Thirty thousand years in the making and 31 years in the writing, Auel's overlong and underplotted sixth and final volume in the Earth's Children series (The Clan of the Cave Bear; etc.) finds Cro-Magnon Ayla; her mate, Jondalar; and their infant daughter, Jonayla, settling in with the clan of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonaii. Animal whisperer and medicine woman Ayla is an acolyte in training to become a full-fledged Zelandoni (shaman) of the clan, but all is not rosy in this Ice Age setting; there are wild animals to face and earthquakes to survive, as well as a hunter named Balderan, who has targeted Ayla for death, and a potential cave-wrecker named Marona. While gazing on an elaborate cave painting (presumably, the Lascaux caverns in France), Ayla has an epiphany and invents the concept of art appreciation, and after she overdoses on a hallucinogenic root, Ayla and Jondalar come to understand how much they mean to one another, thus giving birth to another concept—monogamy. Otherwise, not much of dramatic interest happens, and Ayla, for all her superwomanish ways, remains unfortunately flat. Nevertheless, readers who enjoyed the previous volumes will relish the opportunity to re-enter pre-history one last time. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 03/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Fans of Rankin's Det. Insp. John Rebus will be disappointed by this so-so police procedural, his second stand-alone since Rebus "retired" (after Doors Open). Malcolm Fox—call him Rebus "Lite" (he doesn't drink, he broods less, and he has none of Rebus's wit)—works for the Scottish equivalent of Internal Affairs, "Complaints and Conduct" (aka "the Complaints"), which investigates corrupt cops. Fox looks into the case of Det. Sgt. Jamie Breck, who may be trading in child pornography over the Internet. Meanwhile, when Vince Faulkner, Fox's sister's lover and abuser, turns up dead, Fox becomes a murder suspect. A torturously complicated plot follows involving the suspicious suicide of a failing property developer, large-scale money laundering, and crookedness at every level of Scottish society, but nothing's really at stake. As always with Rankin, Scotland itself is a main character—"the whole of Scotland's in meltdown," says Fox—and that may be this tepid novel's main attraction. 10-city author tour. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 03/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Smith (The Wanderers) adds to her series about the afterlife that incorporates the theological views of the influential 18th-century thinker Emanuel Swedenborg. Recurring character Kate is asked to help the soul of her nephew Dan, newly arrived to the limbo-like afterworld of spirits. Dan has killed himself after having gotten involved with drugs and gangs. The newly dead go to the spirit world to learn about themselves before they pass into heaven—or hell. Kate's not sure what to do, and she's distracted by the condition of her husband, Howard, still on earth with a degenerative disease. An afterlife peer, Frank, a former Chicago cop, proves distracting. Other souls are also resolving issues left from their lifetimes. Smith writes with imagination, but also within the constraints of a Swedenborgian world view. Many characters are engaging, and a pet rabbit is a charming touch. But the villain is flatly oily, and a major plot point about the sacredness of marriage will strike some as very 18th century. This will certainly entertain Swedenborg's followers and may be a door to him for others. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 03/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Garrett (Chosen: The Lost Diaries of Queen Esther) offers historical fiction readers a disturbing and fact-based glimpse into "the burnings" that took place in the 1500s in Germany. In a small village near the Black Forest, a double murder sets the stage for a charismatic inquisitor to begin a terrifying witchhunt among the town's women. Mia, the sheriff's wife, is the axis around which this story turns as she keeps her past a secret while dutifully tending to her sickly daughter and her aged mother-in-law. The town's priest, Father Stefan, struggles with leading his flock faithfully while keeping evil from taking over the village. Confused about what is good and what is evil, these two characters embark on much soul-searching as the violence around them intensifies to a stunning conclusion. Garrett quite successfully pens a dramatic, thought-provoking tale that will leave readers happily unsettled, as this author's message can be found frighteningly too close to home for comfort. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 04/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Holly, the frazzled heroine of YA novelist Sones's latest (What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know), is a writer grappling with menopause, a daughter about to go to college, a husband who drives her crazy, and a crippling case of writer's block. Her mother is ill and in the care of an ineffectual doctor who puts her on steroids that make her violent and forgetful. In the midst of the everyday chaos, Holly has to figure out how to redefine herself as life keeps on changing on her. Sones mixes things up by writing the entire story in verse, with different anecdotes related in different types of poems (as with the concrete poem "A Brief History of My Boobs"), but that's where the story's uniqueness ends, as the whimsy of its telling splashes around in the shallow depths of the story itself. Still it's occasionally funny, and its unlikely form may be enough to entice genre enthusiasts looking for something a smidge different. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 04/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

