Fiction Reviews: 8/31/2009
Reviews of New Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction and Comics

Aug 31, 2009

TyphoonCharles Cumming. St. Martin’s, $25.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-312-55852-9

In the tradition of old-school espionage fiction, Cumming (The Spanish Game) lets character rather than plot carry this compelling thriller. William Lasker, a second-string agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service, takes on the job of writing a book about a rogue CIA plot against the People’s Republic of China. The action, which takes place mainly in Hong Kong and Shanghai, focuses on Joe Lennox, an SIS undercover agent in China, and an older CIA veteran, Miles Coolidge. Several months before the turnover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, a defector, Professor Wang Kaixuan, climbs out of the South China Sea and announces he has important secret information. After the professor disappears, Joe slowly learns the defector has become part of Typhoon, a secret CIA plan being run by Miles whose aim is to destabilize China. The conflict between Joe and Miles, both personal and professional, fuels this complex and satisfying novel. (Nov.)

HaikuAndrew Vachss. Pantheon, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-307-37849-1

Vachss, author of the long-running Burke series that concluded with 2008’s Another Life, introduces an engaging if damaged new hero in this soulful thriller. Ho, an elderly martial arts teacher who once was the master of a successful dojo, renounces all worldly goods after one of his students dies because of something he said. He takes to the mean streets of an unnamed American city to atone, joining a ragtag group of homeless men: Michael, once a high-flying stockbroker; Ranger, a Vietnam war vet; Lamont, an ex-gang leader and poet; Brewster, a psychotic; and Target, who speaks only in repetitive verbal explosions. A mystery involving a white Rolls Royce emerges early on, but as the book progresses, this plot is abandoned for another concerning Brewster’s book collection. Despite compelling prose, the author’s failure to follow through on the Rolls Royce business leads to a disappointing conclusion. (Nov.)

The Financial Lives of the PoetsJess Walter. Harper, $25.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-191604-5

National Book Award—finalist Walter does for the nation’s bleak financial landscape what he did for 9/11 in The Zero: whip-smart satire with heart. Matt Prior quits his job as a business reporter to start Poetfolio.com, a Web site featuring poetry about finance, or “money-lit.” Unsurprisingly, it tanks, and Matt returns to the newspaper, only to be laid off with a meager severance package. Now not only are the Priors in danger of losing their house, but Matt is convinced that his wife, Lisa, is having an affair with an old boyfriend she rediscovered during her lengthy nightly Facebook sessions. With two sons in overpriced Catholic school and his increasingly senile father to support, Matt’s bank accounts dwindle amid his financial planner’s dire predictions (diagnosis: “fiscal Ebola”). When an appealing but illegal moneymaking opportunity presents itself, Matt jumps at the chance. The decision to include snippets of Matt’s poetry in the novel was a risky one, but Walter pulls it off, never resorting to pretension or overused metaphors for life’s meltdowns. (Oct.)

The Rags of TimeMaureen Howard. Viking, $26.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-670-02132-1

Central Park features prominently in this rambling final installment of Howard’s “Novels of the Seasons” quartet. Plagued by heart trouble, an aging novelist is confined to her New York apartment, with slow walks through the park as her only relief. “Soul-baring” confessions, many of them rants, are directed against Bush and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as the narrator weaves commentary on contemporary events with meditations on her past as a writer and political activist. These thoughts, blended with detailed descriptions of her walks, become entries in her daybook. Characters from previous novels in the series reappear: Artie, the math Ph.D. candidate and his painter wife; Sylvie, an elderly refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria; Marie Claude, a recently widowed American history professor. But the narrator’s main focus, in the most engaging passages, is three prominent figures: Christopher Columbus, Sir Walter Raleigh and Frederick Law Olmsted. Quotations and photographs flesh out learned reflections, but Howard’s digressions are too lacking in direction to hold our attention through the endless high-brow references. The marks of a master—beautiful prose and ambitious structure—are not enough to hold together the rich strands of this patchwork novel. (Oct.)

Breaking the RulesBarbara Taylor Bradford. St. Martin’s, $27.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-312-57806-0

For the 30th anniversary of her first novel, A Woman of Substance, Bradford delivers her 25th book. The riches-to-more-riches tale features beloved matriarch Emma Harte’s plucky great-granddaughter, M, who, at 23, moves to New York to start a modeling career, banking on her intelligence and business savvy, her Audrey Hepburn looks and her well-connected friends to help her. A violent attack had compelled M to leave behind a life of privilege in London, and from her new home in a shared Chelsea brownstone, M begins her ascent, eventually landing on the catwalks of Paris and falling in love with a famous British actor, though her successes soon attract the attention of family enemies. The plot, while contrived, satisfies on the fashion-and-passion front, and, as always, at the heart of the action stands a determined heroine scrambling up the ladder of success supported by minor characters, each with a complicated backstory. Fans will not mind if the connections holding them together seem tenuous. (Oct.)

Mama DearestE. Lynn Harris. Simon and Schuster/Hunter, $25 (438p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5890-6

Yancey Harrington Braxton returns in bestseller E. Lynn Harris’s (A Love of My Own) latest novel (the author died in July but happily for fans this is not his last book) for another sex and betrayal—filled romp. Diva Yancey, fast fading into Z-list territory, is nearly broke and acting in a traveling production of Dreamgirls, reprising her role in the original theater production with a bunch of hacks. Then she meets and is immediately impressed by wealthy S. Marcus Pinkston, who wants to produce a reality TV show he claims will rejuvenate her career. Simultaneously, Yancey’s mother, Ava, is released from prison with a devious plan for revenge. And when Ava’s on the scene, it means deception, trickery and the revelation of Yancey’s innermost secrets. Throw in some ex-lovers along with Madison, the daughter Yancy gave up years ago who’s now back on the scene as her mother’s major show biz competitor, and ride the wave of high drama to Yancey’s redemption and ultimate happiness. Nobody ever said entertainment had to be plausible. (Oct.)

Americans in SpaceMary E. Mitchell. St. Martin’s/Dunne, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-37245-3

A guidance counselor is at a loss in her personal life in Mitchell’s mediocre latest (after Starting Out Sideways). Young widow Kate Cavanaugh has been going through the motions in the two years since her husband died of a heart attack. At work, she does her best with a cohort of troubled kids, but Kate is at sea when it comes to dealing with her own children: preschooler Hunter has an unhealthy emotional attachment to ketchup bottles, and teen Charlotte blames Kate for everything, including her dad’s death. Despite the support of her next-door neighbor and the possibilities offered by a new romance, Kate decides the only way to fix her family is to hit the road with them, though nothing, of course, goes as planned. Mitchell’s prose is sterling, but her character work is less than stellar; she doesn’t do anything new with the tired trope of the rebellious teen seeking solace online, while adorable Hunter is just a sideshow. Mitchell tries admirably to do something different with familiar grief material, but the frenzied antics and haphazard character development undermine the effort. (Oct.)

