In this enchanting first novel, Dilloway mines her own family's history to produce the story of Japanese war bride Shoko, her American daughter, Sue, and their challenging relationship. Following the end of WWII, Japanese shop girl Shoko realizes that her best chance for a future is with an American husband, a decision that causes a decades-long rift with her only brother, Taro. While Shoko blossoms in America with her Mormon husband, GI Charlie Morgan, and their two children, she's constantly reminded that she's an outsider—reinforced by passages from the fictional handbook How to Be an American Housewife. Shoko's attempts to become the perfect American wife hide a secret regarding her son, Mike, and lead her to impossible expectations for Sue. The strained mother-daughter bond begins to shift, however, when a now-grown Sue and her teenage daughter agree to go to Japan in place of Shoko, recently fallen ill, to reunite with Taro. Dilloway splits her narrative gracefully between mother and daughter (giving Shoko the first half, Sue the second), making a beautifully realized whole. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Last seen in 2002's Kings of Many Castles, working-class British spy Charlie Muffin once again proves that experience and intelligence (on the part of both author and hero) are at least as important as flying fists and explosions in this entertaining entry in Freemantle's long-running series. When a faceless body turns up on the grounds of the British Embassy in Moscow, Charlie's superiors send him to Russia to solve the mystery: who's the corpse and why was he left face down, or rather no face down, in the flower garden? Nothing is as it seems as the Russian authorities wrestle with the British over who has jurisdiction, whose agents are the bigger liars, and whose government is the most underhanded. Charlie isn't much for action, gunplay, and excitement. In fact, his relationship with his Russian intelligence officer wife, Natalie, and daughter Sasha provides most of the overt suspense, but his slow fitting together of all the pieces related to the crime provides genuine interest. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Kehoe's nuanced debut presents the passionate, painful, and angry tale of Daniel Ryan, freshly back in Dublin after 50 years in New York City. As Daniel acclimates to 1997 Dublin, he details his chaotic, vivid past there as a homosexual youth madly in love with Anthony Stafford, a young and perhaps unstable university student. Their mutual interest in drama hooks them up with Maeve O'Donnell, an older "lady of the theatre" who recruits them to play opposing roles in her production of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding. Meanwhile, the Daniel of 1997 acquaints himself with the new Dublin, with its gay bars and bathhouses, and befriends a 20-something writer named Gerard, who seems to offer a mysterious link to Daniel's troubled youth. Affecting and redeeming, this old-fashioned story of tormented love and longing takes some surprisingly brutal turns. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 12/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Both personal and occupational problems beset Red Rock, Wyo., construction worker Jack McEnroe in this solid political thriller from Graff (One Nation, Under God). Jack's wife, Kyla, who's left him and taken their two young children with her, is now working for, and romantically involved with, his boss, Dave Fetters. A bar fight with Dave's spoiled, greedy son, Shane, jeopardizes Jack's job with Dave's construction company. Meanwhile, Halcyon Corporation, which won a no-bid contract to build Camp Liberty, a massive federal prison for terrorists, has subcontracted with Dave's company for much of the work. When Kyla uncovers ongoing fraud, she turns to Jack for help. Shane's clumsy but deadly attempts at damage control fuel carnage and cause Scott Starr, Halcyon's executive v-p, to order his own people to restore order. Graff's cynical take on government waste and corporate greed plays well. McEnroe is as rugged as the desolate country he lives in, and his gritty do-what-ya-gotta-do actions keep the pages turning easily. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 07/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

A shop-worn plot and stock characters mar Doetsch's overlong third thriller to feature retired art thief Michael St. Pierre (after The Thieves of Faith). Michael's unconventional priest friend, Fr. Simon Bellatori, fixes up the 38-year-old Michael, whose beloved wife, Mary, died of cancer 18 months earlier, with the beautiful and athletic Katherine "KC" Ryan, who turns out also to be a thief. Soon after falling for KC, Michael has to fly off to Akbiquestan, "a small breakaway republic north of Pakistan," to rescue Simon and KC from a remote prison and certain death. Evil, homicidal businessman Philippe Venue, who's been hit hard by the recession, is searching for a legendary treasure to restore his dwindling fortune. Simon has information that will aid Venue, and soon all are in a race to find the treasure hidden in the Himalayan mountains. Clunky writing (e.g., "As they hugged, you could see the relief pour from their bodies") doesn't help. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

A wife and mother burdened with a painful past and a dull marriage considers an affair in Ostermiller's derivative debut. Sylvia Sandon, a New England landscape painter of declining reputation who now teaches art workshops, has always been haunted by her mother's infidelities, and yet, during a period of frustration with her marriage—dormant sex life, the pressures and stresses of raising two kids—she become smitten with Tai Rosen, the slick New Yorker father of one of her students. Through a tiresome series of flashbacks, Sylvia relives her mother's long-running affair and sanctimonious religiosity, her father's brutality, and the final tragedy that tore the family apart. From this foundation, she tries to keep her own marriage intact and figure out what she wants. Unfortunately, Ostermiller never builds up much reader sympathy for Sylvia, and the depictions of faith, violence, and domestic unhappiness feel naïve. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 07/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

An unhappy family creeps toward a violent tragedy in Vanderbes's misfired sophomore novel (after Easter Island). Every one of the Olsons who gather on Thanksgiving Day, 2007, has issues. Matriarch Eleanor, adrift after years of ministering to a husband who never recovered from his Vietnam war experience, is flummoxed by her children's choices: her unmarried college professor daughter, Ginny, has just adopted a mute Indian girl, and son Douglas is up to his neck in the real estate bubble, prompting the ire of his wife, Denise, who can barely stand the ineptitude of Ginny's attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Then there's Kijo, who is out for revenge after one of Douglas's real estate deals gets his grandmother's home condemned. When Ginny's oven fails and the Olsen family decamps to Denise and Douglas's McMansion, the catastrophe that ensues will, of course, change and bind the lives of everyone involved. But without the love story, historical intrigue, and exotic locale of Easter Island, Vanderbes spins her wheels on a toothless Corrections-lite family saga that winds its way to an ever-so-unlikely big bang conclusion. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Depp skewers the film industry with relish in his brilliantly comic follow-up to Loser's Town (2009). PI David Spandau, who specializes in serving Hollywood's elite, takes on the unenviable task of guarding aging actress Anna Mayhew, "Oscar winner and onetime tabloid fodder," whose career is in decline, but she's still glamorous enough to have attracted a stalker, weirdo Vincent Perec. Spandau, a rugged ex-rodeo rider and former Hollywood stunt man, reluctantly agrees to accompany the sexy, foul-mouthed Mayhew to Cannes, where she's to serve as a judge at the famous film festival. Sharply drawn supporting characters, including Special, an opera loving pimp, and a slew of movie stars, agents, and directors, enliven the lavish, ludicrous events at Cannes. Fans of Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty should enjoy Depp's clever complications and witty capers at least as much. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

James (The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen) tepidly reboots the Dracula story, reimagining the classic from the point of view of Mina Harker, a minor victim. Here, Mina is torn between two men—dependable Jonathan Harker and darkly enigmatic Nicolae Dracula. While the men of the story enact the plot from the original, Mina secretly meets her lover, Dracula, and conspires to have the best of both worlds—keep Jonathan as a husband for the term of her mortal life and keep Dracula as a lover for eternity. The mood and material may put readers in mind of Coppola's Dracula movie, though James does the narrative a disservice by waiting until too late to force Mina to make a choice—the buildup isn't exactly riveting, and the hurried decision comes across as contrived. A few unexpected twists along the way offer pleasant surprises (Van Helsing, for instance, recast as a comically inept buffoon), but otherwise, this will have a hard time standing out on the increasingly packed vampire romance shelf. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 07/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

A perplexing death in Quebec occupies Dr. Temperance Brennan in Reichs's fine 13th novel featuring the forensic anthropologist (after 206 Bones). The fingerprints of a man who died during autoerotic asphyxiation indicate that the deceased is John Charles Lowery of North Carolina, but Lowery supposedly died in Vietnam in 1968. Unsurprisingly, Lowery's father is reluctant to allow Brennan to reopen old family wounds, but she's determined to find out who's buried in Lowery's grave if Lowery died in Quebec. Brennan heads to Hawaii to seek the help of an old friend at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), whose mission is to find the remains of American war dead and bring them home. But instead of clarifying matters, Brennan's investigation only raises more questions, including parallel inquiries into a series of shark attacks and escalating island gang violence. Reichs, who once again uses her own scientific knowledge to enhance a complex plot and continually developing characters, delivers a whopper of a final twist. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/21/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink