end. After Emily's policewoman friend, Deputy Dolly Wakowski, joins the End Timers, Emily once again turns amateur sleuth, encouraged by her newspaper editor, Bill Corcoran, among others, to help catch a killer and solve a cold case involving Marjory's past. Buzzelli's mix of mystery and humor doesn't include supernatural shenanigans like Charlaine Harris's Southern vampire series, but it does provide some sharp prose and spirited characterizations. (May)

Laughed 'Til He Died: A Death on Demand Mystery Carolyn Hart. Morrow, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-145309-0

In Anthony-winner Hart's lively 20th Death on Demand mystery (after 2009's Dare to Die), more than one death in Broward's Rock, S.C., engages Annie Darling and her husband, Max. First, Click Silvester, a black teenager who hung out at the Haven, a teen activity center, apparently falls to his death from a wooden viewing platform in the woods. Later, someone shoots obnoxious Haven board member Booth Wagner on stage during an outdoor evening benefit for the center. Many had motives for killing Booth, including his stepson, Tim Talbot, who feared and hated him; his wife, Neva, who's curiously unmoved by his death; his former mistress, Jean Hughes, who was terrified of being fired as the Haven's director and becomes police chief Billy Cameron's prime suspect. A group of local ladies, led by mystery writer Emma Clyde, assist Annie and Max in the hunt for the real killer. Well-developed characters and a complex, fast-moving plot make for a satisfying read. (Apr.)

Holly Blues Susan Wittig Albert. Berkley Prime Crime, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-425-23260-6

The arrival in Pecan Springs, Tex., of Sally Strahorn, the insecure ex-wife of China Bayles's husband, PI Mike McQuaid, leads to trouble in Albert's sprightly 18th China Bayles mystery (after 2009's Wormwood). Against her better judgment, herbalist and tea-shop owner China takes pity on Sally, who's just lost her home and suffers from split personality disorder, and offers her a place to stay. Soon enough, a stalker targeting Sally makes threatening calls to China, and the police suspect Sally of involvement in a murder. With Mike away on business, China again turns sleuth to determine what connection the stalker might have to the deaths of Sally's parents almost 10 years earlier—and to prevent any harm to herself or her children. More than once China and her best friend, Ruby, dress up as Sesame Street characters to disarm suspicion. Series fans will enjoy catching up with old friends, though newcomers are likely to find the soap-operish family relationships of less interest. (Apr.)

The Curious Incident at Claridge's: An Antonia Darcy and Major Payne Mystery R.T. Raichev. Soho Constable, $25 (224p) ISBN 978-1-56947-633-8

Raichev's mannered sleuthing couple, Maj. Hugh Payne and his wife, mystery writer Antonia Darcy, tackle their fifth case (after 2009's The Little Victim) in rather disappointing fashion. While dining at Claridge's in London, Captain Jesty, a regimental comrade of Payne's who's enamored of a beautiful young woman, Penelope Tradescant, observes Penelope surreptitiously switch capsules in the pill case of her much older, wealthy husband, Sir Seymour Tradescant. Within days Sir Seymour is dead in circumstances that leave many other suspects, including his twin sister, his son, and members of Mayholme Manor, a retreat where Seymour often stayed. Set in the present but written in classic British mystery style, this slight effort often refers to the dos and don'ts of mystery writing, not all of which the author follows. Providing a deus ex machina solution when Darcy says she'd never do so in her own detective novels, for example, will strike some readers as more lame than clever. (Apr.)

Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem Jonathan Woods. New Pulp (Ingram, dist.), $14.95 paper (220p) ISBN 978-0-9815579-7-7

Violence, sex, and gonzo plot twists fuel Woods's diverting collection of 19 stories, most set in sun-and-blood-drenched borderlands. “Incident in the Tropics,” “Down Mexico Way,” “Maracaibo,” and “We Don' Need No Stinkin' Baggezz” amp up the volume to 11, while other offerings feature flying sharks, the adventures of a bodiless head, and a slime thing quickly snaking up nostrils. Woods, who earned his neo-pulp rep in Web zines such as Dogmatika and Plots with Guns, keeps the words popping along, though the endings of his stories are often inconsequential—only more reason to hop instantly into the next yarn. Throughout, a penchant for vivid imagery slaps the reader around like a boxing bag: “A veneer of sweat covers her body like the glaze on a Christmas ham”; “shadows as murky as an abortion clinic in the Bible Belt”; “Her small conical breasts confronted him like twin interstellar ray guns.” New pulp, indeed. (Apr.)

Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side Edited by Charlaine Harris. Berkley Prime Crime, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-425-23563-8

The Mystery Writers of America presents an all-original anthology sure to appeal to Twilight fans with an interest in crime. While vampires are well represented among the 20 selections, most notably Parnell Hall's darkly humorous “Death of a Vampire,” bestseller Harris ensures that werewolves, ghosts, and magicians also get their due. Harley Jane Kozak does a superb job of integrating a ghost into a contemporary setting in “Madeeda,” in which an expectant mother is concerned over her two-year-old twins' visions of a “bad witch.” A phantom ship figures in Lou Kemp's “In Memory of the Sibylline,” a highly effective horror story set in the 19th century. Even Mike Hammer gets into X-Files mode in Max Allan Collins's and Mickey Spillane's “Grave Matter,” which successfully introduces a supernatural element into the case of a series of mysterious deaths in the ironically named town of Hopeful, N.Y. Other contributors include William Kent Krueger, Margaret Maron, and Carolyn Hart. (Apr.)

SF/Fantasy/Horror

Moonshine Alaya Johnson. St. Martin's/Dunne, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-56547-3

Fans of Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris will be engaged by this tale, the first in a series set in a parallel 1920s New York City. Zephyr Hollis, a demon-hunter's daughter, has an unusual immunity to the undead that keeps her safe while she teaches vampire night school and marches with the Family Action Committee for Nonhuman Laborers. Hardheaded and softhearted, she soon earns the nickname of “the vampire suffragette.” When an attractive djinn, Amir, asks Zephyr to help him take down Rinaldo, a vampire mob boss, she finds herself in an unlikely romance as she rushes to get information out of the notorious Turn Boys gang before her father kills them. The prose is generally solid, and Johnson's light, tongue-in-cheek approach makes it surprisingly easy to imagine supernatural creatures picketing Gentleman Jimmy Walker's City Hall. (May)

Five Odd Honors Jane Lindskold. Tor, $27.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1702-5

In 2008's Thirteen Orphans and 2009's Nine Gates, Brenda Morris discovered she had magical abilities through her connection to the Chinese power of the Rat. At her father's insistence, she tries to return to college and her normal life, but the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice won't let go of her so easily. The Exiles have the chance to return to the Lands and bring five of their dead back to our world, but once they open a gate, they find the Lands have been corrupted by a powerful entity that now threatens other realms. While stepping up the offstage violence, Lindskold maintains a focus on Chinese folklore and interpersonal connection, and her characters work through their problems in dialogue as often as action. Urban fantasy fans looking for something a little more mellow will enjoy this foray. (May)

Play Dead Ryan Brown. Pocket, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4391-7130-1

Two cultural obsessions collide head-on in this fast-paced, thrilling, and terribly funny debut by former actor Brown. In the sleepy town of Killington, Tex., the local high school's football team is having its best season in decades thanks to the efforts of quarterback Cole Logan. Afraid of losing the district championship, the rival Elmwood team sends the Killington bus into a river, drowning everyone on the team except Cole and the coach. Only local witch and football fan Black Mona can raise the players from the dead in time for the game, but if they keep stopping to eat people, they might miss it. Brown handily mixes elements of horror, coming-of-age sweetness, and gore-soaked comedy into a tale that satisfies the same fascination with sports and bloodlust that it cleverly and thoughtfully critiques. (May)

Blood Oath Christopher Farnsworth. Putnam, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-399-15635-9

This action-filled debut by scriptwriter Farnsworth reads like a cross between P.N. Elrod's historical vampire adventures and Thomas Greanias's conspiracy thrillers. Nathaniel Cade, “the president's vampire,” swore to fight on the side of President Andrew Jackson and all his successors. In the present day, Zach Barrows, a rising political star caught canoodling with the president's daughter, suddenly finds himself training to be Cade's handler after tough, wise special agent William Griffin retires. As they try to stop Cade's old nemesis, Dr. Johann Konrad, from creating an army of Frankensteinian monster soldiers, they uncover a deeper government conspiracy. Entertainingly plausible historical documents at the beginning of each chapter and a sense that this fight is just a skirmish in a larger war help elevate the book above its sometimes bland characters and their predictable motivations. (May)

Necroscope: The Plague-Bearer Brian Lumley. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $35 (184p) ISBN 978-1-59606-272-6

Lumley reveals perhaps more than he intended to in the note following this turgid supernatural novella, originally intended to be a chapter in his 1995 two-part novel, The Lost Years. Having promised his publisher a vampire tale, Lumley remembered a story line he had previously thought superfluous and decided to write it after all. The convoluted plot, in which the Francezci brothers recruit American mobster and vampire Mike Milazzo as a weapon against Harry Keogh, a “necroscope” who can communicate with the dead, will leave many readers wishing the author had left it on the cutting-room floor. The writing is often clumsy (“Harry knew that their moon-child nature caused little more than a trace of the telepathic phenomenon known by E-Branch's mentalists as mindsmog”), and the story will make sense only to Lumley's longtime fans. (May)

Mass Market

A Lady Never Tells Candace Camp. Pocket Star, $7.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4391-1797-2

Regency romance veteran Camp (The Wedding Challenge) launches the Willowmere series with this steamy romp. Four American orphans—practical eldest sister Marigold (who prefers the much more sensible name Mary), shy Rose, knife-totin' Camellia, and silly Lily—land in 1824 London, hoping for support from their ultra-wealthy grandfather, the earl of Stewkesbury, who cast out their mother for marrying for love. Conveniently rescued from a mugger by proud and elegant Sir Royce Winslow, Mary is soon smitten by his bulging muscles and lustful kisses. Meanwhile, the sisters reluctantly enter the upper-class English milieu, encountering handsome bachelors, horrid villains, and Royce's conniving old flame, Lady Sabrina. Extended foreplay and explosive climaxes will entertain modern readers, but they may not find the lust a satisfactory substitute for old-fashioned elegance, which the story almost entirely lacks. (May)

Ravished by a Highlander Paula Quinn. Forever, $6.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-446-55238-7

The first installment in Quinn's Children of the Mist series deftly combines historical fact and powerful romance. In 1685 Scotland, Lady Davina Montgomery is hiding at St. Christopher's Abbey, hoping no one will discover her true identity. When soldiers attack, highlander Rob MacGregor, heir to a clan chief, risks his life to save Davina from the burning building. She remains both stoic and secretive, but the shared dangers of their journey across Scotland and their burgeoning attraction slowly encourage her to open up. There's much more than just sizzling sensuality: history buffs will love the attention to period detail and cameos by real-life figures, and the protagonists embody compassion, responsibility, and unrelenting, almost self-sacrificial honor. Quinn's seamless prose and passionate storytelling will leave readers hungry for future installments. (May)

Heirs of Cain Tom Wallace. Medallion, $7.95 (388p) ISBN 978-1-60542-102-5

In this gritty but generic thriller, long-buried rivalries resurface as two assassins are pitted against each other with predictable results. After engaging in bloody guerrilla warfare in 1971 Vietnam, seven soldiers struggle to return to normal life in the U.S. Forty years later, one dies violently, leaving the words “fallen angels” as the only clue to his killer. Michael Collins, once a notorious assassin known as Cain, left the military behind and became a respectable college professor, but he can't refuse the chance to avenge his comrade by going after Seneca, another member of that select Vietnam group who's now involved in a terrorist plot. Wallace (The Devil's Racket) raises interesting questions about moral relativism and how trained killers can adapt to civilian life, but the formulaic story overwhelms any hope of real excitement or philosophical inquiry. (May)

Hunted by the Others Jess Haines. Zebra, $6.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4201-1187-3

Haines's mediocre debut rounds up the usual urban fantasy suspects and locks them into a plodding PI story. Shiarra Waynest runs a detective agency in an alternate New York where werewolves, vampires, and magi “came out” in the aftermath of 9/11. She and her wealthy, clever partner—in—crime solving, Sara, usually steer clear of “Others,” but financial troubles have forced them to take on a case for a mage who wants an artifact currently held by sexy, ancient vampire businessman Alec Royce. With two other good-looking men—cute, geeky mage Arnold and Shiarra's werewolf ex-boyfriend, Chaz—along for the ride, things keep looking like they should heat up, but Shiarra's nonexistent detecting skills and general preference for flailing panic over careful thought keep the plot from ever catching fire or even giving off sparks. (May)

Comics

Wednesday Comics Edited by Mark Chiarello. DC, $49.99 (200p) ISBN 978-1-4012-2747-0

The spirit of wide-eyed adventure that has been largely missing from today's comics world comes back with a vengeance in this compilation of DC's 2009 retro-themed series. Originally printed on newspaper broadsheets, appropriate to its prewar pulp roots, each of the series' dozen issues featured one-page installments from 15 different original tales with heroes culled from the DC back catalogue. Though selections range from the preadolescent goofy (Dan Didio's Metal Men, Jimmy Palmiotti's Supergirl) to the surreal (Neil Gaiman's tongue-in-cheek Metamorpho, Paul Pope's Adam Strange), the operative word is action. With few exceptions, the Wednesday Comics feature enough two-fisted, exclamation-heavy action to satisfy any easily bored kid or adult—Dave Gibbons's take on Jack Kirby's Kamandi (“The Last Boy on Earth!”) is particularly rousing, heroic stuff, a postapocalyptic Prince Valiant. Some of the comics do less well; Joe and Adam Kubert's Sgt. Rock is particularly rote, as is Brian Azzarello's thin Batman story, which is at least energetically drawn by Eduardo Risso. But on the whole, this is a thrilling piece of work, re-energizing past classics without losing the spark that made them special in the first place. (May)

Wilson Daniel Clowes. Drawn & Quarterly, $21.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-77046-007-2

Clowes (Ghost World) takes his particular brand of misanthropic misery to new levels of brilliance in this book, a series of one-page gags that show the divorced and lonely main character repeatedly attempting to engage with life, and then falling back into his hell of pessimism. Clowes uses a variety of drawing styles to depict Wilson and his world; sometimes he's highly realistic, other times he's an Andy Capp—style cartoon, but he's always the same downbeat guy. In one sketch titled “FL 1282,” Wilson asks the kid seated next to him on a plane about his line of work. When the kid answers that he does “I.T. stuff,” Wilson comes back at him with a mockingly satirical description of his own supposed work, using only initials. The last panel shows Wilson looking at a Spirit magazine and asking, “Christ, do you realize how ridiculous you sound?” Clearly, the comment is directed as much at himself as to the I.T. kid. This attitude of solipsistic despair is expressed incisively and cleverly, taking Wilson through a search for his ex-wife, Pippi, who has become a prostitute since leaving him, and their daughter, put up for adoption years earlier. Clowes offers another beautifully drawn slice of piercing social commentary. (Apr.)

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Vol. 1 Don Rosa. Boom! $24.99 (127p) ISBN 978-1-60886-538-3

This carefully crafted odyssey following the early years of Disney's wealthiest duck rewards the sharp-eyed reader. Each chapter tells a different tale of the years before Scrooge amassed his great fortune, beginning with his youth as the last of a once great Scottish clan, now left destitute in Glasgow and clinging to the ruins of their ancestral castle. Scrooge soon leaves to seek his fortune elsewhere: on the Mississippi River, across the cattle fields of the Wild West, and in the mines of Montana and South Africa. Rosa's thorough research is astounding. While devotedly following the works of previous Scrooge writer Carl Barks, each tale is drawn from hints of Scrooge's past left by Barks. Rosa also takes great care in paying attention to the actual historical events of each era, often discovering a minor event or fact that becomes a key part of Scrooge's story. Rosa's dense art makes startlingly efficient use of every page, telling complex stories that both work on their own and build into a larger story. Each adventure is followed by Rosa's notes detailing the inspirations and homages. Rosa's effort is as ambitious as Scrooge's and the results of his hard work just as impressive. (Feb.)

Rex Mundi, Book Six: Gate of God Arvid Nelson and Juan Ferreyra. Dark Horse, $17 paper (248p) ISBN 978-1-59582-403-5

Gate of God brings the six-volume Rex Mundi saga to an ambiguous close. The series, which follows Dr. Julien Saunière's quest to find the Holy Grail, is set in 1930s Europe, but a still-feudal Europe where the Protestant Reformation was crushed by the Catholic Church. The final installment invokes the magical plot elements, Christian legends, and dramatic plot twists that have attracted fans since the series debuted in 2003. In addition to Saunière, Genevieve Tournon, the duke of Lorraine, and Lady Isabelle play a critical role in the action. Saunière, along with the readers, finds the answers to mysteries that have been building over the years, although the ending leaves some questions unaddressed. A summary at the beginning of the book will help get newcomers up to speed, but the story will have the most resonance with those who are caught up already. Ferreyra's artwork manages to look ethereal and realistic in the same moment, an appropriate complement to the tale. The volume concludes with a gallery of Rex Mundi—inspired images by Dark Horse artists, including Joseph Michael Linsner, Mike Mignola, and John Cassaday. (Feb.)

Dead Run Andrew Crosby, Michael Alan Nelson, and Francesco Biagini. Boom! $16.99 paper (112p) ISBN 978-1-60886-003-6

A fairly ingenious riff on Mad Max and The Transporter, this SF miniseries is set in a postapocalyptic America where rival walled cities are surrounded by a barren, frequently radioactive wilderness populated by hostile mutants. Anyone who wants something taken from one city to another must rely on couriers who drive armored, souped-up cars through the wasteland. When a drug lord pressures hard-boiled courier Nick Masters into making the suicide run from L.A. to San Francisco, he's forced to take along a smart-ass girl because she knows the way, and her presence both complicates the journey and allows Nick to reveal his heart of gold. Crosby's story and Nelson's script handle this familiar material smoothly, but it's Biagini's art that really makes the story captivating by presenting inventively deformed mutants, their elaborate s&m gear, and jazzy fight scenes. There are few surprises, but it's a quick, enjoyable tale. (Feb.)