The GatesJohn Connolly. Atria, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4391-7263-6

In this frothy fantasy thriller from bestseller Connolly (The Book of Lost Things), 11-year-old Samuel Johnson witnesses an inadvertent intersection of science and the supernatural while trick-or-treating at the Abernathy household in Biddlecombe, England. Something nasty reaches through an atomically engineered portal to Hades and possesses four suburban sorcerers. From that point on, Samuel finds himself battling hordes of invading demons and desperately trying to convince disbelieving adults that the impending end of the world is not a fancy of his overactive imagination. Connolly plays this potentially spooky scenario strictly for laughs, larding the narrative with droll jokes, humorous asides and the slapstick pratfalls of Nurd, an amusingly incompetent subdemon whom Samuel ultimately befriends. Though billed as “an adult book for children,” this light fantasy will strike even adult readers as divertingly whimsical. (Oct.)

The Ghosts of BelfastStuart Neville. Soho Crime, $24 (336p) ISBN 978-1-56947-600-0

With this stunning debut, Neville joins a select group of Irish writers, including Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes and Adrian McKinty, who have reinvigorated the noir tradition with a Celtic edge. Gerry Fegan, a former IRA hit man haunted by the ghosts of the 12 people he killed, realizes the only way these specters will give him rest is to systematically assassinate the men who gave him his orders. Though those in the militant IRA underworld have written him off as a babbling drunk and a liability to the movement, they take note when their members start turning up dead. Meanwhile, Fegan is attracted to Marie McKenna, a relative of one of the newly slain men and a pariah to the Republicans. Can Fegan satisfy his demons and redeem himself, or will the ghosts of Belfast consume him first? This is not only an action-packed, visceral thriller but also an insightful insider’s glimpse into the complex political machinations and networks that maintain the uneasy truce in Northern Ireland. (Oct.)

Snow JobWilliam Deverell. McClelland & Stewart, $25.95 (424p) ISBN 978-0-7710-2722-2

In Arthur Ellis Award—winner Deverell’s rambling third novel to feature crafty lawyer Arthur Beauchamp (after 2008’s Kill All the Judges), Igor Muckhali Ivanovich (aka Mad Igor), the dictator of the People’s Republic of Bhashyistan (formerly part of the U.S.S.R.), declares war on Canada after a diplomatic delegation from the Central Asian nation is blown to bits while visiting Ottawa. Beauchamp and CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) agent Ray DiPalma (“the shape-shifting spy who never came in from the cold”) go to Albania, where kidnappers have taken Arthur’s client, Abzal Erzhan, the prime suspect in the terrorist incident. The Canadian political satire may be of less interest to U.S. readers than a subplot involving three Saskatchewan women who go AWOL from a tour of Bhashyistan during the conflict. The journal extracts written by one of them about the three finding shelter with the Bhashyistani Democratic Revolutionary Front have a sharp focus the main plot lacks. (Oct.)

Season of AshJorge Volpi, trans. from the Spanish by Alfred Mac Adam. Open Letter, $15.95 paper (413p) ISBN 978-1-934824-10-8

At the heart of this wide-ranging epic is a murder, though it’s not initially clear who the victim is, and the narrative goes on to take the form of a confession that weaves historical and scientific turning points into the crime. There’s a huge cast of characters (and an appendix to help keep track), some famous, but mostly Volpi (In Search of Klingsor) presents everyday people whose lives eventually have as large an impact as dictators and Nobel Prize winners. Taking center stage are three mercurial women: Soviet biologist Irina, International Monetary Fund economist Jennifer and Hungarian scientist Eva; their personal and professional stories commingle as they are brought together by fate. A generous helping of racy material keeps the narrative from reading like a history book, though the many plots jumping between a dizzying cast can overwhelm. Volpi’s style of storytelling is about understanding history not through wars or elections but through people. His portrayal of humanity is rewarding and, by the end, shattering. (Oct.)

Sand DaughterSarah Bryant. Berkley, $15 paper (496p) ISBN 978-0-425-22980-4

In this Crusades-era historical, Bryant (The Other Eden) follows the journey of an ordinary Bedouin woman, Kalidah, who escapes her arranged marriage to run off with a mysterious minstrel named Sulayman. Doing so, she sets into motion a chain of events that draw her into plots with the Knights Templar, the legendary Saladin and the shadowy Jinn, a group of fearsome Afghan warriors who form the basis of the Islamic legend. Bryant also follows Kalidah’s childhood friend Bilal, who discovers that the father he thought was dead is not only alive but the commander of a band of warrior-monks; Bilal’s story explores Saladin’s army and the charismatic leader himself. Immediately immersing, rich in detail and complex in theme, this skillful novel uses nested stories and long reveals that call to mind the Arabian Nights, and doesn’t shy from challenging subject matter. Gripping and convincing, this is a worthy historical page-turner. (Oct.)

Black FridayAlex Kava. Mira, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2651-9

Bestseller Kava’s superb Maggie O’Dell thriller (after Exposed) features a particularly memorable villain, the Project Manager (aka Robert Asante), the third party behind 1995’s horrifying Oklahoma City bombing, along with real-life terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Now Asante has directed an attack on Minnesota’s Mall of America during Black Friday, the big retailing day after Thanksgiving, that kills 32 people, including two students who were duped into carrying devices that they believed would just create an electronic blackout. FBI profiler O’Dell, still recovering from the death of her boss, must work with her new superior, hypercritical Raymond Kunze, as well as her ex-boyfriend, security consultant Nick Morrelli, to prevent a second major terrorist outrage Asante has planned to follow shortly after the first. Kava peppers the breathless action with enough intel to make the premise scarily real. (Oct.)

Angel LaneSheila Roberts. St. Martin’s Griffin, $13.99 paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-38482-1

Roberts returns to Heart Lake, Wash., for a second beguiling visit (after Spring in Bloom). Chocolatier Jamie Moore, her bakery-owner aunt Sarah and quilt store owner Emma Swanson take on a community project, “Have a Heart,” to encourage good deeds in Heart Lake, but the friends find paying-it-forward isn’t as easy as it would seem. Cop Josh Armstrong, a handsome widower with two cute daughters, keeps rescuing Jamie, who fights her attraction to him because of her first marriage to an abusive cop. Emma, who’s struggling to keep her store open and is also hungry for love, adopts a stray cat. Married Sarah fights off a lecherous neighbor and gives free (but messy) baking lessons to girls. Roberts’s world of good deeds can verge on Thomas Kinkade overkill, though her relentless cheer will doubtless warm more than a few hearts. (Oct.)

Once in a Blue MoonEileen Goudge. Perseus/Vanguard, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-59315-534-6

As children, sisters Lindsay and Kerri Ann are shunted into the foster care system after their mother is arrested for selling drugs in Goudge’s (The Diary) charming newest. Lindsay is fortunate enough to be adopted by a loving family, while younger Kerri Ann bounces from family to family, becoming a teenage runaway, getting into drugs and eventually losing custody of her own daughter. Thirty years after they last saw each other, Kerri Ann shows up on Lindsay’s doorstep in a last ditch effort to save herself. Lindsay, of course, has troubles of her own, and her nearly unrecognizable sister turning up is the last thing she needs. The tension in the sisters’ relationship is believable, and while romantic subplots are completely predictable, family dynamics are beautifully handled, particularly between the girls and the woman who tried to save them from foster care, stripper Miss Honi. A touching story with wide appeal, Goudge’s novel is a sharp example of dysfunctional family fiction. (Oct.)

PoisonvilleMassimo Carlotto and Marco Videtta, trans. from the Italian by Antony Shugaar. Europa (Penguin, dist.), $15 paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-933372-91-4

Northeast Italy’s industrial pollution provides the backdrop for Carlotto (The Goodbye Kiss) and screenwriter Videtta’s outstanding fable of greed, corruption and moral abandonment. Filled with echoes of Dante’s Inferno, the book centers on the murder of Giovanna Barovier, a young attorney interning on the staff of respected lawyer Antonio Visentin, within days of her marriage to Visentin’s son, Francesco. Cheap Chinese imports and Italian industries exiled to former Soviet-bloc countries have led to a national downward spiral into dissolution paralleled and individualized by Francesco’s private search for Giovanna’s killer. First finding himself accused of a crime of passion, Francesco soon descends through level after level of human depravity, from theft and brutality through fraud to betrayals so heinous they shatter the soul. Truly little hope if any exists for those who enter this vicious journey into the abyss of human evil. (Oct.)

One Week in DecemberHolly Chamberlin. Kensington, $14 paper (332p) ISBN 978-0-7582-1405-8

Chamberlin (Tuscan Holiday) misses the mark with this repetitive chronicle of driven career-gal Becca Rowan’s quest to tell her 16-year-old niece, Rain, that Becca is actually her birth mother. Raised by Becca’s older brother, David, and his wife, Naomi, Rain was conceived by a teenaged Becca who barely knew Rain’s father. The deal was they’d wait until Rain was 21 to tell her the truth, but Becca’s been feeling very lonely, and so she determines to reclaim Rain during the annual family get-together the week before Christmas. And woe be the reader who tags along for this celebration of characters about as sturdy as wet cardboard, lazy writing (“James put his hand gently on Olivia’s arm, as if to calm or comfort her”) and plodding narrative. Without at least engaging characters, none of the goings-on matter much. (Oct.)

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves UsLaura van den Berg. Dzanc (Consortium, dist.), $16.95 paper (200p) ISBN 978-0-9767177-7-5

In her affecting debut collection, van den Berg taps into her characters’ losses with an impressive clarity. Each of these stories is meticulously crafted, and often the protagonist is recovering emotionally from a staggering life’s blow. In “Goodbye My Loveds,” two siblings are reeling from the death of their parents, scientists fatally snake-bitten in the Amazon; a sister leaves college to take care of her 12-year-old brother and recognizes the need to suppress her own needs in order to help her brother face their new lives. In the beautifully elegiac “Where We Must Be,” a failed actress gives up on L.A. and finds work as Bigfoot in a theme park; her love affair with a young neighbor dying of cancer underscores the preciousness of time’s passing. In the title story, a young woman learns to face her fears while spending time with her scientist mother observing endangered lemurs in Madagascar. These tales are the work of a notable author finding her voice. (Oct.)

Shut Up, UglyJack Pendarvis. MacAdam/Cage, $14 paper (254p) ISBN 978-1-59692-332-4

The meat of Pendarvis’s fourth book (after Awesome) hangs on the skeleton of a hard-boiled detective novel, but instead of a stoic flatfoot with an eye for detail and a way with women, Pendarvis creates Burns, an out-of-work greeting-card executive who is so unobservant that “he had even become fat without knowing it.” Burns is running from trouble when Ginger, a farcically sexualized 20-year-old bed-and-breakfast clerk, hires him to trail her mysterious father, an artist supported by the “Willoughby Institute Monthly Stipend for Reluctant Geniuses.” Along the way, Burns encounters the B&B’s resident blogger, a purple-black raven that may be the requisite red herring and Doc, a pretty brain surgeon who recognizes that “Karaoke is a kind of grief.” This series of minor misadventures worthy of an Abbott and Costello movie is sure to please the author’s fans. (Oct.)

ThirstyKristin Bair O’Keeffe. Ohio Univ./Swallow, $22.95 (216p) ISBN 978-0-8040-1123-5

O’Keeffe chronicles the troubling story of a late 19th-century Croatian émigrée whose expectations that life in a Pittsburgh steel town will brighten her fortunes are harshly dashed. Born and raised on a farm in Croatia, Klara is taken by a handsome young transient, Drago Bozic, who urges her to accompany him to Thirsty, Pa., where his brother works in the steel mills. After the recent death of her mother, Klara wants to flee her grim life, which consists mostly of taking care of her siblings and being battered by her angry father. Yet almost as soon as the affectionate young married couple arrives in Thirsty, Drago grows hard and volatile, beating Klara routinely, and Klara recognizes that she has accepted her mother’s fate. After the one neighbor who steps in during their fights is killed in the mill, Klara is left without a protector, and her inability to leave Drago casts a generational pall over the family, as their daughter also marries a batterer. O’Keeffe’s debut gracefully encapsulates the working-class cycle of poverty and hopelessness in the lives of these hard-laboring, sympathetic wives and mothers. (Oct.)

Giving Up on OrdinaryIsla Dewar. St. Martin’s Griffin, $14.99 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-56161-1

Megs Williams, the single mother heroine of Brit author Dewar’s pleasant latest, is in a miserable spot: she’s wracked with grief over the recent accidental death of one of her three children, she’s pregnant and, having lost her job, now works as a housekeeper. Though she has a less than endearing tendency to lack self-control, readers will be able to relate as she and her best friend Lorraine dream of escaping their respective ruts. Things start looking up for Megs after Gilbert, the stuffy professor whose house she cleans, tunes into her beautiful singing voice. As Gilbert and Megs catch each other’s interest, more is revealed about Gilbert’s tics and aspirations (including his shame at how he met Megs). Refreshingly, Dewar (Secrets of a Family Album) shies away from easy solutions, and the conclusion is entirely believable and not at all what’s expected. Though some of the comedy—particularly that involving Megs’s mother—can verge on camp, the novel serves up a realistic, often moving portrait of a not-quite-conventional single mother. (Oct.)

A Change Had to ComeGwynne Forster. Kensington/Dafina, $14 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2562-7

Popular author Forster (A Different Kind of Blues) charts the course of a young African-American journalist, her love life and her eye-opening trip to Africa. Leticia Langley is a lucky young woman fresh out of college: not only has she landed a job as a food columnist at Washington, D.C.’s The Journal, she’s been quickly promoted to features reporter. Meanwhile, however, Leticia’s voluptuous “best friend,” her two-faced cousin Kenyetta Jackson, decides to make a play for Leticia’s current crush. While Leticia’s discovering Kenyetta’s betrayal, she’s also overcoming distrust of another potential love interest, Journal colleague Max Baldwin. An assignment about the roots of obesity in African-American women takes Leticia to Nigeria and Kenya, resulting in a renewal of her career prospects and passions, as well as the novel’s best passages. Though hardly unusual to the genre, Forster puts a fanciful, prerecession gloss on Leticia’s media world that keeps it several steps removed from reality. (Oct.)

