A Lion Among Men: Volume Three in the Wicked Years

The entertaining third installment of bestseller Maguire's Wicked Years series, a revisionist chronicle of L. Frank Baum's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , examines the tragically misunderstood life of the Cowardly Lion before and after his adventures with Dorothy and company. As all-out war looms between the Munchkinland guerrillas and the emperor of Oz's Emerald City soldiers, Brrr the lion, now working as an imperial spy, must somehow glean invaluable information from a crone named Yackle before she dies. But during his interrogation of the irritable oracle, Brrr, the proverbial loner and outsider, uncovers insights into his own mysterious past—and finally begins to understand what it feels like to belong. As usual, the author mixes some relatively weighty existential themes—the search for self, faith, redemption—into his whimsical story line. Newcomers to Maguire's Oz should probably begin with Wicked , the first entry in this darkly enchanting saga. 11-city author tour. (Oct. 14)