Hallinan's compassionate fourth Poke Rafferty thriller (after Breathing Water) finds Poke and his live-in girlfriend, Rose, finally married, but a specter from Rose's past as a dancer on Bangkok's notorious Patpong Road comes back to haunt her. As a naïve country girl named Kwan, Rose fell for the charms of American Howard Horner, never suspecting that Horner's true interest in her involved something far darker than romance. Long thought dead, sly predator Horner is back in Bangkok to stalk Rose and all who are dear to her. Hallinan uses the menace Horner represents to springboard into a sympathetic depiction of Rose's life, revealing without condescension how a simple farm girl decided that the least bad of all the unappealing options open to her was to offer herself to a parade of strangers for money. Rafferty neither idolizes nor demonizes Bangkok's sex workers, instead casting an empathetic but incisive eye on a class of people often reduced to mere caricature. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

In South African author Meyer's impressive second thriller to feature Cape Town Det. Insp. Benny Griessel (after Devil's Peak), which spans just 13 hours in a single day, Benny lands a pair of explosive cases: the gang slaying of an American tourist and the murder of the husband of a washed-up, alcoholic popular singer. After teenager Erin Russel turns up on the street with her throat cut, her traveling companion, Rachel Anderson, goes on the run. Rachel, who fears the police are connected to her friend's slaying, is trying to stay ahead of her pursuers without the help of the authorities. A few hours later, Benny interviews Alexandra Barnard about the death of her husband, Adam, a record company owner. Alexandra was found next to Adam's body and to the firearm used to kill him. While the windup doesn't match the pulse-pounding opening scenes, this crime novel does further enhance Meyer's reputation as a deft storyteller. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Kalotay makes a powerful debut with a novel about a Soviet-era prima ballerina, now retired and living in Boston, who confronts her past as she puts up for auction the jewelry she took with her when she left her husband and defected. Nina "The Butterfly" Revskaya, 79, reveals little about the past to curious auction house representative Drew Brooks as he peruses her cache of exquisite jewelry. Nina likewise rebuffs inquiries from foreign language professor Grigori Solodin, who has translated the works of Nina's poet husband and who offers an additional item for auction: the amber necklace he inherited from the parents he never knew. In extended flashbacks, Nina recalls intimate moments and misunderstandings with her husband, happy and disturbing times with his Jewish composer best friend, and encounters with her own childhood friend. Meanwhile, Drew and Grigori delve into the jewelry's provenance, hoping to learn as much about the jewels as their own pasts. While the Soviet-era romance can lean too much on melodrama, Kalotay turns out a mostly entrancing story thanks to a skillful depiction of artistic life behind the Iron Curtain and intriguing glimpses into auction house operations. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Engel navigates issues of class, ethnicity, and identity with finesse in her debut collection, linked stories about Sabina, a child of Colombian immigrants who grows up in New Jersey before heading off to find work and love in Miami. "Diego was this guy that I met on Washington Avenue at three in the morning the summer I quit my job at the art gallery," the 23-year-old Sabina says in her typically understated voice in "Desaliento," a story about how dallying with the handsome Argentinean hustler seems glamorous and subversive. In "Lucho," Sabina, still in high school where her family is considered "spics, in a town of blancos," a neighbor boy with a rough past is the only one who pays attention to her. In the title story, Sabina, working in Miami, befriends an illegal Colombian immigrant who reveals a tale of being sold to a Miami brothel owner and later being "rescued" by the brothel's guard, now her boyfriend. Engel's prose is refreshingly devoid of pomp and puts a hard focus on the stiff compromises Sabina and her family have had to accept; there's a striking perspective to these stories. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Saylor, well known for his Roma Sub Rosa historical mysteries, switched gears for his bestselling Roma and now continues the history of ancient Rome from A.D. 14 to 141 with a hefty tome of the Pinarius family as its members serve a succession of Roman emperors as soothsayers, senators, and artisans, while trying not to get killed in the slew of conspiracies that marked the Roman political scene. The patriarch, Lucius Pinarius, grooms his son, also named Lucius, to be a member of an ancient priesthood of soothsayers who interpret natural phenomenon to divine the future. Young Lucius is particularly skillful, earning the emperor's praise and confidence. Succeeding generations of Pinariuses will enjoy the favor of Trajan and Hadrian, but will suffer from the cruelty of Tiberius, the madness of Caligula, the depravity of Nero, and the murderous paranoia of Domitian. Saylor also vividly describes how the family survives the volcanic destruction of Pompeii, the burning of Rome, and the persecution of Jews and Christians. Though the ending is disappointingly abrupt, it does signal another volume to come in this grand series. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