The Bigness of the World: StoriesLori Ostlund. Univ. of Georgia, $24.95 (220p) ISBN 978-0-8203-3409-7

Ostlund’s remarkable debut collection deftly navigates the treacherous shoals of decaying relationships in which the protagonists often escape to faraway lands in order to find themselves, or, at the very least, their partners. Fate, for the globe-trotting teacher-entrepreneur of “And Down We Went,” takes the form of an untimely bird dropping; in “Bed Death,” it is a Malay waitress who casually takes a sip of orange juice from the narrator’s glass. Ostlund’s artful prose is playfully complex and illuminating, evocative and unsentimental, as in “Upon the Completion of Baldness,” in which the narrator’s girlfriend returns home from a trip completely bald. Remarks the narrator, “the chilly desert air seemed to startle her as though, in that moment, she realized that there was a price to be paid for having no hair, and while I still said nothing, I was happy to see her suffer just a bit.” A specific disenchantment inhabits these stories—the disenchantment of the uncompromising romantic confronted with the evaporative nature of love. Each piece is sublime. (Oct.)

The Last ReaderDavid Toscana, trans. from the Spanish by Asa Zatz. Texas Tech Univ., $26.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-89672-664-2

In his third novel translated into English, Mexican writer Toscana (Tula Station) dissolves the line between interior and exterior life with challenging results. In the small, drought-ridden town of Icamole, young Remigio discovers a dead girl in his well. Before anyone finds out, Remigio’s father, Lucio, a librarian who ties everything back to the novels he’s read, convinces Remigio to bury the girl under their avocado tree and say nothing, even as authorities wander into town, making tepid inquiries. Toscana meanders through the psychological consequences of the plan, moving in and out of the “real” world in paragraphs that run on for pages, penetrating the veil of Lucio’s literary fetishes, brutality and death foremost among them (he tosses books he doesn’t like in a room to be devoured by cockroaches). Letting go of familiar touchstones like plot, character and structure, this dense stream-of-consciousness narrative raises many resonant questions, but can be a chore to navigate. (Oct.)

Holding Out for a HeroHelenKay Dimon. Kensington/Brava, $14 paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2905-2

Dimon (It’s Hotter in Hawaii) brings back one of her hunkiest heroes, DEA agent Josh Windsor, with tepid results. Retiring to avoid being let go from the DEA, Josh turns freelance investigator for Deana Armstrong, a wealthy Hawaiian heiress convinced that her 16-year-old nephew has been wrongly convicted of beating his parents to death with a baseball bat. Put off at first by Deana’s ice queen demeanor, Josh quickly melts in the heat of their mutual attraction, but the more he digs, the more he believes that the young convict is guilty. Fans will be happy to see the return of Josh’s best friend, Kauai police chief Kane Travers, but the thin murder plot doesn’t amount to much more than a vehicle for the predictable romantic developments. (Oct.)

Tell Me Something TrueLeila Cobo. Grand Central, $13.99 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-446-51936-6

Cobo’s sweet debut novel is the story of two women—a mother and daughter—and the love affairs that irrevocably changed their lives. Gabriella, 21, is a piano prodigy raised by her wealthy grandmother in Colombia and her movie producer father in Los Angeles. Her mother, Helena, was a renowned photographer who died when Gabriella was four. When she attends a party in the Hollywood Hills, Gabriella meets Angel, the man of her dreams. There’s one catch: he’s a mobster. As Gabriella tries to reconcile her conflicted feelings toward Angel, she discovers her mother’s diary. Soon she is drawn into Helena’s secret life, one that involved a passionate love affair. Betrayed and confused, Gabriela tries to find her mother’s lover. But when her own romance begins to spiral out of control, Gabriella must come to terms with the fact that she’s very much her mother’s daughter. Cobo’s well-drawn characters help bolster the story when Gabriella’s tragic romance occasionally slides into melodrama. The smooth prose and authentic Colombian settings provide a unique spin to familiar territory. (Oct.)

Yom Kippur in Amsterdam: StoriesMaxim D. Shrayer. Syracuse Univ., $24.95 (152p) ISBN 978-0-8156-0918-6

Professor and memoirist Shrayer (Waiting for America) delivers eight deliberate stories about educated, accomplished Russians who have uneasily settled in America. Many of these tales viscerally reveal the inability to shed one’s past, as in “Sonetchka,” named for the upwardly mobile émigrée protagonist who has attained financial success but has left her Russian husband, Igor, to fall into drunkenness, despair and, possibly, vengeance against her. “The Afterlove” is a recollection of postwar first love conjured by Pavel Lidin, who encountered a mermaid at a summer lake camp when he was 13 and later married his best friend’s pregnant girlfriend. In two stories, the Jewish Russian protagonist endures a breakup with a gentile woman: in “The Disappearance of Zalman,” Mark loses his girlfriend once she meets his yeshiva tutor and is smitten by his “passionate” Jewish nature, while in the title story, a businessman in Amsterdam, feeling guilty for having told his fiancée that he wants a Jewish wife, finds atonement in the city of easy morals. The stories are competently written and soundly constructed, though readers may feel they’ve read them before. (Oct.)

Good for the JewsDebra Spark. Univ. of Michigan, $24 (264p) ISBN 978-0-472-11711-6

In her third novel, Spark (Coconuts for the Saint) holds a modern mirror to the book of Esther with a cast of characters from mid-2000 Wisconsin. Barring the biblical suggestion of the title, the novel is a study of human qualities and the interrelationships of those who identify with Jewish culture rather than religion. A virgin three years out of college, Ellen Hirscheron is an unobservant Jew to whom Alex (18 years her senior) is attracted. He has ended his marriage to modern woman Valerie, director of the Center for Artistic Exchange. Alex is also the superintendent of the school where Ellen’s much older cousin Mose, an old-school history teacher, works. The story gets interesting with the arrival of school principal Hyman, who tries to fire Mose, and Hyman’s strange wife, Martha. Hyman is a racist in general and an anti-Semite in particular. Over the course of the story, a dress ends a marriage, swastikas are revealed on the soles of a pair of boots and couples, well, couple. Spark’s prose is tight, funny, insightful and occasionally heartbreaking as it probes the current education system, the arts and society’s ills. (Oct.)

No TomorrowVivant Denon, trans. from the French by Lydia Davis. New York Review Books, $12.95 paper (96p) ISBN 978-1-59017-326-8

This slender tale of adultery written in 1777 has been rendered into graceful English by Proust translator Davis. The tale encompasses a breathless night for a 20-year-old aristocrat who is spirited away by Mme. de T— from the opera, where he is waiting on another woman, and taken to the lady’s home outside of Paris. The luxurious chateau belongs to Mme. de T—’s estranged husband, though the husband and wife are apparently “to be reconciled.” The young man realizes he is to entertain the wife after her husband goes to bed, which he does until dawn, when his glorious night is ended by the arrival of the lady’s previous lover, Marquis de —. In his introduction, Peter Brooks says the story is about “the ethics of pleasure,” and while scintillating and theatrical, the storytelling is too saccharine to be satisfying. (Oct.)

Throw Your Heart OverLinda Ingmanson. Five Star, $25.95 (254p) ISBN 978-1-59414-817-0

The new contemporary romance from Ingmanson (Promise Me Tomorrow) has the feel of a standard category romance involving second chances at love for well-meaning single parents. After a painful divorce in California, Serena Trent and her 10-year-old daughter, Lacey, move to Connecticut, where Serena’s sister lives. During one of Lacey’s riding lessons, Serena meets divorced horse farm owner Logan Murphy, whose 12-year-old daughter, Paige, needs a new nanny for the summer. Paige, in a wheelchair since the car crash that claimed her mother, has scared off every nanny Logan’s ever hired and remains distant from the father she rarely saw growing up. Despite protests from her family, Serena sees the job as an opportunity to strike out on her own and shake her role as the “baby” of the family. Sparks soon fly between Serena and Logan, but Logan hides a big secret that inevitably stands in the way of their happiness and his burgeoning relationship with his daughter. Though somewhat stale, Ingmanson imbues her story with deft writing and well-rendered leads. (Oct.)

Though Waters RoarLynn Austin. Bethany House, $19.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-7642-0728-0; $13.99 paper ISBN 978-0-7642-0496-8

Austin can’t seem to write a bad novel, and this one is no exception. She is winner of five Christy Awards and numerous accolades for her novels, one of which, Hidden Places, was made into a Hallmark Channel movie. Her newest follows her typical trajectory of fine writing, an engaging story and interesting history. Harriet Sherwood longs to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps as a champion for social justice, but Harriet didn’t plan on ending up incarcerated. She spends her jail time recalling the histories of her great-grandmother Hannah, Grandma Bebe and her mother, Lucy, each of whom faced struggles and spiritual questions as they found ways to fight: Hannah participated in the Underground Railroad, Bebe fought demon rum, and Lucy fought for a woman’s right to vote. Austin weaves their stories through Harriet’s memories, creating well-honed characters before finally bringing Harriet to a place of understanding. This is an entertaining and engaging faith-based tale sure to hit bestseller lists and the awards circuit. (Oct.)

The Ideal WifeJacquelin Thomas. Pocket, $14 paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9963-0

Thomas (The Prodigal Husband) offers her female fan base a titillating story that will likely have women outraged and up in arms. She writes for Christian readers, but her topic will challenge them: married couples who opt for the swingers’ lifestyle. Jana Collins, a 24-year-old college graduate, is swept off her feet by her older, wealthy husband, Lawrence, who showers her with material goods. But with the gifting comes a demand. Lawrence quickly starts twisting the Bible to get his naïve wife to participate in extramarital activities for his pleasure and against her will. When “the lifestyle” takes its toll on Jana emotionally and spiritually, she finds the inner strength to hold true to herself despite intense pressure from her husband. Thomas’s story line is equally unsettling and disturbing as the male characters manipulate biblical principles for their own selfish purposes and at the expense of their female companions. Female readers will find more heat (as in feeling angry) than help in this story (Oct.)

Grace HammerSara Stockbridge. Norton, $23.95 (284p) ISBN 978-0-393-06718-7

An engaging prose style lifts Stockbridge’s debut, a Dickensian thriller set in London in 1888. A menace from the past threatens Whitechapel pickpocket Grace Hammer, who has her hands full raising four children alone. Almost two decades earlier, she stole a ruby necklace from her then employer, Horatio Blunt, who had himself liberated the precious necklace from its rightful owner. Blunt responded by tracking down her family and burning them alive in their home. Now one of Blunt’s associates has spotted Grace in London, and she and her children must go on the run. While several of Jack the Ripper’s victims have cameo roles, and there are references to some of the murders that terrorized the East End at the time, Ripperologists may be disappointed that the author doesn’t develop this connection further. Fans of such neo-Victorian masters as Michael Cox, Charles Palliser and Louis Bayard will find the plot and characterization conventional by comparison. (Sept. 28)

Mystery

Bryant & May on the Loose: A Peculiar Crimes Unit MysteryChristopher Fowler. Bantam, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-0-553-80719-6

Fowler’s unique blend of the comic and the grotesque is on full display in his excellent seventh Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery (after 2008’s The Victoria Vanishes). With the special police unit shut down, Arthur Bryant is feeling withdrawn and depressed while his partner, John May, is considering PI work. When a former team member stumbles on a beheaded corpse in the heart of London’s King’s Cross neighborhood, May artfully uses the discovery to gain the PCU another lease on life. He persuades the higherups that unsolved gang crimes in the area could threaten the economic benefit anticipated from the 2012 Olympics. Given one week to solve the case, without any official sanction or access to police resources, May pulls Bryant out of his doldrums and reassembles the unit. To May’s dismay, his colleague is more interested in reports that a man wearing a stag’s head has been seen in the area. The pacing, prose, planting of clues and characterizations are all top-notch. (Dec.)

Frag BoxRichard A. Thompson. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (234p) ISBN 978-1-59058-678-5

In Thompson’s compelling second mystery to feature St. Paul, Minn., bail bondsman Herman Jackson (after 2008’s The Fiddle Game), Jackson investigates the murder of one of his more unusual repeat customers, soul-wounded Charlie Victor, a homeless Vietnam vet. Jackson, to whom Victor bequeathed a mysterious box, immediately receives visits from the FBI, an odd bully who wants to take over Jackson’s business and a band of heavily armed mercenaries of unknown origin. When the police appear to lose interest in Victor’s case, Jackson enlists the aid of comely Anne Packard, a fearless newspaper reporter. Jackson and Packard follow the scant clues to Victor’s past, hoping to solve the brutal killing, uncover a buried secret and separate the good guys, if there are any, from the bad. A dash of romance, plenty of action and an appealing, wise-cracking hero enhance this detective story with an old-fashioned noir flavor. (Nov.)

Plum Pudding MurderJoanne Fluke. Kensington, $24 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7582-1024-1

The Christmas season provides the backdrop for bestseller Fluke’s sprightly 12th Hannah Swenson holiday mystery (after Mar. 2009’s Cream Puff Murder). When Hannah, the proprietor of the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minn., stops by the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot one night to pick up a check, she discovers the body of the owner, Larry Jaeger, inside “Elf Headquarters,” the double-wide trailer that was Larry’s home. Hannah’s “slay-dar” has led her to yet another murder victim. With the support of various friends and family, including her lively and manipulative mother, Delores, Hannah investigates. Her sessions in a class on small business practices raise her suspicions about the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot. Cozy fans will cheer as Hannah survives a hair-raising confrontation with the killer to present an elegant Christmas eve banquet. Tempting recipes range from Hot Fudge Sundae Cakes to Triple Threat Chocolate Cheesecake Pie. (Oct.)

The Best American Mystery Stories 2009 Edited by Jeffery Deaver. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Mariner, $14 paper (400p) ISBN 978-0-547-23750-3

Like previous anthologies in this “best of” series, the impressive 13th volume favors crime stories over whodunits. As series editor Otto Penzler notes in his foreword, “it has become increasingly difficult to find... a new murder method, or an original way to hide a vital clue” (though some may wonder why Deaver passed over Hal White’s impossible crime puzzler, “Murder at the Fall Festival,” listed in the appendix of “Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2008”). Readers interested in psychology will be more than satisfied by such tales as Joyce Carol Oates’s “Dear Husband,” a heartrending first-person account of a mother who slaughtered her children, and Tom Bissell’s “My Interview with the Avenger,” about a vigilante superhero. As always, part of the pleasure derives from exposure to writers who have yet to gain the acclaim they deserve, such as Randy Rohn (“The Man Who Fell in Love with the Stump of a Tree”) and Jonathan Tel (“Bola de la Fortuna”). (Oct.)

Dead Man’s ShareYasmina Khadra, trans. from the French by Aubrey Botsford. Toby Crime, $14.95 paper (370p) ISBN 978-1-59264-269-4

Khadra again proves to be Camus’s heir apparent in this searing prequel to his Algerian trilogy featuring Supt. Brahim Llob (Morituri, etc.), set in modern Algiers with its dual personality (“one that used to inspire poets” vs. one “where minstrels are locked up in jails”). Llob is dismayed to find his latest case involves a subordinate, Lieutenant Lino, who has become obnoxious, spending money he doesn’t have to impress a new girlfriend. Lino is devastated when the woman humiliates him in public by returning to Haj Thobane, her rich former lover. Lino is later arrested after his gun is found near the body of Thobane’s limo driver shot during an attack on Thobane. The pseudonymous Khadra (Mohammed Moulessehoul), a former Algerian army officer now living in France, expertly depicts a country succumbing to cruelty but buoyed by its people’s hope in the future. (Oct.)

A Killing in Retrospect: A Sister Agnes MysteryBarbara Cummings. Five Star, $25.95 (238p) ISBN 978-1-59414-784-5

A gangland war threatens to break out in Depression-era Providence, R.I., in Cummings’s gripping second Sister Agnes mystery (after 2006’s A Killing on Church Grounds). Dante Ricci, the nine-year-old son of reputed mob boss Vincent Ricci, asks Sister Mary Agnes of the Merciful Sisters of Mary to catch whoever killed his mother, who died a year earlier in a suspicious car crash at the Ricci family farm. Aggie’s policeman cousin, Sgt. Josiah Morgan, and Pietro “Tiny” DiSilva, Vincent’s partner, join the informal investigation. After Irish maid Kitty Killian dies from eating cyanide-laced sugar cubes intended for Vincent, Sister Agnes begins to think they’re starring in their own version of the gangster film Public Enemy. Sure enough, more murders follow. Cozy fans will appreciate Aggie’s prayerful approach to crime solving, though some may wonder about her fondness for firearms (“I did love the feel of a gun in my hands”). (Oct.)

Tommy Gun TangoBruce Randall and Bruce Cook. Capital Crime (SCB, dist.), $14.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-9799960-3-0

This tease of a mystery by Cook, who pretends that “Bruce Randall” is not the pseudonym he used for 2008’s Blood Harvest, will frustrate more readers than it will satisfy. After an opening reference to the mysterious death of Paul Bern, Hollywood actress Jean Harlow’s husband, in 1932, hundreds of pages go by before Bern actually dies. Those expecting a James Ellroy—like reimagining of a real-life unsolved crime involving the famous will find themselves growing increasingly impatient as Cook relates the less than fascinating exploits of Pete Lawe, an ex-marshal from Massachusetts, headed west; his shady travel companion, Al Haine; his love interest, Gladys Alwyn, who preceded him to L.A.; and Gayle Barton-Poole, a would-be film star who strikingly resembles Harlow. Their first-person accounts at times cover the same ground to no particular advantage. (Oct.)

SF/Fantasy/Horror

Unseen AcademicalsTerry Pratchett. Harper, $25.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-116170-4

Football, food, fashion and wizards collide in Pratchett’s 37th Discworld novel (after 2007’s Making Money), an affectionate satire on the foibles of sports and sports fans. The always out-of-touch wizards at Ankh-Morpork’s Unseen University stand to lose a very big bequest unless they enter a team in a violent but popular street sport competition. As the wizards struggle to learn the game, aided by the university’s hired help, Ankh-Morpork’s ruler schemes to use the competition for his own purposes. Though the book suffers from a few awkward moments (Pratchett’s attempts to discuss racism through the strained relationships of dwarves, humans and goblins fall particularly flat), the prose crackles with wit and charm, and the sendups of league football, academic posturing, Romeo and Juliet and cheesy sports dramas are razor sharp and hilarious but never cruel. At its heart, this is an intelligent, cheeky love letter to football, its fans and the unifying power of sports. (Oct.)

This Crooked WayJames Enge. Pyr, $16 paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-59102-784-3

Legends spar in Enge’s episodic fantasy, narrated by an ensemble cast in achingly precise prose. Immediately following the events of Blood of Ambrose (2009), the crooked-backed enchanter Morlock departs into exile on his horse, Velox. When a stone beast ambushes the strange pair and Velox disappears, Morlock goes in search of his horse and finds a long-lost figure from his past who desperately needs his aid. So begins Morlock’s long, meandering journey, narrated by those he befriends on the way. The supporting characters all initially regard the dispassionate wizard with awe, but as they gradually discover his flaws, they learn some delightfully compelling psychological facts about their own inadequacies. When the ending finally does arrive, its anticlimactic events disappoint, but there’s enough strength in the rest of the story to keep readers hoping for a redemptive third book. (Oct.)

BoneshakerCherie Priest. Tor, $15.99 paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1841-1

Maternal love faces formidable challenges in this stellar steampunk tale. In an alternate 1880s America, mad inventor Leviticus Blue is blamed for destroying Civil War—era Seattle. When Zeke Wilkes, Blue’s son, goes into the walled wreck of a city to clear his father’s name, Zeke’s mother, Briar Wilkes, follows him in an airship, determined to rescue her son from the toxic gas that turns people into zombies (called rotters and described in gut-churning detail). When Briar learns that Seattle still has a mad inventor, Dr. Minnericht, who eerily resembles her dead husband, a simple rescue quickly turns into a thrilling race to save Zeke from the man who may be his father. Intelligent, exceptionally well written and showcasing a phenomenal strong female protagonist who embodies the complexities inherent in motherhood, this yarn is a must-read for the discerning steampunk fan. (Oct.)

My Dead BodyCharlie Huston. Del Rey, $14 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-345-49589-1

In Huston’s intense, frenetic and brutal conclusion to the pulp-inspired Joe Pitt Casebooks (after 2008’s Every Last Drop), Pitt wants to hide in the sewers from the assorted vampyres he’s pissed off, but his old friend, porn producer Chubby, draws him out to try to help a young woman who has been impregnated by a vampyre. Naturally, once he’s on the surface, Joe is threatened, beaten and maimed by assorted enemies. Narrating grimly through the pain, he explores the origins of the vampyre-creating Vyrus while playing Manhattan’s various supernatural factions against each other. Readers new to the series might find this book tough to penetrate (though Huston does mix some exposition into the story), but longtime fans will jump right in, and the fast pacing, sharp dialogue and pulp action will keep them entertained. (Oct.)

Are You There and Other StoriesJack Skillingstead. Golden Gryphon, $24.95 (330p) ISBN 978-1-930846-61-6

This edgy and dark collection revels in sorrow and loss. Alien invasions (of Earth in “Life on the Preservation” and one human at a time in “Double Occupancy”) and future tech (body hopping in “Overlay,” holographic projections of downloaded personalities in “Scatter”) sit side by side with a magical little boy in “The Apprentice” and an evil spirit that corrupted the original Tree of Knowledge in “The Tree.” The strongest stories are the ones where struggles with pain take center stage and the speculative setting fades away, such as “Thank You, Mr. Whiskers,” in which an aging woman tries to escape paranoia and joint pain. There are no pat endings, especially when death is only a pause en route to a haunting or digital immortality, but readers braced for powerful emotions will find this collection more than worthwhile. (Oct.)

The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology Edited by Gordon Van Gelder. Tachyon (IPG, dist.), $15.95 paper (476p) ISBN 978-1-892391-91-9

F&SF editor Van Gelder has assessed, culled and organized the magazine’s best stories to produce this definitive volume of work from speculative fiction’s top authors, from Alfred Bester’s “Of Time and Third Avenue” (1951) to Ted Chiang’s “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” (2007). Hauntingly sad tales are laid alongside hopeful tales of the far future and heroic tales of honor and duty, but all have an intensity of emotion and draw the reader in with vibrant characters, fully realized settings and ingenious writing. Van Gelder’s introductory disclaimer that this contains “two dozen of our best stories” rather than the best two dozen stories may explain the lack of inclusions from the 1980s. For sheer reading pleasure, this anthology is unparalleled. (Oct.)

The TuloriadJohn Ringo and Tom Kratman. Baen, $26 (400p) ISBN 978-1-4391-6278-1

As its Homeric-sounding name suggests, the latest Posleen War novel (after 2007’s Yellow Eyes) tells of a defeated people fleeing annihilation in search of a new home. Tulo, who helped command the failed Posleen invasion of Earth, expects annihilation at the hands of the vengeful humans, but another faction rescues Tulo and his followers. They embark upon a search for the origin of their species and discover just how cruelly their people were treated long ago when their ancestors dared to question the godlike Aldenata. Following their trail is a sentient warship bearing a contingent of human religious scholars, Swiss Guards and a most unusual trio of captive Posleen. Ringo and Kratman turn this space adventure into an intriguing discussion of the power of faith apart from the existence of God. (Oct.)

Lovecraft Unbound Edited by Ellen Datlow. Dark Horse, $19.95 paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-59582-146-1

The 16 new and four reprint stories Datlow (Poe) assembles for this outstanding tribute anthology all capture what Dale Bailey praises as horror master H.P. Lovecraft’s gift for depicting the universe as “inconceivably more vast, strange, and terrifying than mere human beings can possibly imagine.” Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud, in “The Crevasse,” evoke this alien sensibility through an Antarctic expedition’s glimpses of an astonishingly ancient prehuman civilization preserved in the polar ice. Laird Barron’s “Catch Hell” depicts a Lovecraft-type backwoods community in the grip of a profoundly creepy occult mythology. Selections range in tone from the darkly humorous to the sublimely horrific, and all show the contributors to be perceptive interpreters of Lovecraft’s work. Readers who know Lovecraft’s legacy mostly through turgid and tentacled Cthulhu Mythos pastiches will find this book a treasure trove of literary terrors. (Oct.)

Mass Market

All That You AreStef Ann Holm. HQN, $7.99 (384p) ISBN 978-0-373-77403-6

Fans who have followed the escapades of the older Moretti brothers in All The Right Angles and All That Matters will enjoy meeting wild-child Mark, age 40 and facing a midlife crisis. While spending the summer in Ketchikan, Alaska, he’s thrown out of the Blue Note bar and into love with its beautiful proprietor, Danalee Jackson, a part-black, part-Chinese 28-year-old with a murky history, a young son and a policy against dating customers. When the Blue Note is cited for building violations, financially strapped Dana accepts Mark’s offer of help, and their relationship unfolds through verbal jabs that turn gradually into conversations. Tin-ear dialect and Mark’s alpha-male aggression will turn some readers off, but Holm’s affection for her characters and the beautiful setting lend a hint of savor to this sweet soufflé. (Oct.)

Frost on My WindowAngela Weaver. Genesis (www.genesis-press.com), $6.99 (302p) ISBN 978-1-58571-353-0

A strong central character enhances Weaver’s predictable but satisfying interracial love story. Web designer Leah Russell has found her way back to the East Coast after living in California for years. Forced to confront her feelings for Sean Andrews, the sexy Scottish lead singer of the country’s hottest band, Leah comes to realize that his friendship has become something more important to her, only she is standing in her own way. With friend and family support, Leah recognizes that being a strong, successful, independent black woman doesn’t mean she has to sacrifice her chance at love. Weaver (No Ordinary Love) develops Leah’s character with great care and concern, an effort highlighted by the rather stereotypical supporting cast. While the happy ending is predictable, Leah’s self-discovery makes the novel well worth the read. (Oct.)

The Hunt for AtlantisAndy McDermott. Bantam, $7.99 (514p) ISBN 978-0-553-59285-6

McDermott’s debut, already an international bestseller, raises the bar to please adventure junkies who prefer to mainline their action. Ten years after learning that her parents had perished in an avalanche while tracking the fabled lost city of Atlantis, archeologist Nina Wilde decides to pick up where they left off. A man claiming to represent philanthropist Kristian Frost phones to invite Nina to meet him and discuss financing her quest, but he’s up to no good. Fortunately, British bodyguard Eddie Chase really does work for Frost—who really does want to finance her mission—and he rescues Nina and gets the ball rolling. Distinguishing good guys from bad guys proves harder than finding Atlantis, but that won’t stop readers from enjoying the adrenalin rush as Nina and Eddie tag-team their way through nonstop high-octane action scenes. (Oct.)

Comics

Talking LinesR.O. Blechman. Drawn & Quarterly, $27.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-897299-85-2

Whether appearing in Harvey Kurtzman’s short-lived comic magazine Humbug in the late 1950s, or the New York Times Book Review in 2004, Blechman’s graphic stories are remarkably consistent. His simple yet sophisticated style is inimitable and instantly recognizable: jittery lines, barely sketched-out settings and deadpan sensibility. Blechman’s characters are frequently clueless sorts, hurling ridiculous actions into the winds of the time and being judged harshly for it by their creator. His sense of the satiric crops up frequently, and it is rarely applied with much subtlety. With the exception of “Contamination,” a longer piece from 1964 about the nuclear arms race, most of Blechman’s political work falls flat. His stories about famous literary figures range from the meaningful (Virginia Woolf as utterly dependent on her husband) to playfully absurd (Shakespeare as potential advertising copy writer). Though an uneven collection over all, the scale comes down in Blechman’s favor due to the inclusion of “Georgie,” which takes up the bulk of the book’s second half. A previously unpublished piece from 1992 about a man who loses just about everything in life but for his exceptional dog, it’s somehow wholly sentimental and yet astonishingly wise in its sprawling sadness. (Sept.)

Geronimo Stilton: The Discovery of AmericaVarious. NBM/Papercutz, $9.95 (56p) ISBN 978-1-59707-158-1

This graphic novel series for young readers, originally written in Italian, has been translated into multiple languages and is now appearing for the first time in the U.S. The series pits an adventurous family of mice against a group of malevolent pirate cats who travel through time, threatening to change the course of history. The first two books, released simultaneously, successfully walk the line between education and entertainment, elaborating on Christopher Columbus’s journey in The Discovery of America and on ancient Egypt in the companion The Secret of the Sphinx. The characters are likable, the writing energetic and the drawings busily engaging. There’s also plenty of humor in the stories, and characters with names like Minestrone and Macaroni Mousaroni are sure to draw a smile from readers. The adventures of the Stilton family vs. the pirate cats offer laughs and adventure, and do a fine job of creating a world that children will want to enter again and again. Geronimo Stilton promises good reading for youngsters and will appeal to teachers, librarians and parents for its educational component. (Aug.)

Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1Fumi Yoshinaga. Viz, $13 (216p) ISBN 978-1-4215-2747-5

The Edo period of an alternate Japan is ruled entirely by women in this manga. A mysterious plague has killed three out of four boys for generations, so men are carefully guarded and sheltered, while women go about the business of daily life. The Ooku was an area of Edo Castle reserved for the shogun’s concubines and female relatives; here the shogun is a woman and the Ooku is entirely male. One of the few serious works of alternate history in contemporary manga, Ooku explores the relationship between gender and culture in subtle and unexpected ways. It begins tightly focused on a single heroic character and slowly pans out from there, embracing first the court intrigue of the Ooku, then the new Shogun and Japan as a whole and finally the outside world, unaware and free of the plague. Yoshinaga is the acclaimed creator of Antique Bakery, which has been made into both a Japanese television series and a smash hit Korean movie. Not as visually busy as many historical works, Ooku’s art has a spare, elegant aesthetic that shines with carefully chosen detail. Yoshinaga’s work is wry and stately by turns, doing full justice to the book’s rich tapestry of stories. (Aug.)

Christmas in August

At PW, we know it’s summertime when the Christmas books start showing up.

The GiftCecelia Ahern. Harper, $19.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-170626-4

Ahern wades into the Christmas fiction fray with a winning tale of magic and redemption. Lou Suffern is a busy man, and his family’s growing weary of constantly taking the backseat to his career. On a whim, he offers Gabe, a homeless man he meets outside his office, a low-level job, and the uncharacteristically kind gesture plays out in a very unexpected way when Lou learns that Gabe has the power to be in two places at once. As the holidays draw nearer, Gabe tries to make Lou realize the importance of his family, but slow-to-change Lou might not come around to Gabe’s way of thinking until it’s too late. Ahern’s an accomplished storyteller, and her writing chops elevate this far above the normal holiday fare. There’s magic, but it’s not campy, and the sentiment is real. (Nov.)

A Creed Country ChristmasLinda Lael Miller. HQN, $16.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-373-77405-0

Miller delivers a holiday heartwarmer her fans are sure to adore. When Juliana Mitchell runs out of money, she loses the Indian school she runs in 1910 Montana, and the four children in her care are left with nowhere to go. Lucky for her (and them), she meets rancher Lincoln Creed, whose daughter is in desperate need of a governess. But things don’t work out exactly as Creed envisioned, and it turns out Juliana could fulfill a much larger role in the Creed home. Things look like they’re turning out well for everyone, but an Indian affairs agent might upset the happy if unconventional setup. Mitchell makes for a sympathetic heroine, and in Creed, Miller has moved beyond the usual quiet frontiersman to create a sensitive, loyal gentleman that readers will love. (Nov.)

The Christmas SecretDonna VanLiere. St. Martin’s, $14.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-55836-9

VanLiere makes getting into the Christmas spirit easy with the fifth installment in her Christmas Hope series (The Christmas Promise; etc). Single mom Angela Christine Eisley’s struggling to care for her young children, Zach and Haley: her waitress job isn’t bringing in a ton of dough; and Brad, her disgruntled ex, refuses to pay child support and is bent on taking custody. Soon, she’s lost her job and her landlord’s threatening eviction, but salvation comes in the form of another job and a handsome bachelor named Jason Haybert, who’s trying to locate the anonymous good Samaritan who saved a family friend’s life. The holiday cheerleading doesn’t stray too far afield as VanLiere tidily wraps up this reminder of the magic of giving. (Oct.)

A Christmas GiftDavid Saperstein and James J. Rush. Kensington, $12.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-7582-4132-0

Katie Williams, the protagonist of this so-so Christmas yarn, can see things before they happen, and though few believe her, she uses her gift to try to save her ex-con uncle Charlie. Fresh out of prison, Charlie’s having some trouble adjusting to the outside; Katie foresees trouble, and, sure enough, Charlie is approached by criminals who want to entice him back into a life of crime. Charlie and Katie must figure out how to keep their family safe, stay out of prison and have a merry Christmas together. Charlie’s internal conflict is palpable, and Katie’s gift is even plausible, though the supernatural elements are often paired with hokey spiritual sentimentality. If you can slog through the sappy parts, there’s some fun to be had. (Oct.)

The Christmas Cookie ClubAnn Pearlman. Atria, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5884-5

Memoirist Pearlman (Infidelity) tries her hand at fiction in this uneven tale of female bonding. Each December, a dozen Ann Arbor, Mich., women gather with 13 dozen cookies (one for each “cookie bitch” plus one to donate to charity), and while group members come and go, there is one constant: cookies are exchanged and sisterhood is celebrated. This year, Marnie’s hosting the shindig, and she muses about other club members and their problems—from domestic issues to the effects of the recession. Although a few of the club’s members are believable enough, none receives enough narrative attention to leave a lasting impression. Though the idea of celebrating these bonds of friendship through dessert is admirable, the execution is lacking. (Oct.)

The Christmas ClockKat Martin. Perseus/Vanguard, $14.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-59315-547-6

In this yuletide yawner, young Teddy Winters is being raised by his grandmother, Lottie, who is stricken with Alzheimer’s. While she seeks a guardian for her grandson, two Dreyerville couples overcome their own obstacles: the Culvers have been married for decades, but they have let a distance grow between them. Meanwhile, Joe Dixon and Sylvia Winters were young lovers, but they let secrets tear them apart. With Christmas just around the corner, these six people’s lives intersect as they struggle for second chances at marriage, love and family. It’s standard-issue sentimental holiday fare, peopled with wholesome and one-dimensional caricatures, though, notably, there’s no late-book miracle. It has plenty of competition with other seasonal titles, and there’s little to distinguish this from the others. (Oct.)

Kissing Santa ClausDonna Kauffman, Jill Shalvis & HelenKay Dimon. Kensington/Brava, $14 paper (336p) ISBN 978-0-7582-3884-9

A trio of treats fill out this anthology for readers in search of holiday happily ever afters. In Kauffman’s “Lock, Stock and Jingle Bells,” Holly Bennett returns from London to Willow Creek, Va., to deal with an unexpected gift from her mother and find a potential love interest in an old crush. Shalvis’s “Bah, Handsome” is the recession-influenced seduction of Hope O’Brien, a bed-and-breakfast owner, by an unhappy CPA employed by her Scroogeish stepbrother. Dimon goes tropical in “It’s Hotter at Christmas” to explore what happens when a cranky Kauai deputy police chief falls for a Philadelphia ad executive who can’t seem to stay out of harm’s way. It’s not quite hot enough to melt ice, but it’s good, disposable fun. (Oct.)

Home for ChristmasAndrew M. Greeley. Forge, $14.99 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2250-0

Only one book a year can claim to be the schlockiest, most saccharine Christmas book, and this is it. Petey Pat Kane and Mariana Pelligrino have loved each other since the first grade, but a tragic prom night accident sends Kane running. He ends up a grunt in Iraq, where he’s killed—briefly—by a suicide bomber. While dead, he goes on a spiritual journey, meets God and learns that he is destined to be Mariana’s “lover and protector.” Back among the living, stubborn Petey’s reminded by his local priest what’s really important in life. The simplistic notions of the afterlife, spirituality and love are like something borrowed from a third-grade writing project. (Oct.)