In Gummer's humorous if subdued debut, a suburban Little League serves as the nexus for thwarted ambitions, competitive intrigues, marital rifts, and, as an afterthought, kids who might be interested in baseball. Ben Holden, recently returned to his California hometown from New York, becomes a reluctant coach, grappling with his late father's legacy as a revered high school athletic mentor and the ambivalence that comes with middle-aged parenting and a mature, mostly stable marriage. He's appealing and accessible, as are many of Gummer's cast of family members, friends and neighbors. There's the deftly rendered list of things Ben's sister prizes: "their McMansion in the tony, new and also curiously named CascadeForest development of Sacramento, her Lexus hybrid and his Prius, their Pottery Barn furnishings, her Tory Burch Shoes and matching handbags." But too often, these descriptions substitute for character development and depth, and while the slew of subplots—the most dramatic of which involves low-grade sexual tension between Ben and a sexy ultrasound technician—are entertaining, they can't mask the fact that the novel fails to really deliver on the promise of its title. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 04/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Vaguely about importing an Audi from France to deep in the Congo, this twisted tale becomes a canvas for French journalist Rolin's meditations, counter-histories, and digressions into the literature of colonialism, his first work of fiction to be translated into English. The narration begins as Rolin and his two Congolese companions blow a radiator hose on a desolate stretch of highway just short of their goal, Kinshasa. In addition to faulty mechanics, Rolin's adversaries will include petty thieves who menace the car at every step, bureaucrats in need of bribes, and the sheer absurdity of his quest. Told in small, overlapping fragments, this book is strewn with incidental detail, such as the death of Congolese freedom-fighter Lumumba, the social dynamics of cargo ship crews, and the paranoid theory that French authorities attempt to humiliate African immigrants by overheating the Paris subway. Rolin's snaking, clause-ridden sentences exude an ornery precision, mixing prosaic observations with literary allusion, snide humor, political critique, and personal history. This is a fine, understated novelistic essay only slightly weakened by its hodgepodge structure. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 04/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

An Asperger's-afflicted woman finds the keys to life and her family history in the kitchen after her parents die in McHenry's inspired if uneven debut. Ginny Selvaggio has lived a sheltered life: unable to maintain eye contact, make friends, or finish college due to her undiagnosed condition, the 26-year-old lives in her parents' home, surfing the Internet and perfecting recipes. But after her parents die, Ginny and her sister, Amanda, disagree about what to do with the family home—Amanda wants to sell, Ginny doesn't. As they bicker about what to do with the house and the problems caused by Ginny's awkwardness, Ginny comforts herself by cooking and soon learns that the dishes she prepares can conjure spirits. The ghosts, including her grandmother, leave clues about possible family secrets, as do a box of photographs Ginny discovers tucked away. McHenry's idea of writing an Asperger's narrator works well for the most part, but the supernatural touches undermine her admirable efforts and add a silly element to what is otherwise an intelligent and moving account of an intriguing heroine's belated battle to find herself. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 04/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Krusoe (Erased) delivers his whimsical absurdity in the regrettably monotone final installment of his trilogy about life, death, and the afterlife. Bob has been trying to build a device to communicate with the dead ever since his days at the Institute for Mind/Body Research, where Yvonne, the love of his life, broke his heart. Years later, "the Communicator" is still a work in progress and Bob has opened an upholstery business. A series of bizarre and unlikely events conspire to bring Bob into contact with a motley cast of characters, including a rabid dog, a mentally unstable man known as "The Wagonmaster," a bumbling but enigmatic police officer, and, at long last, Yvonne, who is now a single mom working nights at a casino. Krusoe has constructed a fantastic world and characters that bend to his imagination, but the madcap scenarios lack dimension or authenticity and sap any sense of conflict, so that the action-heavy climax feels like a limp parody of a thriller. Krusoe's standoffish humor makes for an, at times, witty, but essentially lackluster novel. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 03/01/2011 | Details & Permalink

Sex and psychosis are indistinguishable in this killer new novel from Ducornet (The Fan-Maker's Inquisition). An unnamed psychoanalyst narrator has a habit of having sex with his patients. At the risk of losing his practice, he descends into a co-dependent affair with a self-destructive woman he calls the Cutter, and later becomes obsessed by the torrid sex he has with a cross-dressing patient who suffers from split personalities. Affluent, psychotically self-absorbed, and as emotionally damaged as his patients, the doctor is just shy of a monster and lives in a twisted, sultry world that Ducornet poetically and viscerally describes, down to the effect of excessive sex on the texture of his skin. After he drops a series of clues to his affairs, the question becomes what will happen when his neglected and suspicious wife finds out. For a relatively short novel, this is unexpectedly heavy, as fascinating as it is dirty and dark, and while Ducornet's prose is initially overbearing, the plot is impossible to resist. (May)

Reviewed on 01/24/2011 | Release date: 05/01/2011 | Details & Permalink