This frustrating Spanish Civil War saga, the author's first to appear in English, has neither the pulse nor the plot to sustain itself over the course of its slow, laborious, and anticlimactic denouement. Doctor Félix Castro, a lonely, endearing cripple, has been observing his neighbors for years and eagerly strikes up a conversation when a young lawyer, Miguel Goitia, comes to stay in the villa of Las Cruces, which his grandmother has mysteriously bequeathed to her miserly maid, María Antonia. Premonitions, superstitions, and otherworldly manifestations guide or thwart the characters on their respective quests, while their profound motivations remain cryptic. The novel, which sashays between stilted exchanges involving Doctor Castro and the bland Goitia, and sometimes harried wartime recollections, manages some highly evocative descriptions of the Basque countryside and a number of astute characterizations. Unfortunately, the narrative suffers from a ceaseless supply of ponderous asides and a cumbersome translation that prefers a rigid fidelity to the original text over a smooth reading experience. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Seven tales by the amazingly prolific-in-death Bolaño (2666) explore themes of self-exile and illness. The two best stories concern conflicted Argentinean protagonists; in the title story, Hector Pereda, "an irreproachable lawyer with a record of honesty," leaves Buenos Aires after the death of his wife and the collapse of the country's economy to make a go as a gaucho on the pampas. Inhabiting a ruined ranch, with only the languid locals and predatory rabbits as company, Hector finds a welcome, near-poetic restoration of a society where self-reliance and egalitarianism reign. In "Alvaro Rousselot's Journey," an acclaimed Argentinean novelist sets out for Paris to confront a filmmaker who has blatantly plagiarized his books, though what really eats at the novelist is that the filmmaker has ignored the writer's recent works, leaving him with the sense that "he had lost his best reader." "Rat Police" reflects Bolaño's interest in fantasy and noirish crime fiction, while "Literature + Illness = Illness" is essentially an essay about terminal illness. Andrews is an excellent translator, and even if these are somewhat lesser works in the Bolaño pantheon, completists will snap this up. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

At the start of Indridason's powerful sixth Reykjavík thriller (after Arctic Chill), the body of María, a woman ravaged by guilt, is found hanging in her holiday cottage, an apparent suicide. As Erlendur, a police detective who works largely alone because he prizes solitude above all else, doggedly interviews those close to María—her husband, her relatives, her friends—in an unofficial effort to understand what might have driven her to take her own life, he unravels an ingenious and sinister plot. Complicating his investigation are the ghosts from his personal and professional past: his failed marriage and his shaky relationships with the son and daughter who grew up without him, as well as unsolved missing-persons cases he still feels morally compelled to pursue. Most scalding of all is his memory of the blizzard that he barely survived as a boy but in which his younger brother perished, the tragic event that shaped Erlendur's later life and lends mythic resonance to Indridason's remarkable novels. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

The founding of a unique Paris bookstore triggers jealousies and threats in Cossé's intriguing follow-up to The Corner of the Veil (1999). Former comic-book seller Ivan "Van" Georg and stylish Francesca Aldo-Valbelli team to establish the Good Novel, a bookshop that will stock only masterpieces in fiction, which are selected by a secret committee of writers. At first, the warm welcome of the bookstore results in soaring sales. Then attacks in the press, the opening of rival bookstores, and attempts against the lives of committee members by persons unknown sour the atmosphere for the Good Novel's community of readers and writers. Cossé poignantly depicts characters who have turned to literature for solace against the pain in their lives, creates ongoing speculation as to the shadowy first-person narrator, and furnishes sly commentary about gatekeeping in the literary world. Though purists may be disappointed with the solution to the mystery, there's plenty of food for thought. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 08/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

In the latest installment to the wildly popular Shopaholic series (Shopaholic and Baby; etc.), Rebecca Brandon returns with willful two-year-old Minnie, who has taken after her mother in her fierce determination and her addiction to luxury brands. When the financial crisis finally hits the Brandon family, Rebecca vows to stop shopping until she's worn everything in her closet at least three times; Luke scrambles for new business directions; and Minnie remains exceptionally difficult. Still, Rebecca wants to throw Luke a surprise birthday bash, but planning it behind his back and on a budget proves almost impossible. As in all previous Shopaholic books, Rebecca is loud and proud about her luxury-brand obsession and equally at ease being a flighty, sometimes annoying lead, though her well-meaning secret birthday mission scores her much-needed points in the sympathy department. Series fans know what to expect and will get it by the Birkin-load. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink