Fiction Book Reviews: 10/19/2009
Reviews of New Fiction, Poetry, Mystery, Science Fiction and Comics

Oct 19, 2009

The Dream of Perpetual MotionDexter Palmer. St. Martin's, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-55815-4

Palmer's dazzling debut explodes with energy and invention on almost every page. In a steampunky alternate reality, genius inventor Prospero Taligent promises the 100 kids he's invited to his daughter Miranda's birthday party that they will have their “heart's desires fulfilled.” When young Harold Winslow says he wants to be a storyteller, he sets in motion an astonishing plot that will eventually find him imprisoned aboard a giant zeppelin, the Chrysalis, powered by Taligent's greatest invention, a (probably faulty) perpetual motion machine. As Harold tells his story from his airborne prison, a fantastic and fantastical account unfolds: cities full of Taligent's mechanical men, a virtual island where Harold and Miranda play as children, the Kafkaesque goings-on in the boiler rooms and galleries of Taligent's tower. Harold's narration is interspersed with dreams, diary entries, memos and monologues from the colorful supporting cast, and the dialogue, both overly formal and B-movie goofy (“I'm afraid the death rays are just a bunch of science fiction folderol”), offers comic counterpoint. This book will immediately connect with fans of Neal Stephenson and Alfred Bester, and will surely win over readers who'd ordinarily pass on anything remotely sci-fi. (Mar.)

From AwayDavid Carkeet. Overlook, $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-59020-304-0

If Alfred Hitchcock could remake Fargo, it might feel something like Carkeet's comic-absurd latest (after his memoir, Campus Sexpot). Denny Braintree, a writer for model train enthusiast mag The Fearless Modeler, is sidetracked when he wrecks his car while traveling home from an assignment in Vermont. Taken to a Montpelier hotel to spend the night before flying home to Chicago, he meets a drunken woman named Marge who promptly strips and slips into his Jacuzzi. After a quick condom run, Denny returns to find Marge missing. The next morning, two policemen show up at the airport looking for Denny, but they mistake him for a local named Homer Dumpling, who vanished from town three years ago. Denny, now the prime suspect in Marge's disappearance, returns to town as Homer and has a dodgy time fitting into his new role, but when Marge's body turns up and Homer becomes a suspect, Denny's new identity is no safer than his own. It's nutty and pushes the bounds of credulity, but the make or break is Denny: narcissistic, crude and in over his head, he's either charming or terminally annoying. (Mar.)

The Things That Keep Us HereCarla Buckley. Delacorte, $25 (392p) ISBN 978-0-440-24509-4

A timely premise can't quite compensate for structural deficiencies in Buckley's lackluster debut novel. Ann Brooks and her family have anticipated the possibility of pandemic avian flu for months; Ann's estranged husband, Peter, after all, has been researching the mysterious illness at his university research job. When the flu—with a near-50% fatality rate—closes in on the Columbus, Ohio, home where Ann and her two daughters live, Peter and his exotically beautiful Ph.D. student, Shazia, move in to pool resources, but desperation grows as heat, food and water dwindle, and the threat of death looms (sometimes literally) on their doorstep. Although pseudoscientific reports and news bulletins add to the novel's “ripped from the headlines” feel, emotional revelations are handled less skillfully. A tragedy in Ann and Peter's past, after numerous veiled allusions, is finally revealed in an unsatisfying throwaway in the epilogue. The third-person narration squanders the tensions among Ann, Peter and Shazia, resulting in flat and unsurprising epiphanies. Although Buckley raises important questions about trust, loyalty and forgiveness, the narrative flaws detract from the overall effect. (Feb.)

The Girl Who Fell from the SkyHeidi W. Durrow. Algonquin, $22.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-56512-680-0

Durrow's debut draws from her own upbringing as the brown-skinned, blue-eyed daughter of a Danish woman and a black G.I. to create Rachel Morse, a young girl with an identical heritage growing up in the early 1980s. After a devastating family tragedy in Chicago with Rachel the only survivor, she goes to live with the paternal grandmother she's never met, in a decidedly black neighborhood in Portland, Ore. Suddenly, at 11, Rachel is in a world that demands her to be either white or black. As she struggles with her grief and the haunting, yet-to-be-revealed truth of the tragedy, her appearance and intelligence place her under constant scrutiny. Laronne, Rachel's deceased mother's employer, and Brick, a young boy who witnessed the tragedy and because of his personal misfortunes is drawn into Rachel's world, help piece together the puzzle of Rachel's family. Taut prose, a controversial conclusion and the thoughtful reflection on racism and racial identity resonate without treading into political or even overtly specific agenda waters, as the story succeeds as both a modern coming-of-age and relevant social commentary. (Feb.)

Even the DogsJon McGregor. Bloomsbury, $14 paper (208p) ISBN 978-1-59691-348-6

This mercifully short third novel from McGregor (If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things) is told from the various perspectives of a loosely connected band of down-and-outers linked by Robert, a hopeless alcoholic whose wife has taken their daughter and left him alone in his flat, which has since become a gathering place for the members of McGregor's cast. Robert's death sets in motion the novel's events—it would be misleading to call it a plot—starting with the police taking away his body. For the most part, we're with Danny, whose past gradually comes to light via an expletive-laced narration that verges on incoherence: his foster home upbringing; his relationship with Robert's daughter, Laura, whom Danny is trying to contact; and of course, his heroin addiction, which provides much of the novel's subject matter. In the process, we learn about the group that frequented Robert's flat, a motley crew who provide plenty of sordid stories. But the central mystery—how did Robert die?—goes nowhere, and the spliced-in set pieces that describe the stages Robert's body undergoes on its way to eventual cremation don't do any favors for this misfire. (Feb.)

The Ex-ChroniclesCarol Taylor. Plume, $15 paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-452-29587-2

It's a familiar premise—four 30-ish New York City friends bond Sex and the City—style to navigating the perils of single life. Thankfully, Taylor (editor of the Brown Sugar series) makes it fresh again in her delicious debut novel by punching up the ante with some intriguing Terry McMillanesque twists. All the women have the expected romantic issues. Aspiring novelist Precious Morgan, a struggling “Literotica” journalist, loses her job and keeps returning to an unfaithful Darius. Zenobia “Z” Bowles is a chic model who's in love with unfaithful Malcolm, a Dutch/African artist. Bella, an overindulged diplomat's daughter, is an alcoholic/addict who wonders why she can't deep-six Julius, her unfaithful musician boyfriend. Only stressed-out Hope Harris, the creative director of Shades magazine, has a different love problem—while coping with a mother suffering from Alzheimer's, she's falling for Derrick, a handsome artist from Harlem struggling to pay the bills for his three daughters. These dark beauties share realistic concerns many singletons can identify; they survive tough times by recognizing a challenging truth: “It's not what happens, it's how we handle what happens.” (Feb.)

Map of the Invisible WorldTash Aw. Spiegel & Grau, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-385-52796-5

This exquisite and haunting second novel from Aw (The Harmony Silk Factory) follows a vibrant cast searching for a sense of home during the political upheaval of 1960s Indonesia. After 16-year-old Adam de Willigen's adoptive father, Karl, is arrested by Indonesian soldiers, stranding Adam in their remote island village, he sets off for Jakarta to find him. Meanwhile, American ex-pat professor Margaret Bates is reminded of her teenage love for Karl after an embassy contact informs her he's been arrested. Soon, Adam arrives on Margaret's doorstep, and though practical, good-natured Margaret has never felt any maternal longings, the two bond instantly. Their search for Karl continues amid the riots and protests filling the city streets, but is interrupted when Adam is kidnapped by a Communist student with a sinister agenda. With the help of a friend, Margaret uses every ounce of diplomacy she has to find Karl and Adam and construct the family she's discovered she's wanted all along. Well-paced and gorgeously written, this epic story of loss and identity mirrors the struggles of the young Indonesia in which it takes place. (Jan.)

Where the God of Love Hangs OutAmy Bloom. Random, $25 (224p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6357-4

Bloom's latest collection (after novel Away) looks at love in many forms through a keenly perceptive lens. Two sets of stories that read much like novellas form the book's soul; the first of which revolves around two couples—William and Isabel, Clare and Charles—and begins with Clare and William falling into an affair that endures divorces, remarriage and illness. Bloom has an unsettling insight into her character's minds: Clare's self-disgust is often reflected in her thoughts about William, demonstrating the complexity of their attraction as their comfort with each other grows, until she finally accepts the beauty of what they have—albeit too late. The second set of stories, featuring Lionel and Julia, is more complicated; the death of Lionel's father propels Lionel and Julia together in a night of grief, remarkable (and icky) mostly because Julia is Lionel's stepmother and his father's widow. As years go by, it is unclear whether Lionel's difficulties are due to that indiscretion, but watching Bloom work Lionel, Julia and her son through the rocky aftermath is a delight. The four stand-alone stories, while nice, have a hard time measuring up against the more immersive interlinked material, which, really, is quite sublime. (Jan.)

Snow AngelsJames Thompson. Putnam, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-399-15617-5

American-born Thompson, who's lived in Finland for the past decade, offers a bleak look at the ravages of that country's long, dark winter as well as intriguing glimpses of Finnish culture in his solid U.S. debut, the first in a new crime series. Shortly before Christmas, Kari Vaara, the police chief of the Lapland town of Kittilä, gets a phone call informing him that the body of Sufia Elmi, a Somali refugee and minor film star, has been found in a snowfield on a reindeer farm. The victim has also been mutilated, perhaps raped, and a racial slur carved into her flesh. When Kari's ex-wife's lover becomes the prime suspect, Kari spurns the chance to recuse himself and presses on. The winter hazards of alcoholism, suicide and murder all play a part as Kari uncovers more suspects. Sufia's imperious father, Abdi Barre, who was a doctor in his native country and now runs a cleaning service, puts added pressure on Kari. Tangled smalltown relationships and lust also fuel this noirish thriller. (Jan.)

BloodrootAmy Greene. Knopf, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-307-26986-7

Despite a few vivid moments, this uneven debut, a four-generation Appalachian family epic, loses sight of the intriguing mythology it lays out early on. Though Byrdie Lamb inherited the mystical powers of the “granny women” of her grandmother's mountain village, she's failed to protect her family: daughter Clio runs away from Bloodroot Mountain at 17 to get married and is later killed, along with her husband, in a car accident, leaving their daughter, Myra, in Byrdie's care. And though Byrdie tries to raise Myra right, Myra falls under the spell of an abusive alcoholic. Her children, twins Laura and Johnny, grow up largely in fear, and eventually social workers remove them from their home. As adults, they return for different reasons: she for comfort, he for revenge. Narrated by several members of the Lamb-Odom clan, the narrative initially swirls around the mystery of Byrdie's powers, but as the story plays out, her gift (or, perhaps, curse) is unfortunately backgrounded by the violence of those who marry into the family and sow ruin. Greene has a sharp eye for combustible moments and a fine ear for dialect, but the follow-through doesn't do justice to the setup. (Jan.)

Small WarsSadie Jones. Harper, $24.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-192988-5

In her excellent second novel (after The Outcast), Jones sets a couple down in turbulent 1956 Cyprus as the Cypriots seek union with Greece and resist British rule. British army major Hal Treherne is dispatched to Cyprus, taking along his wife, Clara, and their young twin girls. There, they fight separate, but equally maddening, battles—Clara as an army wife with babies in an increasingly dangerous land, and Hal on the front lines where, yearning for firefights, he is instead haunted by his lack of control when torture and rape occur at the hands of his own men. While Hal dodges mortal danger, Clara tries to keep the homefront together, struggling to remain supportive of him as she remains isolated with the twins and he is tormented by the violence he witnesses. After Clara narrowly avoids death, Hal makes a split-second decision with powerful implications for their future. The narrative is excruciatingly tense and also graced with real emotion as a marriage is pushed to the brink and loyalties are stretched and broken. It's the perfect mix of poignant and harrowing. (Jan.)

Jane Bites BackMichael Thomas Ford. Ballantine, $14 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-345-51365-6

Ford's (Last Summer) fang-tastic satire of the Jane Austen craze catches up with “Elizabeth Jane Fairfax,” the undead 233-year-old author and owner of an upstate New York book store. She's disgusted by the Pride and Prejudice knockoffs that fly out of her store (poor Jane hasn't seen a royalty check in almost 200 years), and her last manuscript's been rejected by 116 publishers. Things start to look up when she finally gets a deal for the book, but two problems arise as she's promoting Constance: Lord Byron, who turned Jane, wants her back; and Violet Grey, a vitriolic Brontë blogger, accuses Jane of stealing Charlotte Brontë's last unsold manuscript. Ford's Jane is a very fun and funny heroine to root for as she endures the indignities of publishing and bookselling, fends off danger and (perhaps) finds love. Her hilarious smack downs with Violet hint of more madness to come in this first of a series. (Jan.)

In Envy Country: StoriesJoan Frank. Univ. of Notre Dame, $20 paper (184p) ISBN 978-0-268-02888-6

The uneasy balance of power between male and female binds this sharp collection of stories from Frank (Boys Keep Being Born). For working women, playing by the rules means landing a low-end administrative job in the “bullpen,” as in the case of the keenly observant narrator of “A Note on the Type” who watches a young upstart shedding her “emptyvesselhood” and winning over the boss. “Betting on Men” positions an embittered administrative assistant between her two warring male bosses, both of whom treat games of finance and risk like sex. “A Thing That Happens” plays out the tension at a dinner party between an attractive, blithely sexual young woman and her older mentor, whose struggle for legitimacy in the eyes of men has worn her down physically and spiritually. The title story bristles with sexual politics, as young guests at another dinner party find satisfaction in the row that erupts between their successful hosts. Frank works every aspect of these feminist stories with relentless energy, and readers will be sure to pay attention. (Jan.)

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the WorldAbigail Reynolds. Sourcebooks, $14.99 paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-4022-2947-3

Originally self-published as a “Pride and Prejudice Variation,” Reynolds (From Lambton to Longborn) introduces a few twists to the Austen classic, a project that purists will surely abhor, but which should prove a pleasing diversion for more casual fans. In this spin on events, Reynolds excises Elizabeth Bennet's famous rejection of Fitzwilliam Darcy's initial proposal (“the last man on earth” she'd marry), instead putting them together from the get-go (despite Elizabeth's lingering doubts). This romantic trifle is marred by occasionally hysterical sentiment (Darcy: “But ardent love will not be denied. I can no longer imagine a future without you by my side”) and the incongruous notion that Austen's willful proto-feminist would feel constrained by a kiss, however public. If romantics can overlook the subversion, they should enjoy witnessing Elizabeth as an industrious and caring wife, administering to Pemberley's tenants, learning how to be an equestrian and growing to love that perplexing Darcy; characteristic trepidations, setbacks and miscommunications stick close to the spirit of Austen. (Jan.)

Wolf in Tiger's StripesVictoria Gordon. Five Star, $25.95 (252p) ISBN 978-1-59414-844-6

The elusive, possibly extinct Tasmanian tiger brings together an American environmental journalist and an Australian grazier in Victoria Gordon's predictable but enjoyable down-under romance (after The Horse Tamer's Challenge, written as G.K. Aalborg). Judith Bryan gets a plum assignment that requires working with Derek Innes, a backstabbing eco-journo rival who's bested her before, and Bevan Keene, a rugged Aussie stockman who's supposedly seen one of the rare Tassie tigers. Bevan leads the publisher-backed expedition to find the creature with Judith, Derek, a photographer, some conservationists and Bevan's rural friends Roberta Jardine and Ted Norton. Bevan is an appropriately macho romantic hero, a more aggressive Crocodile Dundee sans crocodile (“...don't you think I've got better things to do than bugger about in the scrub with a bunch of conservationist wankers...?”) and Judith is a too wide-eyed reporter (“What's a wanker?”). The group's problems in getting along (greenies vs. anti-greenies; steak vs. lentils and tofu) as they head into the Tarkine Wilderness, coupled with the prime duo's jittery chemistry, makes this a keeper, although the resolution might register as a giddy copout. (Jan.)

Mr. SlaughterRobert McCammon. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $24.95 (440p) ISBN 978-1-59606-276-4

Murder and ghoulish mayhem are the order of the day in bestseller McCammon's colorful third thriller featuring “problem-solver” Matthew Corbett and his escapades in early 18th-century America. After confronting a criminal mastermind in The Queen of Bedlam (2007), Matthew finds himself a celebrity whose exploits have become sensational fodder for colonial tabloids. This heady attention contributes to a bad lapse of judgment when he and his senior associate, Hudson Greathouse, accidentally allow a brutal murderer, Tyranthus Slaughter, to give them the slip while they transport him to prison in Philadelphia. The rousing narrative details Matthew's dogged pursuit of the indestructible Tyranthus as the killer cuts a bloody swath through the Pennsylvania wilderness. McCammon shows a sure hand balancing scenes of Matthew's quiet contemplation with the cold-blooded carnage that makes his quarry's name so appropriate. (Jan.)

Selected Prose of Heinrich von KleistHeinrich von Kleist, trans. from the German by Peter Wortsman. Archipelago (Consortium, dist.), $15 paper (283p) ISBN 978-0-9819557-2-8

Compiled and translated by Peter Wortsman, this collection of short stories, novellas and literary fragments by German writer Heinrich von Kleist (1777—1811) is impressive not only for its content but for its relevance centuries later. In “The Earthquake in Chile,” Jeronimo Rugera is jailed for impregnating his student, Donna Josephe, and is contemplating suicide on the day of her arranged beheading when an earthquake thunders through the city and frees him. Rugera, wandering through the rubble-torn streets, is astonished to find that both his love and their baby have miraculously been spared, but the bloodthirsty nature of the surviving townspeople has not abated. Based on a true event, “The Marquise of O” centers on an Italian widow courted by Count F., who asks for her hand in marriage. Meanwhile, she notices her body transforming and when the surprise pregnancy is confirmed, her family banishes her in disgrace, and she seizes upon the plan of advertising in the newspaper for the father to step forward and prove her innocence. A dark, charming collection of twisted fairy tales for grownups. (Jan.)

Plain JayneHillary Manton Lodge. Harvest House, $13.99 paper (300p) ISBN 978-0-7369-2698-0

Debut fiction author Lodge, a freelance photographer with a background in journalism, enters the popular arena of “plain people” fiction with a surprisingly funny, refreshing and strong story line. Lodge creates the lovable and always acerbic protagonist Jayne Tate, reporter for Portland's Oregonian. Forced by her employer to take time off to regain her edge, Jayne goes hunting for a feature in Oregon's Amish country. What this independent and thoroughly modern journalist finds is an alternative lifestyle that keeps her slightly off-balance even while, in good reporter form, Jayne tries to remain coolly objective. Enter Levi Burkholder, formerly Amish, presently a carpenter, and Jayne's heart goes off kilter as well. Jayne joins the household of Levi's estranged parents for some real Amish experiences, learning to respect the hardworking family. Smart, fast-paced and chock-full of endearing characters, Lodge's entry into inspirational fiction is a keeper, plain and simple. (Jan.)

Deeper than the DeadTami Hoag. Dutton, $26.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-525-95130-8

Bestseller Hoag (Kill the Messenger) ventures into serial killer territory with results sure to please her many fans, though unresolved plot threads, both intentional and inadvertent, may put off veteran readers of the genre. One fall day in 1985 in Oak Knoll, Calif., fifth-grader Tommy Crane and his sidekick, Wendy Morgan, are fleeing the class bully, Dennis Farman, through a local park when Tommy stumbles over the head of a dead woman buried up to her neck. Two hours from Los Angeles, Oak Knoll is not the sort of town where major crime is a problem, but a serial killer is on the loose who's already murdered and tortured several women and has another on deck in his secret lair. Fifth-grade teacher Anne Navarre, who counsels Tommy and Wendy, is soon at the center of the investigation being led by a hunky FBI agent, Vince Leone. This is serial killer lite with Hoag's romance roots dictating both the prose style and the unveiling of the killer. 8-city author tour. (Dec.)

The DisappearedM.R. Hall. Simon & Schuster, $24.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5698-8

Still raw from an acrimonious divorce, former lawyer Jenny Cooper pops pills to control anxiety as she slowly adjusts to her new career as the coroner for the Severn Vale District, near Bristol, England, in Hall's solid U.S. debut. When a distraught mother asks Cooper to hold an inquest to declare her son legally dead, Cooper is hesitant to take the case. Nazim Jamal and a friend disappeared seven years earlier while at university and, according to the police, probably fled to Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda at the urging of a radical mosque. Nazim's mother is adamant her son was not an extremist. As Cooper's investigation broadens, she's met with resistance not only from the police but also MI5, who claim Nazim's disappearance may have national security implications. Hall (The Coroner) creates an appealingly flawed heroine, but struggles with pacing and the difficult task of precisely defining the coroner's role in solving crimes. (Dec.)

TaintedBrooke Morgan. Avon, $14.99 paper (448p) ISBN 978-0-06-185337-1

The real-life murder case of British toddler Jamie Bulger helped inspire Morgan's excellent debut, an impeccably paced suspense novel set on Cape Cod. When 17-year-old Holly Barrett becomes pregnant after a one-night stand with 18-year-old Billy Madison, Billy, who comes from a privileged background, splits after learning the news. Five years later, Billy returns to Shoreham, Mass., eager to be a father, but Holly's not interested. Having endured the loss of her parents and not trusting Billy, she's content living on Birch Point with Katy, her five-year-old daughter; her granddad, Henry; and Henry's dog, Bones. After meeting a handsome Englishman, Jack Dane, Holly dives headfirst into a quickie marriage, despite signs Jack isn't who he says he is. Henry, who's initially pleased, begins noticing Jack acting inappropriately with Katy. Morgan, a U.S. ex-pat living in the U.K., successfully exploits the classic woman-in-jeopardy (plus child) theme. (Dec.)

Landscape with Dog and Other StoriesErsi Sotiropoulos, trans. from the Greek by Karen Emmerich. Interlink/Clockroot, $15 paper (168p) ISBN 978-1-56656-773-2

Greek author Sotiropoulos (Zigzag Through the Bitter-Orange Trees) depicts the hollow, deceptive civility hidden within intimate relationships in this capably translated story collection featuring lovers, married couples, brothers and parents. In “An Almost Guinea Fowl,” a husband and wife pull away from the brink of marital collapse after a dinner party game of Truth or Dare. A young man drifts toward waste and inertia over an adolescent romance gone sour in “Kissing the Air.” “Aren't You Going to Walk the Dog?” features a mother and her teenaged daughter facing off in a rancorous, controlling game of chicken. Other stories showcase the author's dark, effective devices, such as throwing together antipathetic characters in unfamiliar locales: in “The Pinball King,” two sparring brothers and an Italian tourist couple wind up lost on the way to Delphi, eventually taking refuge with a goat-herding couple. Each story demonstrates compelling depth and breadth, and involves heavy emotional stakes; perhaps the most nerve-wracking are the author-fan confrontation in “So You Like Literature” and the estranged father-daughter relationship in “Rain at the Construction Site.” (Dec.)

The Last SupperPawel Huelle, trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Serpent's Tail, $14.95 paper (250p) ISBN 978-1-85242-980-5

American readers may struggle with this near-future novel from Polish author Huelle (Castorp), a meandering meditation on contemporary Poland and Europe, in which 12 people prepare to pose for a photograph to be used as the model for a new painting recreating the Last Supper. This select group includes a priest, a doctor, a violent lunatic and the narrator, a writer whose dream of a terror attack, apparently inspired by the bombings of Gdansk liquor stores, opens the book. Digressions, such as those about David Roberts, a draughtsman who visited the Holy Land in the early 19th century, as well as long, run-on sentences tend to confuse rather than illuminate. Those familiar with the social, political and religious issues Huelle addresses will best appreciate this challenging book. (Dec.)

Rien Ne Va PlusMargarita Karapanou, trans. from the Greek by Karen Emmerich. Interlink/Clockroot, $15 paper (184p) ISBN 978-1-56656-772-5

In her first English translation, Greek novelist Karapanou (1946—2008) details a complicated marriage between a successful veterinarian and an incipient writer, with several intriguing outcomes. On their wedding night, naïve bride Louise witnesses her icily handsome, urbane husband, Alkiviadis, proposition a boy in a bar. Humiliated but attracted by her husband's homosexuality, Louise is nonetheless repelled by his need to control her; what follows is a crushing divorce and, then, a suicide. But that's just the first draft; Karapanou resets her story with recombined leads and an even darker slant; in this version of events, Alkis is an adoring husband who wants a baby, and Louise is a spoiled, manipulative, self-destructive character repulsed by Alkis's offer of stability and unconditional love. Ghastly details of pregnancy and abortion alternate with charming episodes of travel and discovery, such as Louise's visit to America in mismatched company. Beginning simply, this remarkable tale escalates in conflict and complexity, and proves even more engaging the second time through. (Dec.)

PowersJohn B. Olson. B&H, $14.99 paper (400p) ISBN 978-0-8054-4735-4

Olson, a biochemist turned novelist of the paranormal, introduces a new character—a young gypsy girl from the swamps of Louisiana—to a return cast from his previous thriller, Shade. A mysterious inheritance letter leads Jazz, a musician who can see the future, on a treasure hunt, chased by dark forces and an FBI agent who believes he's a terrorist. Olson's writing has the power to levitate the reader to another dimension and suspend disbelief as cons, tricks of the mind, prayers, ancient codes and spiritual forces coalesce into a fascinating yet sluggish story with good dialogue that's difficult to follow because of sparse attribution. Readers who enjoy books about vampires, gypsies and prophecy will gravitate toward Olson's rich descriptions of imaginative creatures drawn from biblical stories—the Badness, the Standing. With this man vs. mysterious powers story, the author continues making his mark in futuristic and paranormal fiction in the CBA market. (Dec.)

Poetry

What The Right Hand KnowsTom Healy. Four Way (UPNE, dist.), $15.95 (80p) ISBN 978-1-884800-95-5

Laconic yet passionate and sparely personal, the poems in this first book set urbanity and unfolding tragedy in common words and slow-moving, short lines. A gallery owner since the 1990s and a significant figure in New York City's art scene, Healy unsurprisingly sets some poems there; his real gifts emerge, though, in allegorical or remembered rural locales. In one poem “mother and son” take “a Sunday drive on Tuesday” through the land where they grew up, “their remembered selves waving,/ as farmers do.” The specter of chronic disease, likely HIV, looms over that and other verse (“Everyone is so involved/ keeping track of my pills”), while the shadow of time passing besets them all; readers who admire Mark Doty may find far more concise versions of Doty's effects. Healy's finest moments make him spare, elegiac and wry all at the same time: “What do we do when we hate our bodies?/ A good coat helps.” So often interested in bodies, their pleasures, their troubles, Healy frequently decides that neither poetry nor anything else can console us when bodies don't work: “sleep, vegetables, short walks” or even poems all seem to lead “to the logic of failure,// the panic that mind/ is not enough.” (Nov.)

PageantJoanna Fuhrman. Alice James (Consortium, dist.), $15.95 (80p) ISBN 978-1-882295-77-7

Fuhrman's fourth book of poems is as miscellaneous and daunting as a rummage sale. Her personal brand of what her publisher calls “pop-surrealism” has moments of hilarity, illumination, solemnity and insight, but is at times unwieldy and impenetrable. While the least coherent poems fail to hold much interest—it seems as if she rushes through her most fantastic images, leaving almost no time for them to unfold before moving on—Fuhrman (Moraine) is not above acknowledging her own obliqueness (“a puffy-head muffin might as well/ own every so-called 'emotion'/ what is a puffy head muffin anyway?”), as if asking the reader to bear with her, which can be well worth the effort. Fuhrman's delightfully weird and most penetrating moments are a joy: “to be a writer... is to sing untranslatable lullabies to Brussels sprouts.” She can be simultaneously solemn and playful, such as in the discovery “that opera is only one of many strategies to combat happiness.” Taking the reader from “metaphysical gossip” all the way to the “Evil Boss Convention,” this collection is at once philosophical and frivolous. (Nov.)

Fire ExitRobert Kelly. Black Widow (NBN, dist.), $19.95 (228p) ISBN 978-0-9818088-9-5

Ambitious and vivid, if disorganized, the latest work from the prolific Kelly (Red Actions) comprises 132 lyrical units—all one or two pages long in unrhymed three-line stanzas—that fall together into an all-encompassing book-length work. Kelly comes back again and again to the joys of the body and to the needs of the spirit, siding with what he imagines as ancient pagan ways over the logic of modern civilization. Quotable phrases evoke the numinous with brio: “pilgrimage is easy/ it's staying put that's hard”; “we're at the stage where only kindness helps.” Praise for sex, sexuality and lust accompanies attacks on Enlightenment reason: in his crushing epitome of Western adulthood, “we go down into the salt meadow to make priests/ out of girls and slingshot astronomers/ knock the stars out one by one.” In segment nine, “a girl you've just that minute met/ explains tenderly that she and only she/ is your final descendant/ come from the farthest future... and you don't even have a now to give her.” Such moments recall Robert Duncan and W.S. Merwin. Yet the book, and the poems in it, can also frustrate, or repeat themselves; seen as a whole, it feels a bit like a diary. (Oct.)

The Testament of Cresseid and Seven FablesRobert Henryson, trans. from the medieval English by Seamus Heaney. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (208p) ISBN 978-0-374-27348-4

Nobel laureate Heaney's new versions of very old narrative poems are unlikely to make the same worldwide splash as his Beowulf, but they remain moving and memorable. Misfortune and fortune, repentance and retribution, pity and prudence, and a late-medieval Christian outlook, in which this life prepares us for the next, all pervade the stories told and retold by Henryson (d. 1505), the best poet of the much-maligned generation that followed Geoffrey Chaucer. Henryson's “The Testament of Cresseid,” set in the Trojan War, describes the last days of the title character's life. Having abandoned the lovelorn warrior Troilus for his heroic rival Diomede, Cresseid finds that Diomede has cast her aside in turn: she curses the god of love, who retaliates by giving her leprosy. She ends her days as a dignified, repentant beggar, almost unrecognized by the man she once loved: “Still, they assumed from grief so mildly borne/ And yet so cruel, she was of noble kind.” Henryson also translated (or made up) animal stories attributed to Aesop. Heaney's facing-page translations, composed (like Henryson's) in seven- to nine-line rhymed stanzas, give a fluent, often delightful modern cast to all of these pathos-filled tales. (Oct.)

Plan BPaul Muldoon, photos. by Norman McBeath. Enitharmon (Dufour, dist.), $32.95 (64p) ISBN 978-1-904634-82-9

The world-famous Irish poet's latest volume is a collaboration with the talented Scottish photographer McBeath, whose black-and-white images (an upright piano rotting in a meadow, an empty sofa, a stone doorway) suit the bitter, brilliant ironies in Muldoon's new poems. In the title sequence, “the KGB garotte/ might well be a refinement of the Scythian torc”; a later poem set at an office “Christmas party” begins, “They're poisoning the atmosphere/ now you and I've split.” The violent, almost acrid mood in these nonetheless witty and nimble poems looks back both to Muldoon's Horse Latitudes (2006) and to his similarly disillusioned poems of the early 1980s, especially Quoof (1984), arranged (as here) into short rhyming stanzas or else into sonnets, and focused (as here) on marital and extramarital disarray. Phrases from headline news apply, uncomfortably enough, to domestic trouble: “Extraordinary Rendition,” a pair of sonnets, concludes with a vacation gone badly wrong, “two tin plates and mugs in the shack” and “echoes of love-sighs/ and love-screams/ our canyon walls had already given back.” Muldoon often publishes short collections, almost chapbooks, in preparation for longer ones: this “Muldoodle,” as they are nicknamed, will shock and delight and whet transatlantic appetites. (Nov.)

SedimentSandy Tseng. Four Way (UPNE, dist.), $15.95 paper (80p) ISBN 978-1-884800-93-1

This vivid and clean-lined debut weaves strands of personal and family narrative into short poems with wider symbolic force; the best of them contemplate both autobiography and ecocatastrophe. Tseng's free verse creates strong moods: “Apple season, the dog eats his fill and falls asleep beside the space heater./ I thought the world was going to end years ago.” Questions of East Asian immigration and assimilation dominate some early poems before giving way to more abstract spiritual dilemmas: “if our books burn up,/ we will suffer loss and still be saved,/ as those escaping through the flames.” Tseng is equally at home depicting modern cityscapes and presenting far-flung rural locales. In both, she seeks sublimity while restricting herself to familiar words; in both she is able to see impending doom, as when the title poem presents the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in two haunting pages (“The last thing we see is a wall of white crashing... Oil rig evacuations. Cars and cars against the sea wall”). In Tseng's strongest work, everything takes on a surprising, religious dimension as the book drives to a close: “The voice of the Lord is upon the water,” she warns: “he intends to strip the forests bare.” (Nov.)

NamesMarilyn Hacker. Norton, $23.95 (112p) ISBN 978-0-393-07218-1

Hacker's virtuosic rhymes, syllabics and other traditional devices give discipline and elegance to her learned, yet direct, clear, personal, work: her daily life in Paris and New York, her affection for other writers, her lesbian identity and her left-wing politics find generous expression in this 12th book. Those who found her earlier work of the 1990s too casual could find real power here: reacting to violence in Iraq and in the Middle East, to America's sometimes baleful foreign policies, and contemplating the mortality of her friends, Hacker achieves a sometimes grim compression. “I tease out metaphors to link desire/ and stasis, coffee, shadows, lavender;/ in my name, sons and sisters die Elsewhere.” So she writes in an abbreviated crown of sonnets; a ghazal (one of 11, all composed according to strict older rules) rebukes the poet for “easy, dishonest verses./ Nothing protects your poetry from the love that kills.” Hacker has herself become an eminent translator (of Venus Khoury-Ghata and Claire Malroux, among many others); her attention to Francophone and Arabic writers, alongside and against her American Jewish heritage, helps give this collection its sometimes surprising force. (Nov.)

The Mansion of HappinessRobyn Ekiss. Univ. of Georgia/VQR, $16.95 (64p) ISBN 978-0-820334-08-0

Dolls, collectibles, children's games and other sorts of miniatures—both playful and creepy, elegant and disheveled—dominate this haunting debut, which takes its title from a 19th-century board game, and its artful goals, in part, from the best of Sylvia Plath. “Unable to look at anything/ without a stone's sense of gravity,/ I can still hold your body in one hand”: so Ekiss writes in “Conversation with Doll,” a title that could fit more than a few of her poems. “World without Birds” begins amid “cagelings like goldfinch/ embalmed in wax”; “The Opposite of the Body” concludes, “The pleasure in being a woman's// knowing everything's borrowed/ and can't be denied,// as when you take apart a clock,/ there's always another inside.” As in Plath, a drive toward impersonality, toward elegant sculptural symbols, pulls against another drive to present the messy fears and desires of family life, of mother and daughter and father, of women and men. The results can seem claustrophobic, or even monotonous; if a few poems repeat one another, Ekiss has cut to the bone within each one. She sometimes tries too hard for a recognizable style; some readers may wonder where she can go from here. Others, though, will find the poems hard to forget. (Nov.)

Eunoia: The New EditionChristian Bök. Coach House (SPD, dist.), $14.95 (136p) ISBN 978-1-55245-225-7

Canadian experimental poet Bök's Eunoia, first published in 2001, is already legendary. In it, Bök devotes a chapter to each vowel, using only that vowel as well as a handful of other rules and restrictions, to create series of poems that push the English language to limits and possibilities no one knew it had. This new edition reprints the entire original book and adds a section of new poems that comment on the original project or take up other alphabetical themes (“And Sometimes,” for instance, uses only English words with the letter Y and no other vowels). What at first seems like a game turns out to be a means of unlocking a kind of hidden nature of the English language: the vowels, it turns out, each have their own moods and environments revealed by their repeated use. “A law as harsh as a fatwa bans/ all paragraphs that lack an A as a standard hallmark,” reads the first poem. The vowels inspire, if in fact they don't contain, stories of their own. The E chapter narrates a war-story about Greeks worthy of Homer: “When the rebels beset defended trenches,/ the defenders retrench themselves, then strengthen/ the embedded defenses.” This book is jaw-droppingly powerful, a mythology of sound. (Oct.)

Free CellAnselm Berrigan. City Lights (Consortium, dist.), $13.95 (120p) ISBN 978-0-87286-502-0

Berrigan's fourth collection, and the second volume in City Lights' new Spotlight Series, is composed of three poems or sequences. The first and longest, “Have a Good One,” is an extended series of seemingly flippant personal and public observations (“Stop telling me/ I look tired.// I know what/ I look like.// Tell me/ how I feel”; “The problem of free will/ is not that it does or does not/ exist, but that it's pointless”) punctuated (or titled) with the phrase “Have a Good One,” which appears at least once per page. Berrigan (Some Notes on My Programming) may have learned some of his disjunctive sprawl and spontaneity from his famous poet parents, Alice Notley and especially Ted Berrigan, but his poems have a kind of slacker cool and political awareness all his own: “You are// what your// record says// you are,” he reminds. Next comes the book's only shortish poem, “Let Us Sample Protection Together,” in which “The room stares back from its things.” The book concludes with “To Hell with Sleep,” another skittery romp through Berrigan's associative haze. While he isn't reinventing poetry, he is carrying his parents' tradition of poetry as a way of life, a community, proudly into the 21st century. (Oct.)

Escape from CombrayRick Snyder. Ugly Duckling (SPD, dist.), $14 (80p) ISBN 978-1-933254-51-7

In his first full-length collection, Snyder presents a flaneur who moves through an after-hours and underground Chicago—a quiet, almost desolate place where, in his state of solitude, the walker can say (somewhat to his own surprise), “I am happy—/ in a strange city,/ at 4:15 in the morning.” The poems are full of striking, discrete images reminiscent of George Oppen (“innumerable pigeons”; “the light/ the idea/ of rain/ the amazing clutter/ organized on both/ sides of the street/ hot dogs t-shirts beepers tires”). In the midst of this array of well-wrought, steely visuals, a self-portrait emerges of a man going over his lost loves, seized by the power of his memories: “I see her dresses dangling/ from countless naked limbs.” Still, the city wanderer is invigorated by his aloneness, for “Now real words come,/ each one perfectly/ weighted, rising/ toward the surface—// their meanings are solid,/ their tones clear.” Snyder is an astoundingly articulate poet, able to thrust the reader straight into these eerie nighttime experiences to hear loud and clear the sound “of crumpling paper/ and foil.” This is an enveloping debut. (Oct.)

Missing HerClaudia Keelan. New Issues (SPD, dist.), $15 (80p) ISBN 978-1-930974-86-9

Like Mary Jo Bang's recent NBCC-winning Elegy, Keelan's new collection examines the nature of grief through poetry, gathering together a sequence of elegies and poems on loss. The opening group of what Keelan (The Devotion Field) calls “Little Elegies” mourns various losses, including a girl who died at 14 (“Imagine, she's finally a sexy teenager”) and famous poets Keelan had known, including Robert Creeley and Kenneth Koch (“I heard the echo of your line resound// Through the hearts of thousands”), as well as the Virgin Mary and the victims of 9/11. Keelan's jerky, fragmentary poems also examine the violence of other contemporary phenomena, such as the video game Grand Theft Auto (“He wins the game!/ Choosing each time to crash/ & not to kill”). Elsewhere, she looks at how language itself points to absence: “I believed the linguist// On the radio who said words are most interesting// When they indicate something not there,// Something not inherently in or of themselves.” The striking long poem “Everybody's Autobiography” recalls Keelan's own and others' pasts. Keelan, one of our best, if too little known, experimental poets, does what she can in this sixth collection to steady “the human boat” which “Came capsizing...// Came lost.” (Oct.)

Mystery

Death Without TenureJoanne Dobson. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-59058-585-6; $14.95 paper ISBN 978-1-59058-709-6

Agatha-finalist Dobson's sixth mystery to feature English professor Karen Pelletier (after 2003's The Maltese Manuscript) earns a passing grade. Karen is up for the sole open tenure spot in her department at Massachusetts's Enfield College, but the department chairman is championing her underqualified Native American colleague, Joe Lone Wolf, which sends Karen into a dither. She also worries about her boyfriend's deployment to Iraq and her daughter's jaunt to Nepal. After someone slips Joe a fatal overdose of what may be peyote, she becomes the prime murder suspect. Plenty of other suspects emerge from the stereotypical cast of faculty and students, as Dobson trots out a plague of academic bugaboos, including drugs, false credentials, plagiarism, faculty in-fighting and hate crimes. When Karen stops dithering and starts playing detective, things heat up quickly. (Jan.)

Sting of JusticeCora Harrison. Minotaur, $25.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-312-37269-9

Harrison's stellar third novel set in the Irish kingdom of Burren (after 2008's A Secret and Unlawful Killing) blends a fair-play murder puzzle with a convincing portrayal of early 16th-century Ireland. Series heroine Mara, the region's brehon (or judge), is responsible for maintaining law and order and for running the local law school. While attending the funeral mass for a beloved local priest, Mara discovers the body of Sorley Skerrett, one of the richest men in the area, who owns a silver mine. Skerrett, who was allergic to bee stings, died as a result of being stung by a swarm of the insects. Despite appearances, Mara believes the death was a homicide and enlists her eager students to aid her in interviewing the many suspects, who include the victim's ex-wife, the son he disinherited and others wronged by his unscrupulous business dealings. Ellis Peters and Peter Tremayne fans who have yet to discover Harrison will be overjoyed. (Dec.)

PredatorsFrederick J. Ramsay. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (264p) ISBN 978-1-59058-684-6

Through parallel stories, Ramsay's clever stand-alone shows the ruthlessness of the business and the animal worlds without resorting to gimmickry. Sekoa, an aging, mortally ill lion, is being forced out by younger rivals and hyenas on the Botswana plains. Meanwhile, Leo Painter, a Chicago energy czar with a bad heart, is up against ambitious employees and greedy relatives. While Sekoa stands up to his rivals, Painter and his entourage come to Botswana to build a resort/casino. Painter's callous nature has alienated him from his stepson, Bobby Griswold, who has “the brains of a guppy,” and Bobby's wife, Brenda, a former stripper. Painter's business plan would leave the Griswolds without any money, but not, the couple learns, if the old man dies first and his will remains intact. Ramsay (Impulse) matches keen characterizations with an obvious affection for Botswana, a complicated country that's more than Alexander McCall Smith's “quaint mysteries,” as one character observes. (Dec.)

Where Armadillos Go to DieJames Hime. Minotaur, $25.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-312-53486-8

In Edgar-finalist Hime's fine third mystery to feature retired Texas Ranger and “perennially struggling cattle rancher” Jeremiah Spur (after 2004's Scared Money), the veteran lawman finds himself in the center of a flurry when the daughter of restaurateur Sylvester Bradshaw asks him to look into her father's disappearance. Brenham, Tex., is a small town where plenty of people have large ambitions, including the missing Bradshaw, whose precious food processing secret is protected even from his own sons, Mark and Luke. Bradshaw's fate and the fate of his invention hold the key to the futures of his sons, a doctor, a couple of lawyers, a retired NFL pro, the current sheriff, an ambitious prosecutor and the Texas Aggies' hopes for a football championship. Hime nicely blends broad humor and sharp characterizations, while Spur's mellow approach to investigation contrasts starkly with the blatant self-interest of most everybody else. (Dec.)

Full of MoneyBill James. Severn, $27.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7278-6813-8

Dodgy doings abound in James's ho-hum police procedural set in 1998 London, the prequel to Tip Top (2006). When Det. Chief Supt. Esther Davidson investigates the shooting death of crime journalist Gervaise Manciple Tasker, she discovers from Tasker's notes that he'd learned too much about drug dealers at the rival Whitsun Festival and Temperate Park Acres council estates, in particular Whitsun gang leader Adrian Pellotte. As Davidson digs deeper, Larry Edgehill, the producer of a TV discussion show, A Week in Review, attracts Pellotte's unwanted attention. In a Romeo and Juliet scenario, a star presenter on A Week in Review, Rupert Bale (of Temperate), has become involved with Pellotte's daughter Dione (of Whitsun). Pellotte wants Edgehill to make sure Dione's treated properly. James's spotty gang warfare tale, hampered by unsympathetic characters and British cultural references that many American readers will find obscure, sputters to an unsatisfying conclusion. (Dec.)

Luck of the DrawAnthony J. Cardieri. Minotaur, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-312-56502-2

Strong stomachs are needed for Cardieri's below average debut, a serial-killer whodunit. A fiend known as the Daily Killer is terrorizing New York City during the Christmas season, committing multiple murders every day and in some cases wiping out entire families. At each crime scene he leaves the taunting message: “better luck next time.” The high-profile case consumes NYPD Det. Deke Durgess, exacerbating tensions with his wife about time spent away from his family. The story line follows a predictable path as the public, the politicians and the police brass all put increasing pressure on Durgess and his FBI partner, Kurt Joseph, to find the pattern that will enable them to anticipate the killer's next targets. Even CSI junkies may find the graphic details of the fatal shootings excessive, while the number of small children gunned down will turn off others. The revelation of the Daily Killer's identity won't surprise veteran genre readers. (Dec.)

No Law in the LandMichael Jenks. Headline (IPG, dist.), $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-7553-4418-5

Set in the autumn of 1325, Jecks's 27th Knights Templar mystery (after July 2009's The King of Thieves) boasts an exciting, twisting plot. England's Edward II rules a kingdom thick with dishonest men, including his own second-in-command and confidant, Sir Hugh le Despenser. Justice is unknown, and the classes are clearly and cruelly divided between the powerful and the powerless. When a well-organized band of what appear to be outlaws slaughters a large group of travelers in Devon, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, keeper of the King's Peace, and his friend, Simon Puttock, investigate. That a large chest of silver bound for the king was stolen is no surprise, but why are two of the murdered party's members, one a monk, nowhere to be found? The period language can be difficult in places, but a glossary and cast of characters will help keep readers on track. (Dec.)

UnsafeJohn Connor. Orion (IPG, dist.), $14.95 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-7258-8524-7

The dysfunctional personal lives of the lead police characters overshadow Connor's fifth novel featuring West Yorkshire Det. Sgt. Karen Sharpe (after 2007's Falling). Sharpe must contend with a trainee, Det. Constable Marcus Roth, who as a child prodigy was socially warped by being accelerated in school and thus placed with much older peers. An unrepentant ladies' man, the 28-year-old Roth, despite being attracted to Sharpe, has few compunctions about getting involved with her teenage daughter. Sharpe, for her part, is sleeping with a Pakistani “Category-A” crook, whom the security services wanted her to get close to as a means of learning about his brother. Sharpe soon crosses the line between playing a part and getting emotionally involved. The soap-operaish background tends to obscure the main plot line, the investigation of a young woman's brutal murder. (Dec.)

SF/Fantasy/Horror

Strange FortuneJosh Lanyon. Blind Eye (Bella, dist.), $14.95 paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-935560-00-5

Mystery author Lanyon (the Adrien English series) makes his first foray into fantasy with a taut, energetic and romantic tale. In Hidush, an analogue for India in its final days as a British colony, a colonial religious group sends bisexual adventurer Maj. Valentine Strange and troubled witch Aleister Grimshaw to retrieve a goddess's lost diadem from a mountain monastery. As the two men are beset by traitors, wild animals, monks with political agendas and a spiritual force that threatens all of Hidush, their mutual attraction unfolds beautifully and dramatically. Beneath Lanyon's breezy pulp-style prose is a real (and mostly successful) effort to critique the genre's heritage of colonialism, racism and sexism, and though his research feels thin in a few place, there's still plenty to satisfy fans of fantasy, adventure and romance. (Dec.)

Eclipse Three Edited by Jonathan Strahan. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.95 paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-59780-162-1

Australian editor Strahan continues his wide-ranging and occasionally controversial anthology series with 15 boundary-pushing stories. Pat Cadigan's “Don't Mention Madagascar” and Nnedi Okorafor's “On the Road” play wittily with reality and identity, and are exquisitely crafted. Maureen McHugh's “Useless Things” and Ellen Kushner's “Dolce Domum” are melancholy but no less fascinating. Jeffrey Ford's “The Coral Heart” nicely tweaks high fantasy tropes, while Peter S. Beagle's “Sleight of Hand” and Nicola Griffith's “It Takes Two” examine the nature and power of love from very different angles. The less successful efforts by Elizabeth Bear, Molly Gloss and Paul Di Filippo are still ambitious enough to be worth reading. Only Daniel Abraham's cliché-driven “The Pretender's Tourney” and Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple's predictable short-short “Mesopotamian Fire” seem really out of place. Despite the weak spots, Strahan continues to secure his place as a top anthologist. (Dec.)

Total Oblivion, More or LessAlan DeNiro. Spectra, $15 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-553-59254-2

As this peculiar but entertaining first novel begins, geography and cosmology have shifted. Natural laws work unpredictably. The U.S. government has disappeared and plundering bands of Goths and Scythians roam the Midwest. Sea serpents close the shipping lanes, and oil companies convert their tankers into slave ships that cruise the Mississippi. Clear-eyed, tough-minded teen Macy Palmer flees St. Paul with her family for the illusory safety of an island in the Gulf of Mexico. As they travel through a wavering postapocalyptic landscape, her relatives undergo upsetting personal metamorphoses. DeNiro has attracted attention for his short fiction (especially the Small Beer Press collection Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead), and this longer story's energy ebbs a bit as Macy gets some of the oddness under control. Nonetheless, it's an impressive debut from a promising writer. (Dec.)

Hespira: A Tale of Henghis HapthornMatthew Hughes. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $24.95 (236p) ISBN 978-1-59780-101-0

Hughes continues to carve out a unique place for himself in the fantasy-mystery realm with his superlative third adventure featuring Holmesian “discriminator” Henghis Hapthorn. Still recovering from the events of 2007's The Spiral Labyrinth, Hapthorn is granted a glimpse into the future and learns that the world as he knows it will soon be overtaken by magical forces. Despite the impending catastrophe, the investigator attempts to carry on with his usual assignments, but after he successfully recovers some stolen relics, he finds himself caught in a war between his vengeful client and the criminal he ransomed them from. A way out is offered by a mysterious woman who seems ignorant of her own past. A droll narrative voice, dry humor and an alternate universe that's accessible without explicit exposition make this a winner. (Dec.)

The Third GodRicardo Pinto. Bantam Press (Trafalgar Square, dist.), $29.95 (704p) ISBN 978-0-593-05051-4

This concluding volume in Pinto's debut trilogy (after 2003's The Standing Dead) continues the life story of Carnelian Suth as he and his lover, Osidian, leave their exile in the barbarian lands of the Earthsky and race toward an apocalyptic confrontation with the God Emperor in Osrakum. Never using one word when three will do, Pinto evokes a vaguely West Asian mystique amid the tale of the decline of an imperial oligarchy. The narrative, however, gets lost in its own heft, leaving the reader struggling to keep track of characters, understand created words and hunt for shreds of plot. Powerful themes of love and loss dominate Carnelian's tale, but deadpan delivery, a myopic focus on one character, repetitious introspection and lengthy exposition turn a potentially gripping story into a snooze. (Dec.)

Blood Will Have Its SeasonJoseph S. Pulver Sr.Hippocampus (www.hippocampuspress.com), $15 paper (280p) ISBN 978-0-9814888-8-2

Splatterpunk meets Robert W. Chambers in Pulver's first collection, at least 12 of whose 41 stories and poems include explicit sex and violence. Such tales as “Chasing Shadows” and “Yvrain's Black Dancers” put a contemporary spin on the enigmatic horrors of Chambers's landmark 1895 collection, The King in Yellow. Pulver (Nightmare's Disciple) honors other authors with such selections as “Lovecraft's Sentence,” in which the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft, upset at fictional portrayals of himself, gets his revenge, and “a certain Mr. Hopfrog, Esq., Nightwalker,” a tribute to W.H. Pugmire (Tales of Sesqua Valley). While some may find scholar S.T. Joshi's claim in his introduction that Pulver “can take his place with that of the masters of our genre” (including Poe and Lovecraft) a trifle hyperbolic, all will agree that Pulver is a writer to watch. (Dec.)

Mass Market

The Corpse Wore PastiesJonny Porkpie. Hard Case Crime, $7.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8439-6123-2

The self-styled burlesque mayor of New York City makes himself the hero of his entertaining hard-boiled debut. Suspected of murder after a striptease artist dies dramatically onstage, performer and emcee Porkpie—named for his trademark hat—sets out one kick-step ahead of the cops to find the real killer. It doesn't help that victim Victoria Vice was generally loathed for plagiarizing the distinctive acts of fellow ecdysiasts Cherries Jubilee, Jillian Knockers and Eva Desire. Much of the fun lies in Porkpie's witty and telling observations of life in the raunchy burlesque world, and the tone is more playful than pornographic despite plentiful references to sexual activity. Readers will enjoy the twists and action and hope for future Porkpie investigations. The book will be launched with a live burlesque show in New York City. (Dec.)

Hard to HoldStephanie Tyler. Dell, $7.99 (370p) ISBN 978-0-440-24434-9

Tyler (Beyond His Control) bundles thriller and romance in a very appealing package to launch a new trilogy. While working for Doctors Without Borders in Africa, Dr. Isabelle Markham is kidnapped and left for dead. After being rescued by Navy SEAL Jake Hansen, Isabelle returns stateside, working in a naval hospital and trying to put the trauma behind her. When Isabelle's uncle, an admiral, hires Jake to guard her against future attacks, Jake and Isabelle slowly begin to reveal their innermost secrets and personal demons, and their connection intensifies into sizzling bedroom encounters. Tyler's in-depth character study transcends the formulas of romantic suspense, making the attraction believable and real. Readers will eagerly anticipate future installments. (Dec.)

The Sapphire SirensJohn Zakour. DAW, $7.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7564-0581-6

In the seventh adventure (after 2008's The Flaxen Femme Fatale) for Zachary Nixon Johnson, the last freelance PI on Earth, Zakour continues his playful pastiche of hard-boiled detective novels with a SF twist. This time, Zach is kidnapped and taken to Lantis, a secret island of alien Amazonian women, to find out who killed their queen. Aided by HARV, an AI wired to his brain, Zach must wrangle superpowered buxom babes who instinctively distrust men and believe them inferior. Zach finds and confronts the murderer, but then HARV's right to exist is challenged and put on trial. It's no surprise that the pulp-style plot and characters have plenty of atmosphere and little substance, but while there are clichés aplenty, Zakour's examination of whether humanity is the sole province of humans adds depth to the lightweight story. (Dec.)

Seducing the HeiressOlivia Drake. St. Martin's Paperbacks, $7.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-94345-5

This decadent Regency romance debut is carried along by a spunky heroine and sumptuous descriptions of upper-class life. Raised in India, beautiful Portia Crompton arrives in London just in time to be the premier debutante of the season. Portia—independent, witty and pragmatic—knows her many suitors really just want her enormous dowry. The disgraced, impoverished and devastatingly handsome Viscount Ratcliffe, Colin Byrd, romances her shamelessly, leaving Portia struggling to reconcile her forbidden love for her Indian childhood sweetheart with the passion Colin inspires. Portia's socially ambitious mother would like to see her wed to the immoral duke of Albright, but as Portia uncovers the true nature of Colin's character, she warms to him, and readers will too. The culminating bedroom scene does not justify the long buildup, but there's enough glitz to keep readers coming back. (Dec.)

Comics

Butterflies, Flowers, Vol. 1Yuki Yoshihara. Viz, $9.99 paper (200p) ISBN 978-1-4215-3203-5

Here's a Harlequin premise in manga form: former heiress, bankrupt, joins the working world, where her old servant is now her boss, making for one life during the day, and a very different one at night, where he pampers her. Although part of the Shojo Beat line, like Nana, this series is for the older reader, due to both premise and occasional profanity. The art fits both genres: it's got the stern-but-attractive older boss and the lovely-but-insecure young woman in panels dominated by emotion and decorated with flowers. The boss-servant tells her how to behave, how to do her secretarial job, even how to speak; he also knows her measurements intimately. Longing looks, over-the-top tension (a knife-wielding crazy takes her hostage), and passionate verbal exchanges make for a thrilling roller-coaster love story. The powerful, perfect man who becomes a lady's slave for love is a staple of the text romance; here, the servant part is simply more literal. His protection is overwhelming and much too traditional—some readers may not understand why she puts up with such controlling verbal abuse —but the moments of kindness he shows are seductive. (Dec.)

Pinocchio, Vampire SlayerVan Jensen and Dusty Higgins. Slave Labor Graphics, $10.95 (128p) ISBN 978-1-59362-176-6

This enjoyable reworking of Carlo Collodi's classic tale drops the magically animated puppet into a horror movie plot. After his maker/father Geppetto is killed by vampires, Pinocchio tries to protect the disbelieving inhabitants of his village, aided only by woodcarver Master Cherry, a greatly aged Blue Fairy and the ghost of the nagging cricket he squashed some time ago. As that last reference indicates, this is not the sentimentalized Disney version of the story; the protagonist of this book is one tough little puppet. Furthermore, although he's no Buffy Summers, as a vampire fighter Pinocchio has the advantage of a built-in wooden stake—as long as he remembers to tell lies at the right time. Jensen's script is clever, full of irreverent irony. But the highlight of the book is Higgins's b&w art that offers page after page of amazement. Swirling, whirling, jittery, skittery, the story dances gracefully from grin to grimace and back again. (Nov.)

GrandvilleBryan Talbot. Dark Horse, $17.95 (108p) ISBN 978-1-59582-397-7

Talbot follows up the admirable but abstruse Alice in Sunderland with an engrossing blend of steampunk, Victorian-flavored detective stories, anthropomorphized animals and 9/11 allegory. The storytelling skills that he brought to The Tale of One Bad Rat are firing on all cylinders as he spins the tale of Scotland Yard's bodybuilding badger, Insp.-Det. Archie LeBrock searching for a murder squad, a trail of violent intrigue leading to France. In this alternate historical setting, Britain fell under French rule during the Napoleonic Wars and became the Socialist Republic of Britain, a situation rife with civil disobedience, explosive terrorism and mutual suspicion between the two countries, all simmering elements that could lead to war. The murder LeBrock and his adjunct, Detective Ratzi, are investigating may somehow be tied to a mysterious grand plan, leading to a tightly woven tapestry of sex, violence and political intrigue containing strong commentary on 9/11 and the political machinations that fueled it. The animal-headed characters—alluding to The Wind and the Willows—just add to an entertaining and multileveled whodunit by a master storyteller. (Oct.)

All and Sundry: Uncollected Work 2004—2009Paul Hornschemeier. Fantagraphics, $29.99 (208p) ISBN 978-1-60699-285-2

It's a surprisingly rare thing to find the great comic artist who can not only draw with poetry and beauty, but write like a demon as well. In this lavish scrapbook of uncollected ads, posters, covers, ephemera and one-offs, Hornschemeier's skills are nearly as verbal as they are visual, his art encompassing many different styles, from richly layered classical surrealism to densely structured and primary color—heavy McSweeney's-style illustrations. But taken together, the work exhibits an instantly recognizable and distinctive panache. The depth of his art truly comes to life in the melancholic squibs of text and short fictions studding this collection. For all his talents, Hornschemeier is a working artist who clearly takes on all kinds of assignments, from bookstore ads and bookmarks to a quirky little piece on Anderson Cooper commissioned by CNN. Perhaps the intrusion of the journeyman keeps an exquisite volume like this so rewarding and yet grounded. (Oct.)